The importance of ADHD business owners getting the RIGHT support!
Welcome to this new episode of The Weeniecast.
Hi! I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach and it's my job to help simplify the world of ADHD entrepreneurship and business strategy for you, the ADHD business owner or wannabe business owner.
This week, something a little different...
The ADHD Entrepreneur Playbook: Insights with Heather Lawson-Bradfield
When you're dodging the landmines and bullets that life in entrepreneurship with an ADHD brain can throw up at you, understanding the nuances becomes crucial for success.
My online business manager Heather Lawson-Bradfield has been supporting me in my business for a few months now.
I hired her and her team at The Clover Collective to support me after a particularly 'tricky' time with a previous operations manager.
I figured it might be helpful for you as an ADHD entrepreneur if we discussed the strategies she uses that can assist ADHD business owners.
We're talking about self-awareness and how early or late diagnoses of ADHD can impact an individual’s approach to business challenges.
With Heather's distinctive background, she shares invaluable insights into managing ADHD's intricate web, revolving around prioritization and task management, which are pivotal for maintaining focus and mitigating the overwhelmed state that entrepreneurs often face.
Oh if you're one of our particularly eagle-eared listeners who heard us talking about the Mars Rover - here's the link.
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 the waitlist for 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 insight you found particularly useful? 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...
Go Vote Kamala Harris - 2024
Transcript
Heather, welcome to the Weenie cast. You are our official
Speaker:first guest. We haven't had any guests except for a very brief
Speaker:voiceover by Barry Bonds. So you and he have something in common now.
Speaker:Congratulations both on the Weenie cast. I
Speaker:am going to retire tomorrow. No autographs,
Speaker:please. And good you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm
Speaker:going to be absolutely screwed. So for my listeners who should
Speaker:know, a little background here, Heather is my incredibly
Speaker:talented online business manager, fractional COO. She
Speaker:helped me run my business. I literally would not be able to do it
Speaker:without her. She had to come in and clean up all kinds
Speaker:of messes that were there before her. And it's really been a saving
Speaker:grace for me. And one of the things that drew me to
Speaker:working with Heather is that she works with a lot of business owners who have
Speaker:ADHD. And there was one message you sent me after
Speaker:our last meeting that really prompted me wanting to bring you on, is that
Speaker:you asked me if I had an early diagnosis for my
Speaker:ADHD because you were noticing some differences
Speaker:between your clients who are diagnosed ADHD, but had either
Speaker:an early or a late diagnosis. And I'm curious, you
Speaker:haven't actually told me what those differences are. What are they?
Speaker:It is partially due to the knowledge, the diagnosis, the
Speaker:understanding that you have early on. And then I think it's also,
Speaker:you used a phrase which I don't remember what it was, but it's basically like
Speaker:how you exhibit your ADHD characteristics. Like, some people express
Speaker:them differently. So I feel like it's a combination of the two. But
Speaker:specifically, what you present
Speaker:more than my other clients, who all received late and light
Speaker:diagnoses, is a level of awareness about when you're
Speaker:having an ADHD moment. And that's the reason why I was like, I need to
Speaker:ask Katie when she got diagnosed, because that was the key differential,
Speaker:was the knowledge, the awareness of, like, I'm in an ADHD hole, this
Speaker:is happening and I know it's happening, versus some of my other clients who
Speaker:won't catch it until either it's after or when they're in the middle of it.
Speaker:Maybe it's the decades of kind of living with it, trying to figure out how
Speaker:to work in a neurotypical world when you have
Speaker:those moments, it could be personality type, it could be how you express
Speaker:it. I'm not really sure, but there is definitely a pattern that I notice
Speaker:in your management of your ADHD versus the other clients that I
Speaker:have who have it as well. So it's just interesting to me. Well, and it's
Speaker:so funny, because I don't even know if I do it consciously, if I'm aware,
Speaker:because you say that. And I'm like, maybe I do that, but
Speaker:I don't remember having those conversations with you where I'm, like, here.
Speaker:And maybe it's just where I'm saying, I'm stuck in this.
Speaker:I would say it's partially those moments. And then also, too, where you're like,
Speaker:I'm in a state of overwhelm. Right. Like, those moments, you'll be like, I'm
Speaker:overwhelmed. Help me prioritize. Right. Like those moments of
Speaker:saying, it's almost like the moments of outreach, actually, where you're like, this
Speaker:is what's happening. I'm stuck. I'm overwhelmed.
Speaker:I'm going to do everything possible to get a
Speaker:dopamine hit before I go and do this thing that I have to do. Those
Speaker:moments of just personal observation,
Speaker:I actually don't see a ton of that in the rest of my client
Speaker:base. And maybe it's that they're not expressing it. Communication
Speaker:differences. I'm not sure what that is, but I wasn't
Speaker:surprised when you told me it was an earlier on diagnoses, because I feel like
Speaker:there's a certain level of power that comes with that knowledge, which
Speaker:I think is really tragic with so many, especially women, because I primarily work
Speaker:with women, especially women who are misdiagnosed.
