Redefine Success: Thrive as a Neurodivergent Entrepreneur

Welcome to the Overgivers Anonymous Podcast. My name is Angela Mondor, also known as the Geeky Girl. In this podcast, we're going to be talking about some amazing things to help you get over overgiving. Hi and welcome to this episode of the Overgivers Anonymous Podcast. My name is Angela Mondor and I'm also known as the Geeky Girl. Today we're going to talk about how we are neurodivergent and we are unstoppable, and I want to tell you that you are worthy of wild success. Don't let anybody slow your roll. You don't have to settle or fit in to be wildly successful as a neurodivergent entrepreneur. In fact, it's going to hold you back. Many of us feel like the world has been following some sort of script that we never got. Success is different for them, and we just feel like we're constantly trying to figure out what's working for them and why it isn't working for us. But success comes from embracing your differences, not hiding them. That's what's going to make the difference for you. In this episode, take this as your permission slip to rewrite the rules and to start thriving in your life and your business. Now, there's lots of times that I can look back on my entire existence and think about times when I doubted my worthiness. And times when I felt like an outsider, not only in my life but also in times of business as well. I'm not going to go over the stuff that happened as a kid. We're not going to go there. But in business, I remember going to networking events and watching people network with people and thinking, why does this feel so awkward? Why doesn't it feel like it looks for them? They look like they have it all together. Remember, everybody else's lives, they're the highlight reels you're seeing, so you're not seeing all the things that are happening underneath. But let's be honest, a lot of those typical things that work for other entrepreneurs, they just don't ring true for us. They don't work. We feel different in these situations, and so we can feel like an outsider in those positions. Trying to figure out how to navigate those waters was very difficult for me. There are still times when some things work for people and I try them and I feel there's just something not right about what's happening. I feel less like an outsider now. I feel like, oh, that's just not the right place for me, or I need to learn a skill here that I don't have. But typically speaking, in the past in business, those things have felt like, hmm, maybe I don't belong here. Maybe this isn't right for me. Maybe I Shouldn't be here. And yet that's not true, because what I did find after learning and embracing myself and my skills— what I learned was I have things to offer that other people don't have, and other people are looking for the skills that I have to offer. And even if I'm a little different, that's okay. In fact, my differences is what actually makes me Stand out, and it makes me special, and it actually helps me to be able to change the game for myself, and they're my biggest assets, okay? People who don't think like me, I can help them because I think differently, and you do too, and these are some really important pieces. The way that you show up in the world and the way that you interact with the world, those can be your biggest assets if you can recognize them And harness them for yourself. Because that's the difference. You can use those things to change the whole game and show up differently for yourself and for everybody else. Instead of burning out, instead of being overwhelmed and overworked and not fitting in and feeling like the square peg in the round hole, you can totally flip the entire thing and figure out how to make yourself a world. That you work best in, and so that you are full of energy and you are full of purpose and you are helping people in ways that they never thought possible, and you're having an absolute great time. Okay? Not everybody loves running automations. In fact, lots of people hate running automations. I love it. It is my jam. Somebody's like, I want to be able to do this, and then that happens. I'm like, cool, let's go make it happen. Whereas other people would be like, Oh God, I just, I hate doing this thing, but it's too much for me to even think about how to make that thing do that thing. And I'm just like, oh, I'm excited, but they hate it. Same thing for accounting. There's people out there who love accounting. They love the numbers, they love figuring all that. I can't stand it. It drives me nuts. See, we need each other. We each have our own unique things and we need to play off those things and we need to know what's really good for us so that we can help other people because they're looking for us out there. Just like we're looking for those people who can do the things that we don't like, right? So that's some of the things that you can do when you're looking at how you can embrace your thinking. You can literally help people. Like when when somebody says to me, "I'm trying to get X to do Y, and I just need an automation." Da da da da. And I go, "Oh yeah, you know what? If we do this and we connect that, and this thing happens there, and then this happens there, and then these pieces set up over here, and then we transfer this information over to there," and they're like. They're just like, oh, you can do that? And they're super excited, okay? Think about what you do in that way. What are some things that are super easy for you? Those are the type of things that you can really embrace and bring those things to the table and set yourself apart. Those are the things we're talking about because that's your gift. The way you think outside the box is your gift here, okay? So, So there's a lot of things that get in our way, and I'm gonna talk about a few of them. Obviously, we're not gonna talk about all the things that get in our way, but when we think about the things that specifically in neurodivergent worlds, imposter syndrome is a huge deal. And the way it shows up, the way that I've seen it show up, obviously for myself, but also other entrepreneurs I've worked with, is that we don't realize our gifts. We don't realize— The amazing things that we do. So when somebody comes to— like when we were talking about automations and I'm like super excited about it and I'm like, yeah, we could do this and we could do that and this and this and