Contractor Cuts
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Contractor Cuts
Harnessing ADHD & Neurotypical Motivation for Business Success
Imagine harnessing ADHD as both a superpower and a challenge in the fast-paced contracting world. Clark Turner and James McConnell unravel the key between ADHD and motivation, offering insights from their personal journeys. Discover how ADHD’s unique motivation drivers—interest, urgency, and immediate consequences—can shape a business owner’s experience, differing strikingly from neurotypical patterns. Through their stories, learn how self-awareness can turn potential hurdles into opportunities for growth and innovation in your business endeavors.
In our exploration of productivity and time management, we tackle the constant tug-of-war between perfection and practicality. Learn from Clark and James as they discuss strategies to prioritize essential tasks and leverage calendars as tools for mental well-being and business health. Embrace morning routines, optimal work environments, and accountability as crucial elements for managing ADHD in business. Through their candid reflections, our guests offer a roadmap for entrepreneurs seeking to maximize their potential by balancing the allure of novelty with the necessity of structure and discipline.
*This is not medical advice and is based off our own personal experiences
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Welcome to Contractor Cuts, where we cover the good, the bad and the ugly of growing a successful contracting company.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to Contractor Cuts. My name is Clark Turner and I'm Chim Richolds. Chim Richolds, thanks for coming today. It's great having you Today. We are talking about ADHD as a contractor. We both me and Chim both struggle with ADHD pretty heavily, which is funny, though. James and I have different types of ADHD, but we struggle with the same stuff. We have a little bit different motivating factors, but we've both kind of done deep dives into all of our problems factors.
Speaker 1:but we've both kind of done deep dives into all of our problems and for clarity the the different types is that I have it and Clark just wants the drugs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've been sort of riddling in sixth grade. Let's talk about it. Uh, no, it's, it's, it's a uh, really a core, uh, understanding that we've always had with each other in terms of I see why that's happening, I get it, I see you. I won't take offense to you here Until we need to take offense, until offense is taken. So we're going to dive into, we're going to talk about the different motivating factors of ADHD versus what they call neurotypical. Ah, hot button.
Speaker 1:I'm like neurotypical. Which Hot button? I'm like neurotypical, but adjacent.
Speaker 2:Well, and everyone's ADHD, or they say they are, because they get distracted. But when you got so many things going on, it's easy to get distracted.
Speaker 1:That's kind of a normal human thing, yeah, and so what we're going to talk about today is I'm sorry to jump in again, but I think that like social media culture has kind of given everybody kind of like late onset ADHD.
Speaker 2:It's good you should write a book I have. We should read it. I haven't read it, but I lied.
Speaker 2:So we're going to talk about the, the, what I think is kind of the biggest untalked about part of ADHD, which is your motivating factor. Uh, that is the biggest difference. I mean, yes, I get distracted easily. Yes, there are things that happen that I lose track of where I'm going and what I'm supposed to be doing and all the kind of the standard ADHD stuff that everyone knows of when it's talked about.
Speaker 2:But the motivating factor, I think was super interesting to me when I was reading about it in terms of why do I get motivated differently?
Speaker 2:And I think that's kind of the one of the core strings for me that separates ADHD and just someone who is into a lot of stuff and you know, might get distracted but isn't necessarily motivated differently. So we're going to talk about that. And then we're going to talk about how that affects us as business owners. We're going to talk about that and then we're going to talk about how that affects us as business owners, what James' struggle with coming into business, ownership as an employee versus ownership, managing people, that sort of stuff, talking through that and how it's affected and what we've done to try and curb it, to catch it, the accountability side of it, and rise above it and utilize it when it's good and kind of keep it refrained when needed. So, that being said, the main three neurotypical motivating factors for a standard person is I'm motivated through getting rewards, I'm motivated through something being important, and so rewards is like money bonuses gold stars gold star.
