May 31

Episode 124: Energizing Strategies for Neurodivergent Professionals

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In today’s episode, Mike dives into a fascinating conversation with Kristina Proctor, an entrepreneur and coach specializing in supporting individuals with ADHD and neurodivergent traits. You won’t want to miss Kristina’s personal journey from the corporate world to entrepreneurship and the valuable insights she shares along the way.

Listen to the episode to uncover the secrets of a successful transition, learn how to stay motivated and avoid burnout, and discover strategies for overcoming the unique challenges faced by entrepreneurs with ADHD. Kristina’s expertise will empower you to thrive as a business owner and create a more inclusive and understanding workplace environment for neurodivergent individuals.

Tune in now and gain the inspiration and practical advice you need to take your entrepreneurial journey to new heights!

Kristina Proctor’s Bio

Kristina Proctor is a force to be reckoned with, an ADHD Coach and Marketing & Communications expert who has dominated almost 15 years in corporate America with a passion for helping adults with ADHD work with, not against, their unique brain chemistry. 

Kristina’s lived experience of working through ADHD as an adult in a corporate-an environment not designed for brains like hers–sets her apart, giving her unparalleled expertise and insight to create powerful tools and coping strategies for ADHDers to thrive. 

When Kristina isn’t changing lives and crushing it in her own business as a marketing and communication strategist, you can find her volunteering, serving on community boards, spending time with her son, or tackling DIY house projects. Her ADHD brain makes her believe that anything is possible with enough information and training. She brings that same bold approach to helping her clients achieve their personal, professional, or organizational goals. 

Ready to take your life to the next level? Connect with Kristina on TikTok, LinkedIn, or book a 1:1 session with her today at https://calendly.com/kristinaeproctor/45min. With Kristina by your side, you’ll be unstoppable.

In This Episode…

  • Discover the secrets to successfully transitioning from a corporate environment to owning your own business, as shared by Kristina Proctor who made the leap herself after 15 years in the corporate world.

  • Gain valuable insights into self-motivation and finding a healthy hustle without burning out, especially for entrepreneurs with ADHD or similar challenges.

  • Explore the pros and cons of the corporate world versus the flexibility and autonomy of entrepreneurship, and learn how to stay focused and productive in a less structured environment.

  • Uncover the challenges faced by entrepreneurs with ADHD, such as rejection sensitivity, and discover effective strategies to overcome these obstacles and thrive in sales and business interactions.

  • Understand the importance of energy management and goal setting for neurodivergent individuals, and learn how to make informal accommodations in the workplace to support their unique needs.

  • Discover the power of recognizing and addressing stigma around neurodivergence, fostering a more inclusive and understanding environment for employees with ADHD, dyslexia, or autism.

Links & Resources Mentioned…

Read The Transcript

Mike O'Neill: Welcome back to the Get Unstuck & On-Target podcast. I'm Mike O'Neill with Bench Builders and with leadership coaching and people skills training, we help companies solve the people problems that are slowing their growth. Joining me today is Kristina Proctor. Kristina is an ADHD coach and a marketing and communications expert.

Her lived experience of working through ADHD as an adult in a corporate environment that wasn't designed for brains like hers sets her apart, given her unparalleled expertise and insight to create powerful tools and coping strategies for ADHD-ers to thrive. Kristina is the founder of Neuro Divergent Ventures.

What a mouthful Kristina, Neurodivergent Ventures. Welcome Kristina.

Kristina Proctor: Oh, thank you, Mike. I'm happy to be here.

Mike O'Neill: You know, I've fumbled with Neurodivergent Ventures.

Kristina Proctor: Yeah.

Mike O'Neill: Namely, because this term, neurodivergent is something that I'm hearing more and more of, but I think there's a lot of confusion about what is it?

Can you define it as you typically do so?

Kristina Proctor: Yeah. So neurodivergence is definitely a word that I fumbled with a lot in the beginning too. When I was learning about my diagnosis. So it's defined and how I use it as people with neurological differences that result in unique behaviors, perceptions, and the way we think.

So it's different than what typical expectations would have.

Mike O'Neill: So I hate to put things in a box necessarily.