Speaker:Undiagnosed, just don't have the right support system. And so they're kind of
Speaker:left for decades thinking that something's wrong with
Speaker:them, or they just have to figure it out or
Speaker:do the best they can with what they have, which is great. But
Speaker:to me, it feels kind of tragic, because when you have that knowledge, you can
Speaker:start learning and understanding and exploring yourself
Speaker:and really figuring out the right way for you to navigate through
Speaker:it. And I don't know if I ever told you this, actually, but I had
Speaker:a brain injury when I was 16. I was in a car accident. I almost
Speaker:died. I hit the side of my head. It shook my brain. So
Speaker:I had really bad memory issues. I had learning issues. I
Speaker:had cognition issues. I was in speech and language therapy
Speaker:for, like, a year and a half after the accident. It was, like, really brutal.
Speaker:And so I've spent the last 22 years
Speaker:figuring out how to operate within this thing that I have. But I knew
Speaker:when it happened that things had changed, and I had tools and
Speaker:things at my disposal that I could lean on to help
Speaker:me learn how to live in my new world. And I think that's
Speaker:the thing that is really unfortunately missing for a lot of people that get that
Speaker:later in life diagnoses. Yeah, it's funny you say that. And I'm
Speaker:reminded of so many of my clients when they call me for a 911 support
Speaker:call and they're spinning and they're making it about how
Speaker:they're fucked up and how they're broken and there's something wrong with
Speaker:them and they're never going to be able to start this business. And
Speaker:it's really that. It's like the Mars rover that couldn't
Speaker:decide what should be prioritized first and it got overwhelmed
Speaker:and it never did anything. I don't know if you ever heard. About exactly
Speaker:what you're talking about. It's just the best story.
Speaker:If you haven't heard of the Mars rover, we're going to link it in the
Speaker:show notes. So go to forward slash Mars
Speaker:rover. We'll explain that whole backstory if you haven't heard of it. But
Speaker:it's really just that their ADHD symptoms are getting out of
Speaker:control, their executive function is not
Speaker:functioning, and they need an outside perspective to
Speaker:kind of look at things and tell them, here's what you need to focus on
Speaker:next, because it all feels important. Yeah, it's interesting that you say that with your
Speaker:coaching business, too, because I also see that in my side
Speaker:of actually executing work. Even you and I have those moments
Speaker:again where you're like, what do I prioritize first? Same thing with my clients where
Speaker:they're like, what do I need to work on first? We want to do this
Speaker:thing by December. Help me map out the steps of
Speaker:getting there and then the order of priority. And it typically
Speaker:works pretty well as long as I don't get too far out.
Speaker:That's the other key that I see with ADHD clients is
Speaker:keep it focused in on the immediate month, because if you start
Speaker:looking at next month and the month after, I feel like there's a component of
Speaker:executive dysfunction that comes in and it's like, fuck, I'm overwhelmed now.
Speaker:I'm not doing any of it. And it's just like, no, let's just
Speaker:look at step one. Stop worrying about step ten.
Speaker:Yeah, well, and what you're describing is those layered tasks.
Speaker:Instead of just focusing on that next step, you make it about the seven steps
Speaker:that need to happen till you can do that final step. And then that's really
Speaker:where you just get stuck. You can't start on the first thing because it becomes
Speaker:this massive project. Yeah, exactly. And the other thing,
Speaker:too, that I've employed, and I actually picked this up from you
Speaker:when we had our meetings, is when I do have meetings
Speaker:with my ADHD clients, I go fast
Speaker:because going too slow is
Speaker:almost like attention drifts.
Speaker:I don't know exactly what it is, but it's almost like the more chaotic the
Speaker:call is, the better it is because we get more done, and I
Speaker:just have to kind of lean into that and allow it to kind of run
Speaker:all over and jump topics 16 times
Speaker:because I have the capacity with my team and also because I
Speaker:use things like notetakers and recorders and things that I can go back to
Speaker:and revisit and be like, okay, what do we actually say here? So
Speaker:I stopped trying to structure and control and run the calls in the
Speaker:way that serves me, and I really run my calls in the way that serves
Speaker:my clients. And then I'll go in after and figure out what do I do
Speaker:next? Where does my team start? What do we do
Speaker:next? As long as my clients are getting off the calls saying, okay, I know
Speaker:what I have to do, I'll figure it out on the back end with my
Speaker:team. Our calls are very much like, here's what we covered
Speaker:last week, and here's kind of what we need to do. And meek saying, yeah.
Speaker:Oh, my God. I remembered the thing that I wanted to talk to you about
Speaker:that I thought about in the shower this morning that I forgot to jot down.
