EP247: Turning ADHD Challenges into Business Superpowers with Skye Waterson

Wonderful to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah, yeah. So it's been an interesting journey. I'm a former academic who burned out really hard a lot, but particularly between my master's and my PhD. And at the beginning of my PhD, I found out that I had ADHD, and that was the reason that I was struggling. And that pushed me into... a world of researching systems for my own brain, looking into the neuroscience behind it, looking into how it works, and then building a business that helps other people do the same. Along that journey, I really became very passionate about business systems, building the support for business owners specifically because so many people with ADHD go into business and it is an opportunity, but it's also... a real struggle if you don't have the systems. And so that's what I do now with unconventional organization.

Everything started with me being like, how the heck am I going to get anything done without burning out?

So I grew the business of unconventional organization to about six figures before we switched only to business owners. We used to work with professionals in general. And the shift to businesses is just because, you know, one, it's a big passion of mine. I love business. I'll talk about business acquisition and marketing and systems like that all day. And I love learning more and more about that. But two, it's because there's a very specific way of being when you're voluntary. And you said it just before we jumped on here. You're the arsonist and the firefighter in your own business. And that is very true. And so unlike working with a boss, where at the end of the day, the buck stops with them, the ability to grow revenue stops with them, and a lot of other things stop with them, you have unlimited potential. and unlimited ability to ruin your own reputation.

It's usually about potential. So a lot of times people will struggle to work to their potential. They might be behind, like when we look at the research, for example, they might be behind other people, their peers, you know, who have gone on to maybe grow bigger businesses and have more stable staffing situations, things like that. And you feel like you're always fighting fires. You're waking up, you're having those couple of good days where you're like, man, if I could just keep hitting those amazing days, this would be great. But then a lot of the rest of it is you start the day, you're feeling behind, there's chaos, you fight fires, you don't build momentum in your business. Something happens with a client, you're back, you're behind, and that overwhelm follows you around. And it doesn't have to be like that. A lot of times people feel very trapped because they're using systems that don't work for how their brain works. And they are... As a result, they're not working to their capacity. I hear this a lot from people. I could be doing more. I just don't know how.

people I speak to and work with don't get diagnosed. You don't need to get diagnosed to work on these systems and strategies. Sure. But the conversation, it's funny you say in a silo. In some cases, the problem is that you're not in a silo. Because not only are you in a position where you have seen your wife really knock things out. But you're also taught a system that is designed for your wife's brain and not for your brain. And so you are kind of sometimes working against systems that work for you. So if I give you some examples of what that looks like, if you're in a position where you work a day that involves, I've got to go to site, I've got to come home, I've got to do some admin, I've got to have a meeting, I've got to deal with a client. We struggle with transition times with ADHD. So having all of these different things in one day makes it really hard for us to get any deep work done. Other things can be I am in a position where people expect me and I expect myself to, you know, if somebody says, hey, could you just make sure that you contact so-and-so about XYZ? You go, yeah, yeah, no worries. And you don't write it down. You just expect you're going to remember it. That doesn't happen with ADHD. Working memory is a real struggle. Time blindness. Someone says, when is this job going to get finished? Which is a huge problem, you know, with these kinds of businesses forecasting jobs. You're going, tomorrow? End of the week? Like, that's kind of the, you know, and that is 100%. You know, the scope of that is you're underestimating. Sorry, overestimating what you can get done in that period of time. So time blindness, transition times, working memory struggles, dopamine, you know, you get a couple of good months and you start going like, oh, what if we did this thing? And you start throwing some like curveballs into your own business because you're used to the business being the source of dopamine for you. These are usually what you're seeing in people who struggle with ADHD symptoms.

