12 ways I stay in business as a disabled neurodivergent woman

You can change status quo. You can build the business the way that you want. As you're listening, please reflect back to yourself. What do you need?

What's not working? Where do you wanna shift something? Welcome to the Differently Aligned podcast for neurodivergent business owners. I'm Adina Levy.

I'm an autistic, ADHDer, business coach, speech therapist, professional educator, and multiple business owner. I support neurodivergent business owners to create businesses that are sustainable, enjoyable, impactful, profitable, and burnout free. This podcast is recorded on the Aboriginal lands of the Gadigal and Bidjigal people. I acknowledge the traditional owners, elders past and present, and I extend my respect to any First Nations people who are listening in.

Today I wanna share how I support myself as a disabled neurodivergent woman in business. Today is International Day for people with disability. That's the 3rd of December. Depends when you're listening, if that really is today for you.

It's the day I'm recording and the day I will hopefully get this podcast out to your ears. I've been reflecting a whole heap about how I've made my business work better and better for me every year, every month. And honestly, this year I've had a whole heap of spanners being thrown at me, not literal spanners, just real curve balls to use another metaphor. I've had a lot of physical stuff go on that is layered on top of the everyday challenges of being a human, being, a woman, being a woman in business, being a mother to young kids being a neurodivergent person and autistic A DHD.

And now this year I've had a, a lot of physical stuff going on that has, you know, it really made it very hard for me to show up consistently. Uh, I've had a lot of pain. I've had a lot of appointments. I've had a lot of limited capacity.

I've had some neck disc, arm issues, nerve pain, twisted ankle. That now means I can't go for my mental health walks. Like it's all happening. But today, I'm okay.

And I've been thinking, why am I okay? I even have quite a busy disrupted day and here are some of the things that I wanted to share with you about what is working for me in business. Now, I need you to know it's very personal. So what is working for me in the business I've built that's a good fit for me?

There are still improvements to make sure. I hope that by sharing these 12 tweaks or changes or shifts that I've made in my business, I really hope that it gives you some maybe permission to try something like that for yourself. If it sounds right for you, maybe it opens up your mind to possibility of something else that you can do. You can change status quo.

You can build the business the way that you want. I am not saying that everybody needs to build the business the way that I do. Absolutely not. And the way that I coach my clients and my members in the Neurodivergent Business Collective is so much about reflection.

So as you're listening, please reflect back to yourself. What do you need? What's not working? Where do you wanna shift something?

And if this sparks something for you, and if you decide to head towards one of these changes or something else, please let me know. At the end of this episode, I'm gonna share two ways that are very special and very impactful that you can continue working with me if you wanna take it off. Podcast, and one is very flexible and affordable. That is my Neurodivergent Business Collective, and I've got a special offer available till the 12th of December.

I also have a very, small group coaching program starting in January, running all the way until June. It's the differently aligned AI lab, and I already have one person signed up. I've got two others I'm in active conversations with, and there are only eight spots available. So this is very dynamic.

It changes quickly if you are interested in the AI lab, please get in touch as quick as possible. All the links are in the show notes and I will share a little more about these at the end. But if you're very impatient, click straight into the show notes and you'll find all the info you need. Okay.

I promised myself this would be brief. I also have my child to pick up shortly from school, so there is a hard stop. Here we go. I'm gonna share my 12 shifts that I've created in my business that seriously support me as a disabled neurodivergent woman in business Number one, I've built multiple revenue streams that are not tied to my hours and showing up live.

I have a membership. I have online courses and webinars. I now have AI chatbots that sell on their own. These are customized software things I've created.

I've got. PDF workbooks. I've got resources lots of different ways that people are accessing my support in different cadences. Some is ongoing payments, some is one off that is, uh, quite passive.

So it happens, you know, sometimes when I'm sleeping, which is really lovely in my past life as a speech therapist where, you know, you think, what does a speech therapist do and maybe what many of you do in your service-based businesses is you swap time for money. I divorced that. And it doesn't mean I don't do it at all. I do in my limited spots with one-on-one and my group coaching, to do a speech or a training, a few bits that I do pop up live for the Neurodivergent Business Collective.

But overwhelmingly, my time and money are not a direct link, and that has been so massive. That is very much why this is point number one, the second way that I have shifted my business to fit my life better. Is I reduced my one-on-one client hours significantly, and building multiple revenue streams was a part of that. Absolutely.

I didn't do it overnight. It's been, you know, a gradual shift over years. But as I've increased my online and more flexible supports, I have reduced client hours. And actually aside part of this is that I've increased what I charge.