Speaker:And then we're constantly bouncing around like that. It is super
Speaker:helpful, though, because when you have ADHD, like, yes, best
Speaker:intentions, you have a thought, you note it down. But often, if you
Speaker:do note it down, you note it down somewhere that you forget where you noted
Speaker:it down. So it's written on a piece of paper somewhere in your house or
Speaker:maybe even in your car. And that's not helpful when you're on a Zoom
Speaker:call with your team. It is not at all. And so
Speaker:for me, it's just been an exercise of leaning in
Speaker:and saying, okay, I have tools on my end that
Speaker:I know how to use. And that's actually part of the reason why I have
Speaker:the notetaker is for my own memory, my own recollection,
Speaker:because I have a lot of tools and techniques that I've implemented over the 20
Speaker:years to help my memory go, but I'll still have just, like, a
Speaker:flat out blank. Sometimes I need that recording to go back and find
Speaker:it. And then because I implemented that for myself, I
Speaker:was then able to just say, hey, why not use this in a different way
Speaker:that serves my clients, too, and just let the shit go. Let
Speaker:it run out. Let the conversation wind and twist and do
Speaker:whatever it needs to do. As long as I can track what you're doing, how
Speaker:you're doing it, what you're saying, then I can tie up the loose ends that
Speaker:I need. As we go through the call. I mean, there's multiple times when we'll
Speaker:have conversations, and then towards then I'll be like, okay, so looping back
Speaker:on this one, what did we decide, and how are we doing this? Right, so
Speaker:there'll be, like, usually three or four things that aren't quite closed up by the
Speaker:end of the call. And I just learned to be like, all right, so what
Speaker:are we doing with this? In the end, this conversation went all
Speaker:over the place, and I don't actually have my action item, so
Speaker:it's much less attachment to how I think it should go, much
Speaker:less desire to force something to conform. I
Speaker:just let it go. I'll figure it out. Like, I'm smart enough. I've got a
Speaker:good team. We'll figure it out. I mean, even though I don't consider myself neurotypical,
Speaker:I think I feel like I straddle the line of both sides. Like, I can
Speaker:work with either neurodiverse or neurotypical, but almost like
Speaker:neurotypical people are super rigid.
Speaker:And I think that's the clashing point. When you come in with somebody
Speaker:who's neurodivergent, it's like you just can't. It's not going to work.
Speaker:It's always funny because I've worked with a couple of neurotypical clients. Of
Speaker:course, I didn't always specialize in just ADHD businesses, and it was
Speaker:always super funny because they would start down a question,
Speaker:and as an ADHD person, I'd know where they were
Speaker:going with the question and I'd know the answer that I'd have to give. But
Speaker:it wasn't the answer that they were asking for. It was like an answer that
Speaker:was three steps later. Right. And
Speaker:my neurotypical clients had to learn in
Speaker:the first couple of months of working with me that it was sometimes annoying
Speaker:that I would say, okay, cool, I hear you're asking this, but here's the thing
Speaker:that you need to think about. And then I kind of reverse engineer from that
Speaker:information to help them see the bigger picture. But it's so
Speaker:funny working with ADHD clients. They follow,
Speaker:they jump with you, and they can reverse engineer it. And it's
Speaker:almost like a secret language that a lot of it is
Speaker:nonverbalized. Question for you, what do you see makes
Speaker:us more productive? Is there a common theme?
Speaker:And what makes ADHD business owners more productive? Quick,
Speaker:incremental dopamine hits and wins. So that's
Speaker:the whole, like, I think you called it task layering or something like
Speaker:that. And so again, if I've got something that needs to
Speaker:get done or a project that we're working on, I'm not
Speaker:showing an ADHD client the whole project plan and running through line by
Speaker:line. No, that's not ever going to enter the equation. I have that for my
Speaker:team. I have that for what I do because that's how we have to execute
Speaker:work. But for one of my ADHD clients, it's
Speaker:literally having a zap that triggers an email
Speaker:notification to her email saying somebody signed up, that's a
Speaker:dopamine hit. Because like, oh, I just made a tiny sale on this. And so
Speaker:those moments of, I think trying to proactively
Speaker:support somebody to get the things that they need will
Speaker:then balance out. Those moments of, like, I have to do the thing I don't
Speaker:want to do. And to be fair, I mean, there is no forcing it. If
Speaker:it's something that somebody doesn't want to get done, we
Speaker:will try usually three times and then move on.
Speaker:So it's like reached out once, reached out twice, reached out a third
Speaker:time, and then we're going to just pause on that and then move to a
Speaker:different project so that we can actually keep the ball moving. So I try to
Speaker:do as much of the task laying as possible. I try to build in as
Speaker:much dopamine, like the quick hits that I can as possible.