Yeah. And it can be, you know, we talk about that, that, you know, everyone wants to make, you know, that first million. They want to be that billion dollar business owner. One of the struggles that we have is like you can grind it out in the six-figure space. In the seven-figure space, you should probably have a consistent system that's working and working well. But with ADHD, especially if you're the kind of person who's been getting a lot of dopamine from your business and a lot of times the people I work with work really, really hard. The last time they did something fun for themselves is like they can't even remember. I was talking to a tradie. about this the other day. And they were like, I don't know, go to the gym. Like, what do I do for fun? And so the idea of like, the business is where I'm getting my dopamine, the business is where I'm getting my sense of pride, my sense of like, you know, excitement in the week, you know, getting those deals done, et cetera, et cetera, can actually mean that when things are going well, then you start to throw some curveballs in, you take on a bit too much work, you hire. over hire or you under hire or you try and get back on the job even though you shouldn't be doing that you know things like that that can start to derail your ability to actually just keep going keep scaling to that million dollar mark

a hundred percent

that's what we talk about that you know you won't find in other business programs is like people being like yeah, I want to do this thing. And yes, that will triple my revenue, but it's super boring and I don't want to do it.

yeah especially when okay you're pulling the lever and now you have to think about how do I pull the lever better you know how do I increase the volume on this how do I build the systems and processes around this how do I delegate this like there's a lot of like pulling the lever well and that becomes you know a lot of it feels like you want to you want to go do something else but you actually have to throw yourself back into the system and the problems that you're already having to improve them to make them more of that well-oiled machine

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you're under it, one of my mentors says something that I try and live by, which is if you're under a million, you should only have one business. You should only be selling one thing.

Yeah, but at least under a million, like keep to that focus because so much of what you're doing is about focusing. But again, with ADHD, without the strategies, and this is the thing that I really want people to understand is like ADHD is not a superpower, but it's not an inevitable struggle either. It's strong strengths in certain areas like... creative problem solving, creative thinking, getting yourself out of a jam. You've probably got yourself out of a ton of them in your lifetime. And strong weaknesses around admin, around consistency. And so if we can build systems to manage those weaknesses, then we can go and live more in your strength space. And that's where you really start to see people become very successful business owners. with ADHD and in some ways because of ADHD.

Hire and delegate effectively. It's kind of both because, you know, a lot of times people will hire and then I'll come back and I'll be like, cool. So what's that person doing? Oh, I haven't. I just let them have free reign, but they don't read my mind. So we're going to fire them. You know, like that, that kind of energy can be, can be a lot. And I've worked with, you know, I was talking to some other woman who runs a podcast for people in trades and, you know. Everybody thinks that they can't find good guys or good people. It's the number one thing I hear. If only I could find good people, my business would be better. But the truth is you need systems to make average people good. And that's what these business building systems are.

Well, like I said before, it's not their superpower. It's their strength that is different from other people. So if you think about it from an environmental perspective, while other people are struggling to move in a market or come up with new ideas, they're going and coming up with new ideas and moving in the market and all of those kinds of things are really, really great. But they also should be managing their weaknesses. So they've either gotten to a revenue point where they can hire a really good team around them to action their steps or they build systems and structures to keep that consistency. Or sometimes they get super lucky and they just dig a tunnel to a million and by the time they get there, everything works around them. That happens too. But usually when someone says to me like, oh, ADHD is my superpower. It has zero downside. There's a team around them that are going like, yeah, they are. a few downsides. I don't tell it, but you know, but, but they are managing those downsides for them. So usually it's about, you know, when I'm working with somebody and they have ADHD, it's about going, let's respect your strengths, but also manage your weaknesses. Most of the time you have to do both. Yeah.

It's a good question. I mean, I don't work with personality. I mostly work with ADHD, which is its own strengths and weaknesses. What I will say is that if you have a natural aptitude for hiring, it will be easier for you. But at the end of the day, you know, because I do work with people who have those kinds of personalities. And so they've hired an amazing team, but you still have to show up as a leader. And a lot of the times, you know, I'll work with entrepreneurs who are making multiple millions of dollars in their business, but they don't have the confidence that they need to really direct and lead their business because they're kind of being... told like, oh, well, you know, just go off and do your thing. Like, you know, be a good face and we'll do the rest of it and that kind of thing. When really what I try and teach and what I want to teach is that in the confidence of like, no, this is the area I'm good at. This is the area I struggle in. This is where you're good at stuff. This is where you struggle. And we're like working together to build that system together.

