E01 S02 From ADHD Diagnosis to New Beginnings: My 2022 Recap and 2023 Plans
Have you ever stumbled upon something that completely altered your perspective on life?
That’s exactly what happened to me in 2022. I believe that by sharing stories, we recognize ourselves in each other’s experiences and it can be incredibly helpful.
So that’s what I’m doing.
In this podcast episode I share about my business and personal journey, discovering that I have ADHD and how it made me understand myself more.
A fellow ADHD friend, who knew I had it before I did, said she knew because one of the tell-tale signs was the fact that, ‘In the time I’ve known you, you’ve changed directions in your business more often that most people do in their whole life!’.
This understanding of how I tick means I now plan in a way that takes into account understanding how I work, rather than fighting it.
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Transcript
Note: this transcript was generated automatically. It’s accuracy may vary.
[00:00:00] I’m dedicated to helping multi-passionate entrepreneurs turn their dreams into reality by building a career and a life they love and making a positive impact in the world. I’m the podcast and social media manager, a singer songwriter, a kids’ music creator, a ishk, a wife and a mom. I’m Ms. I’m dedicated to helping multi-passionate entrepreneurs turn their dreams into reality by building a career and a life they love and making a positive impact in the world.
I’m the podcast and social media manager, a singer songwriter, a kids’ music creator, a ishk, a wife and a mom. I’m Ms. Secret weapon behind many six and seven figure entrepreneurs helping them shine online and call in the people they are here to serve. And now I’m here to help you. This podcast is here to help you learn and be inspired.
You’ll learn about podcasting, lead generation, business, and all about the real life stories of people behind the businesses. Just like you think of it as a place to hang out with your like-minded business [00:01:00] bestie who gets what it’s like. So grab a cup and hit subscribe so we can hang out. Again, this is Magnetic Pod, the podcast.
I am here and I’m ready to brave, cannot miss me. Our stand on every stage. I’m available for my destiny to reach my people.
So, the reason I’ve decided I wanna talk about it is because I really believe that when we share stories, we help each other, we recognize ourselves in each other’s stories and it, and it really helps. I know that it helped with me with what I’m going to share with you. So I hope this will help you in some way too.
Okay, before I dive into it, remember to hit the subscribe button because I really wanna stay connected and stay in touch. And also it helps other people find this podcast too. So if this helps you in any way, please hit subscribe. So I’m going to, to put this in context, I’m gonna go back a bit. I’m gonna go back to the end [00:02:00] of 20, 21.
21. I had been throwing spaghetti at the wall. as far as my business went, doing lots of different things. I started at at Jolly Joey’s my own. Music business where I ran music classes for kids and that, that evolved into li kids’ music because I wanted to do my own original music. And then I wanted to be under my name.
So it was under li as a character, Libby with red Hair. So go check that out. But I’d also do VA work for people and that led to doing podcasting and social media. And then I’d, and some people would ask me how to do certain things and I would, uh, create courses for that. But, Changing tech and changing what I focused on, uh, quite a lot, and I felt like that maybe people didn’t.
Know what I stood for or what I did . Um, so at the end of 2021, I just felt like no, I wanted to declutter in a way. I wanted to focus, I [00:03:00] wanted to be pick one thing and do that one thing and do it really well, and just do that for my messaging so people know. Okay, Olivia does. That’s the per the go-to person.
So I’ve chose podcasting cuz I love podcasting. I love the storytelling. I love that you can go a bit deeper, a longer form content that you can also repurpose till the cows come higher, but also because it tends to be people who are doing really good things in the world, wanting to change the world, make it a better place.
Those are the kind of people. I find do podcasts, or at least that, that I find in my world that are wanting to share some important content and help others and make an impact. And so I love the idea of being a podcast producer and helping people with that. So that’s what I did and I banged on about it.
And my word for 2022 was consistency. But I did start to feel an itch to do some other [00:04:00] things like I was doing in my podcast. I really enjoyed it. I was getting emails from people saying that they were listening to it and following it, and it was really helping them because I was sharing how to do podcasting and the tips and all of that for that.
But I was also feeling an urge that I wanted to share stories more. I wanted to get back to the connection and doing more than the sharing tips for business, but stories from the heart. So I had that ticking away in my mind that I wanted. Changed direction a bit, but I changed direction so many times in the past that I had a resistance to that.
