62. The importance of ADHD business owners getting the RIGHT support!

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Heather, welcome to the Weenie cast. You are our official

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first guest. We haven't had any guests except for a very brief

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voiceover by Barry Bonds. So you and he have something in common now.

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Congratulations both on the Weenie cast. I

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am going to retire tomorrow. No autographs,

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please. And good you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm

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going to be absolutely screwed. So for my listeners who should

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know, a little background here, Heather is my incredibly

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talented online business manager, fractional COO. She

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helped me run my business. I literally would not be able to do it

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without her. She had to come in and clean up all kinds

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of messes that were there before her. And it's really been a saving

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grace for me. And one of the things that drew me to

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working with Heather is that she works with a lot of business owners who have

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ADHD. And there was one message you sent me after

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our last meeting that really prompted me wanting to bring you on, is that

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you asked me if I had an early diagnosis for my

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ADHD because you were noticing some differences

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between your clients who are diagnosed ADHD, but had either

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an early or a late diagnosis. And I'm curious, you

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haven't actually told me what those differences are. What are they?

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It is partially due to the knowledge, the diagnosis, the

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understanding that you have early on. And then I think it's also,

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you used a phrase which I don't remember what it was, but it's basically like

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how you exhibit your ADHD characteristics. Like, some people express

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them differently. So I feel like it's a combination of the two. But

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specifically, what you present

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more than my other clients, who all received late and light

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diagnoses, is a level of awareness about when you're

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having an ADHD moment. And that's the reason why I was like, I need to

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ask Katie when she got diagnosed, because that was the key differential,

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was the knowledge, the awareness of, like, I'm in an ADHD hole, this

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is happening and I know it's happening, versus some of my other clients who

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won't catch it until either it's after or when they're in the middle of it.

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Maybe it's the decades of kind of living with it, trying to figure out how

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to work in a neurotypical world when you have

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those moments, it could be personality type, it could be how you express

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it. I'm not really sure, but there is definitely a pattern that I notice

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in your management of your ADHD versus the other clients that I

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have who have it as well. So it's just interesting to me. Well, and it's

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so funny, because I don't even know if I do it consciously, if I'm aware,

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because you say that. And I'm like, maybe I do that, but

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I don't remember having those conversations with you where I'm, like, here.

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And maybe it's just where I'm saying, I'm stuck in this.

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I would say it's partially those moments. And then also, too, where you're like,

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I'm in a state of overwhelm. Right. Like, those moments, you'll be like, I'm

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overwhelmed. Help me prioritize. Right. Like those moments of

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saying, it's almost like the moments of outreach, actually, where you're like, this

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is what's happening. I'm stuck. I'm overwhelmed.

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I'm going to do everything possible to get a

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dopamine hit before I go and do this thing that I have to do. Those

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moments of just personal observation,

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I actually don't see a ton of that in the rest of my client

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base. And maybe it's that they're not expressing it. Communication

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differences. I'm not sure what that is, but I wasn't

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surprised when you told me it was an earlier on diagnoses, because I feel like

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there's a certain level of power that comes with that knowledge, which

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I think is really tragic with so many, especially women, because I primarily work

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with women, especially women who are misdiagnosed.

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Undiagnosed, just don't have the right support system. And so they're kind of

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left for decades thinking that something's wrong with

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them, or they just have to figure it out or

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do the best they can with what they have, which is great. But

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to me, it feels kind of tragic, because when you have that knowledge, you can

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start learning and understanding and exploring yourself

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and really figuring out the right way for you to navigate through

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it. And I don't know if I ever told you this, actually, but I had

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a brain injury when I was 16. I was in a car accident. I almost

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died. I hit the side of my head. It shook my brain. So

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I had really bad memory issues. I had learning issues. I

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had cognition issues. I was in speech and language therapy

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for, like, a year and a half after the accident. It was, like, really brutal.

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And so I've spent the last 22 years

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figuring out how to operate within this thing that I have. But I knew

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when it happened that things had changed, and I had tools and

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things at my disposal that I could lean on to help

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me learn how to live in my new world. And I think that's

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the thing that is really unfortunately missing for a lot of people that get that

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later in life diagnoses. Yeah, it's funny you say that. And I'm

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reminded of so many of my clients when they call me for a 911 support

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call and they're spinning and they're making it about how

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they're fucked up and how they're broken and there's something wrong with

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them and they're never going to be able to start this business. And

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it's really that. It's like the Mars rover that couldn't

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decide what should be prioritized first and it got overwhelmed

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and it never did anything. I don't know if you ever heard. About exactly

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what you're talking about. It's just the best story.

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If you haven't heard of the Mars rover, we're going to link it in the

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show notes. So go to forward slash Mars

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rover. We'll explain that whole backstory if you haven't heard of it. But

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it's really just that their ADHD symptoms are getting out of

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control, their executive function is not

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functioning, and they need an outside perspective to

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kind of look at things and tell them, here's what you need to focus on

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next, because it all feels important. Yeah, it's interesting that you say that with your

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coaching business, too, because I also see that in my side

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of actually executing work. Even you and I have those moments

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again where you're like, what do I prioritize first? Same thing with my clients where

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they're like, what do I need to work on first? We want to do this

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thing by December. Help me map out the steps of

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getting there and then the order of priority. And it typically

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works pretty well as long as I don't get too far out.

