Managing ADHD & Pain While Running Your Business

You know, it took me a long time to decide whether or not to make this video uh about running a business while dealing with ADHD and chronic pain. And I guess if you're watching it, it means that I hit the publish button. And I probably did so because not enough people are talking about what this is actually like. So, here goes I guess because again, let's be honest, we all know that running and building a business is tough. But building one when you are trying to navigate ADHD and chronic pain or both, that's a whole different level of invisible challenges that most people don't even see. And sometimes you even sit there and wonder if anyone at all gets it. And if that sounds familiar, then you're not alone. This video isn't like our usual videos on the channel. It's not going to be a tutorial or a polished how-to video. It's just going to be me sharing what I live through every day and what I know a lot of other people as well are dealing with, even if we never kind of talk about it out loud. So, why am I doing this video? Because I know what it's like to look around and feel like you're the only one quietly losing the plot behind the scenes. And I struggle with this every day, and I know others do, too. And if that's you or if you care about someone dealing with this, then I hope that there's something here that at the very least helps you feel less alone or gives you language for what you're feeling in a sense or helps you understand someone you care about a little bit better. And if this speaks to you or you know someone it might help, then please do pass it along because sometimes all it takes is just a relatable story to make someone else's day a little bit easier. And I am not doing this video I want to be really clear here and this is why it took me a long time to decide whether or not to make this video. I'm not doing this video for pity. I'm not doing it for sympathy. I'm doing this to start a conversation that needs to be started. And I want to make sure that this is this video is not a beall and endall. I'm not an expert in this space. I ADHD. It's my own personal experiences. I'm still trying to figure this out myself and I have a lot to learn probably from yourself as well. So, please do join in the comments below and share your experiences. I'm sure I'll learn a lot and I'll read absolutely everything. And that's kind of why I'm doing it. Not because I want any of the sort of the pity or sorrow or sympathy. That that's really not why I'm doing it. Anyway, enough said about that. Let me bring you into my world for a moment. What does it actually feel like to run a business and to try and lead a team while managing ADHD and chronic pain in the background and still trying to build something that is meaningful and is impactful? ADHD makes me want to do everything right now. and chronic pain makes sure that I can't. And some days I feel like my brain is running in 17 different directions all at once, all loud, all urgent, none of them, that the thing that I actually need to be doing. And other times I will be hyperfocusing so deeply on one thing, the wrong thing, that entire days disappear and what actually mattered still isn't done. And it's a really strange paradox. It's like I've got a 100 tabs open and I can't find the right one or I've just got one tab open consuming all of the energy, all of the memory, but it's the wrong tab. And that's ADHD. Let's talk a little bit about pain and fatigue. Pain and fatigue will drain every bit of my and potentially your energy. My baseline pain every single day is a five out of 10 every day. And that's normal for me. And sometimes it will spike up so high to a nine or so that I've had to call out the ambulance quite a few times. But even at a five, which I've learned to accept and live with, it's a constant grind that I'm always running on some kind of energy debt, I guess. And when that debt catches up with me, my body will just say, "Nope, not today. " And I crash out and I cannot get out of bed. Now, picture having both at once. a brain that is desperate to do a million things at once just to stay alive while your body is slamming on the emergency brakes all the time. It's like your brain is trying to throw a wild party whilst your body is calling the police. And that's kind of what it feels like. And no one explained to me what was actually happening in all of that chaos. And it's something that I wish someone had told me years ago. So please bear with me for a second. Here's the science bit. I guess I'm not going to go on too long about it. It's not going to be technical because like I said, this is not my area, but this is what I understand of it and this is what I've read about it. ADHD doesn't mean that you cannot focus. It means that you can't always choose

