Let’s talk about something that doesn’t get enough attention in the business world: being a neurodivergent entrepreneur. It’s slowly changing, with charities like Neurodiversity in Business, headed up by Dan Harris FRSA and his passionate fight to support his non-verbal autistic son, “Joshie man”. Dan recently tattooed in the alphabet on his arm, to assist Joshie in communicating his needs – and received trolling on LinkedIn for it.
I wish the world was kinder, without trolls under LinkedIn bridges and with support for neurodivergent people regardless of their level of support needs.
Whether you’re ADHD, autistic, dyspraxic, dyslexic, or any other neurodivergent trait, you know that the traditional “how to run a business” advice doesn’t always apply to you. Their processes often don’t suit us, and what we have got on our plate.
Breaking Free from the Pressure
Yet you put pressure on yourself, asking yourself “why am I like this, just be normal and pay your contractors on time instead of forgetting and being chased up with reminders”. (Normal schnormal – we all have our flaws and quirks, neurodivergents and neurotypicals alike).
Because here’s the thing: Your brain isn’t broken, you’re not abnormal – but your brain is differently wired, and you need support.
You deserve the passionate campaigning of yourself as much as you might do for your kids, with EHCPs in school and other such random fuckery that neurodivergent people are put through. Annie Ridout recently spoke on Sky news about the impact on mothers’careers from caring for SEND children – imagine how this impacts the revenue of the businesses of ADHD women!
The Sustainable Success Challenge: Designed for Your Brilliant Neurodivergent Brain
This is why I set up the Sustainable Success Challenge – a four day reset designed with your brilliant, busy brain in mind (lol, see what I did there – love a bit of punography!).
I’ve worked with lots of neurodivergent entrepreneurs who have transformed their businesses and their lives by learning how to compassionately work with their brains, not against them. Giving themselves the scaffolding of support, systems and self-compassion. We all need and deserve this level of compassion and understanding.
Compassion and Understanding for Neurodivergent Entrepreneurs
I don’t have all the answers, I haven’t got a magic cure or fix, nor have I got it all figured out myself and will preach to you off a high horse about how you “just need to co-regulate your child” when it sometimes feels like the world is on fire around you. I can offer a bit of balm, a bit of soothing, and a whole load of compassion for your struggles and your brilliance. There is space for joy and sadness alongside, for light and dark together.
The beauty of allowing your brain to be as it is
Over four days, in the Sustainable Success challenge, I’ll guide you through a process and framework that helps you harness your unique strengths and build a business that actually works for you. Not like your neurotypical mate who is smashing out content on Instagram every day, and never gets stuck in a doom scroll or gets distracted away from their big vision by the holes in the bathroom wall that they IMMEDIATELY need to spend two days polyfilling, sanding and painting instead of getting work over the finish line…
[True story, guilty as charged and I actually regret NOTHING about that side quest of decorating my bathroom one week, when my assistant was away on holiday and couldn’t keep me on track].
Why don’t I regret the distraction and side quest? Because beautiful stuff happens when I allow my brain to do its braining the way it wants to. When I allow the wandering mind to go to some sort of Narnia place whilst I am doing a rhythmic bilateral movement (like painting, walking, swimming).
And out comes priceless stuff. MAGIC. Insights, realisations, ideas, visions, solutions to problems, self-awareness. Wow, that’s like the Aslan of brain waves! And this process of decorating bathrooms is also what probably makes me unemployable in corporate! 😂
I have found my process and I love it. And my team knows it, supporting me to do my braining in this way. They know that when I have worked my way through the bathroom I emerge on the other side with a fresh perspective. I call it ‘letting it be’, like percolating coffee. Drip drip drip, magic.
Love Your Neurodivergent Brain’s Operating System, Nurture Your Success
Don’t hate on your brain – it runs on a different operating system to the neurotypical people whose success and working patterns you compare yourself with. Love it, nurture it, accept it as it is and it will grow and flourish. Promise, you’ll actually be more successful and accomplished when you come to terms with the brain you have and the processes it needs to run through to operate well.
Acceptance and Change
Paradoxically, when you cultivate acceptance and compassion for your brain, and yourself as the owner of this brain, you can also begin to change. To tweak, to harness, to do things differently than you have been doing. Acceptance doesn’t mean passive resignation. Acceptance doesn’t mean just liking the hand you’ve been dealt and not moaning about it. Acceptance and change go hand in hand. Changing also doesn’t mean adopting an ableist approach of “I shall cure myself of my ADHD, begone beast”.
Compassion doesn’t mean a fluffy, wooly way of saying “it doesn’t matter if you never meet your goals, you’re enough” when you KNOW you aren’t utilising your brain to its full potential. Compassion means being kind to brain, with awareness of its quirks, and doing what works.
Breaking the Cycle of “Too Much, Not Enough”
Because if nothing changes, nothing changes. So if you keep pushing yourself to work 8 hours a day, five days a week, to be focused and concentrated every bit of the day, you will either fail and feel shit about yourself (because executive dysfunction = tiring of task focus, so getting distracted and starting to procrastinate as an escape from the intense emotional load of all that pushing!).
So you will be in the not enough. Or you will burn out from intense task focus, and collapse in a heap of hyperfocus hangover. So you will be in the too much. Where the nervous energy and frantic productivity metaphorically creeps into my muscles and bones, until you begin to ache.
What to Expect from the Challenge as a Neurodivergent Entrepreneur
Here’s what you can expect from the four day reset I’m running:
Finding a balance between your busy brain and your business, without sacrificing your health or productivity. No longer “too much and not enough”.
Let’s make it more granular, as clarity is queen when it comes to ADHD.
Imagine what it would look like if…