Yeah. Well, the first thing we need to do is we need to actually give you time because a lot of times when I work with business owners, they'll come to me and they'll say, hiring, delegating. I have 200 things that are on fire that I have to do right now. And you're never going to convince me there's less than 200. And I actually have a system that I've taught for years now. I taught this with individuals and now I teach it with entrepreneurs. Most people,99% of people do not have more than five truly urgent things on their task list. So actually I have an AI bot that walks you through this. So if you message me Brad at unconventional organization on Instagram, I'll send that to you and it'll kind of walk you through these steps because it's helpful to have that kind of support. But let me talk you through kind of how it works today because it is pretty simple. So the first thing that you want to do, is you want to go ahead and you want to brain dump. You want to brain dump everything that is in your head into a thing that you're going to reuse. So we don't want to use back of a napkin or something like that. Let's grab a journal. Let's grab a doc. And we want to write down every single task that is in your head. So it could be a home task, a work task. We don't discriminate. But don't look at your email. Don't look at your other task lists. Just go with what's in your head. Once you've done that, What I want you to do is I want you to look at that list and I want you to identify what has to be done in the next 24 hours or there will be a significant external negative consequence. And you might think at this point, okay, I'm doing the Eisenhower matrix. You're not. The Eisenhower matrix is quite difficult with ADHD. But what you are doing is you're doing a priority. You're doing a filtering mechanism. And so one of the ways that I get people to think about this is Imagine your day goes sideways and you end up in a waiting room and you're going to be in that waiting room all day. Like that is what is happening with your day. What is the stuff that you would still do on your phone or you would have to contact someone and say, I'm not going to be able to do this tomorrow because I couldn't get prepped for it today. Those are the things that are truly hitting that urgent space. Once you go through this, you'll really start to narrow down. what's urgent, which is important because a lot of times what is urgent and what is easy to tick off tends to have a complicated relationship with each other. And we'll be like, oh, well, it would be nice if this got done and this would be easy to do. And this was somebody else's urgent. And we'll put all of those things on our list. And in reality, what our job is, especially as CEOs, is it's not to tick off our task list. It's to do the things that have to be done. And then with the space that's left, work on the things that are going to move the needle in our business and make life easier for us and everyone else in the long term.

So the first process, yeah. So this is a multi-step process. And like I said, you know, the AI walks you through it. If you want, you can just grab that and it'll kind of take you through those steps. But yeah, this is the first thing we want to do, which is take you from, I have a million things to do today to I have four things to do today. I actually have time because most of the time, you know, when I work with people, they feel overwhelmed, they don't have enough time and their revenue is inconsistent. So we want to figure out how to focus them. how to give them their time back, which is actually not that complicated once you learn how to prioritize and how to actually start. And then how to understand how to grow consistent revenue. And that's where the conversation of the 80-20 comes in. Often when I work with business owners, they come to me and they have a wish list. They have a house of cards. I want to do this. I need to do some outreach. I'm going to start some paid ads, but I'm also going to hand out flyers and I'm getting my car redone and I'm doing that, you know, and we're doing this all at once. You know, I've got the energy, I've got the enthusiasm as long as nothing breaks and no clients, you know, gets, you know, no people get sick, no clients cancel, you know, for whatever reason, nobody gets locked out of the house, you know. We should all be good.

