Hey, gorgeous. Welcome back to Chill & Prosper for another juicy episode. You know we love talking about money, we love talking about real stuff, challenges, mistakes, all the things. And today, we are talking about, well, something that's personal to me, I guess, but hopefully it'll be helpful to you as well. I'm talking about my journey with ADHD. And my journey to being diagnosed with it, how I work with it in my business and a few of those things.

                                                Now, if you don't have ADHD, I would say still listen, because it will help you, if you have people in your life. So you might have clients, you might have suppliers, you might have team members, you might have family members, you might have kids with ADHD and hopefully, it'll give you some insights about how you can thrive with it, but also some of the challenges that people in your life might have.

                                                And also, you might listen to this and realize you also have ADHD, and I'm finding that's happening more and more, that people my age, especially women who have fallen through the cracks in being diagnosed are realizing more and more. And it might even happen when you go, "Nah, Denise, everyone's got that." And this is what it's starting to spark with a lot of my friends who are entrepreneurs, who clearly have ADHD. They're going, "Oh, that sounds like me. Maybe I should explore it." And yeah. Okay.

                                                So let me just tell you what sparked that for me, first of all. So my son, George, he was at daycare and he had some really challenging behaviors and we were very challenged by some of his behaviors and we were going to counseling and getting help and all that kind of stuff. So his daycare suggested that we get some extra help with George, and we get some occupational therapy, some OT with him.

                                                We did six months of OT with George and we went and got some supplements and spoke to his child psychologist and things like that. And then, and at the end of that, the OT said something and it was the day before Christmas, it was our final call with her. And she was like, "I have a feeling. I don't know if it is, but I just don't want to not say it." And I was sitting there going, "Just say it. We're looking for a solution for our son and his challenging behaviors, just say it." And she goes, "I think he... he might have ADHD." And just a light bulb went inside me and I went, "Oh, my God. He totally does."

                                                And I want to say straight off the bat, I don't have any stigma around this. I know a lot of people do. And I'm so open to talking about it and how it impacts me and my business and my family, but that's all I'll say about George, and then it's been really challenging. There's big, long wait lists and all the things, right? But I'll just talk about me from now on.

                                                So I started reading stuff about ADHD and then like a lot of people I go, "Wow, that sounds like me. Oh, wow. That sounds like me." And then of course, I started following more ADHD accounts and then they start talking about how it presents for women or for girls or things that were missed. And I was like, "Oh, that's totally me. Oh, man. That's totally me. That's totally me." So I went to see my doctor, I got a referral to see a specialist. It took eight months to get that referral, but I think even in the meantime, just that validation of going, "Wow, maybe my brain is different. Maybe I'm not just a procrastinator. Maybe I'm not just lazy." And I started seeing everything from my life in such a completely different lens. That's been the biggest blessing for me just going, "Oh, wow. That's why. Oh, wow. That's why, that's why."

                                                So I was really nervous leading up to the appointment with the doctor because I felt like, "Oh, everyone's getting diagnosed with ADHD. It's so trendy. I don't want to just be one of the trend, jumping on this bandwagon." And I think that's because when you surround yourself with it and because I'm surrounded by so many entrepreneurs who likely have it as well, it's really like, you go, "No, but that's everyone, right?" And so I had massive imposter syndrome around ADHD and I didn't want to talk about it until I had that official badge and they, spoiler alert, they don't give you a badge at all. You do not get a badge, you don't get a certificate. And so I was really tiptoeing around it because I felt like I couldn't talk about it, but I was just reading a lot and realizing a lot.

                                                So I actually prepared a lot for my meeting with my doctor. First of all, I was really scared I was going to miss it because it was so important to me and I'm not that kind of ADHD person. I have a lot of systems and processes to not miss things, but I actually prepared a chart, this big, massive piece of paper. And it was timeline of 0 to 41, which I was at the time, almost 42. And everything in my life that happened that would be suggestive of ADHD. And I sat there and I was so nervous. And I'm like, "Oh, my God." And I almost forgot it a million times. And even the process leading up to it, I had to get blood tests, I'd forget the paperwork, blah, blah, blah. It was a real mess.