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That's the other key that I see with ADHD clients is

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keep it focused in on the immediate month, because if you start

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looking at next month and the month after, I feel like there's a component of

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executive dysfunction that comes in and it's like, fuck, I'm overwhelmed now.

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I'm not doing any of it. And it's just like, no, let's just

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look at step one. Stop worrying about step ten.

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Yeah, well, and what you're describing is those layered tasks.

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Instead of just focusing on that next step, you make it about the seven steps

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that need to happen till you can do that final step. And then that's really

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where you just get stuck. You can't start on the first thing because it becomes

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this massive project. Yeah, exactly. And the other thing,

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too, that I've employed, and I actually picked this up from you

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when we had our meetings, is when I do have meetings

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with my ADHD clients, I go fast

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because going too slow is

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almost like attention drifts.

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I don't know exactly what it is, but it's almost like the more chaotic the

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call is, the better it is because we get more done, and I

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just have to kind of lean into that and allow it to kind of run

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all over and jump topics 16 times

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because I have the capacity with my team and also because I

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use things like notetakers and recorders and things that I can go back to

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and revisit and be like, okay, what do we actually say here? So

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I stopped trying to structure and control and run the calls in the

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way that serves me, and I really run my calls in the way that serves

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my clients. And then I'll go in after and figure out what do I do

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next? Where does my team start? What do we do

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next? As long as my clients are getting off the calls saying, okay, I know

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what I have to do, I'll figure it out on the back end with my

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team. Our calls are very much like, here's what we covered

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last week, and here's kind of what we need to do. And meek saying, yeah.

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Oh, my God. I remembered the thing that I wanted to talk to you about

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that I thought about in the shower this morning that I forgot to jot down.

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And then we're constantly bouncing around like that. It is super

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helpful, though, because when you have ADHD, like, yes, best

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intentions, you have a thought, you note it down. But often, if you

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do note it down, you note it down somewhere that you forget where you noted

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it down. So it's written on a piece of paper somewhere in your house or

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maybe even in your car. And that's not helpful when you're on a Zoom

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call with your team. It is not at all. And so

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for me, it's just been an exercise of leaning in

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and saying, okay, I have tools on my end that

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I know how to use. And that's actually part of the reason why I have

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the notetaker is for my own memory, my own recollection,

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because I have a lot of tools and techniques that I've implemented over the 20

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years to help my memory go, but I'll still have just, like, a

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flat out blank. Sometimes I need that recording to go back and find

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it. And then because I implemented that for myself, I

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was then able to just say, hey, why not use this in a different way

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that serves my clients, too, and just let the shit go. Let

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it run out. Let the conversation wind and twist and do

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whatever it needs to do. As long as I can track what you're doing, how

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you're doing it, what you're saying, then I can tie up the loose ends that

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I need. As we go through the call. I mean, there's multiple times when we'll

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have conversations, and then towards then I'll be like, okay, so looping back

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on this one, what did we decide, and how are we doing this? Right, so

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there'll be, like, usually three or four things that aren't quite closed up by the

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end of the call. And I just learned to be like, all right, so what

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are we doing with this? In the end, this conversation went all

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over the place, and I don't actually have my action item, so

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it's much less attachment to how I think it should go, much

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less desire to force something to conform. I

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just let it go. I'll figure it out. Like, I'm smart enough. I've got a

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good team. We'll figure it out. I mean, even though I don't consider myself neurotypical,

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I think I feel like I straddle the line of both sides. Like, I can

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work with either neurodiverse or neurotypical, but almost like

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neurotypical people are super rigid.

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And I think that's the clashing point. When you come in with somebody

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who's neurodivergent, it's like you just can't. It's not going to work.

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It's always funny because I've worked with a couple of neurotypical clients. Of

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course, I didn't always specialize in just ADHD businesses, and it was

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always super funny because they would start down a question,

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and as an ADHD person, I'd know where they were

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going with the question and I'd know the answer that I'd have to give. But

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it wasn't the answer that they were asking for. It was like an answer that

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was three steps later. Right. And

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my neurotypical clients had to learn in

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the first couple of months of working with me that it was sometimes annoying

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that I would say, okay, cool, I hear you're asking this, but here's the thing

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that you need to think about. And then I kind of reverse engineer from that

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information to help them see the bigger picture. But it's so

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funny working with ADHD clients. They follow,

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they jump with you, and they can reverse engineer it. And it's

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almost like a secret language that a lot of it is

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nonverbalized. Question for you, what do you see makes

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us more productive? Is there a common theme?

