When the pieces of a puzzle suddenly fit together, it can be a profound moment—
especially when that puzzle is your own brain.
Alongside my partner Austin, we unravel the reality behind the ADHD superpowers that have fueled our business and the practical strategies we've employed to harness them.
Venturing further into the nomadic mindset, we dissect how creating a conducive work environment is crucial for anyone, particularly for those with ADHD.
Tune in for an honest look at the ADHD spectrum and how tailoring both your inner and outer worlds can be the blueprint for thriving in the unpredictable landscape of entrepreneurship.
Sign up right now for the Digital Nomad Kickstarter beginning May 6th and learn what you need to get started as a digital nomad!
https://austinandmonica.com/digitalnomadkickstarter
-----------------------------------
Join our Facebook Group Digital Nomad Start-Up Circle if you're interested in living nomadically, growing your online business, and forming a community of like-minded people.
Get our FREE 85+ Ways to Make Money While Traveling guide!
Connect with us on Instagram by following @austinandmonica
Visit our website: AustinandMonica.com
Enjoyed this podcast? Subscribe to our show and leave a rating and review on Apple Podcast. Your feedback means a lot to us, thank you!
When the pieces of a puzzle suddenly fit together, it can be a profound moment—
especially when that puzzle is your own brain.
Alongside my partner Austin, we unravel the reality behind the ADHD superpowers that have fueled our business and the practical strategies we've employed to harness them.
Venturing further into the nomadic mindset, we dissect how creating a conducive work environment is crucial for anyone, particularly for those with ADHD.
Tune in for an honest look at the ADHD spectrum and how tailoring both your inner and outer worlds can be the blueprint for thriving in the unpredictable landscape of entrepreneurship.
Sign up right now for the Digital Nomad Kickstarter beginning May 6th and learn what you need to get started as a digital nomad!
https://austinandmonica.com/digitalnomadkickstarter
-----------------------------------
Join our Facebook Group Digital Nomad Start-Up Circle if you're interested in living nomadically, growing your online business, and forming a community of like-minded people.
Get our FREE 85+ Ways to Make Money While Traveling guide!
Connect with us on Instagram by following @austinandmonica
Visit our website: AustinandMonica.com
Enjoyed this podcast? Subscribe to our show and leave a rating and review on Apple Podcast. Your feedback means a lot to us, thank you!
Hello and welcome to the profitable Nomad Couple podcast. This is a show where we share all of our secrets about building a sustainable location independent lifestyle.
Speaker 2:We are Austin and Monica. We're a digital Nomad couple here to help you develop an entrepreneurial mindset, ignite your passions and develop a purpose-driven online business.
Speaker 1:Get ready for weekly insights and inspiring stories to empower you to live life on your own terms.
Speaker 2:So are you ready to unlock the Nomad mindset and embrace a life of limitless possibilities? Let's dive in.
Speaker 1:All right, you guys, today we are tackling a topic that I have never spoken about in the public space before, but it is something that's really near and dear to my heart, and recently I've been getting a lot more like side conversations behind the behind the scenes about this topic and it really just made me realize that it is a topic that I want to shed some light on, because I do believe it'll help a lot of people.
Speaker 1:And that is my self diagnosis of ADHD. Just a little disclaimer I have not been medically diagnosed, but it is something that we have kind of been moving forward with and coming up with different coping mechanisms and different ways to like help set myself up for success, especially as a business owner and as a digital nomad, because both of those things require a lot of attention to detail sometimes, which is not something I'm good at. So basically, the whole idea of this podcast, the whole goal of it here, is to share a little bit more of my own journey and our journey, austin's journey through this as well, and also just to really provide really practical ways to set yourself up for success, even if you don't have ADHD. This is going to be helpful for helping you know how to set up your environment, set up your body, your everything about your circumstances for success as a digital nomad and a business owner.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so something that I wanted to start with that I think was really interesting as we were going through this whole process. Like, I want you to tell your story a little bit about how you started suspecting that you have ADHD, where you started getting some information about that, but I mean, that was probably is that like two years ago by now?