So that was kind of just in the back of my mind without me addressing it. The other thing I was missing is my music. I didn’t do any music in 2022, which feels like kind of a scene, and I wanna get my music out there. So that’s another thing that was niggling at me in my efforts to pick one thing. I was still having the passions for the other things coming back, and that tension.
Wanting to do more. So one thing that happened to me while [00:05:00] I was scrolling social media is I would come across a couple of posts and some of them hit a bit close to home. I went, oh gosh, that sounds like me. Things like if you often lose your keys all the time in your phone and, and you can’t keep things tidy and whenever you try, It just is overwhelming and it just descends into chaos as quickly as you tied in it all quicker, and, you know, having time blindness and probably more things than, than I’m ready to admit that I feel a bit embarrassed about, you know, life admin stuff that I am not great at or, um, bookkeeping, like pulling behind in bookkeeping and then trying to do lots of.
More than I would admit, in a very short spaces at time and playing catch up and lots of things like that. And someone posted something that, and that it said that it can be a sign of [00:06:00] adhd. And when a friend posted this, I commented, oh gosh, that sounds like me. And it ended up leading to a conversation in the dms and.
Me talking about things like, like my husband for example, we’ll have, we’ll have a system where we write things on the shopping list. We’ve got a, a whiteboard on the fridge, and we write down what we need to buy. And the thing that I most struggle with, if it’s something that needs to go on there, that’s from a different room, like if it’s in the kitchen, I’m better because I can.
Write it straight away on the, on the whiteboard. But if I am in the bathroom and I notice that the toilet paper run out or a shampoo or toothpaste or whatever, and. I think, oh, I have to write that on the board. The moment I go through that doorway, and there’s, there’s a name for this, apparently, it’s called the Doorway Effect
The moment I, I walk outta there,
its gone. It’s [00:07:00] gone. I can’t remember from there to one room to the next to write that on the board. Anyway, there was a whole list of things and it felt like an epiphany. I was like, oh my God, this is me and. I went down a rabbit hole of looking at YouTube videos and podcasts and tos and, and following both people who have had the experience of finding out later in life, uh, and how that showed up and what it looked like in their life, and also following what qualified people had to say about it, as well as people who’ve been through it.
I just knew. And the thing with ADHD is that to get a diagnosis, you have to show that you’ve had it since childhood and things like if you are late with assignments or if you study and you can only take it in at the last minute. And that used to happen. I had no idea this was a, an ADHD thing. I used to study [00:08:00] for exams at the last minute and I used to.
Wow. Gosh, the way I taken the information at at the last minute, the night before, I’m like a sponge man. If I did this in the weeks leading up, I would ace this even more like I would just. Absolutely nail it outta sight. I should really try and do that. I should try and study weeks ahead of time, or at least a week and do a bit of day or something.
But no, it was the night before, and so I remember trying to do that. I remember making an effort to do that. I remember going, okay, I’m going to study ahead of time, and I would read the book and nothing would go in. Like it was so boring. I had no interest in whatever it was. I couldn’t take it in. And so I went back to my old ways of studying the night before when I, okay, full attention, and I would do it that way.
And I found out that that’s a sign of HD because. People with ADHD can only do something [00:09:00] kinda if the adrenaline kicks in and they have to like, there’s a gun to your head metaphorically and you have to do it. Or if it’s something they really love and then they can hyper focus because they love it. But for the things that you need to do and you understand there’s a long-term goal attached to, it can be a real struggle to, to stick to that.
So I saw that pattern. So that was like a major, major, major epi. And it felt like if you haven’t seen the movie Sixth Sense With with Bruce Willis, I won’t actually give away what happens, but I will give away that there is a twist. There is an epiphany he has at the end, and that’s how I felt at the end of the movie.
He just realizes this missing piece of crucial information and the penny drops and he can think back and he sees everything suddenly with that knowledge and he sees everything with that new perspective. And that’s what I felt like and it was amazing. So initially what I felt with this was. [00:10:00] Excited because I found out that a lot of people have a medication for this.
It’s a part of the brain that doesn’t have enough dopamine and that there’s medication you can take. And some people have amazing results from it and it’s changed their life. And I thought, wow, , I want that. So I was excited at first and then I went through like a grieving process when I. Oh gosh. I wonder what I could have achieved if I had realized and if I’d been able to get treatment earlier.