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And what makes ADHD business owners more productive? Quick,

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incremental dopamine hits and wins. So that's

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the whole, like, I think you called it task layering or something like

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that. And so again, if I've got something that needs to

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get done or a project that we're working on, I'm not

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showing an ADHD client the whole project plan and running through line by

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line. No, that's not ever going to enter the equation. I have that for my

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team. I have that for what I do because that's how we have to execute

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work. But for one of my ADHD clients, it's

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literally having a zap that triggers an email

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notification to her email saying somebody signed up, that's a

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dopamine hit. Because like, oh, I just made a tiny sale on this. And so

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those moments of, I think trying to proactively

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support somebody to get the things that they need will

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then balance out. Those moments of, like, I have to do the thing I don't

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want to do. And to be fair, I mean, there is no forcing it. If

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it's something that somebody doesn't want to get done, we

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will try usually three times and then move on.

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So it's like reached out once, reached out twice, reached out a third

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time, and then we're going to just pause on that and then move to a

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different project so that we can actually keep the ball moving. So I try to

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do as much of the task laying as possible. I try to build in as

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much dopamine, like the quick hits that I can as possible.

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If it's not going to happen, it's not going to happen. And I

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think it's doing a disservice to the work that I do and

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for my client base, if I were to just get kind of like hyper focused

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on something and say like, no, this has to get done. I mean, if it's

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80% to 90% there, then, okay, we'll come back to it later and we'll start

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working on this other project that we got to get done this month. It's not

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going to hurt anybody to do that. I have to say, there was one thing

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that you did a couple of weeks back with your team where there were

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some reminder emails that I wanted to go out to a certain group of people

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and have it be automated every single month. And you and I both

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know that I wasn't actually going to sit down and start writing those emails.

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So you had someone on your team write the emails and

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write them, and I was laughing while I was reading them because she wrote it

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so politely. Like, way more polite than I would ever

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do because people know me like, I'm kind of no bullshit. Get your ass into

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this scale because I'm going to help you with your business. Stop being a weenie

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about it. And her whole best thing is, like, it would be such a pleasure

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to have you, but it took away that step of needing to

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start. It became more of like, an editing project where I got to

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rewrite it and kind of laugh through, like, oh, my God,

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realize how not polite I am in my messaging. But

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it gave me that really simple dopamine hit rather than,

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oh, I have to write a whole series of seven emails I don't really

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want. Yeah, and that's like the little

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tiny things that we try to just take one step, know,

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even if it's putting placeholder text in certain things with Lorem

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Ipsum, right. Like something to just move the

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dial to the absolute furthest extent that we can do

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it, and then we have to stop. Right? So that's what I'm saying. From our

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end. It's like if we can hit something to 80% and then let

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our client finish that 20%, it usually has a much greater level of

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success. And, I mean, at the end of the day, I might think, I know

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how your business needs to look, but if it doesn't work for you, you're

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never going to use it. And so that's what I kind of mean

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by, I think surrendering in a sense, which is very. It's

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almost the antithesis of ops, I feel like, because operations is

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so structured and process oriented and repeatable

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and all of these things. But that's coming

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at it from this very, again,

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neurotypical, just blunt force

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object effect is what it feels like. Go do the thing this

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way, or else it's my fucking business. We can figure out how we want to

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run it in any way that we want. So if that means that

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I'm breaking tech, trying to create this creative little workaround, which I do

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frequently break tech, I'm not going to lie, because I'm trying to come up with

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these creative workarounds to just say, hey, we got to make this work for the

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person using it. If it's built for me, then that means absolutely

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nothing. When

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you're getting started and when you're ramping up and you're all on your

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own, you naturally create all these workarounds as your

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standard operating procedures. And that's really the

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hardest part, when you start bringing people into your business and

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scaling is then you have to train people on.

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Here are all the weird workarounds that I've designed in my business

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that you never documented before, and you also never really realized that they

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were workarounds. It was just kind of how you made it work for you. Something

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that every single business owner needs to be aware of when they're thinking of

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scaling, that there's going to be kind of that lag time where people

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have to catch up with you, and then also they're going to see better ways

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for things to be done right. You figured out a workaround with

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your limited knowledge of how this tool could be

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used. And that was one of the things that I loved about our first call,

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was you immediately followed up with, I heard you

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wanted x tool to do these certain things. This

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tool actually can't do it. The tool that you've been using, there's a reason it

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sucks. And here's another option for you that checks all the

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boxes. Yeah, absolutely. Give the value. Right.

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I approach what I do very freely.

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I've learned what I've learned over 20 years. I don't gatekeep

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any of that knowledge. So even if I'm having a discovery call, I'm going to

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give you actionable steps of things that you can do to

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support in the ways that you want to. At the end of the.

