Aspiring entrepreneur - 3 signs it's time to start your business!
Are you an aspiring entrepreneur? Have ADHD? Oh golly gosh are YOU going to want to suck down this podcast.
In my social media posts, I talk about helping people with stopping being a weenie.
What I mean by this is that I keep them accountable and encourage them to overcome the voice in their head that keeps making excuses for why they can't do things.
Especially aspiring entrepreneurs who are stuck in a J.O.B. that they hate.
This episode would be a great listen or watch if that's describing you.
Hi! I'm Katie McManus, ADHD entrepreneur business strategist and money mindset coach.
And welcome to "The Weeniecast."
YouTube version
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Recognizing When it's Time to Start Your Business
In this episode of the Weeniecast, I, Katie McManus, dive into the pivotal signs that indicate it's time to embark on the journey of starting your own business.
We're gonna start this with a game in which I'll take you into the future, with my ADHD Delorean hahaha!
Confronting fear and self-doubt is crucial in overcoming the psychological barriers that often hold individuals back from pursuing their entrepreneurial aspirations.
Overcoming Self-Doubt and Procrastination
We'll get into the common self-doubts and fears that often hold individuals back from pursuing their entrepreneurial aspirations.
Serious career weenies tend to diminish their achievements as mere luck or seriously play into impostor syndrome.
Timestamped summary
00:00 Success isn't just about luck, be intentional.
06:25 Don't be stuck with ideas and no action.
09:41 Clear idea, help others and impact.
11:35 Get started, identify needs, acknowledge common desires.
17:18 Initial discomfort leads to eventual ease in sales.
18:23 Embrace rationality, dismiss self-doubt, trust your instincts.
Your next steps after listening
Realising it's time to work with me? Book your free intial strategy call with me - weeniecast.com/strategycall
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:
Katie's May Birthday challenge
Clients can't hire you if they don't know you exist... Which is why it's SO important to post content to Social Media. Consistently. But that's easier said than done... To learn how to post consistently, you have to DO consistently. Which is why I've created the 31 Day Challenge- to hold your feet to the fire so you can create content, post, and finally attract your ideal clients to you, rather than chase them down...
Transcript
Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel. In this episode, we're going to talk about
Speaker:the three signs that the time for you to start your business is
Speaker:now. Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money
Speaker:mindset coach. And welcome to the Weenie cat.
Speaker:Let's play a little game, shall we? Okay. So whatever your job
Speaker:is now, whatever role you have, whatever work you
Speaker:do, I want you to imagine. Imagine that you're
Speaker:still doing this thing five years from now.
Speaker:What does that feel like?
Speaker:Now, let's go forward to ten years from now. You're still in this
Speaker:job. You're still doing this thing. How does that
Speaker:feel? And let's jump ahead 20
Speaker:years. You've been here for 20 years doing the same exact
Speaker:thing over and over and over again, maybe for a different company.
Speaker:Are you okay with this? If you are a full bodied,
Speaker:yes. I love this. Good for you. Amazing. You are where you're meant
Speaker:to be. And hopefully it evolves with you over time. But
Speaker:if you had a visceral reaction
Speaker:against that idea, if you got a. Little sick to your stomach,
Speaker:if you cringed, if your breathing
Speaker:got a little short,
Speaker:this is your sign that
Speaker:your time is now. Whatever it is that you're doing day in,
Speaker:day out, that's causing you to have that reaction. When you think
Speaker:about doing this for. The next five years, this is your wake up
Speaker:call that that is not what you're meant to do. And
Speaker:chances are you know what you want to do. But for whatever
Speaker:reason, you're either afraid to go for it, are convinced
Speaker:that you're not enough to do it, smart enough,
Speaker:creative enough, brave enough, funny enough, thin
Speaker:enough, or you're intimidated by how. Much there is to
Speaker:do and how much there is to figure out. And it feels overwhelming
Speaker:to you. So here is your
Speaker:choice. I know I said this was a game. It's not a very fun
Speaker:game. Sorry
Speaker:I dangled the idea of, like, a fun game in front of you, and then
Speaker:I just made you think about all these awful things in the future. I'm
Speaker:sorry. But it got you to pay attention, didn't
Speaker:it? So here's the choice you have through this awful game
Speaker:that I'm making you play.
Speaker:Here's the choice. You can choose to believe these things.
Speaker:You can choose to be afraid of going for what you really
Speaker:want. You are an autonomous human being. If
Speaker:that's what you want. I want you to have that fear. Go for
Speaker:it. You can continue to believe that you're not
Speaker:good enough to go for it. I know a lot of you think
Speaker:that you've gotten to your level of success out of pure luck.
