S1 E9: Building a Biz, the Neurodivergent Way
This week on the Colorful Futures Podcast, I’m taking you behind the scenes of my journey into self-employment, and let me tell you—it’s been a wild ride. 🙃 Starting a business can feel like trying to organize a tornado of ideas, and I’m here to talk about how I’ve managed the chaos in true AuDHDer fashion.
We’re getting into the art of brain dumping (aka getting all those thoughts out of your head), categorizing ideas, and building strategies that actually work for you as your business evolves. Plus, I’m sharing tips on creating a supportive environment for neurodivergent entrepreneurs, because let’s face it: we need systems that embrace how our brains really work.
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of ideas swirling around your brain or wondered how to turn them into actionable steps, this episode is for you. Grab your favorite snack, your go-to fidget, and let’s get into it. 🎧✨
Transcript
Speaker: Liora Alvarez
Hello my friend and welcome back to another episode of the Colorful Futures podcast. I am your host, Liora Alvarez, career coach, talent acquisition consultant, and the founder of Colorful Futures.
In this show, we talk about all things related to careers and business, through the lens of the lived experiences of folks with marginalized identities, intersectional identities, people who have been historically underrepresented in business and in corporate work. You can expect to hear real stories, advice and tips from myself, as well as other guests on the show. And our goal is to help you build a successful and sustainable career where you can be your authentic self.
All right, my friends, let's dive right in. So today I wanted to share with you some of the behind the scenes of starting a business, starting a business or exploring self-employment and all of the stuff that comes with it. So when I first thought about starting Colorful Futures and starting my business, my brain was just exploding with all of these different ideas, these different thoughts, these different concerns, questions, like all of this stuff was just causing this chaotic storm of thoughts in my mind.
And I remember talking to my therapist about how I really wanted to start a business again. I've had other businesses, but I really wanted to start this specific business. But I was feeling so chaotic with all of these thoughts happening. And in my therapy sessions, I would say, well, I want to do career coaching. I would love to consult with other businesses on making more inclusive hiring practices and more inclusive employee experiences.
But like, what am I going to do about taxes? What am I going to do about health care? How does it work when you're self-employed and you want to contribute to retirement because a 401k isn't a thing? I would kind of bounce between, it was like a pinball machine, like bouncing between all of these different concepts, all of these different topics that make up self-employment and starting your own business and being fully self-employed in a sustainable way.
And I've seen this happen with some of my own clients too, who want to start freelancing, start consulting, want to start their own business, whether it's a service provider business or a product business. And especially because most of the folks that I work with, like myself, are ADHDers, and so our minds are kind of constantly being bombarded with all of these different ideas and concerns and worries and questions. And it's a lot to process.
And I was lucky in that when I was going through this, I had an incredible therapist who I still see to this day, who was able to help me kind of untangle that mess. But as I'm sure my therapist would want me to recognize, I did a lot of the work on my own to help detangle all of those thoughts and bring a little bit more organization to it.
And I've shared my experience with that. And I've shared my process of that with some of my clients who are exploring self-employment, who are maybe already self-employed, but are trying to make their business grow or take it to the next level or just make it more serious and take it more seriously. And as I've shared my process with them, they've been able to see more clarity. So I did want to share that with you today. If you're considering starting a business or maybe you have a little side hustle that you'd like to expand and actually be fully self-employed. This one is for you, my friend.
So when I was thinking through all of these different questions, concerns, ideas, everything, I needed to get them out, but I didn't want to just write them down in sort of a list format. That didn't feel natural to me. As an ADHDer, as an AuDHDer, I don't ever use the same system consistently. I use the same systems, the same tools pretty regularly, but it's usually a mix of things.
Like for example, I have a physical journal, those watching the video, I'm holding that up, those who are listening only, I'm holding up my little orange journal with some Post-It notes on it that my wife wrote with little reminders. And I have a different journal that is under a bunch of stuff, so I won't show you, but that's a blue journal that I only use for work stuff.