Speaker 2:Importance, something's important, I'm going to make a priority to get it done. That's often not similar to ADHD ADHD when it's an important thing, it's when it's urgent, right. If it's important and has to get done, it's a little bit more. Or it's important and it's challenging, but we'll talk about that in a second. The rewards, the importance and then consequences. Neurotypical is more if I have to do, if X, y and Z is my consequence, then I need to prepare and get this thing done so I don't hit that consequence Now. Consequence also can be motivated on the ADHD side in terms of there's an urgency and I have to get this done today or there will be a consequence versus hey, I know the consequences of my actions in three weeks. If I have a paper due, I need to start today to start writing it because I don't want the effects of the pressure and the stress that come later if I procrastinate and that sort of thing. So those are kind of the baseline motivating factors for us.
Speaker 2:Looking at ADHD and what motivates an ADHD brain differently is really boiled down about five different items. One interest If I'm interested in something, I am a hundred percent there. It doesn't take any effort for me to get it done. I resonate with that. Yeah, if it's, if. If you want me to research about the 1996 Braves team, I would love to dive into that and I'll get you all the information and I'll spend three hours doing nothing but that, because I'm interested in that, I love, I love the Braves, I love baseball. I can do that, that task, easily without having to put any effort into it.
Speaker 1:And similarly for me, nolan Ryan, like if you asked me you watched one documentary and that's enough.
Speaker 2:That's all you really need.
Speaker 1:That's all you need. Nolan Ryan is a great player. He's a great athlete.
Speaker 2:So interest is is one of the top motivating factors. I'm interested in it, I'm going to do it. That's again when you look at new business owners uh, we are really good. We had a podcast, probably six or eight months ago, about ADHD being a superpower for starting a company and a hindrance for running a formed company, and we talked about, on the superpower side, adhd. I've got to be every hat in the company. I've got to from janitor to CEO. I'm doing everything here. I'm going to from janitor to CEO. I'm doing everything here. And ADHD I can be all over the place and just kind of handle everything and everything's going to get 75% of my attention, but I'm going to do it all. I'm going to get it all accomplished. When you get to a formed company and you're growing a company, you can't be that scattered. You have to be able to focus on one thing. We're going to stick to this. It's not fun, fun, but I've got to rebuild these processes of how we're doing our ordering. You got to tie bows on everything.
Speaker 1:Yes, and like the way that I think we naturally fall into starting businesses or, um, working on our current business is like shotgun blast and you end up with like a bunch of things that just don't have the bow tied on it. Yeah, tying the bow is like that's where all the hard stuff is for. For me, yes, like submitting this payment, filling out this thing for insurance and submitting it, getting into the portal and paying your bill is like I don't have enough time this month to do that. I'd rather build a house. I'd rather shove hot pokers in my eye than do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and doing that task takes about four hours when it should take 20 minutes. Yeah, if that. Yeah. So interest Well, let's run through this list real quickly. We'll dive into that. Interest is number one. Number two novelty If it's different, if it's something new, if it's different, if it's something new again, you show me a serial entrepreneur. I'll show you someone with ADHD. If I'm always looking for starting this new thing, I'm going to do this. Oh, that's interesting, let's try to do this new thing. You were really good. You got 100% of me for the first 80% of starting something new. Once the novelty wears off on it, that's when it's difficult to keep working towards that Challenge. If it's challenging, I'm going to do it. I like that. Oh, I can do that. Let's see if I can handle that. If it's not challenging, if it's filling out insurance paperwork, that is boring.
Speaker 1:I don't feel challenged on that. Let me ask you this why is it that we can't look at those things that are that are we're admitting are challenging for us? Why is that challenge not exciting?
Speaker 2:Oh deep You're saying, why is it not exciting?
Speaker 1:I just wish it was To do things. Yeah, like I understand the challenge component, it's difficult to do the interest paperwork, that's should.
Speaker 2:That's a pretty big challenge for me to sit To do things. Yeah, like I understand the challenge component. It's difficult to do the interest paperwork. That's a pretty big challenge for me to sit down and do it, yeah, why does that not then engage your motivation?
Speaker 1:I like to be challenged. That's a good question, because I hate being challenged in that way Like there's challenges that maybe your challenges need to align with your interests. Yeah, that's true's because if I don't care what you do, I don't want to do that paperwork. Yeah, there's not a, there's nothing in me. It's not a big enough box to check for me to get any adrenaline off of that move. So I like I don't know, you know.
