131: Scaling Joy While Streamlining Business Overhead and Navigating ADHD with Kaneisha Grayson

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You if you really had ADHD this entire time, how did you graduate from Harvard with two degrees? How did you scale your business to a million dollars? And one thing I would just say is although struggling with academics is very common with people with adhd, people with ADHD can do very well academically and very well professionally if it's something they're very interested in and if they have the option to opt out of things they're not interested in.

This is your time. How can we earn twice as much in half the time with joy and ease while serving the highest good? That is our guiding question here at the FreeTime Cafe, your home for heart based business. I'm your host Jenny Blake. Join me for conversations with authors, friends and fellow business owners as we explore ways to free your mind, time and team to do your best work. Now onto today's show.

Hello Hello Free timers. You are going to love today's guest as much as I do. Kenesha Grayson is the founder of the Art of Applying, an agency that aids graduate school applicants to get access to accepted into top tier schools and figure out how they're gonna pay for them. She's the author of a book called Be youe Own Boyfriend, Decide to Be Happy, Unleash youh Sexy and Change youe Life and host of the Scale youe Joy podcast. We met through the BFF community, but it turns out I had already heard Kenesha on the hello7 podcast many years back. I'll put that in the show notes and more recently on Get Paid, she showed up in BFF just jam packed with information strategies for delegation, which a snippet made it onto this show and has just always shown up. Such a generous heart and spirit with that. Kenesha, welcome to the show.

Hi Jenny. I'm so happy to be here.

Yay. At long last I gotta kick off by asking you, I just love the name of your podcast Scale your Joy because I feel like it speaks to what my husband told me was My formula for life, Love plus Systems. So you have scale and you have joy. What does that mean to you? How did you decide on that name?

Yes, I love that he said Love plus Systems.

Yeah, he said when I think of you, that's what you're about. Love plus Systems. And then I added Equals Freedom. And that became the secret little mantra for launching this entire free time direction.

Absolutely, yes. So I came up with the title Scale youe Joy for my podcast. After much obsession, rumination, brainstorming, I knew I wanted to start a podcast that that talked about how to start a business based on your passions, but that also where you're getting paid to be you and making abundant money but not necessarily looking to hyper scale or hyper growth. So we do need to scale, but the focus is on scaling both our joy, freedom, free time and our impact. And there were so many other titles that I considered such as I think like the Oversharing Hour, which maybe that's what we're about to have. I had all kinds of titles and I really settled on Scale youl Joy because I felt like it was a really concise capturing of the things that matter to me. Just like your Love plus Systems equals freedom. I exactly believe in that. And so it was like okay, we're going to scale, so that brings in the business, but then the joy part brings in the heart centered operations and, and the having the most delicious lifestyle that's authentic to you.

Oh, I love it. It's put so well. I mean you've been very generous in sharing kind of behind the scenes your business. You've been building it for over 12 years now. You previously went to the Harvard Kennedy School conjunctly to get your MBA and the public policy side of things. And so you have this really sharp, probably technical analytical mind that the episode you did on hello 7 was about millionaire mindset. And I just appreciated how you shared on the Get Paid podcast your evolution of realizing that a million dollars top line revenue might not be the end all be all if it creates all this overhead and infrastructure. And a lot of people talk about scaling up their team and their operation to get to the million dollar mark. I really appreciate you talking about scaling back and still trying to aim for as abundant take home pay for you the owner. Can you share a little bit about that journey or was there an aha moment in these last 12 years where you realized I'm going for the wrong thing here?