Speaker:If it's not going to happen, it's not going to happen. And I
Speaker:think it's doing a disservice to the work that I do and
Speaker:for my client base, if I were to just get kind of like hyper focused
Speaker:on something and say like, no, this has to get done. I mean, if it's
Speaker:80% to 90% there, then, okay, we'll come back to it later and we'll start
Speaker:working on this other project that we got to get done this month. It's not
Speaker:going to hurt anybody to do that. I have to say, there was one thing
Speaker:that you did a couple of weeks back with your team where there were
Speaker:some reminder emails that I wanted to go out to a certain group of people
Speaker:and have it be automated every single month. And you and I both
Speaker:know that I wasn't actually going to sit down and start writing those emails.
Speaker:So you had someone on your team write the emails and
Speaker:write them, and I was laughing while I was reading them because she wrote it
Speaker:so politely. Like, way more polite than I would ever
Speaker:do because people know me like, I'm kind of no bullshit. Get your ass into
Speaker:this scale because I'm going to help you with your business. Stop being a weenie
Speaker:about it. And her whole best thing is, like, it would be such a pleasure
Speaker:to have you, but it took away that step of needing to
Speaker:start. It became more of like, an editing project where I got to
Speaker:rewrite it and kind of laugh through, like, oh, my God,
Speaker:realize how not polite I am in my messaging. But
Speaker:it gave me that really simple dopamine hit rather than,
Speaker:oh, I have to write a whole series of seven emails I don't really
Speaker:want. Yeah, and that's like the little
Speaker:tiny things that we try to just take one step, know,
Speaker:even if it's putting placeholder text in certain things with Lorem
Speaker:Ipsum, right. Like something to just move the
Speaker:dial to the absolute furthest extent that we can do
Speaker:it, and then we have to stop. Right? So that's what I'm saying. From our
Speaker:end. It's like if we can hit something to 80% and then let
Speaker:our client finish that 20%, it usually has a much greater level of
Speaker:success. And, I mean, at the end of the day, I might think, I know
Speaker:how your business needs to look, but if it doesn't work for you, you're
Speaker:never going to use it. And so that's what I kind of mean
Speaker:by, I think surrendering in a sense, which is very. It's
Speaker:almost the antithesis of ops, I feel like, because operations is
Speaker:so structured and process oriented and repeatable
Speaker:and all of these things. But that's coming
Speaker:at it from this very, again,
Speaker:neurotypical, just blunt force
Speaker:object effect is what it feels like. Go do the thing this
Speaker:way, or else it's my fucking business. We can figure out how we want to
Speaker:run it in any way that we want. So if that means that
Speaker:I'm breaking tech, trying to create this creative little workaround, which I do
Speaker:frequently break tech, I'm not going to lie, because I'm trying to come up with
Speaker:these creative workarounds to just say, hey, we got to make this work for the
Speaker:person using it. If it's built for me, then that means absolutely
Speaker:nothing. When
Speaker:you're getting started and when you're ramping up and you're all on your
Speaker:own, you naturally create all these workarounds as your
Speaker:standard operating procedures. And that's really the
Speaker:hardest part, when you start bringing people into your business and
Speaker:scaling is then you have to train people on.
Speaker:Here are all the weird workarounds that I've designed in my business
Speaker:that you never documented before, and you also never really realized that they
Speaker:were workarounds. It was just kind of how you made it work for you. Something
Speaker:that every single business owner needs to be aware of when they're thinking of
Speaker:scaling, that there's going to be kind of that lag time where people
Speaker:have to catch up with you, and then also they're going to see better ways
Speaker:for things to be done right. You figured out a workaround with
Speaker:your limited knowledge of how this tool could be
Speaker:used. And that was one of the things that I loved about our first call,
Speaker:was you immediately followed up with, I heard you
Speaker:wanted x tool to do these certain things. This
Speaker:tool actually can't do it. The tool that you've been using, there's a reason it
Speaker:sucks. And here's another option for you that checks all the
Speaker:boxes. Yeah, absolutely. Give the value. Right.
Speaker:I approach what I do very freely.
Speaker:I've learned what I've learned over 20 years. I don't gatekeep
Speaker:any of that knowledge. So even if I'm having a discovery call, I'm going to
Speaker:give you actionable steps of things that you can do to
Speaker:support in the ways that you want to. At the end of the.