Kristina Proctor: Yeah.

Mike O'Neill: But what will be the kinds of, of things that would fall under that umbrella?

Kristina Proctor: Yeah. So, examples of neurodivergent conditions would be ADHD, autism, and dyslexia, for example. And so each one of those have different thinking patterns and behaviors, and it's common for people to have one or or two of those at the same time, I myself have ADHD and dyslexia.

And so when we have different behaviors, it could be sensory based, it could be emotional based. It could be lots of different thinking patterns, being able to connect dots that other people don't see initially, which is very helpful in the business world.

Mike O'Neill: The term ADHD is bat around a lot.

Kristina Proctor: It is.

Mike O'Neill: And I know that, that as a quote, diagnosis probably is a more common thing than it has been in the past. But there are many variations of, of that.

Kristina Proctor: Yeah.

Mike O'Neill: You described yourself as ADHD. What does that mean?

Kristina Proctor: So, ADHD is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and there's actually three different, what I call flavors of ADHD as described by the DSM, so the diagnostic manual.

And so there's ADHD hyperactivity, and that's typically where people align their understanding of ADHD. It's, it's physically external, so like you, hard trouble sitting still in school. Really having a hard time regulating emotions and stuff like that, especially as we grow. There's also the inattentive type.

This is typically what girls are assigned with. When they're younger or women are assigned with later, it's where our ADHD is, a lot of it's in our mind. So we have trouble focusing. Sometimes we're called ditzy or aloof, daydreamers. And we're told a lot if we would quote unquote just focus, then we would get work done or be able to do the work.

And so those, and then there's the combined type. And so basically that they have both hyper external hyperactivity and internal.

Mike O'Neill: I appreciate that. I wanted to point out, you and I met as a result of an introduction from our mutual friend.

Kristina Proctor: Yeah.

Mike O'Neill: Another Christina.

Kristina Proctor: Yes.

Mike O'Neill: Christina Hooper. Christina is the founder of Sparkitive and she runs a business that has found a real foothold amongst business owners who could be described as neurodivergent. And so.

Kristina Proctor: Yeah.

Mike O'Neill: She's the one who introduced me to the term and she said, oh, Mike, you've gotta talk to Kristina. And I did. And I just said, well, let me bring Kristina on the podcast and let me tell you why. I had a, a couple of, three reasons probably. The first is just your expertise.

Two, your ability to explain that in a way that I found relatively easy to understand.

Kristina Proctor: Yes.

Mike O'Neill: And three, perhaps most critically, is I would like to kind of talk about what you've learned about yourself and in that learning how you help others. If they find themselves similarly diagnosed, how can they excel in life?

And to some extent, I would also like to spend some time for us to kind of better understand that if this describes you, this is the podcast for you. If this describes someone, perhaps you manage. And this also is the podcast for you. So why don't we start with the first. ADHD in the workplace, you've gotten through school, you're in the workplace folks who have it and or any other conditions you wanna talk about, in what ways do they struggle?

Kristina Proctor: That is a such an amazing question. So, I try to really talk. When somebody has ADHD and they're going to the workplace, they're moving from college, or some type of school program or even, you know, going directly into the workforce after high school. Transitions for people with ADHD can be very difficult because what got us to that place won't necessarily work anymore.

So we typically have different types of coping strategies to address our ADHD. People understand that ADHD-ers have challenges with procrastination. Often that manifests in school, that we're doing papers at midnight when they're due at 1:00 AM.

Submitted online and so that, I am definitely guilty of that, getting into roles where I was woefully shocked at the transition. So really a lot of it is learning that transitions can be difficult and you won't know until you're in it, that the coping strategies that you had before may not work anymore because you can't necessarily stay up all hours of the night to get something done.

And the other part of that, too, Is that when it comes to procrastination and, and working in the workplace, you are beholden potentially to with other people. You're doing, you're essentially doing group projects all the time, especially in a corporate world or any type of organization where you are, you know, building through a major project.

And so you have to learn how to work with your ADHD in, in those specific environments. Instead of working against it and forcing your old coping strategies to be the solution.