Speaker:Like, oh my God, I'm just so lucky, I just happen to meet the
Speaker:right people. No, you happen to be an excellent
Speaker:networker who creates really valuable
Speaker:relationships. I just happened to say something smart
Speaker:once. No, you intentionally built a knowledge base
Speaker:that allowed for you to make that smart comment that
Speaker:got people's attention. But if you want to believe it's pure luck, go for it.
Speaker:You might also have some impostor syndrome. You might think that you have
Speaker:everyone fooled. You know what? If you got this far
Speaker:by fooling people, good on you.
Speaker:Good on you. Well done.
Speaker:If you can get this far by fooling everyone in your world
Speaker:without actually committing any fraud or doing anything wrong,
Speaker:don't do that. But if you've fooled people into
Speaker:thinking that you are competent and you get the job done,
Speaker:you can continue to think that you're fooling everyone.
Speaker:Or you can start believing that you actually do know what you're
Speaker:doing. There's no one out there who can make you believe that except for
Speaker:you. And sure, going for what you really want is
Speaker:scary and big, and there are a lot of parts to it often,
Speaker:especially if it's starting a business. And you can choose to live in
Speaker:the overwhelm of it, or you can choose to do
Speaker:something about it. You can choose to seek out help. You can choose to
Speaker:just be overwhelmed and do it anyway. My favorite question right now is, what
Speaker:if it were fun? What if it were easy? I bet you
Speaker:deep down you know the fun, not overwhelmed
Speaker:way to do this thing that you want to do. But the choice is
Speaker:you can either choose to believe that you can do it, or you can choose
Speaker:to believe all the bullshit that you fed yourself and let other people feed
Speaker:you, that it's just not going to happen for you if you do that. Let's
Speaker:talk through what your life is. Going to be like.
Speaker:Now. Because you probably have ADHD. Because this is an ADHD business
Speaker:building podcast. You have shiny object syndrome. You
Speaker:have excellent creative ideas all the time,
Speaker:and that's both a gift and a curse. If you
Speaker:choose to do stuff with those ideas, think about where your life
Speaker:is going to go. You get to choose to be in that
Speaker:abundant state where you're constantly creating opportunities for things to
Speaker:work out. Or you can be that
Speaker:friend in your group who's always talking about their business
Speaker:ideas and oh, I could do this if I really wanted
Speaker:to. Oh, here's another idea I had. Oh, and here's another
Speaker:one. Someday I'm going to start this business.
Speaker:I used to be this friend, and let me tell you, it got boring
Speaker:really fast. I feel really bad for my circle of friends back then.
Speaker:They had to listen to me spew out ideas that they knew I would
Speaker:never act on. And it's kind of like
Speaker:when someone has a really massive crush on someone, but they're
Speaker:not going to ask the person out, so you just obsess over them.
Speaker:They obsess over them. They're like, oh, my God, he wore an orange shirt today.
Speaker:I don't like him in orange. I wish he'd worn blue.
Speaker:Oh, my God. Did you see what they posted on their instagram? Oh, my God.
Speaker:Who are they hanging out with? Do you think they're dating them? Like, if I
Speaker:were dating them, I'd take them somewhere better. You're doing this in your business, in
Speaker:your nonexistent business, just like that person is doing
Speaker:all that speculating on their nonexistent relationship.
Speaker:It's boring. As your shiny object syndrome is
Speaker:not going anywhere. Your ability to come up with creative
Speaker:ideas for businesses and money making opportunities
Speaker:is not going anywhere. So if you choose
Speaker:to believe all these negative things that you believe about
Speaker:yourself and to not go for what you really want, you do not
Speaker:have a choice. You are going to end up being the all
Speaker:ideas, no action friend that people avoid spending time
Speaker:with. And at some point, you're going to cross that line of becoming the
Speaker:shoulda coulda woulda storyteller. Oh, back in the day, I should have
Speaker:done this. My life would be so different. Oh, that one
Speaker:time I had an opportunity, I could have taken it,
Speaker:and this is what my life would look like, but I didn't.
Speaker:Oh, you know, if I would have done that, things would be so different
Speaker:right now. I know I've talked a lot about your deathbed, and I know it's
Speaker:a little morbid, but don't you want to have better stories on your
Speaker:deathbed? Don't you want to be more interesting
Speaker:on your deathbed? I know I do. But if you're
Speaker:okay with having a really boring death and having people
Speaker:just roll their eyes and be like, yeah, this is sad, but can you just
Speaker:go already? This is like, yeah, we love you and we're going to miss you,
Speaker:but shut up. We're tired of you doing the show to Kota. Wouldas like we
Speaker:had to listen to it your whole life. Can you please just go be in
Speaker:peace and leave us in peace. That's an extreme.