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It's. This is going to sound probably a little bit arrogant,

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but not you, Katie. But if you, the general populace, could do what I

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do, you would do it. So my knowledge

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isn't gatekeeped for that reason. Because if you can do it,

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wonderful, I want you to do it. But if you can't, you know where to

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find me and then you can hire me. So that's my approach to it. And

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that's, I think. I mean, a lot of the people that are in our ethos,

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I think, operate that way. Because when you gatekeep that knowledge, I feel like

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it's just a fear based mentality almost, where it's like

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if I share this, then somebody else is going to take it and then make

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money off of it, and then they're not going to come hire me. And I'm

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like, who fucking cares? I get hired for my knowledge, my

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reputation, my team, my intelligence. If there's

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another group out there that has my exact formula, I welcome you to go

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find them. That's totally cool. There's plenty of work out there

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and we're all going to eat at the end of the day. I have kind

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of a side tangent that I want to go off of because you said something

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really interesting there about how you can give them the answer of

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how to do something and if they can't do it themselves, then they'll

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come back to you. There's this pride thing that happens for people with

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ADHD where they know the things to

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do, and it's not that they can't do it, it's

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that they won't do it right. And there's a big difference. And I think

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a lot of people with ADHD, especially when they're late diagnosed, it becomes

Speaker: 00:18:24

almost a measure of their worthiness and their intelligence. Like,

Speaker: 00:18:28

if they can get themselves to do these things that are absolutely miserable for them

Speaker: 00:18:32

to do, it becomes a proof of how smart they are. But

Speaker: 00:18:35

where you're going to grow, where you're going to be able to actually expand your

Speaker: 00:18:38

business is that you realize, well, it's not that I can't do it, it's

Speaker: 00:18:42

that I know that I won't do it. And the best way to

Speaker: 00:18:46

continue to grow is to hire someone who actually will do it. Right? Yeah. Because

Speaker: 00:18:50

honestly, the thought of supporting a client

Speaker: 00:18:54

based the way you do, Katie. No,

Speaker: 00:18:58

I'm very back end. Like, give me my tech,

Speaker: 00:19:02

give me my team, and I'm happy for me. I

Speaker: 00:19:06

can identify in that feeling, in that I just could

Speaker: 00:19:09

never run, like, a coaching client base like that.

Speaker: 00:19:13

I don't have kids. I don't want them. I'm good. Well, it's so funny you

Speaker: 00:19:16

say that, because the thing that I love most about my business is when people

Speaker: 00:19:20

call me with a freak out or they call me needing to figure out how

Speaker: 00:19:24

to be creative in a way that they just don't have access to in that

Speaker: 00:19:27

moment. And that's where I thrive. If I had to support people in the way

Speaker: 00:19:30

that you support people, I would rip my hair out. I'd be bald. Yeah. Meanwhile,

Speaker: 00:19:34

I'm like, just tell me what you want, and then I translate it to my

Speaker: 00:19:38

team and then they do the work. That's literally how it said,

Speaker: 00:19:41

I do some of the work, too, but for me, I'd much rather be kind

Speaker: 00:19:45

of like the air traffic controller in the workplace and how

Speaker: 00:19:48

I operate. My business is very set up like that. I have

Speaker: 00:19:52

three staff members that are full time and they all have

Speaker: 00:19:56

different opposing strengths and they take different parts of the project every

Speaker: 00:19:59

time because honestly, I can't do it. When I get

Speaker: 00:20:03

stuck in the minutiae, that's where I start making mistakes. That's not where I belong

Speaker: 00:20:06

at all. So I have team members that can do that for

Speaker: 00:20:10

me, and I act as almost like a client translator. I feel

Speaker: 00:20:14

like, because I have a couple of people on my team who are

Speaker: 00:20:17

neurodiversity, but again, the variance, specifically with our

Speaker: 00:20:21

ADHD clients, I don't know if I have

Speaker: 00:20:25

the creator gift of Gab or if

Speaker: 00:20:28

it's the ADHD translator or what it is, but I

Speaker: 00:20:32

always understand what you're saying. I always understand what my other clients

Speaker: 00:20:36

are saying, and I can take that in and give it to my team so

Speaker: 00:20:39

that they can be like, okay, cool, we know what to do now. But there

Speaker: 00:20:41

is definitely a little bit of a breakdown. Like, if I have my team work

Speaker: 00:20:44

directly with the clients, it will happen fairly frequently where they'll

Speaker: 00:20:48

come back to me and be like, hey, I don't know what this means. What

Speaker: 00:20:51

am I supposed to do with that? And it's interesting because I think, again, that,

Speaker: 00:20:54

for me, comes back to that brain injury.

Speaker: 00:20:58

Honestly, it did break my ability to use my brain in

Speaker: 00:21:02

the way that I originally knew how. And then I had to completely relearn it.

Speaker: 00:21:05

And I feel like that process of relearning it gave me this

Speaker: 00:21:09

sneak peek into how we at large kind of function

Speaker: 00:21:13

and communicate and having to straddle both lines of it, right? Like,

Speaker: 00:21:16

almost feeling like this loss of piece of myself

Speaker: 00:21:20

that I hadn't known was there. It was just kind of part of how I

Speaker: 00:21:24

operated. And now I get to see other people and work with

Speaker: 00:21:27

other people who need that kind of support and may not know exactly how to

Speaker: 00:21:31

translate it out to the world at large. And I get to take that in

Speaker: 00:21:34

and be like, oh, cool, so this is what you're looking for. And nine times

Speaker: 00:21:37

out of ten, I'm right. So I appreciate that. I have that relationship

Speaker: 00:21:41

with my clients where ADHD or autistic or

Speaker: 00:21:45

whatever it is, they can come to me and be like, hey, I

Speaker: 00:21:49

don't know how to say this, so I'm just going to say it and trust

Speaker: 00:21:52

that you're going to be able to extract what you need from it to help

Speaker: 00:21:54

me get past this point. So I would almost call it like an honor because

Speaker: 00:21:58

there's a really deep component of trust in that. Because like you

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said, there's this piece, especially for late diagnoses, where

