What's the beaver 'damming' up YOUR business?

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. Squirrel. Squirrel. What's the beaver that's damming up your business? Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach, and welcome to the Weeniecast. If you go on Instagram or TikTok and you search Beaverse, you're gonna find a whole bunch of videos of people who for some reason have beavers in their home and how these beavers, randomly, like, just out of instinct, will start gathering things, taking things from all over the house to create dams. In hallways, in doorways, like, they cannot help themselves. There is one video that I saw where the beaver literally, like, dammed up the tub with just random objects he found all over the house. They have this innate desire to stop the flow of water, of people, of movement. They cannot help themselves. And like beavers, a lot of people do the same, but energetically. Well, hopefully you just do it energetically. Hopefully you're not just, like, moving all of your to be in the way for people to not be able to get through. But also, if you're an engineer and you actually build dams, then, you know, good on you. You probably studied really hard for that, and you probably benefit society by allowing us to generate things like electricity and prevent floods. So thank you. Anyway, back to beavers and how this is relevant to you as a business owner with adhd. If you're beavering your business, which is the term I just made up, what you tend to do is you tend to create this big, energetic block that prevents clients from coming to you, that prevents money from coming to you, that prevents success in all its forms from coming to you. And how do we do this? A classic beavering move for the ADHD business owner is to constantly blame your ADHD and to make your ADHD this insurmountable obstacle that prevents you from doing what you want. And that's not to say that we, we don't have challenges. That's not to say that we don't have genuine things that pop up for us that makes life hard. Your executive dysfunction will prevent you from doing things in certain days. You don't have enough dopamine to actually get the to do list done. Your rejection sensitivity dysphoria will absolutely make it really scary for you to get on those first dozen sales calls because you're terrified of hearing. No. Your hyper focus could also get in the way of you being successful because you might hyperfocus on the wrong thing. And that is absolutely valid. What I'm talking about here is taking it all and just saying, oh my God. Well, I want to do this thing, but my ADHD is just too bad and I can't do any of it. And we don't just do this with adhd, we do this with our money story. Oh, I just have the worst relationship with money. I can never ask for more. We do this with skills. Oh, I'm just the worst writer. I can't write anything for social media or for emails. No, no, I'm just not going to do that. Holding up one of these things and making it the big ass obstacle that's preventing you from having all the things you want is like damming up a waterfall. It's like being that beaver that can't help itself but create a dam to prevent things from flowing through. And I understand why we do this and I'm totally guilty of having done this in the past as well. The reason we do this is because we're terrified of actually going out and doing the thing and failing. We're terrified of the rejection that'll come. We're terrified of embarrassing ourselves by trying something and having it not work out and having people know about it. That's really scary and that's a valid fear. And the reason we point to this big thing, we say, oh, well, this is the problem. This is the thing that's preventing me from getting all the things, is because it actually empowers us to have an excuse for why we can't do the thing. This is one of the reasons why when I'm on the phone with a potential client and you know, we're talking about the different, different programs that I offer and they say, you know, I'd really like to sign up for this, but I just don't have the money right now. I never try to convince someone to spend money that they don't have, but I don't want people making decisions from a place of powerlessness, you know, so if someone genuinely does not have the money to work with me, that is absolutely fine. But I always say, okay, cool. Can we find a better reason for you to not work with me? Can we find a more powerful reason for you to not work with me? Because saying you can't do something because you're just powerless by circumstances and everything that just trains your brain that you're just going to continue to be powerless, that you're going to continue to be a victim of all the circumstances of your life. When you start making decisions from a place of actually, this is what I want more. Here's what I'm going to focus on for the interim. I'll come back to this later. When we put ourselves back in that chair of power, that's when opportunities start presenting themselves. That's when we start seeing things in a completely new light. And that's when we give ourselves permission to actually solve the F problem. So let's talk about the example of you have a shitty money story. You have a bad relationship with money. You have this belief that you're terrible with money and so you never have enough of it to do what you want. You're just always at the mercy of your bank account. Imagine if you start working on your relationship with money. Imagine if you no longer use that as the excuse of your life to not do the thing. When you speak as though the fact that you have a bad relationship with money is just a fixed fact and it's always going to be true. There's no fixing it. There's no changing it. It becomes the obstacle of your life and it prevents everything you want from coming to you. And the beauty here is that it's not your fault you're not getting what you want. No, there's just this big obstacle that's always in the way. It can be really scary to look at that obstacle and see that you actually have more control over it than you have ever admitted to yourself. But everything changes when you realize, oh cool, I can actually solve my relationship with money. I can improve it. I can do some really brave ass work. I can stop being a weenie and I can make this better. I have several clients right now who are really diving into a lot of uncomfortable work on their relationship with money because they realize that they are not powerless to it. And they realize that when they do this work and they're intentional about their relationship with money, they open up far more opportunities to themselves. They bring in far more money. They feel