Speaker:I hope no one says that on your deathbed. But anyway, it could happen.
Speaker:And I know it feels like you need to have every
Speaker:single step, every single part of this figured out
Speaker:before you start taking action on it. But that is the
Speaker:biggest excuse, the biggest bullshit excuse that people have.
Speaker:Here are the three things that you have to have figured out, and you don't
Speaker:even have to have them all figures out before you make this
Speaker:change, before you start a business. So the number one thing that you
Speaker:can figure out before you figure everything else out is, what am I going to
Speaker:say next? Well, you'll have to keep listening to find out. But first, squirrel,
Speaker:squirrel, squirrel, squirrel.
Speaker:So, the number one thing that you can figure out before you figure
Speaker:everything else out is what you want to do. Do you want to build
Speaker:houses? Do you want to coach, be a
Speaker:consultant? Do you want to tutor people on the english
Speaker:language? What is the thing that you're most passionate about doing?
Speaker:Growing up, I was so jealous of the kids that I went to school
Speaker:with who were so sure that they wanted to be a doctor. They had no
Speaker:question, like, they wanted to do medicine or they wanted to
Speaker:get into law, they wanted to be a lawyer. They wanted to be in a
Speaker:courtroom. Whereas I flitted from, oh, maybe I'll be a fashion
Speaker:designer. Oh, I could be a teacher. Oh, I could do this. Oh, maybe I'll
Speaker:be a doctor. No, actually, I don't like that. I don't like science. Okay,
Speaker:great. Maybe I'll go back to being a teacher. Oh, maybe I'll be a
Speaker:politician. Oh, you know what? I'll be a news anchor,
Speaker:because I'm on Harrich High School's news, sports, weather, and more every week.
Speaker:Unfortunately, when you're starting a business, there's no clear cut
Speaker:path, especially if you're doing something that just
Speaker:hasn't existed up until now. Coaching is one of those things if you want
Speaker:to be a coach. I know, like, coaches didn't really exist
Speaker:the way they do now 20 years ago, when we were all kind of
Speaker:daydreaming about what we'd want to be when we grow up. So if
Speaker:you have a clearish idea of what it is that you want to
Speaker:do every single day, that is enough. The
Speaker:rest can be figured out. It's what I do with my clients every single
Speaker:day. It can be figured out, but you have one of the
Speaker:most foundational parts already decided
Speaker:on. This is your sign to go do it.
Speaker:The second thing that you can have figures out, and you don't have to have
Speaker:the first one figured out. If you have this one figured out is, who do
Speaker:you want to help? Who do you want to help? What's the
Speaker:impact you want to have in the world? Do you want to help
Speaker:people who are getting promoted into management for the very first
Speaker:time and have no idea what they're doing when it comes to motivating
Speaker:other human beings to do what they need to do? Do you want to set
Speaker:them up for success so they can climb the ladder and reach their
Speaker:career goals? Or do you want to
Speaker:work with parents whose children have just been diagnosed with a learning disability?
Speaker:Maybe you just went through that and you want to pay it forward
Speaker:because you figured it out for your family and you want to support others
Speaker:who you know are struggling with this. You know that's who you want to help,
Speaker:but you have no idea how that is. Fine. You have a foundational
Speaker:piece. Maybe you want to teach people the magic of underwater
Speaker:basket weaving. This one's a little harder, I have to say.
Speaker:There's not a big market for it. But you know what? I am a firm
Speaker:believer if you are passionate enough about it, it
Speaker:can be turned into a business. However, you might want to save
Speaker:up more money for the Runway to get started if you're doing underwater
Speaker:basket weaving. Yeah. Anyway, so if
Speaker:you know who you want to help, that is enough to get
Speaker:started. This is your sign that it's time to get started.