Speaker:It's. This is going to sound probably a little bit arrogant,
Speaker:but not you, Katie. But if you, the general populace, could do what I
Speaker:do, you would do it. So my knowledge
Speaker:isn't gatekeeped for that reason. Because if you can do it,
Speaker:wonderful, I want you to do it. But if you can't, you know where to
Speaker:find me and then you can hire me. So that's my approach to it. And
Speaker:that's, I think. I mean, a lot of the people that are in our ethos,
Speaker:I think, operate that way. Because when you gatekeep that knowledge, I feel like
Speaker:it's just a fear based mentality almost, where it's like
Speaker:if I share this, then somebody else is going to take it and then make
Speaker:money off of it, and then they're not going to come hire me. And I'm
Speaker:like, who fucking cares? I get hired for my knowledge, my
Speaker:reputation, my team, my intelligence. If there's
Speaker:another group out there that has my exact formula, I welcome you to go
Speaker:find them. That's totally cool. There's plenty of work out there
Speaker:and we're all going to eat at the end of the day. I have kind
Speaker:of a side tangent that I want to go off of because you said something
Speaker:really interesting there about how you can give them the answer of
Speaker:how to do something and if they can't do it themselves, then they'll
Speaker:come back to you. There's this pride thing that happens for people with
Speaker:ADHD where they know the things to
Speaker:do, and it's not that they can't do it, it's
Speaker:that they won't do it right. And there's a big difference. And I think
Speaker:a lot of people with ADHD, especially when they're late diagnosed, it becomes
Speaker:almost a measure of their worthiness and their intelligence. Like,
Speaker:if they can get themselves to do these things that are absolutely miserable for them
Speaker:to do, it becomes a proof of how smart they are. But
Speaker:where you're going to grow, where you're going to be able to actually expand your
Speaker:business is that you realize, well, it's not that I can't do it, it's
Speaker:that I know that I won't do it. And the best way to
Speaker:continue to grow is to hire someone who actually will do it. Right? Yeah. Because
Speaker:honestly, the thought of supporting a client
Speaker:based the way you do, Katie. No,
Speaker:I'm very back end. Like, give me my tech,
Speaker:give me my team, and I'm happy for me. I
Speaker:can identify in that feeling, in that I just could
Speaker:never run, like, a coaching client base like that.
Speaker:I don't have kids. I don't want them. I'm good. Well, it's so funny you
Speaker:say that, because the thing that I love most about my business is when people
Speaker:call me with a freak out or they call me needing to figure out how
Speaker:to be creative in a way that they just don't have access to in that
Speaker:moment. And that's where I thrive. If I had to support people in the way
Speaker:that you support people, I would rip my hair out. I'd be bald. Yeah. Meanwhile,
Speaker:I'm like, just tell me what you want, and then I translate it to my
Speaker:team and then they do the work. That's literally how it said,
Speaker:I do some of the work, too, but for me, I'd much rather be kind
Speaker:of like the air traffic controller in the workplace and how
Speaker:I operate. My business is very set up like that. I have
Speaker:three staff members that are full time and they all have
Speaker:different opposing strengths and they take different parts of the project every
Speaker:time because honestly, I can't do it. When I get
Speaker:stuck in the minutiae, that's where I start making mistakes. That's not where I belong
Speaker:at all. So I have team members that can do that for
Speaker:me, and I act as almost like a client translator. I feel
Speaker:like, because I have a couple of people on my team who are
Speaker:neurodiversity, but again, the variance, specifically with our
Speaker:ADHD clients, I don't know if I have
Speaker:the creator gift of Gab or if
Speaker:it's the ADHD translator or what it is, but I
Speaker:always understand what you're saying. I always understand what my other clients
Speaker:are saying, and I can take that in and give it to my team so
Speaker:that they can be like, okay, cool, we know what to do now. But there
Speaker:is definitely a little bit of a breakdown. Like, if I have my team work
Speaker:directly with the clients, it will happen fairly frequently where they'll
Speaker:come back to me and be like, hey, I don't know what this means. What
Speaker:am I supposed to do with that? And it's interesting because I think, again, that,
Speaker:for me, comes back to that brain injury.
Speaker:Honestly, it did break my ability to use my brain in
Speaker:the way that I originally knew how. And then I had to completely relearn it.
Speaker:And I feel like that process of relearning it gave me this
Speaker:sneak peek into how we at large kind of function
Speaker:and communicate and having to straddle both lines of it, right? Like,
Speaker:almost feeling like this loss of piece of myself
Speaker:that I hadn't known was there. It was just kind of part of how I
Speaker:operated. And now I get to see other people and work with
Speaker:other people who need that kind of support and may not know exactly how to
Speaker:translate it out to the world at large. And I get to take that in
Speaker:and be like, oh, cool, so this is what you're looking for. And nine times
Speaker:out of ten, I'm right. So I appreciate that. I have that relationship
Speaker:with my clients where ADHD or autistic or
Speaker:whatever it is, they can come to me and be like, hey, I
Speaker:don't know how to say this, so I'm just going to say it and trust
Speaker:that you're going to be able to extract what you need from it to help
Speaker:me get past this point. So I would almost call it like an honor because
Speaker:there's a really deep component of trust in that. Because like you
Speaker:said, there's this piece, especially for late diagnoses, where
Speaker:it's a self judgment, right? Like, I don't want to talk to somebody else about
Speaker:this because I should be able to fucking do it. Should, could, can't, won't. Whatever
Speaker:it is, you get to be the outlet for that. And it feels good and
Speaker:it's rewarding. As you're describing this, I'm remembering all of our
Speaker:conversations that have been like this, where I just feel like I need to
Speaker:word vomit up an undone puzzle.
