5 ways to get your ADHD and creativity working together!

Hey, new listener, thanks so much for checking us out and there's a good chance you have adhd, so I quickly wanted to ask you to please follow this podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whichever app you're listening to this on, don't leave it until later because you will forget. Thank you. Hey, new listener, thanks so much for checking us out. And there's a good chance you have adhd, so I quickly wanted to ask you to please, please follow this podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whichever app you're listening to this on, don't leave it until later because you will forget. Thank you. Squirrel Squirrel. In this episode, we're going to talk about the five ways to get your creative engines firing. Squirrel. Squirrel. Hi, I'm Katie McManus and this is business strategy for Weenie ADHDpreneurs. Squirrel. So it's Monday morning. You've sat down at your computer. You know that you have to post something on social media to inspire your audience, to get them to book on your calendar, to light a fire under their butts, to buy your service or your product. And as you sit there with your fingers tapping the keys of your laptop, not actually typing anything, you realize, I have no idea what to post. And we all go through this in, in our creative process for promoting our businesses because it's really, really hard wearing multiple hats in a business. And especially when you're a solopreneur and solopreneur with adhd, it's hard to jump from one mode to another. So especially on those Monday mornings where you're transitioning, hopefully from having rested and relaxed and recharged, jumping back into work can feel incredibly challenging. And especially when you have all this pressure on you to come up with something absolutely brilliant that will get your followers, your connections, to want to finally click that link and book a call with you or buy your thing. And so there are five things that I like to use personally to get those creative engines firing. I want to share them with you today. Number one, the beautiful thing about social media is that it is social media. So you going onto social media and reading other people's posts and commenting on those posts and liking them and engaging is not only going to get you ideas, it's also going to wake up the algorithm so that when you finally post, when you finally get sparked for that idea, it gets shown to more people. The first way that you can juice your creative goose is to go and read a crap ton of other people's posts or watch a ton of other people's videos because in watching them, a, you're going to engage on them, and B, you're going to come up with different ideas for different posts that you can continue the conversation with. Now, when I train this to my clients, a lot of people are concerned that, oh my gosh, well, what if someone feels like I'm stealing their idea? And I want to remind you that you being inspired by someone's post about how they got their very first job and what they learned there, unless you're ripping off their lessons, it's not going to be you ripping them off. You taking that idea and saying, oh, my gosh, I'm going to share about my first job and how I got it and what I learned from that first job is going to be completely different. And also, if you're ever feeling squirmish about this, you can absolutely tag them in the post and say, oh, my gosh, my friend John Smith posted about X, Y and Z. And it really inspired me today to share my story around this. And that is perfectly fine. Now you can read other people's posts. And I want you to give yourself full permission to read the posts of your competitors and the posts of your ideal clients. Right? Because in those posts, you're gonna get different ideas from your competitors. You're gonna see, what is everyone else focusing on this week? Is there a different take that I can take on what they're having a conversation about? It's funny how on social media it happens sometimes that, like, groups of experts tend to have the same conversation at the same time. I can't tell you how many times I've had a brilliant idea for a social media post that would absolutely change lives, obviously. And I've gone online and someone else who's in my space has already kind of written it. It's like that creative spirit has visited multiple people because it wants to make sure that thing gets said. Now, full permission. If someone else is writing about this, you can absolutely write about this. There's no one keeping tally of who used the idea first. And also, if you notice a lot of people in your space are discussing something, let's use the example of, like the Will Smith incident from the Oscars last year. Will Smith went and slapped Chris Rock. Squirrel. Jada, I love you. GI Jane, too. Can't wait to see it. All right. Uh oh, Richard. Oh, wow. Wow. Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me. Squirrel. Squirrel. And everyone was talking about it and they were all unpacking it for their own use. And all this stuff, you Going into the conversation and just offering a different viewpoint is going to be contrary enough to get you attention, but also on trend enough that you'll be part of the bigger conversation. And this doesn't have to be about current events. Also, sometimes randomly, everyone's talking about how to do TikTok videos on LinkedIn and you coming in with a different opinion or a different suggestion is going to be super helpful. It's also going to help you stand out from the crowd. Now, likewise, when you're looking at your ideal clients, when you're looking at the content that they're creating, one of the most beautiful things you can do is kind of see what are they interested in. Maybe one of your ideal clients has posted about wine tasting this past weekend and how much fun it was to see friends and how great it was to taste all these different Cabernet Sauvignons. You can absolutely go on and post about something personal about your preferences when it comes to wine. Because remember, your ideal clients aren't