Speaker 1:I think so yeah.
Speaker 2:And since then probably just because we've been more aware of it it's been really interesting to see how many people in the business world have ADHD, and I was actually just looking this up and I learned that about 29% of entrepreneurs are suspected to have ADHD and if you actually go the other way, people who have ADHD are about 500% more likely to be entrepreneurs. I think that's crazy. That really sheds a lot of light for me about the strengths and the some people call them superpowers, the ADHD superpowers that people have that are diagnosed with ADHD, and it's just interesting to me the correlation between ADHD and entrepreneurship and how a lot of times for a lot of people they go hand in hand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. For me, growing up, there's never any suspicion that I had ADHD, because the idea of ADHD was the kid at school who was like standing on their chair and climbing out the window and just totally uncontrollable. Typically we're thinking about like a male student and they're just going crazy, bouncing off the walls, and that is kind of the idea that I feel like a lot of people still have about ADHD. But as I have learned more about it, there's a lot of different ways that this can manifest in a person, especially in women. It tends to be a little bit more internal, which is why it can be a little bit harder to diagnose and I guess kind of.
Speaker 1:I'll just dive into my journey. I remember specifically listening to a podcast, listening to Jenna Kutcher's podcast, and she had just barely been diagnosed with ADHD and so she was sharing her journey and I literally could not stop listening because everything she was saying I was like where are the cameras? She knows me, she knows what I go through all the time, she knows how I lose my key, she knows how I have notebooks and notebooks and notebooks, but I can't go through it front to back, like I just open a random page and I'm so disorganized and she knows.
Speaker 2:You guys, monica's notebooks, drive me crazy.
Speaker 1:I have a system.
Speaker 2:A system that works for her.
Speaker 1:But I like it was literally like I almost pee my pants, you guys. I was like she is watching me, she knows what's going on in my life, and all of these things were what led her to getting diagnosed with ADHD. And then she had a podcast episode with an ADHD expert and so I stopped and I listened to that episode too, and the first thing I did was say, austin, like, listen to this. And I think there's a specific part of the episode I was like, listen to this. And he looks at me and he goes, wow, this sounds like you.
Speaker 1:And so I, I sent it to my mom and I sent it to my sister and we we kind of talked about it a little bit, which ended up leading to my mom actually going in to get medically diagnosed. My mother does have a medical diagnosis of ADHD and it's currently taking medication for it. Like I said, I am not medically diagnosed. I have taken all the self tests that are on the internet. If you look it up, there are a bazillion different tests. I have taken a bunch of them and have landed on the spectrum of having ADHD on every single test that I have taken.
Speaker 2:So. So I want to ask Monica there's a couple of questions I want to ask, but the first one is, since you just brought up the self diagnosis, why haven't you gone to go get like officially diagnosed?
Speaker 1:That's a really good question.
Speaker 1:I am a very big advocate of people going and getting diagnosed if that is something they feel like is right for them.
Speaker 1:For me, I think the biggest thing is that I am very confident that I I do have ADHD, but I'm also very confident that I don't want to go the route of medicine and medication, especially right now.
Speaker 1:I mean, that might not always be the case, but right now, with our lifestyle, it just didn't seem super feasible to be trying to get prescriptions and going to get followup appointments and different things like that, and so instead, moving forward with just the self diagnosis is. I know that I this is something I struggle with. I know that I have certain superpowers that come with ADHD that I can, I can play towards, and then I have done a lot of kind of side research and just setting up my environment and setting up like I take different supplements and stuff that are really helpful, and so for me I feel like I've I'm in a really good place with it. I feel like I've gotten to a place where I can set myself up for success. I have seen success by implementing these things and pursuing a medical diagnosis right now, at this point in my life does not seem pertinent, I guess.