I ran my business for I believe seven years as a very much a lifestyle business. I was in the first class of Marie Forleo's B school. So I've been around for a while and then in 2017 I came across this, the sort of high ticket webinar funnel strategy, which is a well made Facebook ad that leads to a landing page where you capture their email address and then they come to a automated webinar that runs at the top of the hour. The webinar needs to be dynamic and well made, not necessarily Fancy. Mine was 37 minutes. And then at the end of the webinar, you invite them to a free call. Then you have a consultative sales call with the person, at the end of which you enroll them into a program that's about 5,000 to $10,000. And that formula. I had heard the word funnel before and was like, I think I have a funnel. And of course I had to have some sort of funnel because I had a business. People were finding me having calls with me, paying to have my services, but I didn't really have like a system that like a repeatable, predictable, scalable system. And so when I found this, I was like, oh my goodness. And it was working really, really well for me to bring in revenue. And so one thing I haven't shared on Hello7 or even the Get Paid podcast is that in 2017, when I first learned it, I'm pretty sure about half or more of the revenue that was coming in. So 2017 was a, I believe, $575,000 revenue year. And half of that money was actually leads I already had, like people that were already on my mailing list or people who were finding me organic strategies like blog posts and YouTube videos that I just was now much better at moving through the funnel and converting them. And so the other half, yes, was from Facebook ads that were bringing people to me and I was converting them into my program. But half that money was like a late harvest. People who had been on my mailing list for years. And the reason I bring that up is I actually think that blend in 2017, I was actually in the sweet spot. I just didn't know it. That sweet spot of not wholly depending or even primarily depending on an ad strategy for your lead generation, but it being a part of the mix, you know, as we go into 2018, I'm like, Whoa, these ads are really working. I'm great at sales. And it turns out I'm actually really good at training people into sales. And so in 2018, I scaled up very quickly. At one point I had, I believe, eight full time employees. And these are people in The United States and Canada. So like I had a big team. Like it felt like a little startup. And one thing I will say though is that at least the way I was taught and the way I was running my business, it was an extremely cash hungry operation and very high octane. By that I mean I had at 1.4 salespeople, 4 full time people on calls. So we were taking each of them would take two to four calls a day. So we were like talking about 20 people a day. Things were moving very, very fast and we did scale up, but we also were spending a tremendous amount of money. I at one point was spending a thousand dollars a day on Facebook. That's $30,000 a month. Wow, $30,000.

And were you feeling at that time that spending the thousand was yielding, I would say the proverbial because it's never a one to one correlation or one to two correlation. But did you feel that by spending a thousand dollars a day you could clearly see that you were earning the ROI on that so that it made sense to keep pouring more money in?

Yes and no. So the yes is that I was clearly making money. So right, I was spending 30k a month on ads, but I was bringing in like 80k a month in revenue. However, I had other costs besides just ads because I'm paying commission as well on the sale and then I have to fulfill the package that they're purchasing. So one thing that really was out of line for me is that the way I was trained was really kind of sell people into a five to $10,000 program that's only eight weeks long. And then after those eight weeks, then I don't know what the word is, but sort of upsell them into a year long program that's more like $2,000 a month. However, I'm in the business of helping people get into amazing graduate schools. That is not something that you do in eight weeks. Even if you can get your whole application done in eight weeks, you have to wait months and months to hear back from the school. And so I quickly learned that I was great at selling people 10,000 DOL packages, but they could not achieve their result in eight weeks. And the kinds of people that I work with, they are not about to have me come to them and be like, so now that you've paid me 10k and we spent eight weeks together, now you're gonna pay me $2,000 a month so that I can help you finish? Like, that just wasn't gonna happen. I think that that model works well with something like we've spent eight weeks together healing our hearts and overcoming our resistance to dating. Now let's spend a year together with you actually dating and finding that perfect relationship. That to me makes sense. But I have an extremely clear, time directed outcome that my clients are getting. It doesn't work for what I do to do that eight weeks leading into a year long thing. And so what happened, Jenny, is that even though I was selling $10,000 packages and that seems like a lot of money, it wasn't aligned with how long I really needed to work with people. And so I was actually eating up the cash. People were paying me way faster than I was getting my clients graduated and out the door. So in MBA land, that is called unearned revenue. I have not actually earned all their money before I've spent it, if that makes sense. And so I got into this cycle and a lot of businesses are in this cycle where I'm actually running the business off of the money that's coming in today. I'm fulfilling contracts for people off of money that's coming in right, right now. So basically in a job that's called living paycheck to paycheck. And that for me was extraordinarily stressful because at one point, so we hit a million dollars in trailing 12 month revenue in July 2018. By November 2018, we were bringing in, let's call it 87k a month or 90k a month, and all my expenses, including paying myself, paying the salespeople, paying the consultants to do the work. Then I brought in someone that I was hoping could be like my number two, not like an assistant, but like my kind of like coo paying her. And I was bringing in 90k, so spending 88k or 94k, which is more than we're bringing in. And so all that is to say is by November 2018, I was like, oh my goodness, I have to lay off a bunch of people. That led into 2019 where I was like, hold up, wait a minute, let me check myself before I wreck myself. Or really, I've already kind of wrecked myself.

