This is a Global Player original podcast. Hello and welcome to You're Wrong About ADHD. I'm Sam Pissis. And I'm Katie Brett.
Now earlier in the series we talked about ADHD in the workplace and tips for how to manage ADHD in a sort of traditional office environment. Do go back and listen to that if you haven't had a chance to. But we also know that there are so many creative types of people with ADHD who seem to be creative and seem to have this drive to work outside the normal office environment and to be entrepreneurs and to work different hours and to set their own agenda. They all seem to be a really ADHD thing, that creativity and that sort of idea of bursting with different options.
Yeah, there are two things going on here out there. There's firstly the rejection of the workplace, which I totally get. But, you know, that really, really grey corporate environment. Well, neither of us went to Wales.
No, no, but I've been around it. And I've seen it. And I, in the early days of my working life, when I was temping, I would find myself suddenly in very corporate spaces thinking, well, this just makes me feel itchy and bored. And I want to start shouting and hitting the fire button on the wall in order to create some kind of diversion or chaos.
But, you know, that turning your back on that and saying, that's not for me. That's the first thing that happens. But also, yeah, you're right. Quite clearly, you see it so much on social media.
Quite clearly, us ADHDers have bright ideas and we're sparky. And the ideas come thick and fast and actually sometimes they come too thick and fast. And the thing that really fascinates me is how you then turn that into a business. Because, for me, the fear of what running a business means is the thing that will put me off.
So I'm just in awe of people who actually do it. I totally agree. It's, you know, I've got all these great ideas. But how do you actually channel that into a business or being an entrepreneur or being a manager of other people?
I spoke to a bloke last week. You had ADHD and he was saying that he set up a number of businesses. And he said he thinks he probably wouldn't have worked in the same way, probably wouldn't have taken those risks if he didn't have ADHD. It's almost his impulsivity was a driving force, which I thought was fascinating.
Because I can totally see that, can't you? The creativity of ADHD plus the impulsivity. But again, I would get to a place where, well, I'm raring to go, but, hang on a minute, there's too many options. Which path do I go down?
Hang on a minute, I've got to manage my own finances, isn't it? Oh, no, it's too much. Yes, yes, exactly. So how do these people who are creative and do have an idea turn it into a reality without their ADHD getting in the way?
Well, to help answer that question, I can speak to Amanda Perry, the business coach, in just a moment. Amanda, thank you so much for joining us today. It's lovely to meet you. Lovely to meet you too.
So thank you so much for inviting me on. Can I start, first of all, I have a question. Because I completely understand why ADHDers make great entrepreneurs. And also why they probably end up being entrepreneurs, because they kind of rejected the traditional workplace.
But the thing that occurs to me is the fear of the admin. The thing that's always put me off ever starting a business is the amount of work involved in knowing how much homework I would have, ultimately. How do you even begin to take those first steps of being an entrepreneur? Yeah, it's such a good point.
I think I shared a post this week saying, ADHD makes us natural entrepreneurs, but we're actually really, really bad at business, like the business of business. So, yeah, as you say, I mean, so many people find themselves in a position where they're, whether they'd call themselves an entrepreneur, but they certainly have a business, they're responsible for their own income. And that can happen. It's almost never been easier to start a business, but never been harder to kind of run one or grow one.
So, you know, maybe you don't enjoy your office job because of the open plan office and the politics and the stupid arbitrary rules and all that kind of thing. So you decide to go on your own and you get a client and then you get another client. And before you know it, you kind of have a business, but it wasn't necessarily an intentional thing, you know. And then you realize all of the admin that's involved in it.
It's not necessarily, I want to start a business. I'm going to research, sign a business. And, oh, OK, so I need to save up the tax and I need to make sure that, because actually, if we did it that way, we probably wouldn't start. I was going to say, just you saying that, I was going to go, what, I'm not doing that.
So how do you overcome that? I think that you, I honestly think there's an element of just jumping in first, you know, we have to use our creative spark. We have to use our creative juices, our superpower, for want of a more controversial word. It's impulsivity, actually.