But then I also have digital notes and a bunch of other things that I use. And I went years not touching any of my physical journals until I was inspired to again. So whenever I have something that I'm working through, especially something like starting a business that has all of these different parts to it, that are frankly like clogging up my brain, I need to just do whatever feels natural.
And what felt most supportive in that moment was kind of like Post-It note style. I was like, I feel like I need to kind of physically separate these things so that they each exist on their own. And I want to be able to move them around. If you've ever seen like, a sci-fi movie or show, like something like the Avengers and Tony Stark and they have sort of this big screen that's just glass and they can touch stuff or like maybe it's a tabletop and they can just touch things and move them around.
I'm like that is what I need but I didn't want to cover my wall in Post-its. I get really particular about handwriting and it's not my, it's not my favorite thing to do, is to handwrite things because I like to be able to press undo, like to be able to copy paste and not have to write it all out.
You know, there's a, there's a time and place for pen to paper. But for this, I'm like, I need something digital that I can move around. And so I remembered this tool that I had used in a prior job called Mural. And there's other things like this, Canva has a similar feature, I think Google Suite for the longest time had a similar thing, but I think they're phasing that out.
But anyway, it's basically an infinite digital whiteboard where you can add text, you can add post-its, and you can just kind of play around, move things around. And that was perfect for what I needed. So basically, I sat down with my Mural board Post-it, its own digital Post-it.
So in the beginning, one of the first Post-its I wrote was healthcare, insurance, medical insurance. My next Post-it was quarterly taxes, question mark. Because I had no idea. I knew that quarterly taxes were a thing. I didn't know anything about them, how it worked, who had to do what, how do you know what to pay, when do you, I had so many questions around it, so was just quarterly taxes, you know, something I'm concerned about, worried about.
Payroll, paying myself, what to charge, those were all things. And then along with all of these concerns and unknowns, I had so many ideas for things that I wanted to include on my website, offer ideas, product ideas, marketing ideas of social media promotion, email marketing, like just all of these things were coming up.
So I would write down whatever came to mind. One post-it might say quarterly taxes question mark and the one right next to it might say post a reel three times a week, or post a TikTok every day might be a different post-it, and just sort of these concepts and these suggestions that were running through my mind. So I did that, I just sat down and dumped it all out onto this digital whiteboard.
And at a certain point, I probably had like, the whole screen full. There might have been 40, 50 plus post-its. There was no organization. Because the point at this stage is not to organize or categorize anything. It's just get everything out, that's in your brain. Get it out so that now it's in front of you and it's not just like swimming in chaos, it's not taking up all of this space.
This process, this sort of brain dump process is something that I recommend in general, even if you're just trying to work through emotions you're feeling or you're feeling, I call it when I'm feeling crunchy, when my brain's just like full and I feel gross and crunchy, I don't know how else to describe it but being able to just no structure, no judgment, no system or anything, just get it all out.
And once I had 40, 50 plus items on the page, my brain felt emptier. I reached a point where I was like, okay, now I'm actually actively having to think about things to write down. I dumped out everything that had been on my mind and then I almost was like, I should write more and just started thinking through kind of prompting myself what to write down.
When I reached that point, when I was like having to sit and think for a minute or two of like, well, what should I do for this? What should I do for this? I realized that I was at a stopping point. Like I had, if you can picture like, I had picked up my head, I had dumped out all the thoughts, I put it back on and then I was like, wait, I think I'm actually at a natural stopping point.
Because at first it was so easy. was like thought after thought after thought. I would just write it down, new Post-It, thought, new Post-It, thought. And if you're a pen to paper person and you've got a nice big wall that you wanna just make it physical, please do that. If there was a way for me to do that and get my hands involved, like I said, that sort of Avengers, like, sci-fi table where you can just move stuff around. If I had had that, I would have loved it, but I don't have that, so.
I had to do it on the computer, but if you want to make it more physical and use actual Post-Its and actual pens and write stuff down, for sure do that if that works better for you. But for me, I'm a digital gal, so this is what I did. So when I was finished, quote, air quotes, finished, I started to look at everything I wrote and I just kind of read through it, scanned through it.