this and this. Before, I didn't realize that that was something that was helpful. I just thought everybody thought like that, or I just went, well, it's so easy for me, then why would somebody care about that? That's where that imposter syndrome shows up because you're— Feeling like you don't deserve to be paid for it, or you don't deserve the success because you operate differently, or it's too easy for you. So, that's one way that, you know, the Imposter Syndrome shows up for sure. But really, it's your gift, and it's what other people would love for you to do for them. Now, masking and self-doubt. Everybody masks on occasion, depending— neurotypicals do it as well when they have to put themselves into certain situations. You're gonna act differently around your family than you do around business or that you do around your friends. There's a bit of, you know, masking. But I'm talking about the stuff that actually holds you back, the stuff that actually puts you into self-doubt. When you have to adapt or change the way you behave so that you don't feel like people are looking at you or adapting in the way you think because you think— That nobody wants to hear it that way. You see a world you think you need to be part of, and you try to be something else because you don't feel like the world's not built for you. Now, the world isn't built for us. That's true. However, we can build our own worlds, and that's the best part. Okay? So if you're masking and there's all this self-doubt about how different you are than all those other people who are doing the entrepreneur thing, Know that if you continue to do those things, it's actually going to weigh you down. It's going to be exhausting for you. It's going to be harder for you to be successful. Letting down the mask, letting down, letting go of some of the self-doubt and really embracing who you are and the way you think, that is what's going to give you the oomph you need, the energy to keep going in something. If you keep working on something that you hate, it's going to be harder and harder for you to do it. That's— Neurodivergent people don't like to have to do hard things. We do hard things that are easy for us. Okay, there's a— that's a little bit of a tweak. We do hard things that are easy for us. They're hard for everybody else. Find those moments in yourself. Now, we have hyperfocus, and yes, it can be very, very valuable for us. It can help us get big things done in a period of time that doesn't seem real. And but yes, and hyperfocus can also be a limitation for us. It can keep us stuck into a place where we're not getting out of. We can focus on things that are harder rather than leveraging what comes naturally to us. So we can hyperfocus on, I'm not good at that and I need to get better. I think about like when we— if you've ever done a SWOT analysis, if you haven't done a SWOT analysis, you can Google it. We certainly have done some coverage of that. We've got blog posts on it and, you know, we've done some of these episodes with it as well, but if you're looking at that, you know, you've got your strengths, your weaknesses, your opportunities, and your threats. If you spend all of your time hyper-focusing on those weaknesses, which comes naturally to us generally simply because of the way society has viewed us in the past, the stories that we have, if you hyper-focus on your limitations and you're focusing just on those weaknesses, you're actually not helping yourself. I really encourage everybody, focus on your strengths. Okay? Hyperfocus on your strengths. Get better at your strengths because you can take those weaknesses and you can either outsource them, you can mitigate them, you can create automations for them. There's a lot of things you can do so you don't have to deal with those weaknesses. Not everybody can do everything, and yet we seem to think as neurodivergent entrepreneurs that we need to be perfect and we need to work harder than everybody else. Again, stories. Okay, time to change the stories. Now, we struggle with normal success metrics. We feel pressure to succeed in ways that don't align with our brain or our values. Now, when you're thinking about success, generally— I mean, tell me if I'm wrong, but generally we think about success and we look at somebody and we go, they're successful and this is the life I see And this is the success that they're seeing, and that's what I'm trying to get. Comparing ourselves to other people is only going to bring heartache. You can't see what's really going on behind the surface, even if you are part of their daily life, even though they're a friend of yours. You're still not going to see it all unless you are a trusted person inside that tiny little circle. People aren't going to tell you the things they're struggling with. I don't come on social media or these Podcast, I share a little bit of what's going on, but I'm not going to tell you everything that's happening. You don't see all of the— you don't see all the minutiae that goes on behind the scenes back here. So you're not going to see my struggles. You'll see some of my struggles, but you're not going to see them all. And so if you're comparing yourself with other people, you're not comparing yourselves to anything that's actually going to really matter in the end. I think it's really important to focus on your own success. Where am I today? Where was I? Oh, I was over there before? Cool! If myself 2 years ago could see myself today, I'd be super excited. That kind of comparison. Or comparing, I'm here now and here's where I'm trying to move to. When you— then you have— you can control, you have influence around the type of changes you're going to make and the success that you're happening in your life. Those are the kinds of things that I think is more important to focus on Rather than trying to compare yourself to every other Tom, Dick, and Harry that you don't know the whole story about, okay? So also the other piece to that is you don't know whether or not the way that their success is showing up is how you actually wanna get there. There's times when people have a success and you're like, I want that success, that's the thing I want in my life, and I know I've done it, it's like, oh, that's really cool, I want that, and then you look and go, okay, in order to get that I have to do these things, Oh crap, that doesn't line up with anything I want to do