                                                So I sat there and he goes, "So, what are you here for?" And I was like, "Well, I think I might have ADHD." And he goes, "Why do you think that?" And then for the next 55 minutes, I went, "Blah, blah, blah [inaudible]." And I went through my whole chart and at the end, he goes, "Okay, do you have any questions?" And I said, "Yeah, I want to try some meds if that's cool." And he was like, "Yep. Pee in this cup. And then I can get you some meds." And I was like, "Oh, why do I have to pee in a cup?" And he goes, "Well, some people are drug seekers and they're just trying to get the meds." And he goes, "But, it's a pretty long process. You had to wait eight months for this appointment. So there's quicker, easier ways to get meds on the street if you want them." And I went, "Okay, cool."

                                                So he immediately believed me. And I was so lucky because I'm seeing people now who are really struggling to get that diagnosis to be believed. And it just made me want to cry thinking, "Oh, my God. He believed me." And as follow-up, I had to send some school reports and things and it was like, "Denise really could pay more attention," and stuff like that. So I just want to then go back. So I'm 42 now, and I've been on meds for a couple of months now. And after the break, I'll tell you about that. This is not medical advice, you know this, right? You know, disclaimer, I'm not telling you to take meds. I'm not telling you you've got ADHD, nothing. I'm just sharing my experiences in the hope that it helps you understand. So I'll tell about that after the break, but I just want to go back for a little bit about how this presented in my childhood and why it was so overlooked.

                                                One, it's very overlooked in girls and women because I think often, we have more coping strategies. It presents a little bit differently for a lot of girls and you can explore this for yourself, but for me, I was an obsessive reader and I can see this now before realizing about fidget toys and all the stims that people often need. For me, it was reading and I felt incredibly uncomfortable when I wasn't reading books. I felt like the world was too loud. I felt like everything was too overwhelming. So as long as I could hide myself in a book, I was calm. I was soothed. And when I say, I would read from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed. And often I would stay up late and my mom would have to be like, "Is your light on?" So I would put a towel so I could hide that I was reading.

                                                And so I would often read, I would say six to eight hours a day. My school teachers also let me read in class because if I didn't, if I couldn't use that as a self-soothing mechanism, I would be very disruptive. I would talk, I would just blurt stuff out. I would tap dance under the table, because I was a tap dancer. I would get up and drift around to everyone else and disrupt them. And so a lot of my teachers learnt that if they would just leave me alone, and I could listen to a whole lesson and read at the same time. And so when I was in year four and five, I was reading full Stephen King novels at school and things like that. My Readathon, when we did Readathon, it would be like three pages of books. And that's why I'm such a speed reader today, is that I was just reading all the time.

                                                It meant though, that if I wasn't interested in a class, I would fail it because I just couldn't do both. So I would fail geography, I would fail math, but most of my other subjects, I could listen to the teacher and read at the same time. Some teachers though, didn't like that. And I found that in primary school, where you have one teacher, my teacher was fine. In high school where you might have 8 or 10 different teachers, some absolutely didn't like it. So they'd say, "Put the book away!" And I would sneak it on my lap. "Put the book away!" And so I would close it and think, "You asked for this. Just remember that. This is all your fault." And then I would be really disruptive and horrible. So that's why my report card was often very uneven. It would be A's and then D's A's and then D's, and same at university.

                                                Okay. I'm going to take a quick break to have some water, because I'm talking so fast, but I want to tell a few more things about how it presented for me in high school and then in my 20s and then how it works for me now, and about meds too. All right. Speak to you in a sec.

Dale Potts:                          Hi, Denise. My name's Dale Potts and I'm a business and career coach. I've read Chillpreneur, as part of my library of your books and community, which I've been part of, for about three years now.

                                                Two things that really stood out for me were the super helpful Action Guide and the Business Tracker. The Action Guide also included the link to the Money Personality Quiz, where I came out as a Ruler. I really love this, as it confirmed my deepest wish, that I'm here to innovate, achieve and empower wealth with grace and ease.

                                                My biggest turnaround is that it's safe for me to make money by being chilled. I highly recommend all of Denise's books, they're practical, fun, and real. I love them. Thanks for everything, Denise, you really are the Queen Bee.