Speaker:And when all the pieces are laid on the table, we really just realize that
Speaker:I'm colorblind and I can't actually see what piece
Speaker:needs to go where. And I'm really just looking for the different shapes and that
Speaker:becomes so much harder. Whereas you look at it and you see all the colors
Speaker:and you see the similarities and what needs to go where. It's
Speaker:funny that you're mentioning having a brain injury because I had a brain injury as
Speaker:well in 2017.
Speaker:Mild traumatic brain injury from a concussion, and it took me out of
Speaker:work for like, eight months. And it's funny looking
Speaker:back, my ADHD was never really that severe. It was
Speaker:really rather mild until after that happened, after
Speaker:I experienced some things that caused PTSD and
Speaker:started a business, which I think all those three things exacerbated
Speaker:all of my ADHD symptoms. Yeah, that's wild.
Speaker:It's almost like it flipped a switch in a sense, and kind
Speaker:of exacerbated it to a point. But then at the same time,
Speaker:on the other side of it, look what you've done and how you get to
Speaker:lean into your knowledge and help other people, that's pretty fucking rad. I
Speaker:like
Speaker:that's.
Speaker:Next question for you. What do you see as the main thing that
Speaker:slows ADHD business owners down?
Speaker:I would say it's self judgment. It just
Speaker:is. And the reason why I say that one in particular is because I also
Speaker:share in that. And my journey is different.
Speaker:Right? Because ADHD is a different journey than a brain injury. But
Speaker:at the same time, I remember specifically having these
Speaker:moments of, why can I not remember this? Because it specifically impacted my
Speaker:short term memory. And it was like over a decade of
Speaker:just having these kind of gaps and holes. And then I started figuring
Speaker:out different ways to tie memories. I don't know if you've ever seen,
Speaker:like, what's it called? I always call it Sherlock. This is one of those moments
Speaker:of, like, I can't remember the names of things, so I'll come up with, like,
Speaker:a subname. You mean mnemonics, like walking with Einstein. That kind of
Speaker:shit, where you're like, I tie it into something else. So the way
Speaker:that there's this show with, oh, it's about Sherlock. And it
Speaker:has Lucy Liu in it. And now I can't remember the name of it, but
Speaker:it's about Sherlock. And he talks about his memory specifically. And when he
Speaker:described it on the show, I was like, that's what the fuck I do. It's
Speaker:called a memory palace, where you're like, this one thing comes in,
Speaker:and I immediately tie it to something else that I have recall to, because
Speaker:otherwise it's going to go away. And so once I started figuring out some of
Speaker:these tools to actually support my memory, increase
Speaker:it, brain exercises, like things that I did to help me recover
Speaker:and learn how to manage the
Speaker:symptoms of my injury, I started seeing
Speaker:my self judgment go down, and I started seeing that moment of,
Speaker:like, no, you just have to figure out a different way to do
Speaker:this. There will be times that you don't. It won't work. And that's
Speaker:okay. And then to have that moment of compassion and self
Speaker:grace. But I think that the want to
Speaker:kind of do it the way everybody else does or the way that we think
Speaker:we should inhibits quite a bit. And so the self judgment
Speaker:affects the mindset, which affects emotional
Speaker:health and stability and all these other things, that it just
Speaker:becomes a huge blocker. And so shifting the judgment,
Speaker:or even just, like, putting light on it, because
Speaker:shame cannot survive in the light.
Speaker:It can only survive in the dark. Right? Like, it's the ignoring of the shame
Speaker:that makes it grow and anchor. But those moments of just kind of
Speaker:like, hey, this is actually okay. Like, I'm doing the best I can, will move
Speaker:the dial so much further than, why the fuck can I do this? And
Speaker:that's what I see pretty universally. Yeah.
Speaker:Well, it comes from a lifetime of being in school
Speaker:that's designed for neurotypicals, and then having teachers
Speaker:assign work in a way that works for neurotypicals, and then it doesn't work
Speaker:for you, and so you're unable to do it the way they want you to
Speaker:do it. And then they look at you like, what's wrong with you? Why can't
Speaker:you do it this way? If you were able to
Speaker:design the ideal team to support one of your
Speaker:clients who has ADHD, what kind of positions would you want to
Speaker:fill? So, like, if I were designing your business
Speaker:and then implanting people inside of your business to support you. Yeah.
Speaker:If you wanted to create a whole team that would support
Speaker:me best, to be able to do all the things that I need to be
Speaker:doing and be happy about it and get out of those moments of self
Speaker:judgment, what kinds of roles would you want me. To hire for
Speaker:an assistant? Would be very high on the list, because
Speaker:I know for myself, when I got an assistant, it was
Speaker:literally a game changer, not just in my business, but my personal life. Probably one
Speaker:of the first hires. I would recommend anybody, but especially somebody who's
Speaker:ADHD. Having somebody that you can
Speaker:offload things to that you're just not going to
Speaker:do, you're not going to start, it's never going to get done.