Speaker 2:I mean. To me it makes a lot of sense because the benefit or the purpose of going to get officially diagnosed would be so that you could go do something about it to help alleviate the symptoms that are holding you back right. And in a lot of cases that means medication, like you said. But I think that's an interesting perspective because, whether you officially are diagnosed with ADHD or not, you are aware of certain habits and certain thought patterns that make certain tasks more difficult. So, whether you're officially diagnosed or not, you can set things up in place to overcome those challenges that come with it and to create more beneficial habits and patterns for yourself and, like you don't need a diagnosis to recognize that you have these things that you want to change.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And I do think that if my mom hadn't gone and actually gotten medically diagnosed, I would maybe be more inclined to go do it myself Just to ease my mind, like make sure that I'm not making it up. You know, I kind of feel like I have this internal dialogue where I'm like is that really my experience? Or like is it just because I heard a podcast about it? Like is it, am I just a hypochondriac? Or like is this actually what's going on?
Speaker 1:And so I think having my mom have that actual medical diagnosis and knowing that there is a really big genetic component to ADHD, definitely kind of put to rest in the of those kind of fears. But you're right, it is something that like even if I mean that's kind of why we want to talk about this today is, even if it's not something that you are like diagnosed with, but you do recognize that social media is really distracting for you or that you have a really hard time time sitting and focusing when you're living in cool places, or you know you can just start to notice that there are things about you and your work habits that you need some additional support with and I think a lot of these skills that you and I have learned and kind of implemented will help a lot of people.
Speaker 2:So, with that, I think anyone who's listening who might be interested in maybe self diagnosing or just curious about what this looks like. Why don't you walk us through some of the original signs and symptoms that led you to suspect that you have ADHD and explore it somewhere? I know you've already mentioned a couple of them, but what are some others?
Speaker 1:Yeah, a couple big ones, and this isn't like. I mean. This is so tricky because everyone loses their keys and everyone loses their phones sometimes, but it's like a daily occurrence where I lose my phone, I lose my keys, I lose my glasses. I'll have something in my hand and I'll put it down somewhere and I won't even. I can't even tell you like I've left my phone on like shelves in the grocery store.
Speaker 2:You guys, I can corroborate these stories. I am unofficially diagnosed as Monica's personal item finder. He's my sure, buy you guys he carries myself around.
Speaker 1:So so things like that, leaving cupboard doors open, just being really absent minded, hearing my thoughts a million miles a minute. I never hear just one thought at a time. So that was always a thing interrupting myself, interrupting other people. And then there's a lot of other like kind of quieter symptoms, like just being super aware of how other people are feeling, like being able to read the room is like a secret superpower of ADHD. Like being more, like risk tolerant, not always thinking things through, being a little bit more spontaneous I don't know what other things have you.
Speaker 2:Well, so I'm glad you went there, because I feel like the, the maybe, like the stigma around ADHD is is the setback. It's a hold up, it's an impediment, it's something that makes life more challenging. It's a I don't know what the correct terminology is, but we think of it as like a mental condition. I guess that's holding you back from things, and I first heard people talking about it as a superpower from the episode you sent me from Jenna Kutcher. I think she referred to certain traits ADHD traits as superpowers, and I like that framing, because not all of the symptoms of ADHD are negative. Like you just pointed out, there's a lot of really good things that come from it. A couple others that I would add to that is your creativity. You're a very creative person. You're very out of the box thinker. Your ability to take risks, like you said, like if it weren't for that, we wouldn't have started a business. I am not a very risk averse person.
Speaker 1:Alright, I am a risk averse person. I am risk averse.
Speaker 2:I am much more hesitant to take big risks than Monica is, and I'm grateful that she is that way, because that's led to some incredible opportunities in our life. She is spontaneous. Monica is a very like people person and these are like great traits that we suspect they're tied to ADHD. Whether they are or not Like, they make Monica a great person and so I definitely think they're superpowers. They make you a great person. I'm talking to you.
Speaker 1:Thanks, babe, I'm not crying, you are. I think that is a really important point. Here is one of the first things I was terrified of was people looking at me differently or people like, if I start talking about ADHD, I'll send people are going to notice all the ways that I'm super ADHD and are going to be super annoyed with me or not going to want to like hang out with me or not take me as seriously.