out there scanning the interwebs for the most bland, boring, straightforward version of the person that does what you do right. They're looking for people who they want to get to know. They're looking for people who they feel like are friends already because that's who we like doing business with. There's a reason why companies, when they hire a more diverse sales team, they actually increase their profits. Because when you have a more diverse sales team, people can choose to work with people who they feel connected to, who they feel get them. Which opens up the door to so much business with markets that the typical white male bro y sales team wouldn't be able to access. No offense to the white male bro y guys, you're fine. So you want to read other people's content a get sparked for ideas of what you can post and also see different ways that you can show that you're relatable. If you have adhd, this can also get a little dangerous. Let's own desk scrolling happens, right? So if you have ADHD and you're trying to read other people's content to get sparked for your idea, what I want you to do is set a timer around this. Set a timer for 15 minutes to scroll and comment and read and engage. And if you don't have an idea at the end of those 15 minutes, I want you to go for a walk. Because the point here is you need to get something. You need to get those creative juices flowing. And if bombarding yourself with ideas isn't helping you need to go and clear your mind. That's the first way to get those creative engines firing on a Monday morning or on a day where you're not feeling particularly inspired. Number two, the second way is actually kind of fun. I'm a big fan of buying different, like, tarot decks and inspirational decks and just like, even, like, question quiz games and also prompt sheets for social media. Because when I'm not coming up with any good ideas, I can pull a card and I can read the meaning behind it and I can see what comes up for me. In fact, actually, let me do this now. I'm gonna just spitball one. Where's my tarot card deck? Hold on. This one just hopped right out. Okay, so I just pulled the nine of wands. Let me see what that means. The nine of wands represents wisdom, perseverance, and the last stretch. You're almost there. You can see the finish line, and at the last minute, you are faced with another obstacle. This challenge can be seen as a setback or a test of your character. Expect the worst and protect yourself against the foreseeable attacks. Better to be prepared than be sorry later. Throughout this journey, you have accumulated experience and gained enough wisdom to handle anything that is thrown your way. You've gained tools to deal with your inner struggles, and you now have the confidence in your abilities to overcome and persevere. Trust in your strength and power to make it to the end. Learn from your mistakes so that you can navigate setbacks easily into the future. Challenges are difficult, but believe in your abilities to make it through. You can do it. Okay, so there are so many ideas that that one card sparks for me so I could talk about my own personal journey here and a time where I felt like I was almost there and something happened that completely threw me off track and how I recovered from it. I can also talk about how this happens for my clients. I can tell like a vegafied story that doesn't identify anyone about how one of my clients got got to the point where they thought they had almost made it to that success point that they had mapped out for themselves, and then something got in the way. I could also just write an encouraging post that tells people to keep going even if those obstacles are popping up like whack a mole. But literally our brains are meaning making machines. It's why we are so paranoid. It's why we can make up stories about why people don't like us, especially for folks with adhd. And we have rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria. The reason we're so sensitive is because our brains are so good at making meaning out of random data. This is also the source of all the beautiful things in our world of poetry, of art, of books that have symbolism and hidden meanings in them. This is where nuance comes from. Let your meaning making machine work in random areas. Pull cards from tarot decks and try to make up stories about it because I can guarantee you this deck has over 100 cards in it. I guarantee you any card I pulled out of this would have been relatable to my clients. Any card I pulled out of here would have brought something up for me personally. If you're not witchy woo woo, you don't have to do tarot decks. You can absolutely get like those motivational cards. There's also. This may be a little, a little across the line. You can get Another deck that I love using is the therapy deck where it actually asks you questions that a therapist would ask you. And obviously with those you get vulnerable with them. You don't necessarily have to share your deepest, darkest secrets when you post those things online, but it does wake you up to different things that you can talk about. There are also some incredible creators who create prompts for different posts that you can do. And depending on your social media platform, you just want to go and see like who the experts are and what kinds of prompts they offer. The first person who comes to mind. I know I talk about her a lot, Leah Turner. She has a ton of prompts for people who are learning to post on LinkedIn for the first time. And I have that prompt sheet. Sometimes I go to it. It's brilliant. It really does get the ideas flowing. You can also create your own prompt list because once you're creative, especially someone with adhd, once those creative juices are flowing, you probably get a gazillion ideas, but you don't know what to do with them. One of the things I suggest to my clients is when you get one of those ideas, just email it to yourself or text it to yourself. So you always have a running list that you can refer back to. And the cool thing about this is that like, even if you reuse the same