Speaker:Whether that's asking them to help you find a house
Speaker:cleaner or anything like that. These are all things
Speaker:that are bogging the memory down and the
Speaker:executive function down, because it becomes this list of 30 kajillion things you
Speaker:have to do. And that list blends between work and personal.
Speaker:So using an assistant for both sides is
Speaker:super fucking helpful. It really moves the dial in a significant
Speaker:way. I think the next space that I would put somebody in
Speaker:would be from a tech perspective. So like a tech
Speaker:VA or somebody that can do the things in the systems,
Speaker:because I see fairly commonly getting
Speaker:hung on one or two things and then can't get it done,
Speaker:can't get the project done, and then it gets abandoned. And
Speaker:that's tough, right? Because you've put a lot of energy and effort into it.
Speaker:Can I say a therapist too? Are we allowed to say that? Yeah. Jeez. We're
Speaker:pro therapy on this podcast. Absolutely. Here. Therapy changed my fucking
Speaker:life. Like, let's do therapy. So I think therapy helps too
Speaker:significantly and interesting. I think most of my clients are in therapy now that I
Speaker:think about it. And my. Yeah, I'm in therapy. Yes, I have therapy this
Speaker:afternoon. I love my therapist. I've been with her for like five years. So,
Speaker:yeah, therapy is incredibly helpful because it gives you somebody to
Speaker:help you move through those moments of, like
Speaker:we've mentioned the judgment and the self doubt and those things. Ideally, somebody
Speaker:who has some insights into the neurodivergence or ADHD or something like
Speaker:that would be optimal in a therapist. And then
Speaker:I didn't lead with the Ops person, but I would say an Ops person as
Speaker:well. That tends to come at a point where you are a
Speaker:little bit bigger, because as a solopreneur, you can typically
Speaker:handle your ops yourself. Maybe not the most efficient at
Speaker:it. We were talking about earlier on the show,
Speaker:ADHD, how you'll set up your own business and then have all these
Speaker:workarounds and never realize, like, those moments can get
Speaker:eliminated with an op support. I had a client who had nine email
Speaker:addresses one time when they first came to me, nine email
Speaker:addresses on Microsoft Exchange. Google,
Speaker:like all over the place. It was because they didn't
Speaker:know. It's honestly because they weren't in Google. But if they were in
Speaker:Google workspace, they could have created aliases and then just
Speaker:had different aliases for the different emails. So that was a hell of a project
Speaker:and migrating all of that over and fixing it and cleaning it up and shutting
Speaker:them down anyway. So somebody for ops to help you kind
Speaker:of forward engineer your life in a
Speaker:sense. Because an observation I've had with my ADHD client base
Speaker:is like, the path of least resistance is typically the one that gets
Speaker:picked, which is cool, we're built like that. But the challenge with a
Speaker:path of least resistance is it doesn't always take into consideration the
Speaker:tomorrows and the tomorrows and the tomorrows and the tomorrows, because we're
Speaker:just kind of solutioning for what's happening right now. And it can
Speaker:be challenging to course correct that if you get an ops person in too
Speaker:late. And then I think it also depends on the industry
Speaker:that you're in. Right. So I have a ton of marketing creative clients, so I
Speaker:actually have a whole suite of marketing people that you can plug into. So maybe
Speaker:not necessarily having them on your immediate staff, but at least having a
Speaker:network that you can tap into when you need those things and not waiting
Speaker:until you're so busy that you don't have time to find somebody, like
Speaker:proactively cultivate and curate that network.
Speaker:I think those would be the four main
Speaker:goal role spaces that specifically for ADHD
Speaker:people are the most helpful. I think for me, I also, when
Speaker:I become rich and famous, I want to hire my own adult nanny.
Speaker:McPhee comes to my house, wakes me up at 06:00
Speaker:a.m. Hands me breakfast and a cup of coffee,
Speaker:drags me out of bed, shoves me into my car to go to the gym.
Speaker:While I'm at the gym, she's prepping my lunch and shit for the day. I
Speaker:come home and she makes me sit down and meditate and then
Speaker:picks out an outfit for me for the day and does a lot of the
Speaker:thinking and pushes me through those executive dysfunction
Speaker:moments where I'm like, oh, I could choose to not do this right now. I
Speaker:would love to have a stern, retired older woman just
Speaker:kind of run my mornings. All right, so ADHD, a fifth one with a
Speaker:nanny McPhee in there.
Speaker:It's amazing.
Speaker:What's the hardest part about working with someone who runs
Speaker:their business and has ADHD.
Speaker:Sometimes knowing which buttons to push and where and
Speaker:when because it's not consistent. So what could
Speaker:move or motivate somebody last week
Speaker:could change this week. And that's frankly, I
Speaker:think part of the reason why I end up being the translator with my team,
Speaker:because they're like, well, we did this last week, why aren't they responding this week?
Speaker:And I'm like, life circumstances, lack of
Speaker:sleep, didn't go to the gym. Like, who knows what it is that's impacted things.
