26 | Is It ADHD Or Just Modern Life? What To Do When Today’s Environment Is Frying Our Focus

Speaker A: ADD doesn't mean you're bad at, uh, business for sure. Not it often means you're wired for creativity, for innovation, for problem solving. But you need systems to carry the follow through. Some of the biggest business brains are ADHDers. Are you sitting in front of a pile full of tasks for your business, family, household and everything else to do and long for that to go away? The trick is creating passive income. Of course there's some work behind the passive part, but working 20% compared to 120 completely turned around how I enjoy life today. Great to have you here. Are you ready to move the needle? Work less and earn more. Grab your latest craft project and your favorite drink. Let's stitch together purpose, profit and peace to create the life we've long been wanting. Welcome back. Where we talk about a calmer, more aligned way of building online, Today's episode is for you. If your brain feels scattered, like it has 15 ideas at once, or 88 browser tabs open and suddenly nothing, just blank, do you ever feel like your brain is full and empty at the same time? Or go from a hundred ideas to like zero accessing them? Or you've maybe thought, I know this, why can't I retrieve that information? I'm pretty sure you said yes to most of those, if not all of them. If you've ever been mid sentence and lost the word you were searching for and then forgot what you were saying because of your focus to find that one word, I definitely hear you. And if you've noticed that you used to think fast and speak fast and initiate fast and don't anymore, do you sometimes miss your own speed? That might resonate more with people in a little bit later stage of life. With menopause and ADHD that overlap now, things do feel slower, foggier, harder to access. But don't worry, we have a club for that. And if you've ever wondered whether ADD or Today they call everything adhd, how it plays a role in hard business can feel sometimes because of it. We're going there today, but not in a clinical way, not in a what's, uh, wrong with you way, because there's nothing but in a, uh, this is how some of our brains are wired way. Because once I understood my wiring, everything changed. Not just when my brain suddenly worked differently and more scattered, but because I stopped fighting it. So let's look at how learning that I had ADHD actually changed everything. Some people know it their whole life. I found out when I was around 50, my son was dealing with it and then I figured out I better check myself because I have these same symptoms. And for a long, long time, I really didn't like labels. I resisted them, including the ADHD label. I didn't want to put people in a box and I didn't want to be in a box myself. I didn't want an excuse and I didn't want to believe something might put a limit to me or to other people. But when I finally learned that I have adhd, something unexpected happened and I felt relief. I didn't suddenly see myself as different, but because I finally understood why certain things had always been harder. Why my mind jumps quickly, why ideas come vast, why implementation can stall or follow through takes so much effort, uh, why mental overload shuts everything down. Not to mention having concentration issues or not be able to recall things when on the spot. And not having my notes in front of me to help me remember. My ex boss didn't understand that at all. But then again, he's not a woman and he's not dealing with the same hormone changes and brain fog that I was dealing with. I do not see ADD as a label anymore. I see it as a type of wiring. And wiring isn't good or bad, it just requires the right environment. So once I stopped expecting myself to operate like someone with a completely different brain or forcing it, I could finally start working in a way that worked for me. So if we take this and we look at the reality of a uh, busy ADD brain in business. When you are an entrepreneur, you have your own business. Most of us agree that there is truth in that running an online business is mentally demanding. Even running a normal job is mentally demanding. But when you're an entrepreneur or you have a business, you're thinking about many aspects which you may not think about or what I didn't think about when I was working because my position and my job uh, description was set. You are expected to do everything. You're to plan, to remember, to be able to prioritize. You have to make decisions like decision fatigue, big time to execute things and stay consistent all ah without a boss or structure unless you put it up yourself or external deadlines. For an add brain that can feel pretty overwhelming. I actually work with plus minus 88 different browsers. Browser tabs open and they're grouped by color, sorted by projects and sometimes I even have multiple pages from the same site open at once all tucked away behind those tabs which I close so I don't see them if I'm not using them currently. And that's not chaos for me, that's how I think. Maybe that's the same for you. So I have a quick access to them and I don't have to remember where to find them or where to find the link. It's organized and there are rules. It gets closed if it's not important or saved for later in, uh, a later or to do later tab. But if I don't manage that intentionally, it turns into overload. And then a freeze brain stops rolling. Words disappear, motivation drops and frustration rises. I see hundreds of sticker notes slowly rotating in the air. Of all the thoughts I'm having. This is where many people think, what's wrong with me? But the problem isn't our intelligence. It's this cognitive load. ADD brains don't need more pressure. They need support structures creating systems. And those are gold. So what actually helps? Being practical. Um, this is where things really changed for me and it helped. Making these structures for me. One of the biggest breakthroughs. I stopped relying on my brain to remember things. I could immediately pray