Speaker 2:Well, I know you also didn't want to use it as a crutch for yourself.
Speaker 1:That's true. I never, ever, wanted to use it as an excuse for why I couldn't do something. So, very intentionally, you and I have always talked about it as a superpower and we have always like looked at the positive side of it. And obviously there are like I do need to set myself up for success, like I do have to be very intentional about certain things.
Speaker 1:There are some hard things about having ADHD and I definitely don't want to like diminish, I definitely don't want to make anyone else's experience feel less than because I do know there is a spectrum when it comes to ADHD and I do feel like I fall more on the mild side of it. I also have the blessing and the curse of being super, super, super self aware, and so that has helped me a lot too. But anyway, not like I don't want to make this all about me. I want it to be more about like a conversation where we can move forward together and just talk about some of the things that have been helpful for me. But it has been like very we have been very intentional about looking at this as a positive thing or finding the positive things in it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so let's jump into those. Monica, you call coping the mechanisms and you have just brain dumped a whole bunch of really awesome strategies, like things that you've been using yourself that have helped you a lot. So we wanted to go through them so that anyone who's listening, who maybe can identify with anything we've talked about so far, who is maybe officially diagnosed with ADHD or you also suspect, even if you. If you don't, I feel like a lot of these are helpful, just if you have. Everyone goes through periods of time where they're a little bit more distracted, a little bit more like need some structure in place, and I feel like a lot of these can help. So let's start going through them.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I kind of tried to break it up into different categories, and the first category is just your environment. There's so much about your physical environment that affects the way you work, affects the way you think, affects, like, how successful you can be. So the first one is just to have a workspace, have a place where you sit down and this is where you work and this is where you work on your business.
Speaker 1:For me, it's really helpful to have a table and it's really helpful to like try to keep it clean, which is harder to do than it sounds, but I like to get start my day with organizing my desk and just organizing my workspace, keeping it clean, tidying it often because it gets cluttered so easily and I don't always understand how that happens and then just making sure that your, your space is quiet and that you can close the door if you need to, or whatever it is you need to do. I think the important thing here is to really start to notice what kind of environments are helpful for you. So I know some people do better like in coffee shops, where there's some more, like other people who are focused and working around them, or some people do better like in absolute quiet. Or some people do better by a window with natural light, where some people do better like facing a wall, where there's no distractions. So really just start to take note of what environments are helpful for you.
Speaker 2:Those are good. I have to laugh at this because you and I, basically, if you were to sum up what we teach, it's like find out what works best for you.
Speaker 1:There's no one sense at all, and I feel like that was another example.
Speaker 2:Like these are some good suggestions but, like, ultimately you need to figure out what's what's going to be beneficial for you. Any others?
Speaker 1:Yeah, as far as setting up the environment goes, I make a goal every single day to start out my day by closing out all the bazillions of tabs that I have open.
Speaker 1:And you guys, this one was super painful for me to do at first, but what I realized is that the tabs that I need open, I will reopen them again. But if I just have a bunch of tabs open just because they're open and I'm scared to shut them down and lose things, then they are constantly going to be distracting me and it's constantly going to be calling my attention. I'm going to feel more cluttered, I'm not going to get as much done and most of the time they're open for no reason because I never, ever go back to them. So I started making, probably about a year and a half ago. I made the goal to every day when I opened up my computer, to close out all my tabs, and I still do that to this day, and it's very, very helpful to just start the day with a clean slate and literally I'll just reopen tabs that I need.
Speaker 2:You're better at that than I am, because I have tabs open for probably two months ago. I'm like, yeah, I'll need this.