Speaker 2:I used to one term I've said before when I'm when I was talking with Jared is I am really good at running full speed through a forest and not hitting the tree Right. That's kind of the metaphor for my ADHD side. It's like I don't have to know what's going on. I don't have to have a map. I can run full speed and avoid issues and solve problems. That's, that's what I'm good at.
Speaker 2:What kind of force we're talking about? Deciduous, deciduous force, for sure. Classic. So, but but again, it's like I I the challenge of I can handle this. I can go as fast as possible, I can run faster through this than anybody else and I can. I can really eliminate fires and live in that chaos that that we like to live in, because the challenges are catching everything. I can do everything, I can get it all done, uh, but then it leads to burnout because I'm, I'm, I'm living in that space. So I think I think that's more in my head. The challenge side of like, can I do it, can't you know? Like I don't know how to get to the answer, so I'm going to figure it out, and that's the challenge, as opposed to if you give me instructions on how to do something and I got to follow from step one to 14, that's a challenging, but that's boring yeah.
Speaker 1:There's no challenges. That it's boring.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah for sure. So, interest, novelty, challenge, urgency I think urgency is a huge one. That, to me, lends more towards the procrastination side, like I'm not going to do something unless it gets urgent. Um, talk to my wife about dishes, right, until someone's coming over, until we have no dishes left and then I'm going to clean the whole kitchen. But until then it's like, ah, we'll do, we'll do it, we'll clean up later, we'll do that later, we'll, we'll handle it then, because there's not a sense of urgency around it. And then passion If I'm passionate about something I'm in, it could be boring, but I can really have a passion.
Speaker 2:The 96 Braves, whatever it is, nolan Ryan, nolan Ryan, if you're passionate about it and you have an interest in it which are kind of two of the same but also different in terms of I'm interested to figure out how that works versus man. I've got a passion for mentoring kids, so I'm going to join with this nonprofit and really help them. And I'm like I've been on a board for a nonprofit for mentoring kids because for me that's important and I want to do that, I want to put my time into it and it's easy for me to put my time there because I'm like, oh, that's such a great cause to help people that need the help. So that's different than being interested, right, I'm interested in building a canoe, right. There's that sort of side of it, yeah, little random things.
Speaker 1:You go off on trails or you're, you know, at the desk and you're in Google and you're like how do I structure my LLC? That's not necessarily something that is like I'm always interested in, but given a period of time, I'm like I'm talking to the accountant, I'm doing this for whatever reason. There's a couple of things clicking, I'm getting more information, I'm learning, and now I have some actual tools. I'm like, oh, I can actually engage with this a little bit more Now. It's fun and I'm a little bit interested in it because I understand it now. Yeah Well there's.
Speaker 2:there's something to what you just said in terms of it's almost novelty, in terms of like, I don't know, great point, I don't know how to form an LLC and the best set up, and I know I'm going to and I know I did, but I want to become a absolute expert on this because I want to make sure I'm doing it the right way. And so we'll go deep dive for three hours on the best setup for an llc versus court, versus c court, all that stuff to understand it, probably to get frustrated because we don't land anywhere because all of a sudden the novelty is wearing off.
Speaker 1:I'm like I don't know, just someone pick out what. We're never landed the plane and I ran out of juice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's again the motivating factors, I think is such a great way to talk about ADHD, because the world sees ADHD as oh, you're just high energy, you're all over the place and your attention's everywhere. You know, attention deficit, hyperactive disorder. Is that what it stands for? Yes, and so the deficit side, though, is not real. Trey Emery, can you look that up? Let's Google that. I'm pretty sure. Attention deficit, high definition, jamie, look that up. So, that being said, though, it's not a deficit of attention. It's an overstimulation of attention, where my attention goes everywhere, to the stuff that I'm interested in, that's fun and novel, that's challenging, that's urgent and pressing. Well, that I'm passionate about.
Speaker 1:Well, brass tacks, how do you what's next? What's the? How does it affect me as a business? The self, yeah, or I guess. How does it affect?