Speaker:So I think it's potentially the feel
Speaker:sometimes of like a moving target of
Speaker:how do we approach this? And that changes all the time.
Speaker:Personally, on a personal level, I don't find that to be super
Speaker:challenging because I like being creative and innovative
Speaker:and having my own skills challenged. And I just look at
Speaker:it more as like, how do I make this work this time? It's just a
Speaker:solutioning for me rather than a fuck this person. They're not
Speaker:doing what they said they were going to do. That doesn't really enter the
Speaker:equation for me. But I've seen other obms and
Speaker:other people that are in ops and in
Speaker:admin spaces just have deep levels of frustration
Speaker:with my autistic client, one of my other ADHD
Speaker:clients. There's just been these moments where their support
Speaker:staff has been like, I don't even know how to navigate
Speaker:this. And for me it's more of a, like, what do we need to
Speaker:change? How do we need to alter our messaging and
Speaker:our approach to get the result we're going for? And
Speaker:I don't know if that's a result of the brain injury or if it's just
Speaker:how I operate or what it is, but that is the
Speaker:key differential for us in being able to
Speaker:navigate that challenge. Right? I love that you
Speaker:said that. So many times when someone starts working with me, especially if
Speaker:they've already started the business and they're working on scaling it, they have a
Speaker:certain level of PTSD from bringing people into their business and having it not
Speaker:work out because the person was so frustrated with them.
Speaker:And it's really frightening when it kind of
Speaker:recreates that whole paradigm from being in school that there's something wrong with
Speaker:you, right? And not just that you work differently. I
Speaker:mean, I will certainly acknowledge that there is a certain level in my
Speaker:client base of having to pay for the sins of ghost past
Speaker:of other service providers, which is part of the reason why
Speaker:I work. To be like, the way that I onboard is the
Speaker:same for everybody, but how I manage that
Speaker:client through the onboarding is always different, and so
Speaker:I work to be really intentional, especially at first,
Speaker:as we build trust and communication. And you get to let go of some of
Speaker:that PTSD and see, like, oh, hey, this isn't actually how this team
Speaker:works. It still takes, like, a good probably three
Speaker:months to get to that place where my client base is
Speaker:like, oh, you actually mean what you say, and this is
Speaker:how you show up for us. And it's amazing. And I don't feel
Speaker:like I'm being judged or anybody's
Speaker:frustrated, like you said with me, or that I'm a burden. I think
Speaker:that's also another one. Like, they don't feel like they're a burden. And that's, like,
Speaker:the biggest thing for me that I try to eliminate. Like I said, that's why
Speaker:we just pivot. We can work on different stuff. It doesn't have to be the
Speaker:thing that we're focused on right now. So I also know that that's
Speaker:why most of my client base has these moments of panics where they're like,
Speaker:you're not leaving, right? You're not shutting down. Or I think there was one time
Speaker:even, I messaged you on something, and you're like, you're not firing me, right?
Speaker:We're good, right? And I'm like, well,
Speaker:as you're describing this, there is kind of this feeling of being that
Speaker:shoemaker who comes downstairs in the morning and sees all these shoes that were
Speaker:made by invisible elves. And you're like, oh, my God, I
Speaker:love that. These elves come all the time to my house, and there's this
Speaker:fear that you'll wake up one morning and they'll be gone and they haven't done
Speaker:the things, and they don't like you anymore. Yeah,
Speaker:I know. And the other thing that's interesting to me with ADHD clients is the
Speaker:communication styles are always a little bit different. Right. Some might need a little bit
Speaker:more direct, some might need a little bit more loving. Some might need a little
Speaker:bit more foot up the ass, so to speak. It just depends
Speaker:on the person. And I don't know, I just think that
Speaker:my job is to flex and do what I can do to the extent of
Speaker:my limitations and not just get so fixated on what I think should happen.
Speaker:And that's just been my formula with all of my clients, and it seems to
Speaker:work pretty well. Well. And all those things that you just named,
Speaker:it's rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria at the root of it. And so whatever
Speaker:triggers your RSD is completely different. So I love that you
Speaker:show up in different ways for your clients. And I say that from
Speaker:experience, saying that I really appreciate it. For me. So if someone wanted
Speaker:to get in touch and hire you, which I highly recommend people do,
Speaker:how do you suggest they get in touch with you? You can find me on
Speaker:socials, LinkedIn, Heather Lawson Bradfield. You can find me on
Speaker:Instagram. Same thing. Heather Lawson Bradfield super creative with my
Speaker:branding. You can find my website, which is
Speaker:theclovercollective Co. Clover is my company. All right, well, we're
Speaker:going to link all the socials and your website in the show
Speaker:notes. Heather, thank you so much for doing this with me today. And thank you
Speaker:for being our inaugural guest. Yes, thank you for having me and
Speaker:letting me talk about my favorite thing, which is my business. So
Speaker:you're the best.