And in reality, that never happens. And so the whole house of cards falls down and people get stuck picking up the pieces and they have to start all over again. And they do this again and again and again. And for some people, they've done this for years. You know, built a house of cards, had it knock over, come back, done it again. What I teach people how to do and what's particularly difficult for ADHD, because our brains do not necessarily naturally want to do this, is I teach people how to go in and go, okay. What is the first domino that you need to knock over that's going to make all the other dominoes easier to hit? So what is the first thing for you? Is it acquisition? Do we have to increase your lead flow pipeline? Is it delivery? Is it the fact that you're not actually getting those quotes down? I mean, I've worked with people who are like, I'm struggling with cash flow. And I'm like, okay, well, how many invoices have you not paid? They're like, well, about 30. You know, this is the conversation that we have. We need to figure out what is the first thing that if you did it, it would have a huge impact positively on your revenue, on your business growth and why you're not doing it. Because it's usually when we talk about ADHD, something like it's boring, it's confusing, it's emotionally vulnerable. I can't find guys, you know, all of those conversations.

Yeah. And that's the craziest part. Is there something? For most people, there's something that you could do that would make your business 3x. I've seen people do the 3x in the first 30 days working with us. And you're not doing it because of some kind of ADHD block that you're just not aware of how to fix.

The next step is to do it.

Well, this is the tricky part. So usually you have to do it or you have to learn how to delegate it. So I have a process where I teach people how to delegate without actually doing the task. So yeah, sometimes the first thing we have to do is delegate it, but it really, it depends on a couple of things. It depends on who is doing it, but even the delegating is a task, right? So usually we're in a position where we're going, okay. There's two things. One of these two things is usually broken first. Either you're not getting enough clients, you know, you're not getting enough leads, or you've got too many, you're not delivering. So you've got capacity issues. So usually when I'm working with people in trades, the next thing we have to do is either we need to hire somebody to fix the capacity issue, or we need to give somebody more jobs or build out a system where people can see what's coming up. Or we need to go in and look at your lead flow and actually how to build you out some earned media paid ads kind of system. And so we don't get to just throw that at somebody and run away. That's unfortunately not how it works. There are ways to make delegation a lot easier. I use AI to help people and I have a little GBT actually that you can use internally in our community that will... let you brain dump and then come up with like an SOP that you can hand to somebody and then they have a meeting with you to double check it. But often the first thing we have to do is even identify who's going to be that person for you in your business. Because a lot of times it's a tricky one. I've worked with people who have really, really big businesses and they still don't have somebody in admin, for example.

And again, this is the conversation about, you know, you said in a silo, you might not notice. Well, in a silo, you'd probably hire an admin because it would be super annoying not to have one. But when you're somebody who doesn't have ADHD struggles, the advice is don't hire an admin because you're great at that. stuff and you know hire a team who can get on the job and work the job but the problem is and this is a particular issue when we're working in construction or places like that is like it's a little bit harder to delegate to somebody who just wants to go to a job site and fix the problem on the site and go home you know and so you want to give them the job of like managing the site or Making sure, you know, there's some things that are particularly helpful, like, you know, I've worked with, you know, I've worked with clients who've really benefited from having a system, you know, there's so many of those digital systems now that will like do logs and quotes and things like that. And just setting up a system where you're like, okay, at four o 'clock every day, the team has to take a photo of the site and give me an update. Like even that stuff is, you know, for some people, that's the first thing. that lets them get out of having to go down to the job site all the time.

Great question. So the first thing we want to do is we want to actually draw out your business. So we do something called an SOP pipeline. And what that looks like is we just want to grab a digital space. And I have templates. And when I work with people, that's how I do it. And draw out a sense of, okay, how do you get clients? So the first thing I'm going to ask you is, okay, how do you get clients? How do you quote them? How do you sell to them? How do they accept the quote? How do you do the job? Like, what does that flow look like for you? And then the next thing we want to look at is which part of that is the most broken right now? Now, I'm not going to ask you that on your own podcast, but that would be the next question that I would ask. Yep. Go for it. Go for it.

So then the next question that I'd have for you is, okay, do you want to do SEO, paid ads or earned media? Like what's worked in the past for you?