Mike O'Neill: Kristina, I was not formally diagnosed in school. But I understand now that i, I struggle with attention deficit.

 And the way I coped with it in school was list.

Kristina Proctor: Yeah.

Mike O'Neill: I would make list and. Sometimes I would obsess on the list. I would spend more time making the list than doing whatever it is that needed to be done off the list.

Kristina Proctor: Yes.

Mike O'Neill: Here's the irony. For those who are watching, I'm actually holding up my list.

This is the stuff that I try to keep in front of me.

Kristina Proctor: Yeah.

Mike O'Neill: Now why do I share that? It took me until I got to graduate school to figure out what system would work for me.

Kristina Proctor: Yeah.

Mike O'Neill: But when I figured it out, it made all the difference.

Kristina Proctor: That's right.

Mike O'Neill: The point you made about transitioning from, from college to the workplace.

That's important because you've had a system that you hope find that works, then you start all over again.

Kristina Proctor: That's right.

Mike O'Neill: I know you work one-on-one and you work perhaps even with groups, with folks who kind of fall into this category. You made a point, was interesting to me, and that is, it's one thing to be responsible for your productivity, but when you need to contribute in a collaborative way, is that particularly challenging for ADHD-ers?

Kristina Proctor: I don't think for ADHD-ers when it comes to collaborating, collaborating and working together, that usually, I mean, once you meet one ADHD or you've basically met only one, right? Everybody has their different skills. But generally ADHD-ers do really well when it comes to interacting and collaborating and thinking through and being creative and finding creative solutions.

And they're amazing in a crisis actually. And that's where the chemicals in our brain just function well. But that's not a sustainable model by any means. But when it comes to working with people, when it comes to deadlines outside of planning, planning, we usually can do in spades, right? Just like you pointed out, like, I've got my list, I've got my process.

It's the execution that sometimes we have challenges with, and that's when understanding about our brains and embracing our ADHD is really important and understanding how to support ourselves when execution becomes a struggle. So doing our part of the group work, our part of the project, and being on time for it.

Mike O'Neill: Gotcha. You know, we talked a little bit about managing. If this is what you are struggling with, but what if you're managing people on your team who have that what is your guidance for the leaders who are listening in who may have one or more people on their team that kind of fit this definition?

Kristina Proctor: I remind them that it's not about micromanagement at all. It's about clarity. It's about, for them as leaders being consistent with their staff and understanding that some staff members need different type of support. And that's how it is with every human on this planet. Everybody needs something a little bit different, but showing up every day and being your authentic self and explaining and being transparent about the requirements documenting the requirements as well as have, So having a place where people with ADHD or dyslexia or autism can go back and review deadlines, notes from meetings, directions, or project plans, is important.

Because sometimes, like you said, with list, we, we forget or we get overwhelmed, or we get sidetracked on another project and having a place that we can go back and visit and encouraging them to create a habit out of revisiting it frequently, weekly, daily, is a great first step in that direction.

Mike O'Neill: I introduced you as wearing multiple hats.

We're gonna spend most of our time on the hat of being an ADHD coach, but when people reach out to you. What might be the themes that prompt them to say, I'd like to talk to Kristina?

Kristina Proctor: Usually if it is talking about people who are either entrepreneurs or corporate professionals they've seen some of my videos when it comes to energy management, embracing your ADHD and throwing your career on a higher level.

 And you do. And how I went about doing that and how I found what I wanted to do, and that's usually where. They see me talking about energy management. Effective goal setting for somebody with ADHD because we do better with different types of goal setting approaches, and that's how people usually wanna end up talking to me.

Mike O'Neill: You know, I know you spent probably nearly 15 years in the corporate world before you started your, your business. How have you found the transition in light of what we're talking about to be, to going from a corporate environment to owning your own business?

Kristina Proctor: I was doing a lot of reflecting on this over the past couple of weeks actually.

And I realize now the first, I would say probably six to nine months I was burned out. So I, the transition. I don't regret that. And I think that it was the best decision for me and I've felt great ever since I made this jump into entrepreneurship and I had to figure out how to self-motivate in the morning.

