The problem with ADHD entrepreneurs intellectualizing emotions

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. Squirrel. In this episode, we're going to talk about the problem with ADHD. People intellectualizing their emotions. Squirrel. Squirrel. Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach. And welcome to the Weeniecast. Squirrel. One of the darker jokes about starting a business is that if you want to start a business, that's a great impetus to have to actually start doing therapy. Because when you start a business, you are putting yourself out there. You're being vulnerable in ways that you've probably never been before. You're also taking on all the expectations and all the pressure of providing an income for yourself and providing a service for your clients. And we take for granted what that pressure does to us emotionally and mentally and what kind of shadow work can come up through the process of building your business. This has been a major thing for me over the last few years, you know, through the pandemic. I'm very open about coming from an abusive relationship, dealing with ptsd, having had a mild traumatic brain injury, having to do therapy after that. I'm a huge advocate of doing therapy in general, and I will say that doing therapy has been one of the greatest supports for me to be in my business and to be fully myself and to be able to handle the stress of managing all this on my own and to learn how to let some things go and to delegate to team members. One of the things that I've been working on over the last several months that I actually didn't even realize was a problem for me was that I never actually learned how to process my own emotions. And I think this is really common for those of us with adhd, because as children, you know, I think kids with adhd, one of the big indicators that a kid has ADHD is they have what they used to call temper tantrums. Now it's been relabeled as emotional dysregulation. Kids with ADHD are very sensitive to input. And children in general are not great at communicating their wants, their needs, and their feelings. And as children, you know, with adhd, and you have all these feelings, and you have humans around you who don't understand what you're going through, and you have the inability to communicate what you're going through. It ends up in you crying, screaming, maybe stomping around. All the things that are actually really good for moving emotion through you but are very uncomfortable for everyone around you to experience. So a lot of us get trained out of actually processing our emotions, and we get trained into intellectualizing our emotions, and the two are not the same thing. And let me explain what this means. Let's say I have a disagreement with a friend, and they did something, and it hurt my feelings, and I'm angry, and I'm upset. There are emotions there. And, you know, like, when I get angry, the heat just rises to my face, and my eyes almost get a little, like, scary, like dragon eyes. Like, I imagine if I had any magical powers, like, fire beams would be shooting out of my pupils. And I think we all have that experience when we're pissed off. And then, of course, when I'm hurt, when my feelings are hurt, I actually feel, like, some pain in my chest and in my gut. In both instances, I want to cry. But there have been so many instances throughout my life where I've been told crying is wrong. Right. And I think this is huge in our society. Right? If you're at work and you need to cry, you go hide in the bathroom. And it's only okay to a certain degree for women to cry. Men aren't allowed to cry at all. You guys have to hold it together, be a man, which is a very unfair expectation of half of our population. What ends up happening is we get trained into intellectualizing the feeling. So instead of me processing the anger and the hurt at this friend doing something or saying something that hurt my feelings and pissed me off, I get to go and jump straight to. Let me make sense of it. Let me intellectualize where they were coming from. Let me intellectualize and explain to myself, like, why this made me feel so bad. What ends up happening is, like, we close the loop intellectually of, like, why we're feeling this way, but we still have that emotion, that hurt and that anger in our bodies. One of the things that I learned through coach training is that emotions is really energy in motion. When you feel a big emotion, it's a ton of energy. When you feel love, like, just imagine like you feel so much love for someone, you feel like your chest is about to burst, right? That's all energy in you. When you are angry at someone or afraid of something, that's so much energy in you, right? And it shows up in different ways. If we don't let it move through us, if we don't let it stay in motion, guess what happens? It gets trapped in our bodies. It doesn't leave. Let me tell you, when you start doing therapy at some point, because you started your business and decided at some point that you needed the support of a therapist, those emotions are all bottled up. They have not gone anywhere. So as you start learning how to process emotions, it's going to be a lot. There's a lot of crying involved. I had a coach not too long ago who I worked with for a very short period of time until she started telling me these things. And I, I quit working with her. She kept telling me that I was too emotional to run a business. And I can't tell you the tailspin that sent me into because I had already built a very successful business. And I am an emotional person. I can't not be. You know, that's just part of who I am. It's part of what makes me good at what I do. Because I care so passionately about my clients and, and the impact that I want to have on the world. You can't do that without having emotion behind it. That interaction with her is one of the reasons why I further niched down to working with ADHD business owners. Because I experienced firsthand the shame that got cast on me for operating differently and running my business than neurotypical people. And it crushed my self esteem for several