So I ended up being on this rollercoaster ride of emotions. So excitement initially, then grieving, and then I couldn’t unsee it. And I was seeing it in how I operate every day. And it was just, it hadn’t until they’d just been my normal, I hadn’t thought about it too much. It was just me. And then suddenly I’m seeing how.
Go through the day and my attempt to plan and not and not necessarily stick to a plan and trying to do a task. And that task [00:11:00] reminded me of another task, which reminds me of another task. And then I go, oh, which one’s more important? What should I do? And I just noticed everything every day. And it started to upset me because it, I was hyper focusing, I guess, on this part of.
So anyway, what happened next is that I was seeing all my limitations. I guess I was seeing them as limitations. I was hearing these ideas of it being a superpower. Some people will say that it’s a superpower, but I wasn’t feeling any of that. And yeah, so I, I got really upset for a while there. I was feeling really down, uh, and I wanted to really quickly go and, and, It dealt with, and I wanted to see a psychiatrist because psychiatrists are the only ones who can prescribe medication.
And I was all for the medication having heard how good it could be. And that created a new type of anxiety because I would look into it and then hear stories about how it’s hard to get in anywhere. [00:12:00] There’s really a long waiting list. And I’d hear stories about people not being believed, especially women.
It’s only in recent times that women are acknowledged as being able to have adhd. It was always just thought of as something that happened with boys because it outwardly, it, it is often seen with the hyperactive type of adhd, the, the fidgeting and bouncing off the walls and all of that sort of stuff.
It’s, it’s easier to pick up in. Girls can have their hyperactive too, but it tends to show up in different ways, and it wasn’t even studied in studies until I think the late 1990s. With, with girls included. And so anyway, I’d heard of lots of stories of women not being believed, being misdiagnosed, being told, oh no, you couldn’t have it cuz you did well in this area of her life or, or whatever.
Or no, it’s just anxiety or just not being believed. Uh, and the other concern I had is that I was hearing stories about that maybe you have [00:13:00] to prove that you had it since childhood and you have to have reports and I don’t have any reports. I’ve got no idea what happened to them and anyway, why would a person with ADHD be so organized as to keep all their reports
Anyway, so I ended up getting referrals to three different places, and it’s not like other type of specialists where in the past I have. Being able to make an appointment and then they say, make sure you get a referral before you come. But for this, you have to get a referral before you can make the appointment, and then you just wait hoping that they can actually slot you in somewhere.
So I got three referrals and made appointments three different places. And I would, uh, follow up with them. And it was good to keep following up because in the process of that, some of them sent me some of the forms ahead of time and I filled in all the forms. And the other thing I would do is I would take notes.
I had lots and lots of notes. I took notes of anything I remembered from my childhood. Uh, just things I noticed day to day, just look all the evidence because I [00:14:00] felt worried about not being believed because I felt I, I had it. And because of the fact that I didn’t. School reports. So I was trying to compensate by having as much evidence that I could find.
So I kept following up and that was really worthwhile doing because one time when I followed up, I got a phone call and said, somebody’s canceled. Would you like the appointment? Yes. And so I got in and so I went along and I had all my piles or papers of, uh, forms I’d filled in from online tests. Things that they didn’t even give me.
But from the process of getting forms from other places and following up and all of that, I’d ended up with all these questionnaires. So I’d done them all, and I had all these , all these papers. So she had a heap of evidence to look at as well as just speaking to me and, and me explaining my story. And she believed me and gave me the diagnosis of adhd, inattentive [00:15:00] type.
So there’s three types there. D h d inattentive, which is basically where it’s just your executive function skills that are impaired, um, like organization, time management, working memory, those sort of things. And then there’s adhd, hyperactive, which is where you are bouncing off the walls and you can’t stop moving or you fidget a lot.
There’s different ways that that shows up. And then there’s ADHD with both inattentive and hyperactive. So ADHD is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which as you start going down the rabbit hole, you find out pretty quickly that that’s. Not the right name for it because it’s not a lack of attention, it’s not a deficit, it’s an intention on too many things at once.
It’s not knowing where to put your attention, and it’s not always hyperactive. So anyway, so it’s really an executive function condition. One of the books I’ve read is the A D H [00:16:00] D 2.0 by. Let me just check my notes by Dr. Edward m Palo and Dr. John j Ratty, I think is how they say it. Anyway, I started to understand the superpower angle that I hear people say, and I’m starting to see that positive side of it.