Speaker 1:Well, here's the thing. You might need it. So put a bookmark or save it somewhere, or email yourself the links that you might want to get to someday. I don't know whatever it is you need to do, but if you're not using it right now, there's some part of your attention at least my attention that was always thinking about that link being open and always being really nervous that I was going to shut and I was going to lose it, and I just spent a lot of mental energy with these unopened tabs that I wasn't, or these open tabs that I wasn't even opening and I wasn't even looking at, and it's been really helpful.
Speaker 2:I know the one you've talked a lot about and I've seen you use a lot is having scratch paper on hand. Like I said, Monica's notebooks are wild, you guys. She somehow knows where everything is in her notebooks.
Speaker 1:Not always.
Speaker 2:It seems like it, though, like I don't know. I'll ask you where something's written down and I'll flip through your notebook and I can't find it and like oh yeah, it's in this page and just kind of go to it. I know it's probably a lot, because you're the one who wrote it and not me. So just having you've talked about having a scratch piece of paper where you can write down thoughts and ideas so that they don't get bottled up in your head, so that they don't distract you from the task at hand.
Speaker 2:Even if it's not super organized, just being able to get things from your brain onto paper. I feel like that method, that process, inadvertently helps you organize things and helps you stay focused when you're trying to focus.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely. My thoughts go so fast, you guys, and it's like every second there are new thoughts coming up, and even while I'm talking, there are things that are coming up trying to like, beg for my attention and to be put in the forefront. But a lot of times, some of these things are really really important. Or, like I have really good ideas that come up while someone's talking or, you know, I'm not able to care of it right away, or I'm focused on a task and I'll have these ideas come up and, instead of trying to hold on to them in my mental space, I write it down and then let it go and then, after I'm done focusing or I'm done with that conversation or whatever it is, I have a list of things that I've written down. It's so helpful for me.
Speaker 1:Like, anytime I'm on a call, I always have a notebook, a piece of paper, open, just in case there are names I don't want to forget or things people said that I don't want to forget, or just things that come to my mind. And then, you're right, it is like my notebooks. Like I said, I don't start with page one. I normally just open to a blank page, which is so annoying, and I wish I didn't. I needed to get better at not doing that. But then I know exactly where that that piece of paper, is. I know it's out of the notebook and it is. I know where it is and it's very helpful for me to keep track of things.
Speaker 2:Any other ones that stand out from you in this category, or do you want to talk about taking care of your physical body?
Speaker 1:I mean there are. There are so many things in this environment section from like just having like a little fidget, something to play with, something to keep my hands busy is really helpful, and then just tapping into this hyper focus superpower that comes with ADHD, which is literally like I can get so absorbed in a task that I don't eat, I don't drink, I don't breathe barely Like I'm so focused.
Speaker 2:I have to remind Monica about hey breathe.
Speaker 1:No, I literally legitimately, have forgotten to breathe sometimes, you guys, but I get so focused in a task, all time just disappeared. Everything fades into the background. I cannot see anything but what's right in front of me, and this is such a cool tool, especially when working on a business, and so just like allowing myself to get sucked into the work is really important. So turning off notifications asking people around me to respect my time, there are definitely times when, when I have to tell Austin like hey, like right now I'm super focused. Can we talk about this later? Can we do something else later?
Speaker 2:Most of the time. To be totally honest, Monica, I can tell. Because your hyper focus mode is so drastically different from your normal mode. I guess you could say I can tell when you're focused, I'm like all right, it's not a time to bother, Monica, right now.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's interesting. What? What do you notice? That's different.
Speaker 2:You talk a lot less. You get up and like you, stand up and move about the house a lot less.
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:It's just it's easier to tell that you are wrapped up in what you're doing and every now and again, like if I ask you a question, if I have something to say, like you don't look away from your computer, things like that. So I'm like, okay, like Monica's done, a focus mode. What I have to say is either really not that important or I can write it down we can talk about later, like I'll let her stay in her focus mode for now, cause once I pull you out of it then you're out of it, and then like that's, for I mean, I have times where I could get into a flow of things too, and I know that's frustrating to get taken out of that state.