And as I literally zoomed out of the whiteboard and just kind of looked at all of these thoughts, I started to notice categories. I noticed patterns. My pattern recognition kicked in and I was like, this question about healthcare and this question about quarterly taxes, and I think one of the questions I had written down was like, email marketing platform, because I didn't know which one I wanted to use.
I noticed that all of those were kind of related to admin and like more operational things. So then I grabbed all of those Post-Its and I moved them out of the pile, so to speak, and into their own section on the whiteboard.
And then I looked at what was left and I was like, okay, well, this idea I had of posting TikToks every day and posting Instagram carousels a couple times a week. And this idea I had about this specific topic, the specific idea that I had for a TikTok I wanted to make, or this Post-It of just a general category of things I could talk about. Those are all related to marketing. And I took all of those and I moved them out of the main pile into their own section of the whiteboard.
And then I looked at what was left and I was like, okay, this idea I have for making a PDF download of like my best tips and tricks for job search. And this idea I have of hosting webinars and this idea I have of like a specific offer I want to do. And this idea I have for doing like, consults and one hour sessions. Those are all related to offers and products and services. And so they all connect and can go into their own part of the whiteboard.
And I basically did that until I had sort of exhausted the categories that I noticed. And then anything that was left, I just kind of put in its own section of like, miscellaneous. And I remember like the following week, I showed that to my therapist and she was impressed by it. And I say that and the voice in the back of my mind was like, no, you're bragging, but like, it was pretty great.
And that's why I recommend this for others who are going through the same situation where your brain's just full of all of these thoughts and ideas and you need to get them out. And that is really the first step because if you can observe those ideas, those concerns, those questions, instead of only experiencing them internally. When we observe them, it's a lot easier to have a more objective view and notice where things belong and your priorities become so much clearer.
You can also start to create tasks for yourself. So for healthcare, for example, I was like, I don't know how this works. How am I going to get insurance? How does all of that work? So my next task was to research to say, okay, we can get healthcare through the state's marketplace. So let me go on the marketplace and just click around and see how this all works. So I went on and I found a plan that would fit our needs that was comparable to a plan that I had before.
And the prices were scary, but that's okay because I wasn't trying to do anything with it at the moment, I was just researching. So then I wrote down this is how much this plan is. This is how much vision insurance is, dental insurance, write down all those costs. And suddenly I was like, I'm not concerned about that anymore. Yeah, the price is high and I don't know how that's going to work but that's something I'll figure out in the future. At least for now, I know where to go, how to search for it, how much it's gonna be, so I can keep that in mind for when I'm ready to do that.
Same thing with quarterly taxes. I was like, let me search a little bit about how this works. And honestly, it was confusing. So I found an accountant and I booked a session, like, a consult with them. I actually ended up canceling that appointment and booking with someone else that came highly recommended and that person ended up being incredible, and I hired as my accountant when tax time came, and I loved working with them and they just taught me so much about the bookkeeping part of it and the taxes part of it.
And I think I was really lucky that I was able to consult with such a great accountant early on in my business because it made it a lot easier for me to know what is a business expense? How do I handle taxes? How do I calculate what I owe and all of that kind of stuff?
So then I went into all the other categories of services, of marketing, and all that stuff. And I just kept building onto it. So after I've brain dumped and I've categorized and I've seen what those patterns are, I had that document to come back to. So when I had these random thoughts and ideas and downloads and just sort of mental chatter about my business, I had a place to put it.
So I could open up Mural on my phone or on my computer and write down that thought. And I didn't always categorize it. There was a section that I kind of dedicated to that page that was just like a dumping ground of like if you have a thought and you just want to write it down, put it in this section. And then when I'm sitting down next at my computer and I'm kind of more focused, I can look at that and see if I already have a spot for it.