And it reflects the value that I bring to people. And it also reflects the fact that I simply cannot and will not see clients 20 hours a week. It does lead me to burnout. It's not a possibility.

And I do my best work when I do it, you know, more sparsely. So people who see me one-on-one, they actually get, this best version of me. The third point is that I focus my energy on work that I love. I would say 90% of the work I do, like the time that I spend working is on things that interest me, and that's a big part of being a business owner and, you know, deciding that I can take things in the direction that I choose.

It is also why I have two businesses, because I love both the neurodiversity affirming world and changing things for the kids that I support in play, learn, chat, and I really love this business world and supporting neurodivergent business owners. So my flexible way of making that work is to have the two businesses exist. It doesn't always work for me. Sometimes I am overwhelmed and I sometimes do overlap the demands, but more and more I'm pacing that.

Much more cleverly. Number four, I use AI as a thinking partner to help me process ideas, make decisions, plan my next steps, learn faster. Analyze, sift through big things I use AI extensively as an executive assistant, a thought partner, just so, so many features and functions. I might actually do another episode where I just go through, all the ways I've used AI today.

That could be interesting 'cause now in many ways it's so embedded in my life. I don't always realize all the ways that I do use it. I've adjusted my schedule in two big ways that I'm gonna share with you. Point five is that I don't have any meetings before 11:00 AM like never, never, never.

99% of the time. And if I have broken that rule, probably it's because somebody is paying me very, very well to do a speech or a training early on in the day, and I've gone well, okay. In this case, it's worth it. My energy, I'm a late sleeper.

It's hard for me to fall asleep. I wake up very slowly. It's just my brain is not really on before 11:00 AM so that's something I've learned and I've shifted towards that over time. I also schedule my commitments, my launches, whatever's going on in my business, I schedule it around my cycle As much as possible.

So I have a pretty predictable 28 day cycle where there is about four days where I experience PMDD, and it's. Debilitating. Identifying that knowing it and getting treatment for it was literally one of the most impactful things I've done in my recent years. All I can say on that is if you struggle with huge fluctuations.

Or mental health or anything, you know, whether it's fluctuating or it's always hard, please go chat to your gp, go find a doctor who understands and listens. That was life changing for me, so now I know I have about four days a month where I'm now better than I was. I am not in absolute distraught, unstoppable rage. I am, I'm okay actually.

Okay-Ish. But I'm still very different. Like my brain, my attention, my energy, my mood is still very, very different to all the other days in the month. So I schedule it in my calendar months in advance.

I can see when am I likely to be feeling quite low, and I add a few days of buffer around that. And I try really hard not to schedule big important energetic show up things on those days. Number seven. I've created the AI content Forest to repurpose all of my content and to house all of my transcripts from my podcasts, my trainings, my webinars, my courses, my writings, all of that, and I've been building it.

You may have heard me share about it in the AI for Content Creation Free webinar, which by the way, is actually still available to watch until the 12th of December. I'm gonna pop the link in the show notes so you can go and watch it if you're interested. You can also listen on this podcast until that date. The audio version is on there, but it's quite a visual one, so go and watch it if you are interested in seeing more about how I use and how I recommend you use AI to reformulate your own ideas and to get your own voice and perspective into your content and getting AI to help you with that.

So the content forest is still in progress. I'm still building it. I have many more like improvements, that I'm planning and thinking, and I would say it's maybe only 30% built from where I can imagine it will get to. Even at 30% built, it is so efficient for me to create new content.

And it's so exciting. So literally the outline for this, I got my AI tool to help drag the points that I'm telling you now out of my brain. I trained it how to drag these points out of my brain. 'cause these are new ideas I'm sharing.

And it then put them into an order that made sense. We did a bit of back and forth. It then did basically the outline that makes sense for this. So it's all from my ideas, but with the short time I have today and the energy I have today, there is no way that I would've been able to record this podcast for you if I didn't have that AI help.

So anyway, it's a massive project for me and it's something I am sharing more and more with other folks, , especially in my differently aligned AI lab. I'll be teaching. And directing and helping the members to actually create your own system in the way that you need addressing your friction points. And I will be co-creating that with you.

It's something I'm like so excited about, it just multiplies your impact without losing your voice. Okay? This is not about that. Move on Adina 0.

8. You can hear my excitement. The eighth way that I support myself as a disabled neurodivergent woman in business. I work from home.

I don't have a commute. I don't have the socializing of the office or the uncontrollables of the office. This works greatly for me and I've also really invested in making my homework environment as comfortable. And productive as I possibly can.