It's so tough managing cash flow and all that complexity. Ooh, it's so hard. I think it's the number one challenge for any business is managing cash flow. If it's not just a SaaS product or a SaaS service where, you know it's the same amount coming in on the 1st of every month. Because like you're saying fulfillment and timing that. And when money comes in and when it goes out and delivering the services. So it's fascinating like that struggle is real. You had this check yourself moment as you rounded the corner into 2019, realizing you couldn't sustain the overhead. So yes, then what?

So I actually started to look at the numbers of how much of our money is actually coming in from leads who we found on Facebook because things were moving so fast that I was like, well, I'm spending this amount of money on Facebook ads, but I'm making this amount of money, so it's working. But what I actually found is that it was costing me $6,000 to get a client from Facebook ads and I was selling them a $10,000 package. And that doesn't even take into account paying out commission, paying for my consultants to actually work with them, paying myself. And so it turned out that Facebook ads were bringing me a lot of leads, but a good chunk of my money was still coming in from my unpaid things like blog posts, YouTube videos and referrals. And that my Facebook ads, what they were actually doing was helping me achieve the million dollar revenue number. So bringing in money, but they weren't actually contributing to profitability, they were actually eating profitability.

So fascinating to finally look at those numbers.

We'll be right back just after this.

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You're putting this so clearly because I've never run Facebook ads, but I know people build big businesses like mega businesses. Some would say you can't even build a business without Facebook ads, but noticing that they serve a specific function sometimes and in this case they can get you to the big numbers. But that does doesn't mean that it will be the most profitable channel. Just I appreciate you sharing this.

I think Facebook ads are a great fit for people who are selling high ticket programs, so 5k to 10k that also roll in to an ongoing recurring revenue model, which is what the program that I was in was about. I was sort of adapting it for myself. Right. But that's just not really the way my industry works. And, you know, I kept going to the coaches like, well, how do I get people to sign up for the year long? They call it a mastermind for the year long mastermind. And they're like, you know, tell them that you'll help them while they're in grad school, help them succeed, all that kind of things. And that's a legitimate business. It's a different outcome than get me into school. Get me into school is one type of thing. Help me succeed while I'm in school is a different type of coaching. Me and my team, I think, would be very good at that. But it's. For me, it felt like trying to run two businesses. One is an application process, the other one is academic coaching. And I think we'd be great at both. But that was, for me, it didn't work. I wasn't able to convince people that they should pay all this money for me to help them while they're in school. They're like, I just got into Harvard. Thanks. I'm good.

Right? A lot of these people, they're like, I got the academics. That's the side that they are pretty capable at. It's the labyrinth of applications and getting funding that's really tricky and always changing.

Absolutely.

Kudos to you for recognizing that. Because it's so easy to chase all these rabbits and then you end up diluting the focus. You have so much process. Nobody's really trained for any one particular thing. I mean, good on you for also, like, recognizing quickly that that was not gonna sustain your business.

