Navigating ADHD as a Business Owner | My Journey and Tips

In this candid video, Anastasia shares her journey of living with ADHD, which she was diagnosed with as an adult. She talks about the challenges and benefits ADHD brings to her life, especially in her role as a business owner. Anastasia explores the concept of Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) and emphasises the importance of being open about neurodiversity. Using her diverse career background, she explains how ADHD influences her creativity and problem-solving abilities. Anastasia also shares insights on task management and productivity tips that work for her neurodivergent brain, stressing the importance of understanding personal strengths and embracing them. She encourages other neurodivergent individuals to be themselves, advocating for acceptance and openness during ADHD Awareness Month.

00:00 Introduction and Personal Revelation

01:44 Career Journey and ADHD Traits

03:05 Challenges of Rejection Sensitivity

04:48 ADHD and Business Ownership

06:12 Procrastination and Diagnosis Story

07:37 Embracing ADHD Strengths

09:34 Managing Tasks with ADHD

13:05 Medication and Personal Insights

14:04 Final Thoughts and Encouragement

A HUGE thank you for listening to No Grey Suits. I really do appreciate you spending some time with me, and hope you got some shiny nuggets of gold, or at least silver out of it.

🦖 Website: https://nogreysuits.com.au
🦩 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nogreysuits
🐧 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/no.grey.suits/
🦭 Grab your free Camera Confidence Guide