Speaker: 00:22:06

it's a self judgment, right? Like, I don't want to talk to somebody else about

Speaker: 00:22:09

this because I should be able to fucking do it. Should, could, can't, won't. Whatever

Speaker: 00:22:13

it is, you get to be the outlet for that. And it feels good and

Speaker: 00:22:17

it's rewarding. As you're describing this, I'm remembering all of our

Speaker: 00:22:20

conversations that have been like this, where I just feel like I need to

Speaker: 00:22:24

word vomit up an undone puzzle.

Speaker: 00:22:27

And when all the pieces are laid on the table, we really just realize that

Speaker: 00:22:31

I'm colorblind and I can't actually see what piece

Speaker: 00:22:35

needs to go where. And I'm really just looking for the different shapes and that

Speaker: 00:22:38

becomes so much harder. Whereas you look at it and you see all the colors

Speaker: 00:22:42

and you see the similarities and what needs to go where. It's

Speaker: 00:22:46

funny that you're mentioning having a brain injury because I had a brain injury as

Speaker: 00:22:49

well in 2017.

Speaker: 00:22:53

Mild traumatic brain injury from a concussion, and it took me out of

Speaker: 00:22:57

work for like, eight months. And it's funny looking

Speaker: 00:23:00

back, my ADHD was never really that severe. It was

Speaker: 00:23:04

really rather mild until after that happened, after

Speaker: 00:23:08

I experienced some things that caused PTSD and

Speaker: 00:23:12

started a business, which I think all those three things exacerbated

Speaker: 00:23:16

all of my ADHD symptoms. Yeah, that's wild.

Speaker: 00:23:19

It's almost like it flipped a switch in a sense, and kind

Speaker: 00:23:23

of exacerbated it to a point. But then at the same time,

Speaker: 00:23:29

on the other side of it, look what you've done and how you get to

Speaker: 00:23:32

lean into your knowledge and help other people, that's pretty fucking rad. I

Speaker: 00:23:36

like

Speaker: 00:23:36

that's.

Speaker: 00:23:42

Next question for you. What do you see as the main thing that

Speaker: 00:23:46

slows ADHD business owners down?

Speaker: 00:23:51

I would say it's self judgment. It just

Speaker: 00:23:54

is. And the reason why I say that one in particular is because I also

Speaker: 00:23:58

share in that. And my journey is different.

Speaker: 00:24:01

Right? Because ADHD is a different journey than a brain injury. But

Speaker: 00:24:05

at the same time, I remember specifically having these

Speaker: 00:24:09

moments of, why can I not remember this? Because it specifically impacted my

Speaker: 00:24:12

short term memory. And it was like over a decade of

Speaker: 00:24:16

just having these kind of gaps and holes. And then I started figuring

Speaker: 00:24:20

out different ways to tie memories. I don't know if you've ever seen,

Speaker: 00:24:24

like, what's it called? I always call it Sherlock. This is one of those moments

Speaker: 00:24:27

of, like, I can't remember the names of things, so I'll come up with, like,

Speaker: 00:24:30

a subname. You mean mnemonics, like walking with Einstein. That kind of

Speaker: 00:24:34

shit, where you're like, I tie it into something else. So the way

Speaker: 00:24:37

that there's this show with, oh, it's about Sherlock. And it

Speaker: 00:24:41

has Lucy Liu in it. And now I can't remember the name of it, but

Speaker: 00:24:44

it's about Sherlock. And he talks about his memory specifically. And when he

Speaker: 00:24:47

described it on the show, I was like, that's what the fuck I do. It's

Speaker: 00:24:50

called a memory palace, where you're like, this one thing comes in,

Speaker: 00:24:54

and I immediately tie it to something else that I have recall to, because

Speaker: 00:24:58

otherwise it's going to go away. And so once I started figuring out some of

Speaker: 00:25:01

these tools to actually support my memory, increase

Speaker: 00:25:05

it, brain exercises, like things that I did to help me recover

Speaker: 00:25:08

and learn how to manage the

Speaker: 00:25:12

symptoms of my injury, I started seeing

Speaker: 00:25:15

my self judgment go down, and I started seeing that moment of,

Speaker: 00:25:19

like, no, you just have to figure out a different way to do

Speaker: 00:25:23

this. There will be times that you don't. It won't work. And that's

Speaker: 00:25:26

okay. And then to have that moment of compassion and self

Speaker: 00:25:29

grace. But I think that the want to

Speaker: 00:25:34

kind of do it the way everybody else does or the way that we think

Speaker: 00:25:36

we should inhibits quite a bit. And so the self judgment

Speaker: 00:25:40

affects the mindset, which affects emotional

Speaker: 00:25:44

health and stability and all these other things, that it just

Speaker: 00:25:48

becomes a huge blocker. And so shifting the judgment,

Speaker: 00:25:52

or even just, like, putting light on it, because

Speaker: 00:25:55

shame cannot survive in the light.