idea over and over and over again, talking about a boss who made your life miserable, the unfortunate thing about our world is we probably have several of those. So you can write different stories every single time, but say you only had one boss who made your life miserable. Each time you write that post, it's going to be from a different perspective. It's going to be remembering a different example of how they made your life miserable. It's going to be pointing to different feelings that came up in you. It's going to be pointing to what it motivated you to do in the future. I don't know about the entrepreneurs who listen to this podcast, but I know every single miserable boss I ever had is one of the reasons that I run my own business today. Because I never want to have to work for assholes like that again. You know who you are. Wouldn't it be funny if they listened to this podcast number three, and this is something that takes more consistent work, is every time you talk to a client, every time you get on a sales call, anytime you're in a networking situation with people who could potentially work with you, I want you to keep track of the questions that they ask you. What is it that they're curious about? Now, I am notoriously bad about this because when I'm working with clients, like, I am so engrossed in what they're wanting to accomplish, I'm not even thinking about my business. But sometimes when I do remember, after the call, I'll just jot down what their main problems were. So a main problem could be, oh, my gosh, I feel like I'm screwing up my sales call. People have a lot of reasons why they don't want to work with me at the end of the day. Why is that? And then I can do a post about what a sales objection is and how it can prevent you from getting clients and what it usually means you're doing badly on that sales call. Another one is like, the fear of dealing with trolls. One of the biggest fears that I forget that new business owners have is what happens if a troll shows up in my comments and makes my life miserable? How do you, A, prevent that? And B, when you can't prevent it because it's impossible, because it's interwebs and they're just trolls everywhere. How do you deal with it? You can absolutely write a post about that. The other take that you can use to approach writing about questions that get asked is you can say, hey, listen, here are the top three questions that all of my clients ask. And they all feel a ton of shame around having to ask this because they feel like it's super basic and something that they're just missing. And I just want you all to know if you're asking these questions or you're wondering what the answers are, you're not alone. They don't train this shit in school. No one knows this stuff. And really, the only thing that you're doing and expecting yourself to know the answers to these questions is just being a dick to yourself. So the point here is you don't even have to answer the question that you get asked. Most often what you're doing in these kinds of posts is you're just normalizing that they're not expected to know the answers to this, that there are people like you out there in the world who specialize in this, who know the answers and remind them that they did not come out of the uterus knowing these things. They did not come out of the uterus knowing French or chemistry or advanced algebra or how to make an omelet. All those things they had to learn from someone else. The fact that they are expecting themselves to know something that's so specialized that you do work here on this topic, like, that's just crazy. And yet it's so common that our clients hold themselves to that expectation. I just want to add here, I am such a huge fan of just normalizing the struggle for people, because oftentimes our clients, the reason they don't reach out for help, the reason they don't hire us, the reason they don't even go onto the interwebs to find the answers, is because they feel so much shame around not being able to do it themselves. And shame is such a shitty thing to hold people back because they do it to themselves. And if we can just take one layer of shame off of them, that might make the difference in them being massively more successful. Just letting them know that they're not the only one who struggles with this may be enough to help them move to that next step. So in talking about shame, I want to give the example of how you don't want to do this. Yesterday I actually got tagged in a post on LinkedIn. The person who wrote this post is not a listener, but the person who tagged me was just to clarify, a little confusing. And it got my hackles up immediately because it started off saying that a lot of this person's clients had ADHD and they were business owners, and that when she looked at their backend systems, she always cringes. And this is not how you want to do this, because what that does, it immediately sets someone up for a shame spiral. If you have adhd, I bet you probably attract clients, clients who have adhd. And one of the dark sides of having ADHD is we're constantly told as we're growing up what we're doing wrong and what we could be doing better and how we're screwing things up and how we didn't do this well enough and how we were late and how da da da da and all the things that we've done wrong. The thing that can be massively triggering for us and actually prevent us from ever seeking help is seeing generalized criticisms like that on the Internet. I saw this post and I wrote a comment and I immediately deleted it because I didn't want to be part of this conversation. And I also didn't want to comment and not call this person out for being unkind because I imagine there are some folks with ADHD who probably saw that post and looked at their business or thought about how they do their taxes or their bookkeeping or how they organize their client files and thought, oh God, like now I can never bring someone in to help me with this. Now I can never bring someone in because I don't want to think, oh my gosh, they're cringing inside. They're thinking, how terrible is