really. And then, so if I had just focused on that thing, the success that they were having, not even thinking about the things I had to get to it, I would have been really miserable trying to get here. Okay? So try not to focus on those kinds of things. Try not to put pressure on yourself to be successful in somebody else's version of the planet. Focus instead on the kind of success you want, the life you want to build, the life you want to live. and the work you want to do. What is it that lights you up? Why do we have a business if it doesn't at least make us feel good? Okay? So there's some actionable tips for you here. So claim your superpowers. It might be hard for you to figure out what they are at first. I know at first when I was doing this, I couldn't see them. I couldn't see what those superpowers were for me. I had to actually enlist some help to get other people to see them for me. I'd have conversations with people and I'd say, What do you think is something that I'm really good at? Or I'd have conversations about, you know, things that interest me and I'd say, hey, when you think about this, what does it mean to you? And they'd say their thing, you'd have a bit of a conversation, you'd go, oh, they don't think this way about me, and start to pay attention to these conversations. You might even be able to pay attention to conversations where people say to you, oh my God, you're really good at this. I have sticky notes on my wall over here. And when I was going through some of these things, when somebody would say, oh, you're really good at, I'd use that as my cue. Oh, and I'd write it down and I'd stick it. So then I'd be able to look later and go, oh, here's some things that other people say I'm really good at. Or, you know, little cues like, I never would've thought of that. Oh, what was I doing at the time? Okay, and I can write that down on a sticky note. It helped me to see myself through other people's eyes. You can also be part of a really great community that'll support you in that way. Or have a coach that is also there to do those things for you. But find out what those superpowers are. Claim them as your own. Really embrace them because those unique strengths will help you with your creativity. Maybe you're really good at empathy, resilience, innovation. There's so many things that you are amazing at and you just think, oh, everybody else does this, or this isn't so special. But really it is quite special. But when you start to look at these things and put them together, it's gonna be very helpful to you to see them and to be able to really craft your own superpowers out of that, to be able to help people get the most out of their lives as well. Now, the other piece to this is defining success on your own terms. What kind of life do you really wanna have? What kind of day do you wanna have? Where do you wanna spend your time? We have a fantastic masterclass if you're interested in really diving into this piece, To help you find a solid way for you to create this amazing thing in your life. We'll drop the link to this in the show notes so you'll be able to have access to it and go take this course. It's a fantastic way for you to be able to dive deep and figure out what is it about you and your life that you actually want to grow. Think about it like a garden, right? You don't want to grow all the weeds. We want to grow the food. And so how do you figure out what the weeds are and what the food is as it's coming up through the ground so that you can actually create yourself a fantastic world? That's what we're talking about in the masterclass. So define what that success looks like for you. Think about what it is that progress looks like and don't put yourself against other people or other people's success. What does it mean to you? When I first started this business in 2009, I wanted to be present for my kids. I wanted to be the locker room, the dressing room mom for my kid in hockey. I wanted to be able to take my other daughter to archery. I wanted to be present for things at school. That's what I needed at the time. It's not what I need today. My kids are 25 and 30 now, so those aren't the same things that I need. But what is it that you need right now? What is it that you're trying to craft your life around? Know what that is. That's what success looks like for you. And then I encourage you to give other people permission, because when you have people around you and you're leading boldly in your own successes and you can lead other people because you are cheering them on and you're being part of the process. You are sharing your wins with other people openly, telling people how wonderful things are the way they are, doing business your way and being successful in a way that makes sense to you. When you do those things, you actually inspire other people. Stephen Covey talks about it in Third Party Teaching. When, when you are spreading this, it helps you as well in terms of doing good things for yourself, feeling good about what you're doing. And then you'll start to collect people who also want to do the same things as you. There's nothing more amazing than being able to have other people who want the same things and to be able to support each other as well. Okay, that's going to be absolutely amazing. For you. Now, I hope that you've taken some things out of this that are going to help you to feel better, to know that you are worthy of amazing and wonderful success in your life, and also know that success isn't a one-size-fits-all. Your neurodivergent brain is your edge. You have the ability to create some amazing things and to stand out because you think so differently than other people. The things that are easy to you are hard for other people. Stop spending time on the hard stuff. Spend time on stuff that's easy for you and help people with the things they think is hard. You've got this. I know you do. I hope you have a fantastic week. I'll talk to you next week. Have a good one. Bye for now. Thank you so much for listening to the Overgivers Anonymous podcast. Your support means the world to me. You can find show notes for this episode and other goodies at overgiversanonymous.ca. And if you enjoyed this episode, or you enjoy the podcast in general, why not join us in the Overgivers Anonymous Facebook group where you can connect with overgivers from all over the world. Head on over to geekygirl.ca/group.