Speaker: 00:25:59

It can only survive in the dark. Right? Like, it's the ignoring of the shame

Speaker: 00:26:02

that makes it grow and anchor. But those moments of just kind of

Speaker: 00:26:06

like, hey, this is actually okay. Like, I'm doing the best I can, will move

Speaker: 00:26:09

the dial so much further than, why the fuck can I do this? And

Speaker: 00:26:14

that's what I see pretty universally. Yeah.

Speaker: 00:26:18

Well, it comes from a lifetime of being in school

Speaker: 00:26:21

that's designed for neurotypicals, and then having teachers

Speaker: 00:26:25

assign work in a way that works for neurotypicals, and then it doesn't work

Speaker: 00:26:29

for you, and so you're unable to do it the way they want you to

Speaker: 00:26:32

do it. And then they look at you like, what's wrong with you? Why can't

Speaker: 00:26:34

you do it this way? If you were able to

Speaker: 00:26:38

design the ideal team to support one of your

Speaker: 00:26:42

clients who has ADHD, what kind of positions would you want to

Speaker: 00:26:45

fill? So, like, if I were designing your business

Speaker: 00:26:49

and then implanting people inside of your business to support you. Yeah.

Speaker: 00:26:52

If you wanted to create a whole team that would support

Speaker: 00:26:56

me best, to be able to do all the things that I need to be

Speaker: 00:27:00

doing and be happy about it and get out of those moments of self

Speaker: 00:27:04

judgment, what kinds of roles would you want me. To hire for

Speaker: 00:27:08

an assistant? Would be very high on the list, because

Speaker: 00:27:12

I know for myself, when I got an assistant, it was

Speaker: 00:27:16

literally a game changer, not just in my business, but my personal life. Probably one

Speaker: 00:27:19

of the first hires. I would recommend anybody, but especially somebody who's

Speaker: 00:27:23

ADHD. Having somebody that you can

Speaker: 00:27:26

offload things to that you're just not going to

Speaker: 00:27:30

do, you're not going to start, it's never going to get done.

Speaker: 00:27:34

Whether that's asking them to help you find a house

Speaker: 00:27:37

cleaner or anything like that. These are all things

Speaker: 00:27:41

that are bogging the memory down and the

Speaker: 00:27:45

executive function down, because it becomes this list of 30 kajillion things you

Speaker: 00:27:49

have to do. And that list blends between work and personal.

Speaker: 00:27:52

So using an assistant for both sides is

Speaker: 00:27:56

super fucking helpful. It really moves the dial in a significant

Speaker: 00:27:59

way. I think the next space that I would put somebody in

Speaker: 00:28:03

would be from a tech perspective. So like a tech

Speaker: 00:28:07

VA or somebody that can do the things in the systems,

Speaker: 00:28:11

because I see fairly commonly getting

Speaker: 00:28:14

hung on one or two things and then can't get it done,

Speaker: 00:28:18

can't get the project done, and then it gets abandoned. And

Speaker: 00:28:21

that's tough, right? Because you've put a lot of energy and effort into it.

Speaker: 00:28:25

Can I say a therapist too? Are we allowed to say that? Yeah. Jeez. We're

Speaker: 00:28:29

pro therapy on this podcast. Absolutely. Here. Therapy changed my fucking

Speaker: 00:28:32

life. Like, let's do therapy. So I think therapy helps too

Speaker: 00:28:36

significantly and interesting. I think most of my clients are in therapy now that I

Speaker: 00:28:39

think about it. And my. Yeah, I'm in therapy. Yes, I have therapy this

Speaker: 00:28:43

afternoon. I love my therapist. I've been with her for like five years. So,

Speaker: 00:28:47

yeah, therapy is incredibly helpful because it gives you somebody to

Speaker: 00:28:50

help you move through those moments of, like

Speaker: 00:28:54

we've mentioned the judgment and the self doubt and those things. Ideally, somebody