Thank you. And, you know, I did try. I pitched it to many clients. I actually at one point got three clients to sign up. And they were. I think we were doing 1,500 or $1,700 a month. But for me and the team that I had at the time, me as the leader of that team, I was like, I cannot pay attention to a business that's serving 80 to 100 clients and then trying to launch a whole new separate program for let me help you while you're in school. It's not to say we won't ever offer that. Me and my team have a lot to offer in that area. But it's like, what do you want? Right? There's so many people applying to grad school. There's more people that you could help that way. And that's already my expertise. That was for me. And so my journey of scaling back was for several reasons. One, my health. I was diagnosed with uterine fibroids, which are non cancerous tumors in the womb. And they were very large. And so I needed to have what's called a myomectomy, but that's the technical word, it's a C section. So I needed to have a C section to have them removed. And that's a long six week recovery. So I was like, okay, I need a business that does not need me to wake up every day and be going at 200%. Two, just like you, I really value free time and I was spending a tremendous amount of time managing people. You know, I have a management degree. I also like to say I graduated with honors, so top 20% of my class. But like management is not that fun. You know, like you're in meetings and one on ones all day. So I was listening to salespeople's calls, giving them feedback, then going on the consulting side, giving the consultants feedback. Clearly people could say, well, that's part of scaling. You need to hire a management team. But for me it was like, I didn't go into this business business to be a manager of people. I enjoy managing people. But I really went into this business because there was something inside of me that knew I'm a writer, I'm a storyteller, I love to be creative, I love words, coaching, mentoring. And I had not ever seen that in a corporate job be something you could get paid well for. And I was like, I'm out here with 150k in student loans and a very vibrant personality. And I'm an excellent writer and editor. I need to get paid to be me. And I also want enough time to write books. And so I was just looking at my life and my business and was like, wait a minute. I started this business to pay off my loans, get paid to be me and write books. I've paid off my 150k in loans, which I was so happy about. But I'm not writing and I'm super stressed. And when things go really wrong in the business, I'm still responsible for payroll. So wait, at one point, which is nuts. Jenny, the person who was like my kind of head of consulting, her paycheck was bigger than mine because we were low on cash. And I'm like, well, let me pay her payroll.

That's not how it goes. And you want to commit to the team members that you have and honor those, and probably legally, you got to pay everybody, and then there you are. It's like last in line. I so know how that goes.

Yeah.

So you went from eight full timers to now. I know. Is it still the case that you maybe just have one FTE?

No, I have zero FTEs.

Zero. Okay. So how is that. How is it having a network of contractors again?

I love it. I absolutely love it. So here's what it looks like. I've been working mostly part time. I'm now finding myself more. And when I say now, I literally mean in the last week or so, accidentally working a full day. I think I might be about to be coming back more full time. But even when I say full time, it looks nothing like what most business owners mean when they say full time. I literally mean I work Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. I have an hour and a half lunch and an hour siesta every day. So, like, when I say full time, that's literally what I mean. It's Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, 9 to 5. But I have an hour and a half lunch and an hour long siesta. And so when I say full time, that's what I mean. And then my executive assistant, who I adore, she has been with me for three years, and I moved her to part time a few months ago. So she works 20 hours a week, and then she has a second job where she works 20. It's very flexible where she works 20 hours a week. In fact, right now, Jenny, she is in Spain with her sisters, traveling around. She is out for an entire month. I have no executive assistant, which for me is a very big deal. I've had an executive assistant the entire time I've had my business, and our systems are so good, and she set me up so well that I've been able to handle the administrative side of the business without her. Not in a, ooh, I don't even need an executive assistant way. Right. The way she put it is she said, kenesha, I've created a lot of templates and pre made a lot of things because I know you hate to click buttons.