That's using our impulsivity to our advantage, isn't it? Yeah, it is. So all of the things that make us excellent entrepreneurs are the things that I believe you should grab with both hands. You know, if we did know about the other stuff, the things that do tend to be our weaknesses, none of us would ever start businesses.
And then where would the world be? You know, we'd have no mold breakers, no Steve Jobs, no people that were kind of real innovators. So I do think we have to jump in deep first, but we have to really, really quickly understand the areas that we need support in. And that's not always easy in the beginning.
People think, you know, I can't afford an accountant or, you know, whoever else to support me. But there's ways of doing it. You know, there's so many accessible ways now, even just knowing what your liabilities are, the legal kind of implications of, you know, the tax office is fine if you want to make a payment plan for a bit. But if that keeps happening, it's going to be a mark against your name.
But, you know, you just you just don't need in business. So understanding that as soon as possible, I'm getting the support to help you to mitigate those weaknesses, because we can't use our superpowers and these gifts that we have if we don't take care of the weaknesses. They're the things that are going to drag us down ultimately. So are you saying we need to build a small team?
Is it about specific individuals at the beginning? You know, you mentioned an accountant. Is it a kind of PA that you're looking for as well? Somebody who will essentially body double with you and make sure that you're doing that necessary paperwork?
Yeah, I think PA, VA are really useful. I think that when it comes to teams, there's a whole other thing of, you know, working with people can actually be really difficult for neurodivergent people. It really triggers demand avoidance. There's a lot of communication issues.
People have a problem, or people I work with, and I'm generalizing here, but have a problem with the communication part of delegation. It's really difficult. And also, ADHD is generally, it's just wicked to do it myself. I'll just do it myself.
I'll just do it myself. Because actually, actually, that comes from the exhaustion of having to explain what it is that you want a person to do. And sometimes it does feel quicker just to go, oh, I'll just do it myself, rather than taking 20 minutes to explain, rather than four hours to do it. But I think the explanation is exhausting.
Is it getting your thoughts in order? It really is. Yeah, it really is. There's a saying that's, go fast alone, go far together.
And I think that is such a neurotypical saying, because I'm like, I'll go fast alone, I'm all right, thank you. I'll do the first bit. You guys do that other bit. I'll just do the first bit.
That is definitely how I feel about any sort of work I've ever done, I think. Despite all that, everything you're saying, I'm thinking, well, that's fine. Maybe I've got an idea. Maybe I'm creative.
Maybe I've got something I want to do. But then it just all goes around and it becomes too much. And I get overwhelmed and I say, I don't know where to start. And it sounds like what you're saying is, and we've talked about this with smaller projects, you're almost saying, start small.
You know, we've talked about doing five minutes of work or doing five minutes of exercise and getting into it. It's almost like you're saying, take a first step, do a bit, rather than thinking of the big picture, do a little bit. And as you pull that thread, you'll suddenly find that everything starts to unravel. That's slightly the wrong metaphor.
But you know what I mean. You start to get going. Yeah, yeah. Bill, it's the momentum that we're looking for.
I had this discussion with someone just this week. ADHD has kind of fallen into two categories, I think. We either jump in and go for it and just make it happen, or we hide behind planning for a long time. So I speak to a lot of people who are like, I've got the plan and, you know, I've got my logo and I've got this and I know what I need to do.
It's just actually doing it. And we tend to want to have like one foot on the ground and one foot on the top of the mountain already. You know, we don't want to think about the steps in between. And I experience a lot of ADHD who see business as this thing that has to start on this date and look this way, rather than just a series of, I put some content out and I grew a bit of an audience.
And then I had some conversations with people and then I, you know, guested on a podcast or then I did some public speaking and someone asked if I could help them. And that kind of micro steps, because maybe it sounds a bit boring or maybe it sounds like it takes too long. But I've honestly spoken to people who wanted to start businesses for years. You know, in that time, they could have done these steps a hundred times over.