I've got a really comfy chair that adjusts in all ways and holds my body up. 'cause my body doesn't really hold my body up. I've got, you know, really good tech that I've invested in like a great screen, all kinds of things. So again, that's, if you wanna know more, let me know.

I can do a whole other episode about that. Uh, but that just makes everyday more productive. And that said, some days I work from the couch when my body needs it. Honestly, today I've been on the couch 90% of the time.

My body needed it and that's okay. Number nine. I use Notion as my ops system and my brain and my business, everything everything lives in there and it's something I've used a little bit for years and very intensely in the last few months and it is phenomenal, especially with notion ai. It's not perfect, but it is incredible.

And again, it's something I'm very keen to share more, with my Neurodivergent Business Collective members, as well as my differently aligned AI lab members. we will co-create what you need. Probably in notion if they're open to it, and if somebody really doesn't wanna do a notion, we can actually co-create in whatever systems you already use anyway. But anyway, I'm just gonna say notion is awesome.

I wanted to be an affiliate. They're not accepting new affiliates, so I don't get any kickbacks. But please go check it out. It's awesome.

Number 10, I let AI handle the emotional labor of writing hard emails and processing long chunks of information, and that's just phenomenal. So think about things like chasing up. Invoices, like I've shared a template recently to help you with that. But you know, any kind of tricky situation, maybe there's been a misunderstanding with a client and you need to iron it out, getting AI to be, your helper in how to word it and how to understand or interpret the other person's emails.

Very, very useful. Number 11, I've invested a lot of time automating fiddly tasks. Everything really across my whole business, and sometimes I don't even really think about them because they're so automated and smooth. So I have to think hard.

What is going well, what is automated? Everything from somebody makes a purchase and they get the welcome email and they get the invoice, and my system tags them in the correct way to. Having a form for podcast guest pitches. So if somebody is interested in being on one of my podcasts or a Neurodivergent Business Collective guest, then they can fill out a form and that form, we're actually just rebuilding it right now in notion that form you know, goes into the database that is the same as where I track.

The progress have I accepted someone? Have they been invited? You know, what's the topic what are all the subtask that relate to it? Even things like document creation and follow up tasks that relate to moving this person through.

So let's say I invite somebody to be a guest in my Neurodivergent Business Collective, there's a document that gets created that is like the outline of the questions I'm going to ask them. And instead of finding the document template and copying and dragging it into a folder, as soon as somebody is booked in as a future guest. That folder with their date and their name is created and their particular document is created, like the copy from the template. And it includes any details they put in, in the booking calendar, all sorts of things.

It's so awesome and every time that runs I'm like, ah, that saved me so many fiddly steps. Yes, it takes a while to build these things. And yes, it is. Always worth it.

Honestly, always worthwhile. Even when they break, it's still worthwhile. It still has saved time. When you go and fix it, you've still saved a lot of time.

I'm so passionate about helping other business owners streamline in these ways, so, gosh, if I can help you, please let me know. The 12th, massive help is that, especially this year. I've had virtual assistants for years right now, this year I've got an incredible va. We've been working together for a few months.

We understand each other's like need for flexibility and fluctuating capacity and our skills and our challenges. And, it's awesome. It's really amazing for me to finally not try and do it all myself, even though I'm still doing a lot myself. It's just a trap that I know I fall into, but, basically find somebody who can help you get AI to help you a lot and find a human who can help you too.

So those are the 12 main ways that my business is working better for me these days than ever before. And honoring my capacity and my needs and my physical challenges, my attention challenges, all of that. I've built a business and I'm grateful that you're here listening because I've built a business that allows me to talk and share on things that I'm really interested in, and I get to help others around that too. So thank you.

Thank you for being part of it. And if you would like more info, if you'd like to get more support, check out the Neurodivergent Business Collective. I've got core membership open all the time, which gives you access to AI tools, resources. Videos, trainings, templates, just so, so much.

And it's 20% off if you join, anytime until the 12th of December. Go to the page anyway whenever you're, listening. And you'll see what's going on there. And if you are listening before January 20, 26 my Differently Aligned aI Lab is open as of this moment, I have.

Seven spots definitely open, but probably five spots open. Please get in touch. All the details are in the show notes and I'd love to chat if you're wondering if that is right for you. If that's the next step in your business that you need to really level up and get more streamlined and focused and get that AI help and that system's help, please, I'd love to play in your business with you.

It's my joy. And honestly, if this has sparked anything for you, please let me know and I can help you keep accountable to making the changes that you need. You can get in touch. All the infos in the show notes Thank you so, so much for listening.

Connect with me on Instagram. I am @differently.Aligned. Have an awesome day.