I love it. I love it. Well, that's it. It's like, that's the Fiji test. Can anybody step away and we can get by? I did the same thing this summer because one of my main team members is moving abroad. And, yeah, there was at least a month, if not more, where there was, other than the podcast production team, there was no one filling the EA role. So I'm like, all right, you know, you dig back in for a little bit and sort of see what's going on, see if there's any room for improvement. But it's amazing that you were able to succeed at doing that. And I know you and I also share just what you were saying on the Get Paid podcast, but I'm just not convinced. Like someone told me the other day that we've all probably heard the phrase quiet quitting by now. But someone else was telling me that there are people accepting three different full time jobs from different organizations, but then not telling the other orgs that they have actually three full time jobs.

Now.

This is less in the entrepreneurial space that you and I are in, more happening. Maybe someone's taking a job at Google and Microsoft at the same time and not telling them if it's fully remote. But long story short, what I'm trying to say is that I'm not convinced that having full timers yields always the result that we wish everybody would think like an owner and everyone's like proactively suggesting new strategies and streamlining and landing all these sales that wouldn't have otherwise happened just because they've shifted from part to full time. Which sometimes I feel gets implied that, oh, if you have contractors, they don't care about your business and if you have full timers, they're all in, they wake up and go to bed thinking about your business. And I'm like, I don't know if that's true either.

You know it's not true. It's not true, Jenny. I mean the consultants on my team are contractors. They are amazing graduates from extraordinary business schools, law schools, policy schools. I am blown away, Jenny. On my team, people work at Meta, they work at Google, they work at Doordash, they have full time jobs that they're very good at. They work at Amazon and, and they make more money than me. They make on the low end, some of them make like 180k. But on the high end, people on my team make 300k in their jobs. I do not make 300k in their day job. In their day job.

Oh yeah. Oh gosh. When I talk to friends now that are still at Google, it blows my mind. I'm like, oh shoot, I got off that train.

You know, like one thing I want to say, Jenny, you said oh shoot, I got off that train is that the world is really, really changing in that I feel the fang like, you know, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google. I think I forgot one other a company but Apple, I think that, well, I guess we're moving into what people are saying is a recessionary period. But once that is over, I actually think that there's actually going to be a shift more towards a middle where a lot more people are going to be in the middle. What I mean by that is the same way every consultant on my team has a full time job and they work for me on the side for extra money, but also because they believe in the mission. I also think we're going to see a shift of lifestyle business owners like me and you re entering the workforce, but in very small, special roles that did not exist when we started our businesses. What do I mean by that? In house executive coaches, in house life coaches, in house creativity coaches, things like that. Because really, most business owners feel wildly lucky to bring in 100k of money. That's for them. 200k of money. That's for them. Yes, you hear about the people with $10 million businesses and things like that, but the real truth is that less than 3% of all businesses in the United States run by women ever reach a million dollars in revenue. Ever. And on a million dollars in revenue, I personally made less than 250k for Kenesha. But when I was at, you know, 550, 75k in revenue, I made 250k for myself. There's really, I think, a shift that's going to happen over the next five years of the it not being you either just have a full time job or you just run a business. I think there's going to be more business owners who are able to bring in probably 100k or whatever or more, working part time in larger companies, but being themselves, bringing the skills from being a business owner. And way more full time employees insisting on being able to take side jobs for fun or for extra money.

I love how you say get paid to be me. It's like that's kind of what everybody wants on some level. Thank you for sharing your health challenges and burnout. So real as business owners navigating all this complexity in a decade plus that you've been doing. What have you learned lately? I know you're sharing a little bit before you hit record in terms of structuring the business with what you've Learned these last 12 years, structuring it in a way that supports you and your wellbeing and thriving, while of course building a thriving business. That's what the whole thing about a lifestyle business is that we're aiming for both. It's just that we don't want one at the expense of the other. And it's so easy to make that trade off. I think that's just when you and I both have gotten to that point where we're not willing to make it. It's like we're looking for abundance on all levels. So what has helped you lately in terms of structuring you specifically, thrive and get paid to be you.