what your brain focuses on or when. My brain doesn't sort by important. It sorts by interesting, urgent, and what's in front of me right now and immediately stimulating. The things that matter the most can feel absolutely impossible to start. While something absolutely random will suddenly get all of my attention. And again, it's probably the wrong thing. And this is not about effort or willpower. It's about dopamine. You see, the ADHD brain, I guess, doesn't always get the dopamine signals at the right time or at the right strength. And that's why we drift during simple tasks, but we will spring into absolute action during a crisis. And it's also why tricks like mini deadlines and movement breaks and small rewards can help a little bit because they give a little bit of that missing boost, if you will. But they don't help all the time. Chronic pain, on the other hand, isn't just a symptom. It's a total drain because even on a good day, my nervous system is burning through energy just managing pain. And what many people don't realize is that your nervous system doesn't just react, it remembers. In my case at least, it can get stuck in a feedback loop and it's stuck on high alert. Even with the smallest things, a light touch, a bit of movement, stress, even a cold breeze, everything gets magnified from a 1 to a 10. and tiny triggers become loud blaring alarms and your system just will not let them go. It recalls it and it replays it over and over again and it replays that pain signal over and over again. And I want to make this clear that it's not all in your head. It's how the wiring works. And it's absolutely exhausting because the number of times I've spoken to people especially even doctors where I will go and I'll tell them this is what I'm feeling. They'll say, "Well, you know, it's kind of in your head. " They don't say that, but they kind of give you leaflets and they say, "Okay, you know," and you read it and it's like, "It's in your head. " Anyway, enough said about that. It's technically it's in your head. I'll talk about that in a second, but it isn't because just because pain starts in the nervous system, it doesn't mean it isn't real. Think about having a broken bone. Okay? The pain signal is created in your brain, but no one tells you that pain isn't real. And chronic pain is exactly the same. You might not get to see it on an X-ray, but if you look at a brain scan, you'll see that the pain centers light up like a Christmas tree as if something's actually wrong. And that is proof. This isn't imagined and it's not in your head. It's real. It's measurable and it's valid. And this is really important. And I want to stress this time and time again that when people say to you it's all in your head, technically they're not completely wrong, but they're missing the whole point really. Because yes, the brain is involved, but that doesn't mean that the pain is any less real. It means that the system that's meant to protect you is now just overreacting, pulling the alarm again and again, and the pain that you're feeling is absolutely real. So that's ADHD and that's chronic pain. And when you look at the two, they don't just happen at the same time. They amplify each other because they share some of the same brain pathways. So when stress rises, both pain and the distraction gets much, much louder. And by the time I'm I sit down at my desk, 95% of my battery is already gone, if not all of it. And nobody else can see that. All they see is that the work hasn't been done. And again, none of this is about looking for sympathy. It's about making sure that you know that you're not alone. And if this is something that you're dealing with, hopefully you can see that again, you're just not alone. And for a long time, I thought that my inconsistency meant that I was being unreliable or I was failing. But the truth is that we're all working under constraints that most people will never ever see. And yet, we're still finding ways to build, to lead, and to move forward and have impact. Right? So, it's really it's time to stop mistaking our limits for laziness or inconsistency for failure. What you're navigating isn't weakness, it's resilience. And I think I was pretty lucky growing up. I guess my family saw that I was different, but in a good way. I actually had a photographic memory, which not a lot of people know except close friends. Um, but that was a blessing and a curse in a way, which you'll realize why in a second. Because it hid a lot of ADHD symptoms for years. I could remember every detail. So, I never built any real systems or coping mechanisms. And if you gave me times and dates and meeting times and numbers and this and that and the other, I would remember every single one of them. and I would be able to have all of those things that my brain was focusing on, I would be

able to recollect it when I needed to. But when the pain worsened and my memory started fading, things started slipping and suddenly I was forgetting not just things but everything. I was missing details and I had nothing, no systems, nothing, no coping mechanisms, nothing in place to catch me out. And that shift for me was more tough than people that I know closely who have had ADHD growing up but have already had to adapt throughout their whole life to build systems and coping mechanisms. And I suddenly went from the person who remembered everything to the one who dropped things and just forgot. And I think if I'm being honest, I wasn't just dealing with a new reality. I was also grieving how I used to function. And I think if I'm still being honest, I am still doing that up until today. But you know what? I had to adapt and I had to do it bit by bit. Not perfectly, not overnight. But I realized that if I wanted to keep leading and building teams and having impact, then I needed to change the