So it was a huge transition for me to figure out what type of coping strategies I needed to get up, to get moving, to achieve, to contact clients and to really learn what a healthy hustle looks like for me without burning myself out again. So it was, it was a transitional challenge for sure.

Mike O'Neill: I have friends who are in the corporate world and they say, oh, I'd love to have your lifestyle.

You can do whatever you want whenever. I don't mind confiding, and that is in the corporate world. I really excelled in that structure.

Kristina Proctor: Yes.

Mike O'Neill: I was in a leadership role and so I had the advantage that I could surround myself with people on my team that could do things I didn't do well.

Kristina Proctor: That's right.

Mike O'Neill: And therefore I had folks to delegate. But the nature of the corporate role is there's a high degree of structure. This is pre covid, but you would be pretty much at the office at a certain time.

Kristina Proctor: Yeah.

Mike O'Neill: You'd leave about the same time. But when I started working for myself, there is no formality there and I really worried that I would get distracted. That something would catch my attention and all of a sudden I've realized I'm cleaning out the garage in the middle of the afternoon, or I mean, or ,the list goes somewhere.

Kristina Proctor: I, I'm not, I'm not laughing at you. I'm just, it resonates so deeply.

Mike O'Neill: I, I share that just to say I thought that I would be just chasing squirrels. And it really surprised me that when I basically put my mind to it, I think I'm working harder and longer and more focused.

Kristina Proctor: Yeah.

Mike O'Neill: Now in large part, because I don't have the same degree of external distractions. That's right. I don't have people knocking on my door, Hey, Mike, you got a minute or.

I'm not being drug to senseless meetings or the like the meetings, say the meaning. I say that with you because I too enjoy working with entrepreneurs and business owners and those who make that transition. People think it's easy, it's not right.

Kristina Proctor: It's, yeah, accurate.

Mike O'Neill: It's, it's hard. And as a coach working with entrepreneurs, what do you find, particularly those new entrepreneurs who have ADHD or something similar to that, what is part of their biggest challenge?

Kristina Proctor: So there's a couple that I'm working with right now. A big part of it is something that is what they believe. Dr. Dodson, who's an ADHD expert and he believes it's unique to ADHD-ers, is rejection sensitivity dysphoria, so RSD. And so that is the perception that you could be rejected. And that's something that we struggle with throughout our life.

Right. And. You know, there's thoughts that it's genetic and environmental because as ADHD-ers, you know, we are redirected 20,000 times more than our neurotypical peers as kids. So we are constantly worried that we're not doing the right thing, we're, we need that approval, and we are constantly seeking that.

So when they're shifting into entrepreneurship, they have challenges with rejection sensitivity, worried about staff members, contractors, clients even. And sometimes working through those moments is a big aha where it's like, I'm here to help them. I'm here to support my staff or my colleagues or my clients.

And is this a moment of rejection sensitivity and what is it really rooted in? So that is something that I work with my, especially my entrepreneurial clients on, because it comes down to even having a challenge to invoice clients. Like, am I really worth invoicing this? And it's like you did $20,000 worth of work for them, and they agreed to this.

Send the invoice, but it goes into that rejection sensitivity and that also goes into those small tasks that are critical to your business getting completed. And so really those small tasks that are sometimes boring, like invoicing and mixed win with rejection sensitivity can really make entrepreneurship a challenge for somebody with ADHD for sure.

Mike O'Neill: For those watching the video, they're seeing me kind of nod. You just described me pretty accurately.

Kristina Proctor: Yeah.

Mike O'Neill: And that is and, and something that we didn't talk about, but I think it's somewhat related. And that is, if that is a potential tendency. The boring stuff is just that it's boring. You don't wanna do it.

Kristina Proctor: Right.

Mike O'Neill: But at the same time, when you are self-employed, you're charging for your time. That's right. And you're invoicing. And you're asking them to pay you. And something we didn't talk about, but one thing I do find talking to entrepreneurs is they love what they do.

Kristina Proctor: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Mike O'Neill: But getting the business, asking for the sale if a person is struggling with this rejection tendency.

Kristina Proctor: Yeah.

Mike O'Neill: Then it's a kind of a double whammy.

Kristina Proctor: That's right.