Transcript

Speaker: 0:26

Hello and welcome back. I'm Anastasia and I'm your host and today I wanted to talk about something that is a little more difficult for me to talk about but I think that, especially given the month that it is, I think that it's important that as a community, as a culture, we need to be more open about it and that is that I have diagnosed ADHD. Now, I was diagnosed as an adult, uh, only a couple of years ago now, so I'm still in a bit of a, what does this mean phase, but as a business owner, I can actually see not just how it helps me, how my, my weirdo brain helps me, but also the challenges that it gives me and Being that October is ADHD Awareness Month, um, and after a little bit of a kick in the butt from a friend the other day who sort of said to me, why aren't you more open about it? Why aren't you more public about it? I thought I would cover off a few things, um, about my journey as a business owner with ADHD. Now, If you've known me for a while, you'll know that I've had numerous careers, mostly in the finance and mortgage broking space or in the marketing space, which is where I am now. Um, but I've also done dog grooming, I've done retail, I've done hospitality, there's, there's been coaching, uh, there's been a number of industries that I've been part of and I sort of laugh at that now because, you know, While it's not always a sign of it, it is kind of typically ADHD that I've jumped around a little bit. But the benefit of that has been that I have so many bits of knowledge of different businesses, how they run, what they do, what they could do differently, that I bring so many different perspectives into my work. Um, and that's why things like coming up with ideas for, you know, for reels or for, for marketing campaigns and things like that for all different industries and businesses. I find it a lot of fun, but also that really weird, varied, um, work history that I've got leans really well into that. Because. you know, I'm not just coming from one place when I am coming up with my ideas. Uh, now one of the big challenges that I find with having ADHD is actually what they call the RSD or rejection sensitive dysphoria. It's something that I am working really hard to overcome. But what it basically is, is being really sensitive to either rejection or perceived rejection. So, so many times throughout my adult life and career, careers, I have, I've Thought someone was angry with me. That's the very childish way of putting it, but that's exactly what it is. Thought somebody didn't like something I read into a tone, or into a text, or into an email. Something that wasn't there. Now, I do this constantly. I'm very, very bad at it. That is one thing I will say. It's almost debilitating sometimes. and it's as a business owner, if this is something that you're struggling with as well, like if, if you're like me and you're a little bit neuro spicy, and this is something that you struggle with as well, you're not alone. Some days it is really, really hard to squish that little tiny, tiny voice in your head that automatically, automatically perceives things in that negative light. It's very hard to overcome that on a day to day basis. And you know what? I haven't quite worked out the magic bullet for it yet. I don't know if there is one. Um, but hey, if I ever find some sort of magic solution for it, I will let you know. so that's one of the challenges. And then there was also a, a big benefit there in that, that variety of experience and knowledge. But, I think it's important that we have these chats and that each of us, you know, I've, I've come into this, this business of No Grey Suits saying, you know, everybody pull their masks off. It's okay to be you. It's okay to be yourself. And then I haven't exactly had the balls to actually come out and really publicly say, you know what, yes, I, I do have ADHD. My brain does work a little bit differently. Um, and you know, it is something that is both a struggle and sometimes a blessing for me. a blessing being that last week I did a uni assignment in like three hours before it was due. Without having done much, if any, of the coursework beforehand. And I got 70 something percent. Not bad. One of the main things I did wrong was referencing, but I don't think I've ever gotten referencing right. that's one of the, that's one of the good things, is a lot of the time I can pull a rabbit out of the hat. I can, when I'm under that pressure, when, a situation comes up that is almost crisis type situation, I'll perform. I'll do really well. But on the flip side of that is the procrastination and the days when I do just sit there unable to actually get anything done. So part of my diagnosis story was actually about a glass of water. There was a glass of water on the bench in the kitchen. It Needed to be rinsed out and put in the dishwasher. That's all. Stared at it. For some reason, my brain would not let me pick it up and rinse it out. I was telling myself in my head, It'll take you two seconds. You've just gotta pick it up, turn the tap on, rinse it out, put it in the dishwasher. Nope. Some unseen force in my brain would not let it happen. Walked away. Beat myself up some more about it. By this time it would have already been done. Beat myself up some more. Forgot about it for a little while. Went back into the kitchen to get something. Saw the cup. Went through the exact same process again. And again. And again. Now that was actually part of my diagnosis, sorry, when my psychologist first said to me, Eh, have you ever looked into, uh, an ADHD diagnosis? So I laugh about it now, but sometimes it's not a laughing matter. One of the good things about ADHD as a business owner though, as well, is the ideas side of things. Now, I might not always be great at taking everything to the very end, but I am awesome at coming up with ideas, and I'll say that straight up. I can think really quickly. about solutions and problem solving and ideas, you know, like that. Sometimes they're crap. Of course they're crap. Everybody has crap ideas. Sometimes, every now and then, you might just get a little tiny nugget of gold. And the fact that I can just, bleh, ideas. It's cool. It's fun. And sometimes, I think it can be kind of cool to go down those rabbit holes with me. especially if I'm talking to you about your business, you know, we might go down a rabbit hole that is completely stupid, and useless, fun, but not money making. Or we might go down a rabbit hole that you hadn't thought of before, and it might be just based on a few different bits and pieces that I know or that I've thought of or seen in the past and somehow magically remember, even though I can't remember what I did yesterday and we just might strike gold and those conversations with business owners can be so much fun. And that's another thing that I love doing is as. You know, as, as a business owner myself is, is networking, having a chat with other business owners, but really getting into things. so, you know, there's also, yes, I like variety in my work, which means that doing the exact same thing, the exact same way every single day is not for me. I have had to learn that the hard way. And it has been something that has been a little more difficult to sort of implement in my business because everybody has to do certain things every day. But what I've done is instead of trying to force myself into a very strict routine with things or trying to, you know, do the calendar blocking where every Thursday morning I do XYZ and then on a Friday I do ABC. Instead of doing things that way I know what needs to be done. And then I just list it out and then I know the priorities, but that's not necessarily how I do it. How I do it is if any, if everything is around about the same priority, so no real standouts of this absolutely has to be done today, time sensitive stuff, in which case that crisis brain or hyper focus brain kicks in. But if everything is kind of just kind of has to be done in the next few days. If I just have a list instead of calendar blocks, I can pick and choose what my brain is more attracted to at that particular moment in time. What I mean by that is some days I actually really feel like doing some of the admin stuff. Like this morning, because I knew I had a master class coming up, I was stuck on waiting mode. That's another thing if I have something happening later in the afternoon. I can't focus on deep work in the morning because in the back of my mind it's just, I'm waiting for two o'clock, waiting for two o'clock, waiting for two o'clock. But back to what I was saying. So this morning I actually had a lot of fun. Yep, I'll say fun. Organising folders and files and renaming files in a client's folder. Got through a lot. It looks so pretty now. It's so well organised now. All of the duplicates are gone too, so it's saving a lot more space now. Would I have loved doing that yesterday when I was really in my creative headspace and coming up with, you know, different memes and different video ideas and things like that for my clients? For their socials? Nah. I would have thought about reorganising files and gone No. But today? My brain wanted to do it. It was on the list to start on doing that. Now I didn't finish it because time takes a long time to do that sort of stuff when there's hundreds of files, but I got started on it. I got through a good chunk of it because that's what I felt like doing at the time. So that could be a tip if, you know, for my fellow neuro spicy business owners out there is. Have your list of things to do and unless there is a really clear priority there, just have the list, just keep adding to it. You don't have to do top to bottom. I think it took me a long time to get over the should of that and not want to do things top to bottom one, two, three, four, and instead embrace the fact that at different times on different days, and it's not going to be predictable. My brain is going to lean towards wanting to do different tasks. So do those tasks when you're at your best for those tasks. I think that's probably one of the biggest things that I've learned about me and through this journey of being diagnosed with ADHD and all the rest of it. I mean, yes, I do take medication, that's not for everybody and I don't, I'm no doctor, I'm not saying anybody should or shouldn't. Yes, I do. I also find it makes me a slightly nicer person because my brain isn't quite so I'm able to actually focus on, hey, I like you and I want to actually, you know, reach out and be a nice person with you, um, rather than sometimes I can get a little bit curt or short with people, uh, if my brain is going into overwhelm status. So if you ever do see me, if I ever am a little bit short or curt with you, chances are my brain is on a million different tracks at the same time and I just don't Can't say things the way I would love to say them. Um, working on that, but I think with ADHD, along with any other type of neuro spaceness or neuro diversity, um, or any other type of difference between us all, whether it be cultural differences, whether it be just preferences, the way we work, the way we talk, the way we are. I think, honestly, coming back to, you know, kind of why I started No Grey Suits, just be you. Work out what works for you and step away from the shoulds a little bit. And once you find something that works for you, Ah, take it on, embrace it, that's amazing. Hopefully that helps somebody, and again, it's me being a tiny bit vulnerable there, and after, thanks for the butt kick, Kirri, you know, stepping away from the shame of, I have ADHD, but I'm not a naughty, hyperactive little boy. And this is what it does mean for my brain, and this is why things work differently for me. This is why occasionally I miss an email. Um. But being able to, in October, ADHD awareness month, being able to come out and say, yeah, I've got ADHD. This is how I work with it. Here's some ideas for other people that might be in a similar boat. And if you are neurodivergent or something different to the normal, I say that in air quotes for those that aren't watching video normal, that's okay. It's actually okay. You're still a good person. It's like what I say to my kids. As long as you're kind and happy, the rest doesn't matter. I'll leave you with that. Take care.