Errin Weisman:                 Hey, Lucky Bees. I'm Dr. Errin Weisman. I live in the middle of nowhere, Indiana, and I'm a life coach for high achieving alpha females. I read Get Rich, Lucky Bitch!, in 2019 and Chillpreneur in 2020. Loved it so much that I made a book club with my fellow coach friends. We got so much out of it. Not only just getting together and having connection, but the tips that the Queen Bee, Denise, gave us through that book. I would highly recommend it to anyone who's feeling exhausted and overwhelmed in her business. You can have a Chillpreneur life.

Denise Duffield...:            Okay. So I got through primary school okay because it was in one spot. And as I said, a lot of my teachers let me read during class, but when I got to high school, a lot of my coping strategies started to fall apart. So I wasn't allowed to read in every class. I didn't know about fidget toys, it just wasn't a thing in the '90s. And all I knew is that I felt incredibly uncomfortable in my body a lot and my brain a lot.

                                                So I actually developed a few very unhealthy habits. So trichotillomania is something where people pull their hair out, and I didn't pull my hair out so much as I twisted my hair. So I would twirl my hair into massive, big knots. And then I would pull it and rip it apart. So if I was in an exam that went for two, three hours, you know those horrible exams, I would be writing with one hand and ripping my hair out with the other hand, because there was no way of knowing that, right?

                                                Nowadays, you could have accommodations where you have a fidget toy. Maybe you get extra time. And I actually never needed extra time, but I just needed something to, I reckon, something to fidget with. Or I just needed to know that's how my brain worked.

                                                High school is when a lot of things started falling apart around losing keys, losing bus passes. So every day, I would lose my bus pass and it was so, one of those things of like, why wouldn't you have found a hack for it, but I would get on the bus. I wouldn't have my bus pass. The bus driver would kick me off. I'd have to walk to school. So often I'd be late to school. I'd lose my keys every day. So I'd walk home from the bus stop and I'd have to wait for my mom to come home.

                                                So they're the biggest things that happened is having that trichotillomania, losing things and doing everything last minute. So I can read incredibly quickly and I can create things incredibly quickly, because I was always used to being like, "Oh, God. We've got an assignment due today. Okay. I'll do a whole assignment today." "Oh, I can read a whole book in the lunch break and do a book report on it in five seconds." And that serves me very well now as an entrepreneur, but as a kid, I was always in fight or flight because I was just, always felt like I was unprepared. I didn't have the right calculator. I was wearing the wrong uniform. It was sweaty because I had to walk to school. And so I was always, just felt like I was running late everywhere.

                                                To make this worse, I do believe my mom has ADHD as well. She doesn't like to think she does. So I didn't have a parent who was like, "Okay, so before we leave the house, do you have your wallet? Do you have your keys? Do you have your bus pass?" She was always, mile a minute, thinking about other stuff too. So I can see with my kids, how much we're like, "Oh, my God. Why wouldn't you just buy a little hook to hook your bus pass and your keys onto your bag? Why wouldn't you do that?" But my mom didn't have that awareness to do that herself. And so, we're always running late places. We always moved places and it was just a little bit chaos.

                                                And so I think that's why I never thought that I had it, because looking at my brother, he was always getting in trouble for being disruptive in class. And he was a little bit like the naughty kid, whereas, "Hey, Denise is just reading in the corner eight hours a day. She's not bothering anyone. Yeah, okay. Maybe she hands in assignments a bit late but..." Most of the time I'd just done them 10 minutes before and created all this cortisol and stress in my body. But I did it. And so it didn't seem to bother anybody.

                                                It fell apart again when I went to university because suddenly, people don't give a crap about you at university, if you go to your classes or not. You're in different buildings, you're in different... You're not in a year group. You don't have a lot of the coping strategies. So the same thing started happening where, but even worse. I failed Econ 101, 3 times. I had to do it in summer school. I failed Accounting twice. Stats, twice. Demography, twice. Marketing subjects, no problem. I'd sit and write full marketing reports. In the exams, they were like, "Just do this one thing." And I'd be like, "Oh, here's a marketing plan from that company." I'd make up fake invoices. I have Fluro stuff all over the place, like pictures and I'd draw the logo. I would just be like, blah, blah, blah, blah. But all the other stuff that required concentration, I just couldn't get through.

                                                So things really started to fall apart there for me. And my self-esteem was just really bad. Again, I didn't know about things like stims and fidgets. And so in class to keep myself occupied, I would try and write notes with my left hand. I would fill up a whole page of hearts, but more often than not, I would get bored and I would go play pool in the pool hall and I became a total pool shark because I played pool every day.