I would say the biggest gift a struggling entrepreneur can give themselves. If you feel like I have just been working so hard, I read the books, I take the courses, I watch the webinars and the masterclasses. I try to do the strategies, but things just don't seem to be working for me. The biggest gift you can do is get evaluated to see if you might have adhd. I was feeling tremendous burnout. Let's say we're recording this September 2022. And a year ago, September 2021, I entered into this feeling of just like, I feel like I'm working 4x as hard as, like, other business owners to get like 1x the results or I'm working 2x as hard to get 1x results. I used to get, like, what's going on? That's a real obvious sign of burnout. And so I'm like, okay, I'm obviously burnt out, but like, why am I burnt out? And a lot of times it is explained as, oh, well, you need to do more self care. You're taking on too much. But I took an entire one month sabbatical. First of all, I'm very proud of myself that I've set up my business to where I can leave an entire month and my executive assistant can run my business. And all my consultants mostly manage themselves really, and are serving their clients so well. And I had an amazing one month sabbatical. And when it was over, I was like, I just feel like I'm out of get it done juice. I'm out of make myself show up and do the stuff juice. And my boyfriend was like, I think you need to truly get evaluated for adhd. I had been jokingly claiming it for about two years because I would see so many memes and I'm like, that's my entire life.

Thank goodness for memes. Right? They're actually so, so instructive, especially around these types of topics.

Absolutely. Because I didn't really identify with the term. I was like, I don't run around kicking down doors or I don't fall out of my seat in workshops. Like, I was really thinking that I had to be just like over the top. But I had Been feeling like seeing the memes, like, well, the ones that are like me opening the washer to discover the clothes I left in there a week ago. And I'm like, oh, everybody doesn't do that. Oh, me coming back to the kitchen to discover the toast that I made six hours ago and forgot about. And I was just like, oh, I thought I was just quirky, but I ended up getting evaluated and diagnosed with ADHD combined type, which means I'm both hyperactive, which is what we're used to seeing in like little kids. But then I'm also inattentive, which is what is more common in adult women who have adhd, which is the forgetfulness, the spacey ness, the daydreaming. I can't really get myself started on the projects. I know I should. I have a to do list, but instead I'm scrolling on Instagram. And so, yeah, I have got the sort of both those challenges and Jenny, it's been life changing. Having the diagnosis, being medicated for ADHD and being in therapy for ADHD and then also finding community of other women with adhd. The way it's been life changing and the way I've structured and changed my business in relation to this diagnosis is first I guess I'll talk about internal and then I'll talk about external. Internally, Jenny, I really felt, oh my God, this explains so much because I was like, I have a Harvard MBA and I've spent like 100k on business courses and I'm a good student when I'm in those courses. But why do I find myself in sort of a spiral of experiencing the same problems over and over again? So that's one. Number two, I often was really dogged by feelings of I should have more to show by now for how long I've been in business and for how much effort I've put in and for just how smart I am, I should have more to show. So we can call that feelings of inadequacy. Internally would really struggle with, like, comparing myself to, well, a. My classmates, right, from Harvard Business School. You know, I have friends who make a million dollars or more in their jobs and I'm like, oh my goodness. And I'm struggling to, like, it was a big deal for me to make a million dollars of revenue in my business. Like, what's the difference between me and them? So internally, I finally had an explanation. Oh my goodness. My brain literally works differently. The world is not set up for neurodivergent people, but also literally, scientifically, I don't have enough dopamine, I don't have enough get it done juice in my brain. So that was the internal thing and externally it was like, oh, I've been structuring my business to accommodate my personality is the way I was framing it. But now I realize it's literally a necessity to accommodate my energy flows and my brain and my disposition. So that one hour siesta I take a day is not so I can be like, I'm so luxurious. It's literally because even if I only eat a salad and some salmon for lunch, I'm like cross eyed and fatigued right after lunch. And so it's now on my calendar to not even pretend. I used to berate myself. Like, why am I so sleepy? Maybe I overate. And no, it's literally my body and just the way I process dopamine. And so during that siesta I will lay down. I probably only sleep for like 15 minutes, but I just have to kind of also sensory like cut down on all the sensory input. So I'm like in the dark in my bed with the AC blasting to kind of reset my nervous system. And it works really well for me. Another thing that I've implemented in my business that I was doing informally but now I do formally is something called body doubling. You've heard many entrepreneurs say, I wish I just could hire someone to babysit me. I do work better when there's someone watching me or someone accompanying me. So now that is a real thing built into my business. Not that I just hope might happen. I show up, they have a group. I don't run it, I just come to the group. Monday through Thursday, a woman holds a group called get it Done Zoom session for ADHD women. In my time zone, it's from three to five. And literally what we do, Jenny, is we show up on zoom cameras on, we say hi to each other, we say what we're going to work on for the next two hours, then we go on mute. Some people are on camera, some people are off. And then we do the stuff we said we were going to do and sometimes get distracted and don't do the stuff we said we were going to do for two hours. And at the end of the two hours we check in and say what we did. That's called body doubling. That is very, very effective for people with adhd. So that's another thing is I unapologetically use body doubling. Just last night I found an organization called Flow Tribe or something like that. I'll get you the right name and the right link, but they've created a startup out of body doubling and there's like dozens of sessions a day where you can show up. And the exact thing I just described, that one's paid. I'm in a free group. Body doubling is very effective for me. So those are two examples, the siesta and the body doubling of how I've changed my business. A huge one. I think that would make you very proud of me, Jenny, is I preschedule as few things as possible. Do you know that the only thing I have on my calendar for today work wise, is to be on this podcast.

