Share by EmailSit down in a group of business owners & entrepreneurs. Look at the entrepreneur to your left, now look at the entrepreneur to your right. One of you have been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD.
Someone with ADD or ADHD is also 300x more likely to start a business than the average Joe, and believe it or not…have the highest potential for success (given the right support). So today, I wanted to share some of my own tips, and others tips, for managing ADD as an Entrepreneur:
1. Get a Coach Who Understands You
“I have seen coaching and being connected save more entrepreneurs struggling with ADD, than any type of medication or time management strategy”, says one ADD coach. With my own situation, I keep a small list of other entrepreneurs & mentors that understand it, that I can call on (without shame or guilt) to talk about any problem with my company, or even just a life issue.
2. Get a Good Business Partner
One of the best things you can do for your company, is have a trusted good business partner; one that is skilled in organization and finances. I’m not talking about an assistant who comes in and organizes your books (although those help too), I’m talking about someone at a higher level who you can trust to take charge of organizational & financial decisions. My business partner, Dennis, can be annoying because he’s a lot less riskier than me, he’s a very detail oriented manager, but we’ve avoided several huge financial mistakes because of him. It’s actually comforting to have a non risk taker investing their time and money into your company, because if it were all just us crazy risk takers, who knows if we’d wake up broke & homeless one day. In fact, I think if it weren’t for him…our taxes would never even get filed.
3. Pace Yourself
The same ADD coach in the first tip also says this from his own experiences an ADD Entrepreneur: “In my life, I’ve built multi million dollar companies overnight. Unfortunately, I’ve also destroyed them overnight without even realizing it”.
Understand you’re powerful, and that same drive, risk taking, and determination that started that business…can also be the same thing that destroys it.
4. Conquer One Obstacle At a Time
This is why many high growth entrepreneurs set milestones. The ADD Entrepreneur’s mind is constantly onto the next thing. Start with your end goal (where do you want to be in 5 years?), then break it down into smaller milestones. Like one every 6 months. Stay on that goal; try hard not to move onto the next one until that other goal is achieved.
5. Learn About Others
Looking back at my life, I’ve had several occasions where people all of a sudden just stop talking to me, and it turned out I somehow offended them without realizing it. For example, one of my mentors/connections was kind of hinting around he had to come to town, and I said “Oh, great…are we going to meet up?”. He sighed, and said “You haven’t invited me yet”. Needless to say, I’ve learned how to pay closer attention to my business relationships, act as a host for my company, etc. And if you have people that will tell you what you did wrong, that’s all the better.
6. Change Your Environment
This one took me a while to figure out. For years, I constantly tried to adapt to the environment; instead of changing the environment. Now, my home, my schedule…everything is built to suit me, the way my mind works, and to help me function better. So figure out what works for you, and build your life around it. After all, most ADD’ers become Entrepreneurs simply because they’re trying to figure out what works for them.
You have so much drive, ambition, & need for change; that if you don’t have something like your own company to channel that energy to…you’ll usually end up wrecking havoc on other people lives, or your own (ever heard someone say an ADD person will either wind up in jail…or they’ll be a millionaire?)
7. Have a Happy Place
It sounds really corny. But the fact is almost all Entrepreneurs with ADD have emotional roller coasters. It doesn’t apply to just female entrepreneurs, and in reality…there is little difference between a female entrepreneur with ADD, and a male entrepreneur with ADD. Both typically think the same way.
The happy place…it’s a place to go to in your head or even a spot by the lake, when you get that devastating news that sets you off. And it will happen millions of times as an entrepreneur. As you grow, things will become more stressful, because now you’re not playing with a couple thousand dollars, you’re making hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of decisions.
Get yourself a stress ball, remove yourself immediately, run to the bathroom and scream, do whatever you can to avoid setting off in front of other people. Eventually, it will happen so many times you will get to the point that you become used to it (or at least this is my experience). Once you get used to it, it really won’t bother you as much…and you’ll be able to handle the stress and deal with it on the spot (without running away from the problem).
8. Pick the Right People
Try to focus on your strengths…if you’re an entrepreneur it’s probably ideas, vision, innovation, connections, management, inspiring people, motivating people, etc. Try to find people who match your vision, have qualities that can help you achieve your vision, and believe in it; rather than trying to manage every detail of people or what they produce. This makes delegating so much easier. For example, graphic designers. Instead of just picking a graphic designer at random, then trying to change their style to what you want…find one that already has that style. That specializes in that style.
9. Let Go of Control
Part of delegating is letting go of control over somethings. This is especially applicable to ADHD Entrepreneurs. The author of a well known book about adult add (shes also an entrepreneur) says “I used to think my dad was an SOB because he had to control everything. Now I know, it helps those with ADHD feel safe when they’re in control of their environment”.
The more you learn about yourself, and how to control your mind, the less you feel the need to control what’s going on around you.
10. Don’t Make Promises
I saved the best for last. One of the greatest lessons and I think of this thing an ADD person told his wife before they got married. He pulled his fiance aside, and said:
“I have ADD. I am an impulsive risk taker. I can’t promise I won’t offend you, or ignore you, or smother you at times, or have an affair, or gamble away our life savings, or be there for kids, or destroy your life. If you are not willing to take that chance, please run away now.”
Last I checked, they’ve had a great marriage for over 20 years…and none of the above has happened. So the lesson now becomes: don’t make promises, just make something great happen.