So I think that it's really easy for us to generalize ADHD people, isn't it? I think that's one of the things that grinds my gears a bit. And I really don't want to do that. But I do see these two general categories of jump off the cliff and learn how to fly all the way down and kind of sit at the top and read all the manuals and work it out.
But actually in a kind of hiding behind that kind of way, you know, that overplanning. Keep putting it on, keep putting it on, keep finding an excuse not to do it. How many people do you think end up running their own businesses because they can't work in the neurotypical workplace? Yeah, I mean, there must be a lot.
The stat is that 29% of entrepreneurs have ADHD, but then it's so hard to find actual figures because so many people aren't diagnosed. You know, there's also another stat saying that up to 85% of people with ADHD aren't diagnosed, don't know that they've got it. And they're just, you know, kind of blissfully unaware or not blissfully unaware. I think that there's a huge proportion.
I speak to a lot of people who ended up, they wouldn't call themselves entrepreneurs. They're not, you know, I had a dream, like I saw a problem that needed fixing. I've gone away and solved this problem. They're people who had to start earning some money in a different way because they couldn't cope with the BS of office life, of office politics, of being overlooked for opportunities because they don't conform to the standards and they've got to hit the exact metrics that they're meant to be hitting.
All of that stuff. The open offices, the food smells. Oh my God, the food smells. The light, the bright lights, the noise.
The distraction, the inflexible, you know, no, you must sit at your desk for eight hours a day and that's where you need to do your work when they could do a day's work in three hours at home, you know, it would be so much better. So yeah, there's a huge, I don't know the exact number, I don't know, I don't know how we would even find that out. But there's a huge amount of people who do go into it that way. And there are also a huge amount of people who are so naturally entrepreneurial and know that that's the route that they need to take.
You're a business coach and you work with founders and entrepreneurs. So say I had an idea, obviously I don't know what the idea is, but I came to you with an idea and I said, I've got a really good idea, I think it's a business, but there's so many things swirling in my head, I don't know where to start. What are the first few steps you'll take with me? So my approach is that I have been in business for 17 years, 13 of those are undiagnosed, and I've spent all of that time trying to do business in a neurotypical way.
I was trying to do what I thought I should do, keep the record, you know, do the spreadsheets, force myself to do the meetings, all of that kind of thing. And it ended up in bankruptcy, burnout, nervous breakdown, you know, the whole lot. That's not the way for us to do business. So when I work with someone, it's really about finding a way for them to run a business that operates around them.
So rather than controversially, rather than putting the customer first or the stakeholders first or the economy or the market first, it's about putting ourselves at the heart of it and being really, really honest. It's actually about acceptance, acceptance of that we have ADHD and that means certain things, that will mean certain things to you. It's hard when you're just starting out. I don't often work with people who are just starting.
It is hard when you just start out because there is an element of jumping in and kind of working it out. But certainly once there's, once you've got some traction, you've established what it is you're doing, worked out the bits that you like, the bits that you don't like, what works for you, what doesn't, then it's about reshaping it to work around you and your brain. And it sounds, I guess it sounds simple in a way, but it's actually not. We're so conditioned to strive after these business standards, which are neurotypical standards.
So for example, it might be, you say, in this market, whatever this idea is, this company could be seven days a week and we make loads and loads of money. But actually, hang on a minute, as someone who's neurodiverse, I can't be doing that, I don't want to do that. I'm going to put a limit on, or I'm going to employ someone else to do the other part of the business. It's sort of recognising where that works.
Exactly, exactly. And so I've got a really good friend who's got a very successful business. They've grown really, really rapidly. She has ADHD.
Her husband is neurotypical. They make an excellent team. And so it's almost like this perfect storm of they've got the team, they both have such complementary skills. And that has just worked so well.
But that is a lot of, it really is a perfect storm. There's quite, you know, not everyone has that dynamic with their partner and someone that they can have that amount of trusted. So very often you will find that people with ADHD do end up in online businesses or, you know, but business consultancy, that kind of thing, where they can work largely alone. They can work with people and bring people in and, you know, dip in and out with clients and stuff.