And that book was good for describing every trait and every trait had a positive and negative side. and I can’t remember all the things they say said, but as I was listening I went, ah, I can see how it can be positive and. A lot of entrepreneurs have adhd. Uh, a lot of successful ones do, uh, and it’s often they’re big picture people, creative, great at starting things.
I’m starting to see why it would be possible to see it as a superpower. Initially, I was seeing all the negative things with adhd, and then I have started to understand the [00:17:00] positives. I think it’s because we are in this world where everything’s changing and. Jobs that once existed don’t exist anymore.
And that’s going to continue to happen. And what we really need is people who think differently and think outside the box. And so I can see how being neurodiverse can be a plus. So aside for from the fact that there are challenges as far as really planning time, time blindness, knowing how long a thing.
And to be able to plan accordingly, not getting distracted, uh, so that you can complete the thing. Sometimes those distractions are actually really important and creative ideas and just being multi-passionate can be used in a different way if you’re not trying to be neurotypical. So it has made me see the positives and it has made me.
About myself, but this is how I am. So instead of trying to be that person that picks one thing and does one thing and only sticks to one thing, I [00:18:00] realize that about myself is that I’m always going to wanna do different things and I’m always going to get bored if I just don’t allow myself some variety.
And just knowing that means that I plan differently. So, for example, with this podcast, I now plan to, I plan to bring into it the aspects that. Are a bit different to what I have been doing so far. I had been sticking to my neurotypical type of advice of , of niche down, and the more you niche the better and stick to one thing and don’t mix your messaging and that all makes sense.
But knowing that I have all these passions, uh, I am planning. To incorporate the things into this podcast, so it is still serving the same people. And so I’ve realized that I just needed to think about things a little bit differently. So the people I’m here to serve are people like me, so I can be myself and the people I’m here to serve are [00:19:00] entrepreneurs, are people who have passions, who want to follow a passion in life, who want to make money and have time freedom.
And. Who care about people. The people that I attract in my world tend to be people who are trying to do a positive thing in the world. They are. They’ve created their own businesses, though they can, so that they can do the thing that they love. And it’s also to help other people. So I can make a video about the highlights and the lowlights and the difficulties and the challenges and the stories and the passions.
all of the things that might be relative to someone who is like me, whether or not you are adhd, but you are. If you are here, you’re an entrepreneur, you are here to make a difference. You wanna make an impact, you want time freedom, you want to design the life that you want for yourself. Uh, and so there’s a lot more that I can talk about besides only narrowing it down.
I can [00:20:00] only talk about this little narrow thing about podcasting and lead generation, so I’ll still put those things in, but this is now going to be a place where you can learn and you can connect, and it’s like being with your business bestie, I guess. So understanding myself. helped me to decide what the next chapter of Magnetic Pod is going to be and what kind of content I want to create, and it’s going to inform the future decisions I make.
So I haven’t got it all figured out, but I am now looking at it through the lens of, okay, this is how I am, and that’s not going to change. How do I plan accordingly? So I’m gonna plan as someone who has lots of passions and interests and is going to get bored by sticking to one thing and one thing only.
So let’s see where that goes. Uh, I’ve been really interested to see that people like Jenna Kutcher, Marie Folio, Denise, oh, I dunno. Anyway, lots of successful people who are adhd. I can see how it’s a [00:21:00] positive. I can see how it helps them. Yeah. Jenna Kutcher had an episode where she talks about discovering it and how it helps her.
So that was, go check that out. Like Gary V for example. Now he hasn’t said he is got adhd, and so I can’t diagnose him , but to me, he’s got all the traits of it. To me, the way his brain works is a positive and I sort of, I can relate to. Him having ADHD tendencies, whether you call it an official diagnosis or not, but I can see how the type of mind that has ADHD can also think big, have creative ideas, and do a lot of positive things.
I know that for myself, getting here to where I am and having that self-awareness of understanding that I have this. Is largely because of other people sharing their stories, and, and that made a big difference to me. So I’m hoping that intern by me doing that and sharing my story, that [00:22:00] that may make a big difference to you.
So if you are someone who can see yourself in. Parts of what I’ve said, I’d love to hear from you. Feel free to comment below if you’re watching this on a video or send me a message. You can DM me on Instagram Living Music Media, which is L IV v I, music Media, and love to stay in touch. I wanna. Connected and it also helps others to find this podcast.
So that would be great. And, uh, if you love this, I’ll see you next time. Bye. I am here brave