I love it.

Thank you, Jenny. The rest of the day I will work right. I'll go to my get it done session. I'll take my siesta, but I can work on what interests me out of the things I've been able to figure out are a priority.

We'll be right back just after this.

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I love how so much of this too is as you said, learning of the diagnosis enables you to put language, find community, look at the memes that are so instructive when you go, I'm not alone and I'm not crazy and I'm not, you know, neurodivergent. It might not be the typical the way all the systems and businesses of yesteryear were created, but so much of what I'm hearing you describe is acknowledging how you actually are not how you should be, and then giving yourself permission to do things differently. And that's so much of the ethos that I'm passionate about as well, which also stemmed from burnout and health issues and realizing I don't have that same like, get it done at any cost that I did even in my 20s, like even as a result of getting older or having a more complex home life and setup. And so I just love hearing all these permissions, like, take a nap in the middle of the day. Who cares? You know, and not only who cares, it is so much better for the overall system. I wrote a blog post many years ago, might have been almost 10 years ago now. Like, your body is your business. You are your business's best asset if you're the owner and CEO. And so what's the point of operating at half mass or trying to fit into a box that you don't fit into, given the way that your mind works? So I just love hearing your story around this.

Thank you. And one question that I want to answer that I feel like people might have in their mind is, well, if you really had ADHD this entire time, how did you graduate from Harvard with two degrees? How did you scale your business to a million dollars? And one thing I would just say is although struggling with academics is very common with people with adhd, people with ADHD can do very well academically and very well professionally if it's something they're very interested in and if they have the option to opt out of things they're not interested in. For example, my first year of business school, I actually received a letter of academic concern from Harvard saying, hey, we're not kicking you out like we kicked out some other people. And we're not putting you on academic probation, which some people are on. We are putting you on the step before academic probation because your grades are not where we're looking for them to be. And I had really binary grades in the classes I really liked. I was top of the class in the classes I found less engaging, I was bottom of the class. And so it wasn't like, oh, if I find this class really boring, I still do the homework and I still engage. I would just check out. I don't even think I knew I was checking out, but I just couldn't stay present in something that didn't interest me. But then the second year where I got to choose all of my classes, they were all electives. I got second year honors, which is top 20% of the class. It's literally like the opposite. And so having ADHD does not preclude you from achieving a lot academically or in your career or your profession. The problem is that overachievement is actually a coping mechanism for a lot of particularly, I would say, women with adhd. We know how to behave and be quiet in class, even if that might mean we're daydreaming. So we can actually make it quite far academically, especially if you're running on anxiety and adrenaline to get your papers done and your homework turned in. And then in my business, that high octane way I was running my business, where we were making a lot of money and spending a lot of money, was actually a very delicious and addictive dopamine cycle. And so the same way somebody might shoot up heroin and be like, oh, I'm set for the next six hours. I would be like, great. I just made like a 15k sale and 15k just landed