Mike O'Neill: Do you find that that is oftentimes true entrepreneurs who love their product or love their service know that they're good at it, but struggle with asking for business?

Kristina Proctor: That's right. Absolutely. And that fear of even potential, it really cause rejection sensitivity is rooted and the potential of being rejected. So doing sales can be challenging. And I do know some ADHD-ers who are excellent at sales because they are "people" people, they wanna solve problems, and that's their bag.

And then there's another pendulum swing, and there's those of us who really struggle with the ask. And so that's when rejection sensitivity, and honestly even sales work. Learning how to do sales was pivotal for me because that's when I learned how to work through my rejection sensitivity, being like, I'm bringing a solution to the challenge that they face.

I believe in my product like this is, this is the way it is. And if they say no, then that wasn't the right client for me. And so going through sales training and understanding that it's more than just. You know, not accepting any less than four no's or something along those lines. Learning how to do it in ways that work for you is the most important part.

Mike O'Neill: I got you. You know, Kristina, I know that you are a coach. You also provide other services. Talk about those services.

Kristina Proctor: Yeah, so I'm a coach one-on-one for ADHD entrepreneurs and corporate professionals. And then I also do corporate trainings on how to work with your neurodivergent staff and maybe you yourself are a neurodivergent manager and learning how to delegate.

Because rejection sensitivity can impact your delegation as well as understanding about how to coach your own staff as somebody who's neuro divergent, as well as learning to work with your staff if you have staff who are have ADHD or autism. So some of the trainings that I do are talking about how to best project plan.

And how to execute and learn to do strategy with people who have neurodivergent brains. And then I also, because in true ADHD fashion, we ha we are multi-passionate individuals. I also do marketing and communication strategy with large corporations and nonprofits.

Mike O'Neill: I can see how those two could marry up at the same time.

Kristina Proctor: Absolutely.

Mike O'Neill: The term, I don't think, if you noticed not, but you used the term strategy two or three times. It sounds like that's a kind of a, an expertise of you helping individuals and teams execute on strategy.

Kristina Proctor: Yeah, absolutely. So that was one of the, the things I really enjoyed most when I was in corporate is strategy, development, reporting, analytics, and tactical development.

So really learning, we, you know, where you wanna go as an entrepreneur or business owner. The strategies to get there, the objectives and the KPIs and the goals like that development is a sometimes a different bag of expertise and so working with leaders and managers and, and people who are implementing to help them understand and get behind the initiative and the excitement is something that I really enjoy and something that drove my passion in corporate.

Mike O'Neill: I can see that I can hear that in your, in your voice. Kristina, reflect back if you would, on a time where perhaps a client or even yourself got stuck and what did it take to get unstuck?

Kristina Proctor: Oh, so, hmm. There's so many situations running through my mind right now. So one, I, I took a new job at a role in an organization and I was super excited.

It was analytics based and I had been wanting, my hyper fixation at that point had been data analytics, and I'd learned everything by being scrappy because that's what we do. We, if I don't know it, I figure it out and that's part of the fun. And so I was able, through that scrappiness and development, I was able to get a job in a different department.

And I, when I got in there, it wasn't what I thought it would be, which is totally okay. Which is totally fine. Like it just, they changed the schedule up on me, which is those expectations and understanding the location in which my office was, was not friendly to what I needed. Like it was in a closet with no windows, and I'm doing data analytics in a dark space and that was a challenge.

That was a challenge for me, and I got to a point where I felt like a failure because I'd gotten the job that I'd wanted. And gotten to a point where I was doing the strategy and influence influencing decisions based on those analytics and making good recommendations. And the, I felt stuck because all of the, what you would probably call, like job amenities, wasn't working for me.

Location, time I needed to be there, the schedule changed frequently and I was in charge of the schedule and I had to manage it cause they wanted us to be on call after I got hired, and that was not something that I wanted nor would I mentally prepared for in my transition.

Mike O'Neill: Yeah.

Kristina Proctor: So I felt stuck in this job that I enjoyed the work, but the workspace didn't work for me and so I had to start working through what do I need and how do I get there.

