Running a multi-million dollar business with ADHD

money mindset
I have ADHD and have become super successful in my business. You can too!

Hey friend, 

I get asked all the time about how I run my business with ADHD. 

I was diagnosed late - at the age of 42. In hindsight, I recognise that I’ve had it my whole life. 

Although I did okay at school, most of the time; I always handed things in late. I’m the mistress of the last minute. 

At school, I’d lose my keys, my bus pass, etc. every single day. It felt so frustrating that I couldn't just be as capable as everyone else.

​University was incredibly hard for me. I failed all of my subjects except for marketing.

I began to think of myself as someone who was half-assed, who couldn't concentrate, who was crap at studying, who didn't understand the rules. 

It got bleak. Read about some of the ways that I sabotaged my own success here.


 

ADHD is now a superpower in my business

However, as an entrepreneur, I have found ways to make my ADHD a superpower. So pull up a chair and let me tell you my secrets.

1)   I’m a great improviser 

Sometimes, I do videos where I press record and just talk. 

I’ve run a whole three-day seminar with no preparation. I used to think that they were divine downloads. Really, it has come from a lifetime of not being prepared, not having done the homework, and having to think on my feet really, really quickly.

 2)    I’m calm in the face of stress 

I don’t get stressed out when I’m thrown into situations. I find that's true of a lot of people with ADHD. I tend to feel really calm in situations where other people are getting stressed. 

When my husband, Mark, came into my business, I really second-guessed my ability to improvise because he is a preparer. He has his slides ready three days in advance (and that's late for him!). He likes to get to the airport three hours early.

He’d ask me, “Do you know what you're talking about today, on that live call?" Under scrutiny, I started to feel unprepared and disorganized. I forgot that my approach gets results (and doesn’t stress me out!). 

Anyway, he trusts my process now. He knows I can think quickly on my feet and am great at improvising.

I think, in part, it’s because I've consumed so much information over my lifetime, I can just speak from my gained knowledge. If this feels familiar to you, I say fully embrace it; don't feel ashamed that your way of working is different to others. You’ve a superpower!

3) I have fallen in love with batching

Being consistent in my business doesn’t come naturally to me. But, one of the secrets to my success as a multi-seven-figure entrepreneur is that I have been consistent. 

  • I have sent my newsletter out every single week. 
  • I post on social media every single day. 
  • I have had the same program for a decade. 

 You might ask, “How the freak do you do that with ADHD?” 

 I know a lot of entrepreneurs who’ve gotten bored or distracted by shiny objects. They don't feel like posting, so they don't. They feel like it would be disingenuous to pre-post things etc. etc.

I leverage the crap out of the days when my hair and make-up are done. I get as many videos done as I can. I’ll book a session, get ready and then film as much as possible. 

I batch my social media too; one or two days a month, I get a big burst of inspiration, so I create content for all my accounts in one go. If I posted when I felt like it, you’d see nothing from me for ages and ages, then 50 posts all in one day. 

 ​It’s important to realise that batching and scheduling things isn’t cheating or inauthentic. When I create content, it's real at that moment.  

 Batching and creating consistency are absolutely possible, even if you are someone who struggles with it. Your business can be consistent. You don't have to be.

4)    I hired a team 

To support me in my zone of genius, I got strategic about hiring a team. When I first started out as an entrepreneur, I hired people and then I was too disorganized to give them tasks. And I ended up feeling really guilty about that. 

My solution has been to hire people for small amounts of time each week and to be really clear that I’ve chosen the right person. 

You could hire a virtual assistant, for example, who does similar jobs for a lot of other entrepreneurs. It’s more affordable that way; they work a couple of hours or so, each week, on your business.

​​If you've been resisting hiring, let me give you another reason why it works! I’ve found that having a team has really helped with accountability. 

If you’re not a completer-finisher, and your course isn't ready, or your book's not quite done, having someone to work on editing it, will give you the motivation to JUST GET IT DONE! 

If you’re like me, you might be great at starting stuff. And not so great at finishing it! Are you the one who always comes up with brilliant ideas and brings excitement? 

Don't feel bad about not being a completer-finisher. There are plenty of people in the world who are really good at finishing things, but not good at starting them.

So, create a team around you that’s a match made in heaven. You can get it to a certain point and hand it over to someone else to finish it! 

 5)    ​I outsource a lot of stuff at home

If I had to make everyone breakfast, or do all the laundry at home, that would take up so much of my energy that I would never have time to make videos, make content or coach people in my Money Bootcamp. 

The one time I did try and do all our laundry, I got hyper-focused on it, and I started obsessing. 

 

  • What's the best way to do this laundry? 
  • What's the best way to separate out the colors? 
  • What's the best way to hang it so it dries optimally? 

 

And it took up so much mental bandwidth that I did nothing in my business. 

One of my biggest tips for success is to outsource. Outsource anything and everything - laundry to web design! Food prep to email marketing! Choose the biggest stressors and hand them over to someone else. 

You might not outsource in your business straight away, but getting someone else to focus on household tasks could free up lots of mental bandwidth for you to work on your business.

Choose the tasks that prevent you from getting in the flow and doing your revenue-generating actions. 

Read here to find out exactly how much help I have at home: LINK

Bonus tip: Grab my list of self-care strategies that you can easily implement today.

 

Five Ways to be Successful in Business When you Have ADHD

So, let’s recap: what are the five key things to being successful in business, with ADHD?

  1. Embrace your ability to improvise
  2. Recognise (and use to your advantage) how calm you are in the face of stressful situations
  3. Batch all your tasks so you can remain consistent in your business
  4. Hire a team (or a VA, for a couple of hours a week) to help you stay on track and get things done.
  5. Outsource as many tasks as possible. Start with household jobs and as you get better at delegating, move on to business tasks.

To finish, I want to share with you an affirmation that I use, to keep me on track.

My affirmation is: All Roads Lead to Bootcamp. 

I've been running Money Bootcamp for over 10 years and sometimes I do want to chuck it in and create something new because I’m craving that dopamine rush, the excitement that making something fresh brings.

But instead, I repeat my affirmation and remind myself that all roads lead to Bootcamp, which gives me so much freedom to create other goodies! 

I might write a book that leads into Money Bootcamp. I may choose to create a freebie. Write an article. Record a video. It all leads to Money Bootcamp.

​The key here is not to mess with your backend.

If you’re constantly tinkering, you may not be getting enough people to even see what you do. 

For me, when I focus on all roads leading to Bootcamp, I have all this creative freedom to get as crazy and wild and distracted as I like with other projects, but without breaking my business. This is so, so important!

So, know you can crush your business goals, whether you are blessed with neurodiversity or not.

You’ve got this!

Denise xx 

​P.S. You know how all roads lead to Bootcamp?! 

Well, here we are! Click here to join us on a journey of a lifetime – you’ll bust through all your money blocks, release self-limiting beliefs and have all the tools and the support to get you to the next level and beyond in your business. Come and join us!

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