far better having that money and spending it than they did previously. If you're enjoying this episode, would you do me a small favor? Will you please leave me a review? Don't worry, it's super easy to do and it only takes a few minutes. You can leave your comments in Apple Podcasts, castbox, Spotify, and Podchaser. Just go to weenicast.com forward/reviews and scroll till you find the chosen app. That's weeniecast.com forward slash reviews. If you listen to this podcast, chances are you're not the person who uses ADHD as your big excuse. Excuse, Right. Because you're listening to a podcast right now that's showing you how to improve things and, and be able to work with your ADHD better so you can be more effective. You see that you have power here and you're taking active steps. Even if it's just listening to a podcast, you're taking active steps to make yourself better in a lot of ways. Personally, I've had this novel kicking around in my head for years. When I first moved to Philadelphia, there was this house down the street from me. And I won't share too much because you're not supposed to share too much about your idea. But when I first saw it and heard it, in a weird way, you're gonna have to read my novel when I finally write it to find out what I mean by that. When I first heard and saw this house, it just clicked for me. This is the book I want to write and the big excuse that I was using to keep myself from doing it. Because writing a novel is really, really scary. Especially because, like, writing a novel is not just something you're supposed to do for yourself. Like, you're supposed to send it out to publishers and maybe get it published and have other people read it and have opinions about it. Terrifying. My big excuse for the longest time was, I suck at writing dialogue. Terrible at writing dialogue, Just can't do it so bad. And it was kind of a weak ass excuse because when someone said, oh, well, why don't you just write the novel? Say, oh, terrible at writing dialogue. They'd be like, you know, there are classes that show you how to write dialogue. There are people who can show you how to write dialogue. I finally got real with myself and decided, okay, cool, if I want to write this novel, if I actually want to share this story with the world, let's invest in a class. Let's get better at writing dialogue. And what's funny to me is when I started that class, I realized very quickly that the reason I sucked at writing dialogue is because I had never tried writing dialogue before. It was just this big excuse, like, oh, no, I'm just terrible at it. Can't imagine doing it. Well, no, no, no, no. I'm actually not. I mean, I'm not good, but I'm not the worst at writing dialogue. And the more I practice, the more I learn about how to make it go well. It's a very weird coincidence. I'm actually getting better. Like, who would have guessed? So there's this, like, really weird phenomenon where we get so obsessed with this thing that we've built up as the reason why we can't have what we want that we start assuming that it is an actual obstacle for us. We start believing that it is insurmountable. And it could be like, my ADHD is just holding me back. It could be my relationship with money is holding me back. It could be, oh, I'm just terrible at writing, selling, whatever, and it's all holding me back. But the thing that's actually holding you back is you deciding that that thing is holding you back. The thing you're actually doing here is you're making that thing far more powerful than it actually is. And you're putting yourself in this powerless position where you can't do anything about it because this is just the truth. And it's always been the truth, and it'll always be the truth. So help you, dog. And if you're doing this to yourself in any way, it could be something like a hobby, like a hobby novel that you want to write. It could be in your business. It could be in your personal life. Maybe you have this story that you're just really bad at relationships. I'm calling bullshit right now. I'm calling bull that you're powerless in this situation. Now, full permission here to continue making that the obstacle. But I want you to be aware that you're making it the obstacle. You are the one that's placing yourself in the backseat here and letting this obstacle determine where you drive to when you are ready to be more powerful. You just have to start working on those things. And I know that can be confronting and scary and super uncomfortable. But you know what? You're a brave ass weenie. You do things scared. You have a business or you're starting a business. Hey, quick question. Did you follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app yet? It takes just a few seconds. I personally love Apple podcasts, but. But you can find us anywhere, even on YouTube. So, as the kids say, smash that button and make sure you never miss an episode. You work on bettering yourself every single time you listen to a podcast that shows you how to do something better. This thing does not have power over you unless you let it. So whatever that big block is, however you are beavering yourself, cut that shit out. You are the only you that exists in this world, and you are the only one who comes with your unique set of gifts. And if you continue to let your dam hold up all the things that want to come to you, you're also going to prevent all the good impacts you're going to have in your life. You're going to keep yourself from helping a whole bunch of people. You're going to keep yourself from having a whole bunch of amazing relationships and making a ton of money, and you're gonna prevent all the good things you could do with that money. There might be a charity that helps people survive life that you could start 10 years from now if you get over yourself and get over this belief that your money story just sucks and there's nothing you can do about it. Beavering yourself is the most selfish thing you can do, so cut it out. If you're ready to stop being a weenie and actually run a business that makes money, then go ahead and book a generate income strategy call with me by going to weeniecast.com strategy call. On this call, we will talk about your goals, your dreams, and your frustrations in getting there and if it's a fit for both of us. And we can talk about different ways to work together. Off Beavers if you're enjoying this episode, would you do me a small favor? Will you please leave me a review? Don't worry, it's super easy to do and it only takes a few minutes. You can leave your comments in Apple Podcasts, Castbox, Spotify, and Podchaser. Just go to weenicast.com reviews and scroll till you find the chosen app. That's weenicast.com reviews.