months. It took me a long time to get over. And there are still moments where her voice rings in my head, this bullying voice telling me all the reasons why I'm not going to be successful because of these emotions. We villainize emotions. We see them as an impediment to success rather than something that will support our success along the way. My therapist, who's absolutely incredible, you know, she reminds me all the time when I complain about how hard it is to process all the bad emotions that I've bottled up throughout the years, that if I don't learn to fully feel those emotions, then on the flip side, I will never learn to fully feel the good emotions. Without sadness, there can't be joy. Without pain, there can't be love. Like Disney's Inside out got it right. You know, it was a children's movie but it was so on point that we need the full range of emotions to be able to live a full, full, fulfilled life. And not just life. If you want to run a business and be successful, you're gonna have to have access to your full range of emotions, and you're gonna have to also understand how to process through them. Because I think we've all been through that scenario where something pissed you off in the morning, maybe someone cut you off in traffic. You know, you go into the office, you're just seething like, what the is wrong with people, you know? And you're kind of on this tear, and you're also professional, so you kind of try to bottle it up in you and get to work. And you go to your first meeting and you notice everyone's on edge and they're nervous, and that pisses you off further. You're like, why can't people just show up, be engaged, do their jobs? What is wrong with people? And then you go to your next meeting, and again, people are kind of on edge. And again, it starts feeding into, this is going to be a bad day. What is wrong with people today? What you don't realize in that moment is everyone who's nervous, they're nervous because they're picking up on your anger. They're nervous because you feel like a wild, dangerous tiger in the room who might eat them, right? And the fact that you can intellectualize that someone you know cut you off in traffic, that people don't know how to drive right now, that you're going to have to just learn to drive defensively for the rest of your life and screw everyone else. Like, that's intellectualizing your anger. The fact that you don't take the moment and process the anger, and probably also the fear of potentially getting in a car accident, you're going to be carrying that emotion throughout the day, and it's going to be impacting everyone around you. Now, this is in a job scenario, right, where you're going into a job. This is your team. Imagine the greater impact when this is your business and you're the owner. Everyone in that meeting answers to you. Their paycheck relies on you. So for them, you being angry about something that they're not aware of is not only scary because they're not sure if you're going to bite their head off in the meeting, they're not sure if they're going to lose their income. It starts sowing incredible distrust in your team. And it will ensure, like nothing else, that you will not get the best out of them. And you also will not retain their talent. They will move on to a safer pasture as soon as humanly possible if you do not learn how to manage your emotions. And even there, I just used old language. I used the language of managing emotions. Let's be real. We can't manage emotions, right? Emotions are going to come up in us without our control. What we need to learn to do is process them. Process the emotion, process that anger, even if it means missing that first meeting. Just to paint the picture of how this could go, you know, in contrast of that person who almost got in the car accident going to work and going to their meetings and scaring everyone. Imagine if they showed up, explained to a few key people, oh my gosh, I almost got in a car accident this morning. I'm a little, like, frazzled. I'm. I'm freaked out. I have some anger in me. I just kind of need to process the emotion before I inflict myself on other people. Let's cancel or move this first meeting so I can just deal with myself. Like, imagine the amount of trust that you're. You'd build with your team. Imagine the permission you then give each team member to process their outside of work and then come in with their full self, fully able to concentrate and contribute, knowing that they're safe to do so. We talk a a big game about emotional safety in the workplace, and it's one of the reasons why a lot of adhders leave working traditional jobs. Because we don't feel emotionally safe in the workplace. And yet if we don't learn how to process our emotions in a healthy way and not just intellectualize them and put them in a sealed container, that will turn into a time bomb at some point and you'll pay for it, and so will your team. It's actually going to backfire on you big time. You're gonna end up creating a workplace that is not emotionally safe for other people. And actually, let's be real, it's not emotionally safe for you either. You know, one of the things that I talk about with my clients a lot, especially when they feel bad for taking a day off when they get sick and they need to take an afternoon, or they're just tired and they need to take a nap in the middle of the day, is that, like, we're building a business for you that can work around you being a human. We're not building a business that's based on you being expected to act like a robot at every given moment. That's just not Realistic and yet, like, let's look at the paradigm that we set up for ourselves. Ooh, what am I going to say next? Well, you'll have to keep listening to find out. But first, Squirrel, squirrel, Squirrel, squirrel. Join the Weenacast 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 weanicast.com hyperfocus all one word. That's weeniecast.com hyperfocus and yeah, like, let's look at the paradigm that we set up for ourselves. You know, what are the acceptable reasons for you to take off in your own mind? You know, even for me