And so I have, I started down that path and had to resign and go to, and I went back to my old apartment. So I gave it, I gave it a try, I gave it a solid year and it didn't work. And that's okay.

Mike O'Neill: You know, you raised an interesting point and that is there's so much that goes into feeling that this is the right fit.

Kristina Proctor: Yeah.

Mike O'Neill: The actual work that you were doing spoke to kind of who you were. But where you did it and when you did it was very different than you anticipated. And it sounds as if it was constantly changing. And if I heard you earlier talk about folks with ADHD, we might think we want a lot of change, but we like things to stay the same because we figured out how to work through.

Kristina Proctor: That's right.

Mike O'Neill: Okay.

Kristina Proctor: Yeah.

Mike O'Neill: Alright. I appreciate you sharing that. As we kind of step back and, and reflect on your work with clients, your work with client organizations, what might be some things that you think would be helpful for us to know that we haven't talked about?

Kristina Proctor: Yeah. So I think often when organizations are working with people who are neuro divergent, especially ADHD, we deal with stigma, right?

And the stigma that people with ADHD are lazy or they're never on time, or they. Don't listen. And yeah, we have our own challenges just like everybody else. Just like a single mother does. I myself am a single mother and we have challenges and there's other challenges that people who don't have ADHD have.

However, the difference there is that the challenges these other people have are socially acceptable. And ours come across as inconvenient when in reality if you are able to make accommodations, even just small accommodations, not even through your HR department, you're able to support your staff in ways that you never even knew could be possible.

And some of the ways that I encourage managers to think as well as clients that I'm coaching as like you can ask for what I affectionately call informal accommodations, so that's not going through HR or disclosing that you have autism, dyslexia or ADHD I call it using, using your words. So we go by saying, I work best when.

So in your interview, you can even say if you're interviewing for a corporate accounting role, you can say, I work best when I'm able to come into the office early so I can focus on my work before the hustle and bustle starts. Is that something that I could do in this role? It's non-invasive, it's not disclosing.

You are communicating your work needs in a way that is socially acceptable. Do I wanna live in a world where the stigma's not there? Absolutely. However, it's important to acknowledge that it is and to, for some people, you have to learn to work within that world. And you can, while other people are trying to fight and elevate the awareness and understanding of neurodivergence.

And so I bring that up because it's so important to me for people to understand that there are lots of people who have ADHD, dyslexia, or autism who are heavily masking at work and it takes a lot of energy to be perceived as not these things. And we're learning all the time to figure out how we can adapt to the environment versus us coming together and working and figuring out how we can work together.

And so I let the employers know that the onerous has always been on the employee informally and formally, and coming together can really alleviate that stress for the staff member. And you will see them be able to work in ways that they haven't before because they're not having to take those other things into consideration.

Mike O'Neill: Kristina, you used a word a moment ago called masking.

Kristina Proctor: Yeah, yeah.

Mike O'Neill: And that, that one word just, just things went to my mind immediately. And that is people who are, who have these issues oftentimes are masking in that effort to mask is taking yet more energy.

Kristina Proctor: Yeah.

Mike O'Neill: I also just kind of skipped over, not intentionally, dyslexia. In large park, I don't really know much about it. For those who are not familiar with dyslexia, what, what is it and, and in what ways does it manifest?

Kristina Proctor: So dyslexia is there's lots of different theories about how it's executed in our brains and our eyes, but to keep it super simple, it's basically where sometimes we see things shift and move.

It's not like we see the letters shake on the page. It just literally is we might see the word, for example, technologies and I'll see the T and I might see the s but all the letters in between are kind of jumbled a little bit more. And so that's what I see. And so as I'm sure you can understand, it makes reading really difficult.

And sometimes grasping new concepts difficult. Once we get them, we get them. And there's lots of different ways that people can experience dyslexia. There's also something else called dysgraphia where that impacts, no, dyscalculia is something where numbers are hard.

Mike O'Neill: Yeah.

Kristina Proctor: And understanding time is even harder. So that can obviously impact work, but if you're a graphic designer sometimes that's very beneficial because people with dyslexia have a tendency to think in three dimensions. So if you think about thr three dimensions and you think about letters, is there a letter in the alphabet that when you move it up and down and over that it's the same letter?