                                                So fast forward to my 20s. Same stuff. I'd forget my keys every day. I would lose my wallet all the time. I changed jobs all the time. I'd do my work last minute. I'd procrastinate until Friday afternoon and then do eight hours of work in two hours. And it was very stressful, super, super stressful. And I think even then in my 30s, I actually got a lot done in my 30s. And I don't really know how, I think that's when I discovered how to do batching, batching up videos and batching up podcasts and using that hyper-focus in a really great way, like writing a blog post every week just before it got sent out. And that stuff built consistency in my business. And so I was very successful in my 30s, building Money Bootcamp.

                                                And where did it all fall apart again? Okay, I'll be really honest. I've only got a couple of minutes, but I just do want to share this. It all fell apart during the pandemic, for me, because I wasn't traveling. I wasn't going to conferences. I wasn't seeing people. I didn't have a lot of my coping mechanisms. I used to go to conferences all the time and it would be new and exciting. And suddenly, I'm at home all the time, alone with my brain. And I, oh, my God. It was really horrible. That's when I was like, "I think there's something wrong with me. I need some antidepressant stuff." I was at home with my kids all the time, when the schools closed, when the daycare closed, I was just going mental. Sorry for using the word mental, but I was like, my brain was hurting.

                                                And I was trying to explain it to my husband, Mark, who he doesn't have ADHD. He is a model student. He's never handed in anything late. He's always just done his work, without stress. And he's married to someone who, he just didn't understand why I just did everything last minute and created all this stress for myself. So he was just like, "Oh, what's going on with you?" And I was like, I think I'm depressed. Maybe I've got perimenopause, I don't know. Maybe I'm having a mental breakdown. And it was just actually all of my ADHD stuff coming to a head.

                                                And so when it was talked about for my son and I just went, "Oh, my God. How did I not see this? Everyone in my family has it. How did I not see it? How did I not see all of those signs?" And I didn't and I didn't, but now I do. And it's like, it's just opened up a whole world for me about realizing what I need to thrive in my business. What I need to thrive as a mom, what I need to thrive as a human being. Because for a long time, especially in my 30s, as I said, I was creating success, creating money. I was like, "Well, I'm not causing trouble for anyone." So I just didn't think that I needed something for me, but at the end of the day, I was like, "My brain hurts and I don't understand why. And I feel so overwhelmed and I don't understand why." I just thought I had to just get more organized, get a Bullet Journal, find a course.

                                                And now, it's just given me so much me permission to go, "Wow, this is what I need." So for my team, I'll say to them, "You have to give me very simple binary choices, this or that. And if it's something that I don't need to make a decision on, don't ask me, because it'll be very, very overwhelming. I need strong deadlines because I'll make it happen. I hate when people send me voicemails because it's too overwhelming to listen to it." I'm like, "Send me it in text because I can read it in two seconds." I don't want to have to sit there and listen to you for a minute, two minutes, five minutes explaining stuff. Just put it in writing and I can read it in two seconds.

                                                Other people are the opposite. Everyone who has neurodivergence needs different things. And so I'm just learning about what I need for myself. And as I said, I've been trialing medication. It's been amazing for me, but I had to unlearn that feeling of, "No, you have to suck it up and you have to learn hacks. You have to do it yourself. You have to create a system." And now I see that that system includes medication for me. Just like it would be if you needed glasses, people often talk about medication being glasses for your brain. And even just that unlearning of, realizing how many layers upon layers upon layers of hacks that I've had to learn. From being a really little kid, I've had to learn how to cope with some of the things that stress me out. And I'm unlearning some of those things at the moment. Which is super empowering and a little bit sad, thinking about some of the things that I could have done and achieved if anyone had noticed.

                                                And I don't blame my mom, as I said, she was in a situation, but I don't blame anybody because that was in the '80s and '90s. A lot of women, a lot of girls fell through the cracks who were exactly like me.

                                                So, feel free to ask me any questions on social media. I'd really prefer if you did it publicly rather than privately, necessarily. But if it's something that's really personal, then absolutely feel free to DM me. I just say public, because I think it shouldn't be a stigma. It shouldn't be something that we are hiding and I'm happy to share how things work for me. It might not work for you, and I want you to be really clear on that is, you've got to find things that work for you and your brain, not me and mine, because mine could be, and my experiences could be completely different to yours.