in my bank account. Whew, I feel good. Let me get back to it. And so for me, when I hit that burnout, I couldn't really go back to that high octane. You know, my therapist called it business on cocaine. And that's really what it felt like. I could not go back to that. The sort of scales fell away from my eyes where I realized I am on a hamster wheel and hamsters enjoy being on hamster wheels, but I'm not a hamster and I would like to walk in the forest at a leisurely pace. And so it's been life changing for me to not just look at memes and say, ha, ha, I have adhd, whatever, but to actually get diagnosed, start on medication, and get a therapist who specializes in adhd.

Well, thank you so much for sharing that journey with us. I know it's just the beginning because so much comes into focus. I really look forward to keeping in touch and following along. The last question that, you know, I ask everybody at the end of this show, maybe it relates to the ADHD diagnosis or anything else we talked about, but if you could give fellow business owners permission to drop something altogether or do something differently, what would it be?

I give you permission to not listen to business advice that either doesn't work for you or that for whatever reason, you just can't do. I look back now and I feel like 90% of the business advice that I consumed in books and in courses and masterminds was well meaning and effective. But not for me. Not for the way my brain works, not for my energy flows, not for my personality. When I found free time, Jenny, I really think I just googled like heart centered business or something like that. Wow.

Shout out to SEO. That's amazing. If you found that's through a Google search.

Mm. And I found it. And then I emailed a bunch of friends like, do you know this lady? Like, I believe in everything she's saying. And your book Free Time to me is one of the few books that combines systems with gentleness and flexibility for being a flawed, inconsistent human. And for me, I think it's a very ADHD friendly book. So I'm not saying one has to identify with having adhd, but I give people listening to the Free Time podcast permission to stop internalizing the failures that you're having to take action on the business advice because that business advice just might not be the right fit for you, your brain or your body.

Beautifully said. Thank you so much. And for your words about Free Time as well. I love how you put it. It's the first time I've heard it put exactly that way because that was my goal. Like, yes, rigorous systems thinking and make your life easier through really practical strategies. And let's acknowledge that we are flawed human beings with variable energy and different gifts and talents. And I'm just so thankful for you, Kenesha, and I'm so happy that it resonated and that our paths have crossed. We'll have to do a follow up conversation on the nitty gritty of training your team because that's one of your superpowers is training others about sales delegating. I know you have so much wisdom to share with us on that front too. So I hope to have you back.

I would love to come back.

Yes. In the meantime, is there anywhere that you'd like to send people to learn more and get in touch?

Yes, I would say please come listen to my podcast. It's called Scale youe Joy. You can find it@scaleyourjoy.com I would also love for you to to send people my way. If you know anyone who's applying to graduate school and would like some help navigating the process. My business is the art of applying. Come see us@theartofapplying.com and then I'm fairly tapped in and tuned into LinkedIn. I think that's a good place to connect with me is just I'm Kenesha Grayson at LinkedIn. You can follow me and my updates and I would love to connect with you one or all of those ways.

Amazing. I'll put all of these in the show notes. Kenesha, thank you so much for being here and big thanks to everybody who's here listening.

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