You think about B, P, D and Q.

Mike O'Neill: Yeah.

Kristina Proctor: So that letter could be very difficult for somebody with dyslexia. And so spelling is difficult sometimes grammar is difficult sometimes, and those are things that are really. You can support those in a lot of different corporate roles through tools like Grammarly. Run something through a spell checker, Grammarly's great.

Because it goes into grammar a little bit deeper than like a word doc would. It can also sense tone, so that gets into tools with somebody who is ADHD or autism where we aren't always able to sense tone that we're using in emails. But that is what dyslexia is and that's how it can impact somebody in a role in corporate.

Mike O'Neill: Thanks for clarifying.

Kristina Proctor: Yeah.

Mike O'Neill: You know, Kristina, we've covered quite a bit.

Kristina Proctor: Yeah.

Mike O'Neill: In this conversation, but for those who are listening or watching, what do you wanna make sure that they take away from this conversation?

Kristina Proctor: Yeah, so the, if you have ADHD and you're working in a professional role, or you are an entrepreneur, And you are trying to figure out why you are struggling or you are like, I'm doing really well.

I'm succeeding, but I'm exhausted all the time and I'm just on the verge. Like, and if one thing goes wrong, you crack. The biggest thing I would say to start to do is something called energy management. Because ADHD-ers, our energy can ebb and flow. It's the same thing for people with autism. It, we can have really high energy one day and low mental energy, we call it, we don't have a lot of spoons today.

We just don't have the mental energy to do it. I don't have the spoons. And I woke up this morning for this podcast and I was like, I've got a lot of spoons today. I'm so excited. And so I would say look into energy management and start tracking how you feel, how your brain feels.

You don't have to do it super in depth. It, it's really meant to be on Tuesday I felt this way, high, medium, low, and these were the tasks that I had. And over time, you can start to see, oh, when I have this meeting on Tuesday, Wednesday, I'm spent. I see now that on Wednesday mornings I need to make my time a little bit more fluid so that I can rest and do tasks that don't take a lot of mental energy.

And so when we try to force ourselves into doing work that we're not down for, it creates way like we run into an energy deficit. So I would start with energy management. The next thing I would do is to do goal setting. In a way that makes sense for you, which is taking energy management into account, time of year responsibilities and things that you're interested in.

Cause sometimes we'll go after things that we think we should want and we actually don't. We start taking on other people's goals as our own for acceptance into the rejection sensitivity. And that's for entrepreneurs as well as professionals. So those are, those are things I would leave, leave people with and want them to know.

Mike O'Neill: I'm confident Kristina, that people who are listening to this podcast have heard something and they say, gosh, I wanna learn more. What is the best way for our listeners to connect with you?

Kristina Proctor: Yeah, so my website is neurodivergentventures.com if that's too much of a mouthful. If Neurodivergent is new for you, you can find me on TikTok and Instagram doing educational videos.

And that's under adhdcoachktina.

Mike O'Neill: We will put that including the website address in the show notes. I wanna make sure I do have your TikTok handle too, so if I don't have that, make sure I, I get that. So we can include that in the show notes. You know, Kristina, I knew that we're gonna have a, a, an interesting conversation, but I'm so pleased.

One, you woke up with lots of spoons.

Kristina Proctor: Yeah

Mike O'Neill: I too. And so we're, we're recording this relatively early in the morning. Your energy's high, your ability to communicate complex ideas is. Very, very good. Thank you for sharing your expertise today.

Kristina Proctor: Absolutely. It's a lot of fun. Thanks for having me, Mike, I appreciate it.

Mike O'Neill: I also wanna thank our listeners for joining us today. If you'd like to subscribe to this podcast, you can just go to your browser and type in unstuck.show. While you're there, if you'd like, you can also subscribe to our weekly management blog called The Bottom Line. So if you're trying to grow your business, but people problems have slowed you down, let's talk head over to bench-builders.com to schedule a call.

So I wanna thank you for joining us, and I hope you have picked up on some tips from Kristina. That'll help you get unstuck and on target. Until next time.

 

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