this? Because that's been our experience our whole lives. Okay? So your takeaway should be normalize. Make them feel like it's okay to ask for help. Do not. Shame. Deal. Cool. Join the Weenacast Hyper Focus community and unlock a whole world of support. Get direct access to me in exclusive calls. Turbocharge your network with unlimited referrals, and boost your productivity with Sprint calls and accountability sessions. But that's not all. We're talking expert talks, masterclasses, and more. Register now to get in front of the line for this at the introductory price of of just $77 per month. It's time to elevate your entrepreneurial game. Let's do this together. Go to weeniecast.com hyperfocus all one word. That's weeniecast.com hyperFocus number four. The fourth way that you can get inspiration for what you should be posting online is very similar to finding out what questions your ideal clients are asking. And that's going to this website called answerthepublic.com. if you haven't heard of this, you are so welcome. Go and have so much fun. Now, when you go to the Answer the Public, you want to use one or two keywords that people would typically use to find you or would typically use to get help with the thing that your service helps them on. So you put these keywords in and it literally tells you all the questions that people typically ask most often on the Google machine about what you do. It's organized into different categories. You can go there and you can see any question that People typically ask and you can just write a post that's answering it. Now the beautiful thing about this is if you use that question. So say you start off your post with what is an executive coach? Your posts are going to be more likely to show up on the Google machine because you're answering that question directly. This is also a great place to go if you're writing a blog and you want it to show up on the Google machine when people search for answers around your work. And this is my go to tool. I would love it if you use other tools like this. If you don't mind going to weeniecast.com scrolling to the bottom and leaving a voicemail for us telling me other tools that you like to use. I am always looking for different tools to add to this belt that I offer my clients and to offer everyone who listens to this podcast. If you're an ADHD business owner having a hard time building consistent habits on social media to promote your business, I have something for you. One of the biggest challenges for ADHDpreneurs is that our dopamine levels often dictate how much stuff we get done in a day, along with our available time. On low dopamine days where we also don't have a lot of time, it's really easy to fall off the social media posting wagon, which leads to a downward spiral thinking that you're a complete failure and that your business is going to go nowhere. So to fix this, I have actually designed a social media consistency matrix that helps you discover what you should be doing every single day, depending on how much dopamine you have and how much time you have available. This is perfect for those days where your executive dysfunction has taken over and you're feeling like there's nothing, nothing that you can do in your business. It's also amazing for those days where you have all the time in the world and feel super inspired but aren't sure what you should be spending your time on. To download this matrix, Please go to weeniecast.com adhdsocialmedia when you submit your name and your email, we'll be sending that along. And in case you didn't have a pen handy, you can find that link in the show Notes number five. Dun dun dun. Ah, we're going to the devil of the Internet. We're going to the dark place. We're going to the place where people often sell their souls. Facebook. Not a huge fan of Facebook these days for a lot of reasons and I don't think I need to Explain them here. But Facebook groups are a treasure trove for you to figure out what what you need to post to get in touch with your ideal clients. Though, if you've sold a little corner of your soul and are still a member of Facebook, then here's what I want you to do. I want you to go and find Facebook groups that have to do with what you do. So if you are a fitness coach for new moms, I want you to go find new mom groups. If you're a realtor in your area, you want to go to house searching groups. If you're a landscaper, I want you to go to gardeners groups. Whatever it is that you do, I want you to find all the groups that you can possibly find that are relevant to your ideal clients, have an audience that could become your appliance. So for instance, if your business is location based and you can only work with people in a certain location, only go to groups that are really in that area. Because let's face it, if you're a landscaper in Massachusetts, the things your clients are going to ask about are going to be a little different than the clients in Florida. In Massachusetts, there are going to be different plants and fauna that you have to deal with. And in Florida, you're going to have to deal with alligators. The homeowners who would be hiring you are going to have different questions in different areas. And also it can hurt if you're in that group. If you answer some questions and people Facebook stalk you and find out that you're a landscaper, they may end up being your client without you doing any cold outreach or posting unnecessarily in that group. So whenever you're dry for ideas and you don't know what to post, you can just go to these Facebook groups and just scroll on down and see what questions people are asking, see what topics they're posting about and what's happening in the comments. The best kinds of posts for these ideas are the ones where someone poses a problem and asks for advice on how to fix it. And then you get the pile on effect in the comments where people are like, oh my God, I have the same problem. But it's in this way, like commenting. So I can see what, like if anyone has an answer. Because oftentimes people don't necessarily comment with the answer to the question. They