way that I worked. So these days, I guess here's what helps. Um, and I want to point out again, this is what's working for me right now. I haven't figured it all out. And please do share below what's working for you because I am sure that I will learn things from there as well. But here's what's working for me right now. I don't plan by the hour unless there's a real deadline. When there is a real deadline, my brain is already switched on to be able to achieve that deadline. But what helps in that scenario is that I work in mini sprints. But when I put these mini sprints in place, I will literally look at micro tasks and I will almost gify the system where I'll say, "Okay, in the next 45 minutes, I have to do this thing and I can't do that thing until I finish that thing. " And that way I'm kind of building all of these little microtasks in place so that I can get to do that. But like I said, if I don't have these deadlines, uh, that's not going to work for me. And planning by the times and sprints and things like that won't work. I plan by capacity and I ask myself how much energy do I actually have today and when my brain will allow me I try to at least color code the week ahead. Red is for draining, for example. Green is for tasks that are energizing me, and yellow is for flexible. And I intentionally block out the, you know, rest and downtime, not just work, because I think it's really important to to know where your capacity is and what your limit is because if you overdo it, or at least if I overdo it early on in the week, I'll pay for it in droves later down the line where I will crash out for days and I will end up doing much less. I also stop chasing to-do lists because I will have a look at a to-do list and it will be just noise in front of me because again it's not giving me that dopamine hit if you want. So what I do right now is I use something that I call the top two rule. Just two priorities a day. Not one, not three, not five, not 10, two. Why not one? Because if one gets blocked then I usually can move the other one forward if that makes sense. And what I will tend to do is try and make sure that I block out this right in the beginning of the morning and I block out my time. I don't have any calls in the morning. of these things. I will make sure that time is there for me to tackle those two main priorities. And then the rest of the day once I've done them, then that becomes optional. Then that becomes I have other lists and other things I need to get through the day. And usually I will do more than two. But if I do the two or at least I do one of the two on the day, I'm happy and I know that things have been done. However, on the toughest days, I will go into something that I call CEO light mode, if you will. And that is just one small task. And sometimes that one task can be as simple as giving myself permission to rest. Because I've learned this the hard way. If I don't do that, then I will end up regretting it. And not only will I end up crashing for days, I'll end up doing less, but worse, I'll end up feeling very guilty about it that I haven't been able to do all of that stuff. And when you give yourself some downtime and you give yourself permission or I give myself permission for that rest, then I know it's an investment in my energy that I will get that return on investment later and I'm okay with that. Another thing that I learn to do is to work with, not against the distractions. I actually set something aside called squirrel time. Um, and that's blocked out in my week for when I have new ideas pop up and I really want to go down a rabbit hole and play around with this shiny new object. But also there are sometimes if I have too many of them, I will keep something called a Sunday board and I will either put that in my own personal notion or I will post it in Slack to my team where I can say, "Hey, please remind me to do this when the time is right. " And that means I can park it aside so that those ideas can come back when the time is right instead of letting it sort of hijack my whole day, if you

will. Another thing is delegation. Delegation is so essential. I cannot stress how much essential and important it is. But I don't rely on long checklists anymore. I will record the loom or I will drop a note in Slack to my team or I will jump on a call and I will just basically talk to my team and my team fills in the blanks and they keep things moving and yes sometimes they will manage me as well. And it's not about not being capable. It's about increasing my capacity in ways that work for my brain and for my body. And even with all of these strategies, the emotional weight can sneak in. And there's still that inner critic, if you will, whispering in the back of my mind that I'm not doing enough or I'm not leading properly. You know, what is your team thinking about you? You're just taking time off or you're not showing up or you're not being reliable or all of these things. And the hardest part isn't always the physical challenge. In my opinion, it's the guilt or the self- judgment that sort of comes with not matching the world's rhythm. But one thing actually changed a lot for me. There was a one incident. I missed a check-in during a flare up and I apologized to my team and someone on my team basically replied and said, "Don't worry, go