Okay. Okay, cool. So if organic social media has worked better than paid ads. Now, organic social media is a great way to get clients that know you, but it's not a long, it's not a really good. actionable strategy. It's not scalable. Right. And this is the same thing. People will come to me and they'll say I have referrals and I'm like, that's really lovely, but it's not scalable.

my love language here. Yeah. Yeah. Um, if, but if, if pay, so there's two things we can go back into the pain of paid ads, you know, and say like, okay, it hasn't worked, but maybe I still want to learn it and, you know, et cetera. Or we can do earned media, which is like getting in front of other people's, getting on other people's stages. So, you know, going on other people's podcasts, doing that kind of thing. And so usually, and again, this is where the ADHD comes in. I tend to ask people what they enjoy doing the most, because a lot of times I'll find that, you know, you've got the guy who just wants to sit in front of a spreadsheet all day. And then you've got the person who wants to talk to.

That's a great strategy. Yeah.

This is the thing. You don't have to do that. you have to delegate that task. Right.

So the first job for your operations manager, and this is sometimes people get really confused because they're like, wait, but like, why would they do that? I'm like, well, this is the first job for the first person that you hire is to fix the thing that's broken. So if the thing is leads and you decide, and again, This is one of the reasons I love what I do because we're great diversion thinkers, but we just need to pick a lane because actually all three of these can work. It's really about what you want to do and what you want to scale. We would say, okay, this is the process that you want to build out and make really chunky. You want to get it to a place where you're emailing like 50 podcasts a day. You know exactly what kind of podcasts work. You've optimized your email strategy. You know your rate of return. that's when it's scalable, right? You can say, okay, I'm doing this and it's getting this result. So for your operations manager, and this might be a bit of a surprise for them, that's the most valuable ROI thing that they can do first for you.

I like to keep things in-house. And when I work with other entrepreneurs and I've heard from mentors, it's really good to keep things in-house. The exception maybe is ads, but really like, again, we want to build you a simple process that you understand, but you have delegated. Because, for example, to give you a sense of that, like with the example of the podcast, because I can speak to this because I have a podcast, we get pitched all the time from people who... Oh, yeah. And they're terrible pitches, right? Have you ever liked those pitches? Every day I get those. Yeah, and they're all bad, almost entirely. They're all templated. Yeah, they're all templated and they're AI'd, you know, et cetera, et cetera. So yes, you can, but it's... again, you want a system that you can, I think this is something that maybe is particularly, you know, I think you understand this is like, you want a system that you can optimize and you can scale. And so if, and it's also like, it's not that expensive to hire somebody to like do the outreach once you've built the system. And, and again, I'm talking as somebody who has a program where we give you the template we give you the sop we give you the ai to delegate like give you those processes so you're not gonna you know if you're listening to this and you don't have that then yes it's a lot more work because you have to figure out how to do it from scratch and so you're gonna want to hire somebody but at the end of the day keeping this stuff in house is going to allow you to do the next level which is what i teach which is the leadership loop where you guys are working in public together you You have metrics, you have weekly meetings, like that stuff is going to be harder and harder for an agency to pay attention to.

Yeah, this is what we, this is one of the things that we teach. So the number one thing is, you know, if you don't have a business mentor, find one. It took me way too long to get one and I regret that. It's like my biggest regret in my business is not doing that because they just have the answers to the questions. But outside of that, like we're talking about this particular method, it is, you know, asking, you know, if you wanted to, you could ask the AI, like, okay, give me a list of like 50 podcasts that I could go on that would be within this realm and this kind of thing that I'm looking for. You can use things like Podmatch as a good starter service for people, you know, and then when it comes to your team, again, it's about... creating, you know, not giving them the template step by step, because that's very difficult and you're boring with ADHD, but more the North Star. Like, what does it look like when this is done? What's the definition of done? What is the metric that you're expecting? I need you to reach out to 30 podcasts a week. This is done once you have an example of the outreach system. And, you know, once you have those emails set up and all of that kind of stuff, and, you know, then, you know, meet with me if you have any questions. That's the kind of cadence that we do.

know, and the metrics. Yeah. Yeah. Cause a lot of times people will be like, okay, well what's done in terms of the, in terms of the output and that's cool. But if somebody writes 50 terrible emails a week and nobody responds to them, like that's the problem. So we need to talk metrics as well.