comment just saying, oh my God, I have that too. Those posts are the things that are going to get your ideal client's attention the most. Now, again, because you have ADHD and It can be really easy to get sucked down a wormhole, especially now that Facebook has reels and you can just go down a wormhole. My favorite wormhole on Facebook is all of the Graham Norton shorts. Like Graham Norton with Judi Dench. I could watch that all day. Judy, do you still go clubbing? Do you still cut a rug? You know, I've never, ever been to a club in my life. You lost like a rug. Oh, do I? Yes. Never been to a nightclub. Yes, you have. I bumped into you in heaven. Oh. Apologize in advance for all the hours you're about to lose on your life. So my point being is you need to set a timer for this as well. Anytime you are going to social media to get ideas, because you can get so easily sucked into different topics or just being entertained, you getting sucked into something that's entertaining can make two hours go by like nothing. Now you're running a business, those two hours are incredibly precious to you. Whenever you're doing this, I want you to do quick scans, I want you to set a timer, and I want you to go with the first idea that comes up. Lastly, and this isn't another way for you to get creative ideas. I just want you to remember that you showing up is 90% of the game. You posting is going to remind people that you exist, and that is the bare minimum that you have to do as a business owner. Because remember, we don't have a marketing problem as business owners, especially when we're. When we're solopreneurs or we have small businesses. Marketing isn't even in the sphere of what we're doing. What we're trying to do is be memorable. We don't have a marketing problem. We have a memorability problem. If we can make sure that the people out there in our audience just remember that we exist, then we have won the game for the day. So even if you have no ideas, you have no idea what to post, and you just find a random picture of a random ferret online and you go and post that, that is great, because when you post it, your little profile picture is still going to show up in their awareness. Your name's still going to show up on their feed. You know, they may see, especially if you're on LinkedIn, they may see that first little bit of your header that tells them what you do. And then they're going to have this added intrigue of like, why is this person posting a ferret? Is this their ferret? Did they get a pet ferret? Are they borrowing A ferret? Are they at a ferret convention? What the hell is with this ferret that they're posting about? By the way? This is something I actually do to my clients when they're having a dry spell and they're really, really struggling with what they should be posting on social media and they're overthinking it and they're just getting super in their heads. I give them the no Ferret challenge. We set a goal for them of how many times they need to post in a week. And so it doesn't matter if they post four times on Sunday because it's the last day of the week and they have to post four times. But if they miss one of those one of those times times has to be a picture of a ferret with no explanation. And usually it works because no one wants to post pictures of ferrets for no reason. I don't know why. I think they're really funny. By the way, if you have any amazing ferret pictures, I want you to send them to me@katyatiemcmanus.com I'd really appreciate it. I'm firing on all cylinders right now. I kind of desperately want another cup of coffee. But yeah, no, it's fine. I have to stop the coffee now because if I have anything beyond 11, my window of drinking coffee is getting like earlier and earlier and earlier. It sucks, sucks, sucks, sucks, sucks. Are you an entrepreneur? Are you struggling to stay focused and organized while juggling a million tasks? Are you looking for ways to improve your productivity but finding it hard to stay motivated? Then you need to get access to my Weeniecast for Winners show that's exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I know you might be thinking I've tried everything to stay on task and nothing works, but I'm enjoying the advice I'm getting here on the weeniecast, and let me tell you, I'm delighted to be able to help you and thousands of listeners just like you, my friend. But the Weeniecast for Winners podcast is next level and I'd hate for you to miss out on it. For just 199amonth, Weeniecast for Winners delivers in depth and actionable advice that's specifically designed for entrepreneurs, including those with adhd, whether diagnosed or suspected. I'll talk you through how to increase your sales conversions, keep your mindfulness on point, and even offer practical tips that can help you be more productive and successful in your business, all while catering to your unique needs of being an entrepreneur who might be struggling with adhd. With winicast for Winners. You'll get practical tips and strategies that you can use to drive your business forward without the frustrations and setbacks that often come with adhd. So if you're ready to start seeing real Results, subscribe to Winniecast for winners today@winniecast.com winners for just $1.99 a month, you'll gain access to the valuable insights and strategies that can take your business to the next level. Weeniecast for Winners is a show that's worth every penny for entrepreneurs who want to succeed. Subscribe now and start enjoying the benefits for yourself. Join the weeniecast hyper focused community and unlock a whole world of support. Get direct access to me in exclusive calls, turbocharge your network with unlimited referrals, and boost your productivity with Sprint calls and accountability sessions. But that's not all. We're talking expert talks, masterclasses, and more. Register now to get in front of the line for this at the introductory price of just $77 per month, it's time to elevate your entrepreneurial game. Let's do this together. Go to weeniecast.com hyperfocus all one word, that's weeniecast.com hyperFocus.