rest. Seriously, go rest. Just let us know what you need. " and we've got this and they did have this and that kind of support makes all the difference. And I realized that it was not about explaining or justifying at that time. It was really about learning how to communicate honestly and openly and building a team that gets how I work and has the capability and initiative to keep the momentum going when you're on a timeout. And I realized that tweaking my habits only will only get me so far. But if my business model or if your business model relies on you being at full capacity every single day, it's going to break you. And again, I learned that the hard way because that's where I was. If I needed to step back, the business stalled, you know, and that was a wakeup call, I guess. I needed to redesign the business, not just my daily habits. So, you will have heard on the channel that we talk about systems a lot, but there are business systems, but also there are personal systems. And now I focus on systems, on offers and team and a team culture that lets the business run even if I'm offline for a day or a week or for five weeks um or more. And that means SOPs that can sort of that other people can run uh and follow. Uh launch plans that have built-in recovery times, delivery methods that flex with reality. And I cannot say enough this enough. Please, please do not cut corners on your team. The right people, the right systems, and a flexible, supportive culture matter so much, so much more than sheer numbers. because I would rather have a small motivated self-driven team than a big one that drains my energy and I'm having to sit there and babysit them and tell them tasks and dish out tasks and be frustrated by the results and the outcome and the quality. The best teams track their own outcomes. They will reduce friction and they help me stay in my zone. And yes, sometimes they will manage me too. and I hired the wrong people and it backfired big time on me because it ended up taking even more of my energy, frustrating both sides and it just wasn't working. So, please don't cut down on underestimating the importance of getting the right support system around you, whether that's personally or also inside your business from a professional perspective. So now whenever I design a new offer with my team, we are always asking will this still deliver if I'm offline or how can I be made redundant from this particular offer and can the business move forward if I need to rest and if the answer is yes then I know that we're building something that's sustainable and we're building for resilience and for flexibility and these words kept cropping up in my mind time and time again. capacity, resilience, leverage, sustainability, flexibility, and that almost these almost became the pillars for what I wanted to be able to build and build a business around. I wanted to build for the long haul, not what I am potentially capable of doing, but what I actually am capable of doing. And I stopped trying to fit into the traditional CEO mold. And I realized that we shouldn't be conforming to that. Since when were we as business owners ever people that conformed? Right? I now started building a business that works

the way that I function best. And that's when growth stopped feeling punishing, I guess, and started feeling possible again. Yes, I still have flare-ups. And yes, I still forget things and I have to restart, reframe, pivot, you know, more often than I'd like. I still frustrate my team. We haven't figured it completely out. I still frustrate myself, but I've stopped expecting myself to lead like someone I'm not. And my team understands that and my team is okay with that. And since then, my business has gotten clearer and my energy steadier. And I'm finally seeing the kind of sustainable progress that I'd always hoped for. So, you don't have to prove yourself by pushing harder or matching someone else's pace. building something that lets you keep going. That's the kind of CEO your business really needs. And honestly, I think it's the kind of leader that the world needs more of. So, if no one's ever told this before to you, let me be the one to say it. The way that you're showing up, it's valid. It's brave. You can absolutely succeed. Even if the journey looks different to everyone else, in fact, you know what? the way that you you're doing it might be exactly what someone else needs to see to believe that they can do it, too. So, if you found this video helpful and you want others to kind of find it, too, please do give this video a like. It really helps more people see it and the YouTube algorithm to show it to more people. And I, like I said, this is just a conversation starter. It's not a be all and end all video. It's not a how-to video, per se. It's really there for us to not just be seen more, but for us to start interacting and exchanging ideas more. So once again, I'd love to hear what's worked for you and what you're still trying to figure out, I guess, and what's not working for you and what your experiences are. And I know I'm going to learn from your experiences, and I'm sure others will do, too. And if you know someone who might need this, then please do share it with them as well, because none of us are meant to figure this out alone. So, let's keep the conversation going.