Speaker: 00:28:58

who has some insights into the neurodivergence or ADHD or something like

Speaker: 00:29:02

that would be optimal in a therapist. And then

Speaker: 00:29:05

I didn't lead with the Ops person, but I would say an Ops person as

Speaker: 00:29:09

well. That tends to come at a point where you are a

Speaker: 00:29:13

little bit bigger, because as a solopreneur, you can typically

Speaker: 00:29:17

handle your ops yourself. Maybe not the most efficient at

Speaker: 00:29:20

it. We were talking about earlier on the show,

Speaker: 00:29:24

ADHD, how you'll set up your own business and then have all these

Speaker: 00:29:27

workarounds and never realize, like, those moments can get

Speaker: 00:29:31

eliminated with an op support. I had a client who had nine email

Speaker: 00:29:34

addresses one time when they first came to me, nine email

Speaker: 00:29:38

addresses on Microsoft Exchange. Google,

Speaker: 00:29:42

like all over the place. It was because they didn't

Speaker: 00:29:45

know. It's honestly because they weren't in Google. But if they were in

Speaker: 00:29:49

Google workspace, they could have created aliases and then just

Speaker: 00:29:53

had different aliases for the different emails. So that was a hell of a project

Speaker: 00:29:57

and migrating all of that over and fixing it and cleaning it up and shutting

Speaker: 00:30:00

them down anyway. So somebody for ops to help you kind

Speaker: 00:30:03

of forward engineer your life in a

Speaker: 00:30:07

sense. Because an observation I've had with my ADHD client base

Speaker: 00:30:11

is like, the path of least resistance is typically the one that gets

Speaker: 00:30:15

picked, which is cool, we're built like that. But the challenge with a

Speaker: 00:30:18

path of least resistance is it doesn't always take into consideration the

Speaker: 00:30:21

tomorrows and the tomorrows and the tomorrows and the tomorrows, because we're

Speaker: 00:30:25

just kind of solutioning for what's happening right now. And it can

Speaker: 00:30:29

be challenging to course correct that if you get an ops person in too

Speaker: 00:30:32

late. And then I think it also depends on the industry

Speaker: 00:30:36

that you're in. Right. So I have a ton of marketing creative clients, so I

Speaker: 00:30:40

actually have a whole suite of marketing people that you can plug into. So maybe

Speaker: 00:30:43

not necessarily having them on your immediate staff, but at least having a

Speaker: 00:30:47

network that you can tap into when you need those things and not waiting

Speaker: 00:30:50

until you're so busy that you don't have time to find somebody, like

Speaker: 00:30:54

proactively cultivate and curate that network.

Speaker: 00:30:58

I think those would be the four main

Speaker: 00:31:01

goal role spaces that specifically for ADHD

Speaker: 00:31:05

people are the most helpful. I think for me, I also, when

Speaker: 00:31:09

I become rich and famous, I want to hire my own adult nanny.

Speaker: 00:31:12

McPhee comes to my house, wakes me up at 06:00

Speaker: 00:31:16

a.m. Hands me breakfast and a cup of coffee,

Speaker: 00:31:21

drags me out of bed, shoves me into my car to go to the gym.

Speaker: 00:31:25

While I'm at the gym, she's prepping my lunch and shit for the day. I

Speaker: 00:31:29

come home and she makes me sit down and meditate and then

Speaker: 00:31:33

picks out an outfit for me for the day and does a lot of the

Speaker: 00:31:37

thinking and pushes me through those executive dysfunction

Speaker: 00:31:41

moments where I'm like, oh, I could choose to not do this right now. I

Speaker: 00:31:44

would love to have a stern, retired older woman just

Speaker: 00:31:48

kind of run my mornings. All right, so ADHD, a fifth one with a

Speaker: 00:31:52

nanny McPhee in there.

Speaker: 00:31:56

It's amazing.

Speaker: 00:32:01

What's the hardest part about working with someone who runs

Speaker: 00:32:05

their business and has ADHD.

Speaker: 00:32:09

Sometimes knowing which buttons to push and where and

Speaker: 00:32:13

when because it's not consistent. So what could

Speaker: 00:32:17

move or motivate somebody last week

Speaker: 00:32:21

could change this week. And that's frankly, I

Speaker: 00:32:24

think part of the reason why I end up being the translator with my team,

Speaker: 00:32:27

because they're like, well, we did this last week, why aren't they responding this week?

Speaker: 00:32:31

And I'm like, life circumstances, lack of

Speaker: 00:32:35

sleep, didn't go to the gym. Like, who knows what it is that's impacted things.

Speaker: 00:32:38

So I think it's potentially the feel

Speaker: 00:32:42

sometimes of like a moving target of

Speaker: 00:32:47

how do we approach this? And that changes all the time.

Speaker: 00:32:51

Personally, on a personal level, I don't find that to be super

Speaker: 00:32:54

challenging because I like being creative and innovative

Speaker: 00:32:58

and having my own skills challenged. And I just look at

Speaker: 00:33:02

it more as like, how do I make this work this time? It's just a

Speaker: 00:33:05

solutioning for me rather than a fuck this person. They're not

Speaker: 00:33:09

doing what they said they were going to do. That doesn't really enter the

Speaker: 00:33:13

equation for me. But I've seen other obms and

Speaker: 00:33:17

other people that are in ops and in

Speaker: 00:33:20

admin spaces just have deep levels of frustration

Speaker: 00:33:25

with my autistic client, one of my other ADHD

Speaker: 00:33:28

clients. There's just been these moments where their support

Speaker: 00:33:31

staff has been like, I don't even know how to navigate

Speaker: 00:33:35

this. And for me it's more of a, like, what do we need to

Speaker: 00:33:39

change? How do we need to alter our messaging and

Speaker: 00:33:43

our approach to get the result we're going for? And

Speaker: 00:33:47

I don't know if that's a result of the brain injury or if it's just

Speaker: 00:33:50

how I operate or what it is, but that is the

Speaker: 00:33:53

key differential for us in being able to

Speaker: 00:33:57

navigate that challenge. Right? I love that you

Speaker: 00:34:01

said that. So many times when someone starts working with me, especially if

Speaker: 00:34:04

they've already started the business and they're working on scaling it, they have a

Speaker: 00:34:08

certain level of PTSD from bringing people into their business and having it not

Speaker: 00:34:12

work out because the person was so frustrated with them.