And I built out from there. So as I was looking through the services and the offers, I would pick one and I would say, okay, what would be included in this? And I would just let my brain run wild and write down anything that came to mind. And again, the same process, new Post-iIt, new thought. Anytime I had an idea, new Post-It, it would go with whatever offer it was for, whatever marketing plan it was for, whatever platform the idea was about, it would go there.
And then, it just kept going, deeper levels, more steps, more ideas, more thoughts. And I eventually use that to map out what my website would include. I mapped out like a marketing schedule, content creation schedule.
I wrote down things to consider about my own schedule of like these goals I had of, okay, if you want to work with your menstrual cycle, for example, day one through five, when I'm actually on my period is going to be very low energy tasks, is going to be tasks that I can just kind of sit down and do at my own pace, and it's not a lot of calls or live calls or anything like that.
Not a lot of content creation, unless it's like written or design work. And then as I get further into my cycle, day 9, 10, 11, 12, when I have higher energy, maybe those are the days where I record content or I have a lot of calls in that time.
And what's interesting too, and I think this is important to share is that I look back at that mural now and so much of what I wrote down, I never actually implemented, because this is sort of something I've noticed in myself and other ADHDers. Sometimes we over plan because we have these ideas and we write them out and we get dopamine from scheduling.
I probably made three content calendars in the first four months of my business that I never used because it was actually just like good for my brain and gave me that dopamine hit to make them, and be like, ooh, I'll send a weekly email and I'll make five TikToks a week, and I'll post three carousels and I'll, I don't know, just like all this other stuff and I never followed it.
But it was still an important part of the process. Like I would never say, don't write that down because you're not even gonna do it. Still write it down because you never know. And the point is just to get it all out of your brain into something that you can take a step back and look at. You can revisit, you create a container for yourself to put all of those ideas and questions and all that kind of stuff so that you can refer back to it when you're ready to sit down and take action.
I probably went six months or more without coming back to that mural. Because once I started implementing, once my business really began and I started taking clients and I started taking action on all these things that I had written down, I didn't need that anymore. I had other systems in place and other supports and things that were helping me navigate that process.
But now I'm reaching a new stage of business. My business has been earning revenue for a little over a year. We have several team members now, and it's a whole new stage. Like I feel like I'm in a whole new role now. Where it's not just like a solopreneur self-employed thing. Like, I run a company.
And I've been recently thinking about starting another Mural of new ideas, new questions, new concerns that are just at this new level of business, of company operations, because the questions are different.
Now it's not a question of how do I deal with healthcare for myself? It's how do I navigate healthcare if I want to start offering benefits to my team? How do I navigate payroll if I don't have independent contractors, but I actually have employees? Like how does that process work? It's a whole different thought process. And I think that's why I really like the system because you can always revisit it to add to it, to move stuff around, to categorize things, and you can evolve it.
You can create new sections when new problems arise, when new stages of business are reached. And you can share it with others and get their input, their perspective, their ideas. Just like in the beginning, I was sharing it with my therapist so we could talk through it and I could verbally process and we could troubleshoot together and brainstorm together of what is priority, what's not.
I was able to share this with my business coach when I eventually hired one. And I was able to share, okay, here are all my offer ideas, my product ideas, my service ideas. What should I start with? What's priority? And that made it a lot easier because it was out of my head in a place that I could observe, that I could look at and organize instead of it just being all in my mind and in my brain.
Because it's very hard. I don't know about you, but it's hard for me to organize and categorize and make a plan for things that are just a concept in my head. When you write it down and you start organizing it, it becomes more real. And that in itself is what makes it easier to figure out where your energy and where your time needs to go next.
So if you are considering starting a business or expanding your business or anything along those lines of self-employment, I'd be curious to hear how this resonated with you. Is it something that you've tried? Will you try it? If you do, please report back. You can email me, message me on Instagram, you can comment on this episode, and I would love to hear from you.
Let's chat about it. I am so passionate about helping other neurodivergent folks, other ADHDers and AudHDers start businesses and become successfully and sustainably self-employed.
That's all I have for you today, my friend. I'll see you next week.