that I would remember that great idea. And then if I don't write something down immediately, it's gone. Not because it wasn't important, but because it got lost in all that traffic. So now I use brain dump systems. A voice to text that goes to my Trello boards or Meister task boards. They're widgets where I can speak my ideas the moment they appear. I literally talk ideas into my phone. They land on an organized later card. Then when my brain has capacity, I review them, prioritize them, and move them to where they belong. This removes the pressure of don't forget this, Veronica. And um, that alone frees up so much mental energy. Another thing that changed everything is I learned that showing up, uh, is the first win, especially on low energy days. And that's not just once in a while. That can happen a lot. If systems are in place, you really don't need motivation. You just need to start, open the system, show up, follow the next step. Momentum comes after the action, not before. Speech to text, automation, reminders, workflows. These aren't crutches, they are my supports. And support systems are what allow ADD brains to shine. Remember, ADHD brings so many strengths with it too. So let's talk a little bit about understanding our natural strengths. An aha moment for me was learning about conative strengths, how we naturally take action. I took the Colby index, it's called and discovered what my instinctive actions are. I am a so called 4385 and that eight in there, that's under the quick start category. It explains so much. That's the only number I actually remember what it's about. I instigate, I initiate, I move fast on ideas that used to irritate co workers. For them, I was too quick, too impatient, too many ideas. Have you ever tried to shrink your speed to make others comfortable? It really takes extra energy to do that. It's harder than just being quiet now. It's one of my greatest strengths. In the right environment, of course, business finally became a place where I could use that instinct instead of suppressing it. And the lesson is we do best when we build with our wiring, not against it. Add doesn't mean you're bad at uh, business for sure not it often means you're wired for creativity, for innovation, for problem solving. But you need systems to carry the follow through. Some of the biggest business brains are ADHDers. I'm sure you've heard of Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin group, like Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Records, um, he even has dyslexia, also with adhd. And he gives it credit for being creative and taking risks. And most of us in the world know Ikea, which is actually from Sweden, which is where my parents are from. And Yngval Kamprad is the man who started this back a hundred years ago. Now almost soon, he's the founder of ikea. Then we have Will Smith, some impulsivity probably in there, actor and producer. Attention, challenges and hyper focus. He used to talk about, or does talk about Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time, and swimming. And Justin Timberlake has spoken about living with ADHD and even ocd. Many, many successful people with ADHD report strengths like high creativity and risk tolerance, um, big picture thinking. Hyper focus is well known and energy and drive. ADHD doesn't prevent success. It requires learning how to manage structure and focus. So why the right online business model matters. This is where everything pretty much comes together. A business that relies on perfect memory, constant urgency, daily pressure, non stop output will exhaust an ADHD brain. But a business with automation and systems and structure, repeatable systems and support, where creativity and big picture thinking are needed, can actually become grounding. In my case, building an online business with a setup, uh, system to plug into and automation at its core meant I didn't have to remember everything. I didn't have to do everything every single day. And progress didn't stop when my energy dipped. I knew where to go to find the information I needed. If I didn't remember it, that created Something unexpected. Mental safety, really. I actually clearly felt it and saw it, and I never really thought of that word before, but I have it now and it feels great. And when your brain feels safe, focus improves, consistency becomes possible. And feeling joy replaces a, uh, feeling of dread. Creativity returns when you have mental space for it. I see it in the things I do today compared to when I was employed by an organization with very little wiggle room. So to wrap up, if you've ever felt frustrated with your focus or you've ever wondered why consistency feels harder for you, if your brain feels busy, scattered, overloaded, do hear me. You are not broken. God doesn't make mistakes. He wired everyone a little bit differently. And when you build a business that supports that wiring, instead of fighting it, everything changes. Not overnight, but, uh, steadily. And when you know that and adjust to that, then you have something sustainable. When I first started, what I wanted wasn't necessarily only success, although earning a certain amount was definitely on my radar. But what I found was profoundly more important. Relief options, a way to breathe, to live. I wanted to know that if my energy level did dipped, if life shifted, if my brain had a hard week, everything wouldn't fall apart. I wouldn't risk getting fired. Building this kind of business gave me that. And over time, it gave me freedom I didn't even know to hope for yet. If you're listening to this and you're wishing for something similar, more margin, more calm, more choice. I'll be sharing more of how I built my online business in upcoming episodes. I don't do hype and I don't like the word hustle, so I do it differently. Just real life, real systems and real growth in a life first way. So until next time, be kind to your brain, be kind to yourself. Build with it, not against it. And trust that something steady steps really do add up because they do have a fantastic week.