It depends. So I have a couple of one-on-one spaces where I will create the systems. My team will create the systems for them. So for example, we would talk to your team and we would build out the SOPs and we would meet with them and then you would just need to check it. In my coaching program, which is what I do the most, I only have like eight people a month joining that program because we want to cap it because we do have the support. Basically what we do is we take you through this process. So we start with a two-week challenge. What's the thing that you could do? So for example, it would be... the podcast outreach. We give you all the templates. We give you the AI chatbots that will talk you through how to do it so that you are doing it with somebody when you actually get to it. And then you meet with me and we go, okay, how do we scale this? And so that's the process that we teach. So a lot of it is about focusing you, helping you get your time back, and then helping you implement scalable systems that don't suck for your brain. Because a lot of times that's where people get lost. They're like, I'm overwhelmed. I don't have enough time. And even if I did, somebody said something about building an SOP doc and I fell asleep and I'd rather do anything than that. And this can keep people trapped when in fact, when I work with people and you unlock this stuff, you can go from, I don't have leads to I have too many leads in a month. It really does just depend on where you're at and your business and your ability to. to make those shifts, which is what we teach you to do.

Yeah, it's built from the ground up to do that. Yeah, we think about that a lot. Like every single piece of the business is designed for somebody who has a different kind of brain. and struggles with ADHD symptoms. Because a lot of times people will say, yeah, I spent 10K on business strategy. And now I have this document of business strategy. And I have never used it. And I know it will be good, but I don't know how to do it. And so that how is as important as the watch.

If you struggle with ADHD symptoms, then 100%. If you don't struggle with ADHD symptoms, then I don't recommend you join our program. It's designed specifically for people who have ADHD struggles.

Yeah. And outside of your business too. I mean, I have a lot of very happy family members when, you know, they're like, you finally started coming home and not being in the work, like being present at home. Like those are the shifts that you see as well. Yeah, absolutely. Which is pretty amazing.

Oh, good question. I like reading a lot of books. I, Naval Ravikant, it's not really a book. It's like, it's like a... podcast that was turned into a book but he novell rabicant's book is really good um i can't remember the name of it right now um dan martell's buy back your time is really good it's also designed you know he has an adhd brain so it's quite adhd friendly in that way um So that can be quite helpful when you're talking about delegation. So I think I would recommend those as like starter books.

Yeah, Naval Ravacant. N-A-V-A-L, Ravacant.

generally it's about um it's basically about how to make money how to how to create wealth and he goes through like the different ways it's interesting because he talks about this idea of like you can make wealth by just like creating a lot of energy around you or you can make wealth by focusing on um on being the best at a strange thing and i just think it's very adhd friendly to think about that idea like you're the If you're the world's best deep sea diver, chances are someone's going to reach out to you and be like, hey, we need you to do something, you know? And so it kind of like talks through that idea of making wealth inevitable by leaning into who you are, which is very helpful when you have ADHD.

Yeah. Exactly. All right.

So I have a podcast, the ADHD Skills Lab. You can find any information there. We interview entrepreneurs. We talk about ADHD research. It's a really great sort of one-stop shop if you're learning about your brain and how to build a business with your brain. You can also find me at unconventionalorganization and you can message me Brad if you want the chatbot that will take you through how to focus when you're feeling overwhelmed. And then you can find me at unconventionalorganization in general. We have a lot of resources there.

Instagram. Instagram? Yeah, at unconventionalorganization on Instagram. Okay, they go to at. You just send me the word Brad. I

I will know that you came here, and we'll give you that resource.

Yeah, the focus formula.

No worries. It was a really great conversation. All right.