right now, while I'm doing this work, learning how to process my emotions in a healthier way, it's still, well, I have to feel physically ill. I have to feel physically ill. That's really the only reason why I can take some time off maybe if I'm feeling burnt out and I'm not being productive. And that's also an excuse for me to take some time off because then afterwards I can be more productive. And we talk this big game about, like, building a life where we get to be our full selves. Well, what about our emotional selves? Didn't factor into any of those acceptable reasons for you to step away from work. I also see this so much on the flip side in sales calls. You know, my clients who are learning how to sell their services for the first time, they're so nervous about showing this prospective client that they're excited to work with them because they feel like, oh, my gosh, well, what if my excitement comes across as me pressuring them to work with me? Like, they don't want to show this joy and this genuine positivity about the idea of working with, with this other human because they're worried that that emotion will pressure this other human into working with you? That just doesn't happen. There's this dating guru who I used to follow. I, you know, I like some of what she says. Other stuff is kind of, you know, not my bag anymore. But she talks about how feminine humans in relationships will only be interested to the point that they think the other person is interested. If you're only ever talking about going to dinner the next time, like I'm not going to get it, like excited to the point where we might go on a weekend retreat. I'm going to just set my expectations that like, I like you enough to go to dinner with you and that's it. I'm not giving any more emotion here because I'm going to assume that you don't like me that much. It's the same on a sales call. I have a friend who did a sales call with a coach and she got off the phone and she called me and she's like, I don't think she wanted to work with me. She didn't sound excited to work with me. When we share our genuine positive feelings with our potential clients and we show our genuine excitement at the idea of working with them, we give them full permission to be excited to work with us as well. We show them that they are wanted. We show them that we believe in them. If you don't have full comfort with your full range of emotions, it's really hard to do that. It's really hard to be vulnerable in that way and share how you want to work with this person. Right. Learning how to process your emotions and channel them in generative ways is one of the best things you will ever do for yourself and for your business. I don't have any data at hand to this, but I would posit that you'd live a longer life, you'd have more fulfilling relationships and I know you'll end up making more money. And also, if you start hearing reports that I'm smashing plates or anything, just know that that's something my therapist has recommended. If I'm ever angry, I'm not going crazy. We're all fine here. It's just a way to process anger. This is one of my goals for the future, is I want to have a really nice house. I want to have a vegetable garden and I want ducks. And then I want this little barn to the side where I can have all my clients come and visit me and we can have full on experiences. And I'm just gonna continuously go to thrift shops and estate sales and garage sales and just buy collections of old plates, chipped ugly things that no one wants. They're gonna end up in landfill anyway and those are gonna be on hand for any time my clients have any bad feelings that they need to work through that's holding them back in their business. I'm going to build a special little enclosure for this event. There's no chance that my dog Luna will ever walk through this and cut her paws. And so it's easy to clean up as well. This is my dream, and I hope. I hope to have this soon. And if you need to learn how to process emotions and you want to do this with me, I am cordially inviting you into the future to do this with me. And I want to just make a special note to my female feminine listeners out there who are typically raised to feel like you have responsibility for everyone in the room. So if someone else is feeling uncomfortable, you will often take it upon yourself, because this is how we're trained as women to be responsible for making them feel better. Processing your emotions and owning your emotions and letting them work through you will make other people uncomfortable. It will. There's a guarantee, right? It will make people uncomfortable. There's a reason why you were trained out of processing your emotions and trained into intellectualizing them, because that's something that's comfortable for everyone. I want to release you from the responsibility that you hold for the emotions other people have about you experiencing your emotions. That's not your responsibility. You being upset about something someone else did is valid. You feeling hurt about someone saying something that's hurtful is valid. And you having a reaction to their bad behavior is not you being mean. It's not you consciously retaliating against them. It's a consequence of bad behavior for them. You are not evil or mean or bad for there being consequences to someone else's bad behavior. You are not too emotional for having an emotional response to things. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. If they do, tell me where they live. Just kidding. Oh, God, could you imagine? We start getting this influx of, like, addresses of people, and it's like the testimonials or reviews on the podcast, like she said to tell me where this bad person lived, and then I never heard of her going there and doing anything about it. She makes false promises on this podcast. Don't listen. Squirrel, Squirrel, Squirrel, Squirrel. 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 Podcast. 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 $1.99 a month, 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. 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