                                                So yeah, it works, I can use it as a superpower now. I can go, "Yeah, I can do things last minute. Yeah, I'm good at improvising and thinking on my feet. Yeah, I'm really good at hyper-focusing and batching things," but I also can't do everything. I can't do everything the way that some other people can and I'm no longer beating myself up over it.

                                                So, yeah. I hope you found that interesting. I probably won't do another solo episode on ADHD because I feel like that's everything, but that's just what I wanted to share. I don't share what medication I'm on because that really feels like medical advice. And you need to look at it for you and yours, if that's something you want to do.

                                                Please don't send me stuff to say, "Oh, no. It's not ADHD. It's kundalini rising." It's a thing. It's a real thing. And I have it. So that's a boundary too. But other than that, yeah, let's celebrate. And if it's you as well, I hope it sparks some interesting things for you. I hope you can see me as a mentor to you, if that's something that you have as well, but ha, yes. Thank you for letting me share that.

                                                Alrighty. I have one more final thought for you after this short break.

Joanna Sherrow:              Hi, my name is Joanna Sherrow. I am the creator and founder of SavvyChic Design and Savvy Template Shop. I live in Georgetown, Kentucky. I'm a graphic and web designer. I specialize in helping knowledge entrepreneurs launch their courses online.

                                                I joined Money Bootcamp in 2020 when the world went crazy and shut down, but I was in a stage and wherein, I want to embrace more and empower myself more with the knowledge of money.

                                                I have read and listened to Denise's book. And I knew that she's someone that I can resonate with and I kind of understand her process and her journey. So since joining Bootcamp, my biggest thing that I've really done was to really hire an accountant, to really look into more of my bookkeeping. I have set my calendar every first Saturday of the month, to do my expense report using my Google Sheet. So it was just so exciting to go through this process.

                                                So if you're one of those who are thinking of joining this Bootcamp, I highly recommend it. It's a best investment for you. The community alone is just so amazing that you would really just love sharing all of your aha moments as well. And I know that as I still go through all of the process, no matter what stage I am and having Denise and the community and the Lucky Bees behind me, I know the there's more success that I can attain.

Denise Duffield...:            Hey, welcome back. And my final thought for today is about ease, the word ease and easy and how much that can absolutely make people feel so, ah, weird about stuff, because money's not supposed to be easy, is it? Money's supposed to be hard work. A hard day's work for a hard day's pay. Another day, another dollar. And so where are you resisting ease in your life? Where are you resisting systems that could create ease? Outsourcing that could create ease, labor saving devices that could create ease, upgrading your systems or your technology. Maybe you are trying to do work on an old laptop and there's just some part of you that's like, "No, I have to make do. I have to suck it up." And really, this underlying feeling is that things are not allowed to be easy and profitable. They're not allowed to.

                                                And so, it could be for you. You have to have an affirmation. "It's safe for me to create easy money. It's safe for me to be on easy street," that could bring up some stuff for you. "It's okay to live a life of ease and abundance. It's safe for me to make a lot of money easily. I can be lazy and rich. I can be laid back and rich. It's safe for me to choose to upgrade. It's safe for me to pay for convenience." And it could be really small ways, and I actually encourage you to do it in small ways. Practice parking closer to the venue, paying for valet parking. What is going to create ease that could just be not even a massive big expense, but it could really open up some stuff for you? It could create some bandwidth for you. Asking for help in some way.

                                                I outsource so many things in my life because I want to create ease around the things that aren't that important to me or that don't make me money, that somebody else can do. And it just opens up so much creative bandwidth and space. It's not because you're lazy. It's because there's other things that you want to occupy your time on. You've only got so many hours in a day. You've only got so much energy in a day, so it's okay for you to choose ease for the things that aren't super important or that can be made more easy.

                                                So I want to hear your relationship with the word ease. You can Tweet me, Instagram me, send me a message on Facebook. Just share it and share your ahas with your community as well. And let's make it safe for us all to make money easily.

                                                Okay. I can't wait to hear from you and I will see you next week on another episode of Chill & Prosper. Bye.