But certainly the people I work with generally work alone and have that autonomy for themselves and don't have that team that they can call on, really. Hey, there's a reason that we're radio presenters and we sound in the middle of the studio all on our own at two o'clock in the morning. I mean, there's a reason we do that. Soundproof, soundproof.
It's a great, great environment. Yeah. What is it about ADHD that gives us that ability to be such good entrepreneurs? Why are so many entrepreneurs having ADHD these days?
What is it? I mean, there's so many things, aren't there? We're innovative. We're massive risk takers.
You know, some of the things I do that I look back on, I think that was actually, even for me, that was a bit stupid. We are innovative, creative thinkers. We are excellent at masking. So even if we're not great at relationships, we can easily build rapport.
Very generally, we can easily build rapport with people. So we're very good at the kind of networking, people collecting piece of it. But yeah, along with that does come all the negatives. There's so many more negatives.
There's an excellent book, actually, called, it's on my bookshelf somewhere, called Rocket Fuel by Gino Wickman and Maxi Winters. And I read it just after my diagnosis. And it's about the magic kind of partnership of successful businesses. And he talks about all these businesses that have had this.
And he calls it the visionary and the integrator. And he even says in there that the visionary will often have ADHD-like traits, even if they're not ADHD. And they're the ones that set the vision and have these goals and have the ideas and innovate in a way that other people don't. But they need this integrator to make it happen.
And I think that is such a beautiful demonstration of how we can use our gifts, superpowers, whatever you want to call them, by having this other person, by recognising that we need this other person. There's an element of overcoming fear of this as well, isn't there? There's an element of saying, OK, I've got an idea. I really want to jump into it.
But hang on a minute, I'm going to do paperwork. And what if I lose my money? And there is quite a big piece of work to do in yourself of going, I've got to take that first step. And also, like we talked about before, we've grown up being told we're rubbish and that we can't.
And that also must hold ADHD back along the way and contribute to that sense of fear. I don't know. I see it the other way. I see so many entrepreneurs and I've seen it myself that we burn ourselves out through this prove mode.
We're just like, I'm going to show them. I don't know who. Maybe my teacher. Maybe my parents or whatever they said or my siblings.
I'm just going to prove it. And we really have to keep that in check because that can lead us to burnout. That is not a healthy thing. Yes, that is something I want to ask you about.
Because that must be at the other end of the scale. If you are somebody who has been brave enough to kick off a business, because of that hyperfocus that we tend to suffer from, there must be that risk of pouring too much of ourselves 20 hours into 24 every single day to make this work. Because everybody knows how much hard work a new business can be. How do you mitigate that?
It's really hard. I think it's a case of really understanding yourself and you can't do that until you've reached that. out of stage so i think when you first start a business depending on what the business is anyone is going to and you almost do need to hit that point where you think okay that was too much then we have the added thing of i don't know if you guys experience god mode but the kind of bit before that where you're just like yeah i'll take on another project like yeah i'm doing another one yeah i can do everything i can do anything and oh my god it feels amazing you're like this is it i think it might stay this time whenever i talk about this online people trying to tell me that i'm bipolar it's not adhd but it does feel quite manic doesn't it it's when i'm supposed to be painting the lounge and suddenly i've ripped up the floorboards upstairs again it's like a partner's blaring out the speaker i'm like i've taken my shirt off and the kid's coming i love it i love god mode but what i've come to recognize and what i try to tell other people is that that is the first sign of burnout so leveling off that god mode is like an investment in being able to not hit as hard a burnout because we just do too much and i say it with people on meds as well i'm on meds and it's a controversial subject but you know we are burnt out and we continue to take medication and we can do more work and then we crash and then we take a medication you know and it does become this cycle that we do have to you know we have to take responsibility don't we we have to see when burnout is coming and we also have to have a business that is built around us so that when burnout comes we know the toolkit we have to access you know we know the levers we can pull so we can just go and spend the day in bed or we know that we have our content scheduled or email scheduled what might those levers be i mean you know if you collapse in bed for a day and you've got a business run what happens then it depends what our business is doesn't it i mean any business or almost any business in this day and age uses the internet to some extent you know if you think let's say we're in bed for a week in burnout