Speaker:The third thing that you can have figured out, even if you don't have the
Speaker:first two figured out, is, what kind of space are you
Speaker:craving in the world? Are you craving a
Speaker:laundry mat wine bar with a television so that
Speaker:you can go and do laundry and have a glass of wine and hang out
Speaker:with friends and watch a show? Are you craving a cat cafe
Speaker:where you can go and play with cats? Hopefully, you're not allergic to them, because
Speaker:that would be inconvenient. Are you craving a
Speaker:community where people get to figure out their own version of spirituality
Speaker:together without the constraints of the beliefs
Speaker:of religious institutions? Are you craving a community that
Speaker:supports women who want to run for office because you want to
Speaker:run for office and there's no support for you? Let me tell
Speaker:you, if you want it, it is wanted
Speaker:in the world. We think that we're really creative
Speaker:people. We think that we're the only one who
Speaker:has our problems, right? We think that we're the only one who
Speaker:wants the weird that we want. Can we just acknowledge that the book
Speaker:50 shades of gray proved this wrong? Right. How many
Speaker:people are like, oh, God, I'm really into kink but no one else is. And
Speaker:all of a sudden there's a whole book series and the freaking whole world went
Speaker:absolutely nuts for it. Hey, if you want to start a BDsm
Speaker:club, there are people out there who will sign up for it. If you
Speaker:want a space in the world, I guarantee you there are other people out there
Speaker:who also want it. Even if you have nothing else figured out,
Speaker:that is enough to start with. To start a
Speaker:business. You don't need anything more to start now.
Speaker:And I know a lot of you are going to think, well, I have these
Speaker:ideas all the time. I have business ideas all the time. And then I
Speaker:move on. I get excited about another one and another one and another one.
Speaker:What happens if I start the business and then my ADHD takes over
Speaker:and I get bored with it and I want to move on to something else?
Speaker:Can we talk about that whole belief system for a second? You had an
Speaker:idea for a business. You started it. You learned all the steps
Speaker:to starting a business while starting this one business. And at some
Speaker:point you decide you want to start another business and leave this behind.
Speaker:Guess what? You just gained all the skills that you're going to need to be
Speaker:able to start that second business. It's
Speaker:not like you're going to be starting from square one. You're going to be starting
Speaker:from square seven. You're just going to have to redo the
Speaker:steps to build that second business. Bonus.
Speaker:If that first business isn't reliant on you as
Speaker:the brand, you can sell it. There are people
Speaker:out there who buy businesses from other human beings all the
Speaker:time. How cool would that be if you started a business
Speaker:three years in, it's profitable, but you're just not feeling it
Speaker:anymore. And there's someone who's like, hey, if you're selling this, I would
Speaker:like to buy it because I see it's profitable and I have
Speaker:some ideas to grow it. And if you're no longer interested and you want to
Speaker:move on to other things, I will pay you actual monies, actual
Speaker:dollars. I will put them from my bank account into your bank
Speaker:account so that you can go and buy things with them so that I
Speaker:can have this business. Imagine what that
Speaker:would feel like. And then to be able to go and start another
Speaker:business where you might continue to be interested in it forever
Speaker:or where you might be able to sell it again in a
Speaker:few years when you get bored and you want to move on. Once you learn
Speaker:how to do something once, like you learned how to ride a bike
Speaker:once. Okay, every year when spring comes around and it's
Speaker:nice weather and you can go bike riding again, do you have to relearn how
Speaker:to ride the bike? No.
Speaker:Maybe you got a new bike and it has like a new feature and you
Speaker:just kind of have to learn that new thing. Great. You learn that new
Speaker:thing and you're fine. But you know, the fundamentals, the
Speaker:fundamentals do not change. Even if you stick within that
Speaker:one business forever, there's going to be new things that
Speaker:you have to learn to keep up with the market. That is
Speaker:normal. But once you learn how to do something once,
Speaker:you're not going to have to learn how to do it again.
Speaker:And for those of you who are like, yes, Katie, yes, absolutely,
Speaker:I am fully bought into. I don't have to believe my fears. I don't
Speaker:have to think that I'm not good enough. I either know what I want to
Speaker:do or who I want to help, or the space I want to create, or
Speaker:I know two or three of. Those things,
Speaker:but I don't feel ready yet. I think I want to wait until. I feel
Speaker:ready and then I would. Like to do it. I'm calling bullshit on you.
Speaker:There's no such thing as being ready. There's no such
Speaker:thing as that cloud of the feeling of readiness,
Speaker:like lighting upon your shoulders and engulfing
Speaker:you and making you magically feel ready all of. A sudden, didn't know
Speaker:how to ride. A bike and I told you to go for a two mile
Speaker:bike ride. You'd look at me like I was nuts. It's like, no, I
Speaker:don't know how. To ride a bike. To be able to go for a. Two
Speaker:mile bike ride and be confident. That you're not going to
Speaker:fall and land on your face and break your skull. You have to first learn
Speaker:it. You have to get uncomfortable. You have to be willing to fall.