Speaker 1:So yeah, something that I have noticed are certain things I can do to help me get into that state more. One of them is headphones. I normally do not wear two headphones because I'm partially deaf in one of my ears and so I mean, you know you are also partially deaf, but it's so irritating to wear two headphones because the volume levels are different. But like I will put on two headphones, I'll play music really loud so I can't hear anything else, even just like having a hoodie on. Sometimes it's helpful, cause it like narrows my, it's almost like those blinders.
Speaker 2:Like the horse blinders.
Speaker 1:Exactly Like I'm just getting rid of, like extra simulation, Like if my you know my clothes are too tight or too loose or something's like irritating me there or I'll pull my hair up in a bun. There's so many things I can do to physically set myself up to get into this flow state, into the super hyper focus which is so, so helpful, especially when it comes to the task and business that I don't always love doing.
Speaker 2:Okay, so we're going through this list. We have a lot on this list, so I don't think we're going to be able to get to all of them, because I feel like each one of these categories could be its own podcast perhaps. So which of these, like, really stand out as the ones that we haven't talked about yet that really stand out as tools that have helped you manage all of this?
Speaker 1:I just want to touch on like taking care of your physical body.
Speaker 1:It's been proven that exercise is just as effective as anti-anxiety medicine, and anxiety and ADHD A lot of times can go hand in hand. It's also been, but it's just one of the best things you can do for ADHD and just for your body in general. Like, no matter who you are like, moving your body is so important and within that, one of the things that I found that that's super helpful is for me to set a timer. And so, let's say, I am doing Facebook engagement, so I'll set an entire timer for maybe an hour and my my intention for that time is to go on Facebook and, to you know, promote our group and to get more people on enrollment calls and all these different things, and so that is my, that is my time. If I get off track, I can always go back and focus, which I mean that's a whole other topic is like how to use like meditation to train your brain and how important that is for ADHD. But anyway, that was a little ADHD tangent for you.
Speaker 2:I feel like, if you want to dive deeper into this, there's this whole technique called the Pomodoro technique. Basically what you're saying you set a timer for a certain task and you focus on the task until that timer goes off. So like, if this is something you want to explore more, you can just Google Pomodoro technique and get some really good ideas there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the important thing is, when this timer goes off, you get up and you move your body.
Speaker 2:For me, that's the harder part is stopping when you've been in this focus zone.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I need to take a break, my eyes need to rest, my body needs to stand up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but just like incorporating that movement into your day is so important and just getting up doing jumpy jacks or doing some pushups or just like running, like literally like the other day I was running laps around our tiny apartment.
Speaker 2:Oh, I heard. Yeah, I was wondering what that was. I was in the bedroom doing something and I hear like oh, monica's jogging.
Speaker 1:Yeah, drinking some water, that's so important. So just moving your body, getting outside, it's all super helpful. Is there anything else that you have noticed I do, or something that, like, you want to talk about?
Speaker 2:I think maybe something we can do is make a post in our Facebook group where we talk about all these different strategies the ones we haven't mentioned so far and if you are curious about this, if you want to know more about some strategies that Monica has used, that I have used, that can help you with things like this, go to our Facebook group. It's called the digital nomad startup circle. We'll make a post about this and share it, and there'll be all of these strategies in one place you can read and look at, you can save it, share it with someone who you feel like it might be helpful to, because there's a lot of really good ones in here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this is like I'm. I'm an open book. You guys, I'm a big fan of over sharing. So if you have any questions or you want to talk about this, reach out to me, send me a DM. I'm super happy to chat with you about this.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much for joining us here on the profitable nomad couple podcast. We appreciate you listening to us today.
Speaker 1:If you enjoyed this episode, share it on Instagram and be sure to tag us. At Austin and Monica, together, we can inspire others to embrace a location independent lifestyle.
Speaker 2:And while you're there, we'd love to connect with you, so make sure you follow us for more tips and inspiration on living your dream location independent lifestyle.
Speaker 1:Until next week. Remember that you have the power to shape your own path. So stay curious, stay adventures and stay connected.