i mean nothing's more important than that is it ultimately the business does just stop nothing's more important than your health but it can't always stop i understand what you're saying there has to be a way for you to if i'm thinking about the people that i work with generally they would have clients that they'd be working with people that they would need to see meetings they'd need to go to content they would have to put out you know if it's an online business and having all of that stuff scheduled but i mean i'm i'm not a batch content creator i know it's a really hot topic in the in the community but having that stuff to hand so that you can keep it going which does sound stupid because for me if you're burnt out you're in there and it does stop you know the world does stop and you have to make it stop in your head because otherwise you you know a week's burnout or two-day burnout is going to be a week or two weeks do you know listening to what you've been saying it's really sort of provoked me into what i do in this situation and it sounds a bit like it's like the old story of you know dayless and icarus is i think about not flying too close to the sun it's what you're saying is harness that bit of your adhd that says go for it that says jump into it that says you know use that really creative part of your brain but in all this conversation and it's conversation that we have every week you still have to manage your adhd and you still need to just be cautious about getting too close to the sun yeah 100 i think one of the main things for me is is understanding helping people to understand that i'm sure you guys know about this i've heard about it but the interest novelty competition urgency you know our brains are driven by that and if we can accept that and we can understand you know that for me is at the heart of all our concerns about oh i just procrastinate all the time or you know trying to get like falling into demand avoidance trying to get our brains to do things that they don't want to do trying to like hitting this struggle in this battle with our brain the whole time if we can really boil it down to is this task that i'm trying to make myself do is it interesting me is it is it normal am i excited by it is there any element of competition or is it urgent because really if you think about it any job will at some point become urgent so everything gets done i i live in the last minute i can't do stuff out of the last minute and i'm okay with that now but so many people in business aren't that's what they beat themselves up about that's what you know they think i'm just i always leave stuff to the last minute or i procrastinate but when you boil it down then they're really just trying to get their brain to do something it's just not on board with doing at all Amanda it's been such a pleasure to talk to you this time next year sam we'll be millionaires thank you so much for coming on the podcast and we look forward to talking to you next time brilliant thank you so much what an interesting chat i mean so many things in there that she talked about that fired me up actually you know somebody who i am definitely one of those people who's always thought i'm too terrified ever to embark on this process there were a couple of things that really landed for me the first just get on and do it you know when she described the type of adhd who has had that brilliant idea and then just sort of overcount everything and spend the next five years making sure that the whole scaffolding is in place before they do it and she said they could run five businesses by the time they ever got started just do it and see where it takes you there's a fear element there isn't it because it's almost like moving your pencils around your desk just to create something to do because you're almost too frightened to take the leap that you need to yes but as she said don't be afraid use other people for those bits of that business that you're afraid of you know find good members of your team to do those things and delegate those things you know you're going to be rubbish at but the other thing that i really really loved was that thing she said about do not be constrained by neurotypical goals do not feel you have to run a business that fits into that corporate space it doesn't have to be monster friday it doesn't have to be bringing in all the money it doesn't have to be constantly chasing growth or income it can be a business that suits you and your needs be that family needs or your neurodiverse needs you know just being aware that there are different ways of doing things and being proud to do it and for example if you want to take monday and chusie off and walk the dog then you can great i love the idea of that and of course you know you and i both know that's exactly what we need we need that space to be able to do what we need to sometimes spend the whole day in bed watching a streaming service if that's what you want to do and just chill out and deal with the overwhelm that's everything from us for today we'll be back on wednesday with our bonus episode where amanda perry will join us again to talk about access to work government funding to help people to get back into work and it applies to you if you've got adhd so do make sure you join us for that and don't forget you can listen and subscribe to you're wrong about adhd on global player or wherever you get podcasts this is a global player original podcast