Speaker: 00:34:16

And it's really frightening when it kind of

Speaker: 00:34:20

recreates that whole paradigm from being in school that there's something wrong with

Speaker: 00:34:23

you, right? And not just that you work differently. I

Speaker: 00:34:27

mean, I will certainly acknowledge that there is a certain level in my

Speaker: 00:34:30

client base of having to pay for the sins of ghost past

Speaker: 00:34:34

of other service providers, which is part of the reason why

Speaker: 00:34:38

I work. To be like, the way that I onboard is the

Speaker: 00:34:42

same for everybody, but how I manage that

Speaker: 00:34:46

client through the onboarding is always different, and so

Speaker: 00:34:50

I work to be really intentional, especially at first,

Speaker: 00:34:54

as we build trust and communication. And you get to let go of some of

Speaker: 00:34:57

that PTSD and see, like, oh, hey, this isn't actually how this team

Speaker: 00:35:01

works. It still takes, like, a good probably three

Speaker: 00:35:04

months to get to that place where my client base is

Speaker: 00:35:08

like, oh, you actually mean what you say, and this is

Speaker: 00:35:12

how you show up for us. And it's amazing. And I don't feel

Speaker: 00:35:15

like I'm being judged or anybody's

Speaker: 00:35:19

frustrated, like you said with me, or that I'm a burden. I think

Speaker: 00:35:23

that's also another one. Like, they don't feel like they're a burden. And that's, like,

Speaker: 00:35:26

the biggest thing for me that I try to eliminate. Like I said, that's why

Speaker: 00:35:30

we just pivot. We can work on different stuff. It doesn't have to be the

Speaker: 00:35:33

thing that we're focused on right now. So I also know that that's

Speaker: 00:35:36

why most of my client base has these moments of panics where they're like,

Speaker: 00:35:40

you're not leaving, right? You're not shutting down. Or I think there was one time

Speaker: 00:35:44

even, I messaged you on something, and you're like, you're not firing me, right?

Speaker: 00:35:50

We're good, right? And I'm like, well,

Speaker: 00:35:53

as you're describing this, there is kind of this feeling of being that

Speaker: 00:35:57

shoemaker who comes downstairs in the morning and sees all these shoes that were

Speaker: 00:36:01

made by invisible elves. And you're like, oh, my God, I

Speaker: 00:36:05

love that. These elves come all the time to my house, and there's this

Speaker: 00:36:08

fear that you'll wake up one morning and they'll be gone and they haven't done

Speaker: 00:36:12

the things, and they don't like you anymore. Yeah,

Speaker: 00:36:15

I know. And the other thing that's interesting to me with ADHD clients is the

Speaker: 00:36:19

communication styles are always a little bit different. Right. Some might need a little bit

Speaker: 00:36:23

more direct, some might need a little bit more loving. Some might need a little

Speaker: 00:36:25

bit more foot up the ass, so to speak. It just depends

Speaker: 00:36:29

on the person. And I don't know, I just think that

Speaker: 00:36:33

my job is to flex and do what I can do to the extent of

Speaker: 00:36:36

my limitations and not just get so fixated on what I think should happen.

Speaker: 00:36:40

And that's just been my formula with all of my clients, and it seems to

Speaker: 00:36:42

work pretty well. Well. And all those things that you just named,

Speaker: 00:36:46

it's rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria at the root of it. And so whatever

Speaker: 00:36:50

triggers your RSD is completely different. So I love that you

Speaker: 00:36:54

show up in different ways for your clients. And I say that from

Speaker: 00:36:58

experience, saying that I really appreciate it. For me. So if someone wanted

Speaker: 00:37:01

to get in touch and hire you, which I highly recommend people do,

Speaker: 00:37:05

how do you suggest they get in touch with you? You can find me on

Speaker: 00:37:08

socials, LinkedIn, Heather Lawson Bradfield. You can find me on

Speaker: 00:37:12

Instagram. Same thing. Heather Lawson Bradfield super creative with my

Speaker: 00:37:16

branding. You can find my website, which is

Speaker: 00:37:19

theclovercollective Co. Clover is my company. All right, well, we're

Speaker: 00:37:23

going to link all the socials and your website in the show

Speaker: 00:37:26

notes. Heather, thank you so much for doing this with me today. And thank you

Speaker: 00:37:30

for being our inaugural guest. Yes, thank you for having me and

Speaker: 00:37:33

letting me talk about my favorite thing, which is my business. So

Speaker: 00:37:37

you're the best.