Speaker:You have to be a little wobbly. You have to do that thing where. Someone
Speaker:holds the back of your seat. And kind of keeps you upright. As you learn
Speaker:how to pedal and as you learn how to hold the handlebars and as you
Speaker:learn how to. Brake, readiness comes from doing it before
Speaker:you're ready.
Speaker:Your first dozen sales calls you do for your business, you're not
Speaker:going to feel ready for. But at some point, after you've done it a
Speaker:dozen times or a couple dozen times, it's going to be the easiest thing in
Speaker:the world. Learning to create content to promote your business,
Speaker:that's going to be really scary and uncomfortable, and you're not going to feel ready
Speaker:to do it until you've done it for two months
Speaker:straight and it's part of your routine and you kind of understand
Speaker:what works and what doesn't work. Waiting to feel ready is one of
Speaker:the biggest bullshit reasons to not start now, and I'm calling you out
Speaker:for it. For those of us with ADHD, we have rejection
Speaker:sensitivity dysphoria, which means that when we're thinking about doing something
Speaker:outside our comfort zone, we start making up all
Speaker:these stories. We start imagining a future where people
Speaker:reject us and it hurts, where they turn us down, where they think what we're
Speaker:doing is stupid, where they say, no, I don't want to buy your thing, and
Speaker:you should quit and do something else because this is really dumb. Never.
Speaker:Oh, my God, my business is six years old now.
Speaker:Never in my six years of running my coaching business has anyone
Speaker:ever told me that. And you can either choose to
Speaker:believe your rejection sensitivity dysphoria side of your
Speaker:brain and assume that everyone's going to reject you and think what you're
Speaker:doing is dumb, or you can
Speaker:acknowledge that that part of your brain is just a part of your brain. It
Speaker:doesn't mean that it's true. Just because your brain thinks the thought doesn't mean
Speaker:that it's true. If that were the case, my
Speaker:dog Luna and I would be having full out conversations because my
Speaker:brain is constantly thinking of the things that she's saying back to me and all
Speaker:the rude things she's saying when I refuse to give her treats or refuse to
Speaker:take her for a walk because we just went for one. Your brain's only
Speaker:job is to come up with thoughts, to identify risks in the
Speaker:world so that you can defend yourself. And this comes from
Speaker:millennia of evolution, where there were predators out in the
Speaker:wild who wanted to eat us, where there were other tribes, people
Speaker:who wanted to unalive our tribe, where a lack of
Speaker:rain for a season meant that everyone was going to starve that
Speaker:winter. Your
Speaker:brain has not evolved beyond that. It hasn't gotten the 21st century
Speaker:update. It still sees a lot of this stuff as life or death,
Speaker:and its only job is to come up with random shit that you should be
Speaker:afraid. Of, but it does not mean that it's true. So this
Speaker:is your sign. You need to go and get started.
Speaker:And if what you want to start. Is a service based
Speaker:business where you are offering your expertise to other human. Beings
Speaker:for money, and if you do. Not know the steps to get
Speaker:started, I invite you to book a generate income strategy.
Speaker:Call with me what we'll do is. We'Ll hop on the phone for 30 minutes.
Speaker:We'll identify what your big goal is, what the dream is of what
Speaker:this business could be. We'll figure out where you're getting stuck in
Speaker:building it on your own. And then, if, and only if, it's a fit
Speaker:for both of us, we'll talk about different ways to work together. Now, it could
Speaker:be my build your own business group program, where you get to work with other
Speaker:beginner entrepreneurs to establish a foundation of this
Speaker:business. Or it could be working together one on one, where you have
Speaker:me holding your hand every step of the way. Or it could be
Speaker:me sending you to another resource that's going to serve you best. But if you
Speaker:choose not to get started now, and if you choose not to book a call
Speaker:with me to figure out what the next step is, then I want you to
Speaker:remember you are choosing the five years from now
Speaker:person who's miserable in their job. If you're miserable in
Speaker:your job now, you're choosing to be the friend who's
Speaker:all idea, all talk and no action about all their crazy
Speaker:business ideas. You're choosing to be the shoulda coulda woulda storyteller on
Speaker:your deathbed. And that's okay. You get to be that person.
Speaker:But know that it's not happening to you accidentally. It is voice that
Speaker:you are making, whether you realize it or not.
Speaker:Let's get it on. Is that a Barry White
Speaker:song? Marvin gay. Oh, Marvin Gaye. Okay, cool.
Speaker:I can't sing for, so I apologize.
Speaker:Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel.