Speaker 2:you. Yeah, I mean, I think, first and foremost, when I started studying ADHD personalities, you know what, the different styles of different types. Um, looking at what I struggle with and why, I think the first and most important thing is self-awareness. We've talked about this all the time is self-awareness is what we're looking for in people and hires and employees and anybody. The more self-aware you can be, the more I can work with you. I can say hey, james, I feel like you keep showing up late. Yeah, you're right, I do.
Speaker 2:As opposed to getting defensive, self-awareness is allowing yourself to be criticized and say, yeah, maybe that's true, let's talk about that. Help me understand that more. And I think the self-awareness side of ADHD is super helpful, to where it doesn't excuse it, but it justifies that I'm not an idiot, right, like it's not a. Knowing that I'm this way, knowing I'm more motivated by these things, I can trick myself into doing more things by basing it around my motivating factors. And also, like I said, not excuse it but be like, yeah, I'm going to procrastinate. So, clark, don't do that today.
Speaker 2:Like today, what I'm doing right now, normally I'm just going to go hop on my phone and not do it, and I'll do it tomorrow. But then I can also look at myself and say you know what, clark, that's, that's your tendencies is to procrastinate on something like this. If you wait till tomorrow, you're going to be here till late. If you don't get it done, let's start it now, right? And so it's that self-control and the self-awareness around it. I think that that's been the most helpful for me. The more I research, the more I know about myself, the more I can have control of myself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, I get. I get distracted because I'm bored. The thing that I'm not, or the thing that I'm interacting with, is not keeping my attention. And the thing that I do like on a daily basis is when I get to that spot and I'm like I'm about to get on my phone and play call of duty now for 20 minutes If I don't give myself a timeframe to do something fun that's engaging me. That's like I'm going to. I'm just going to goof off for a minute, but you can put a time limit on it and have your next thing ready to go.
Speaker 1:But that little break is sometimes what I need to get. Uh, to get back engaged. Yeah, I just need, I need to not think about that annoying, boring wart that I have to deal with and I go out on, go take a run, uh, work on like a 20 minute project around the house or wherever you are, like, hijack the whole reward system to you, can't? You're still like a. You're still just a human at the end of the day, like, however much you want to be like, I'm a professional, I'm an adult. You got to play everybody who needs to play, and when that looks different when you're older, but you, you got to play. Everybody needs to play, and that looks different when you're older, but you've got to play. You've got to keep having fun with what you're doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I agree with that. I think also and though we listed rewards in the neurotypical motivating factors, I think what you're saying is kind of hijacking that side to give yourself the dopamine hits that you need and want in exchange for doing the things you don't want. Right, as opposed to, if I do this insurance paperwork, I feel the reward of it's done, it's past us, I don't have to deal with that anymore. Yeah, where for an ADHD brain, it's like I did it Great. I pushed through Okay On to the next, like there's no reward for did it Great.
Speaker 2:I pushed through Okay Onto the net Like there's no, there's no reward for finishing that. But I can create my own I. You know, if I get through all of this by 1230, I'm going to sit on my back, play call of duty on my phone for 20 minutes and I'm going to give myself that permission to lay on my couch in my office and just chill out for 20 minutes, and then I'm going to get into this next thing. Yeah, right To where it's. It's a. As long as I know what I'm doing and what I'm doing it, it's okay to do that stuff.
Speaker 1:It's okay to to give yourself permission to do that Cause the and I don't know if this and this is definitely for me and this is going probably in a different direction, but I would venture to guess that most people that deal with ADHD that deal with adhd especially um maybe before it was such a every everybody's talking about.
Speaker 1:Add, there's a lot of shame that goes in with it, because you, you recognize that you're being lazy, yeah, you're shutting down, that you have no motivation for the task. You're like what the heck is wrong with me. There's a lot of shame in there and shame is a motivator. Like shame is a very strong motivator and I think a lot of people with ADHD use shame, unbeknownst to themselves, to motivate the next action. And that's that's going to put you in a position to have really bad interactions with your crews, your clients, your employees, your project manager, whatever the case. When you're, when you're operating out of shame and using that as a motivator, it's not a good spot for you.
Speaker 2:It might get stuff done but not the way you want, and I think, going into that, like as a leader in your company, whether you're a one man show with just crews and homeowners and clients, or you've got a company with seven project managers, a couple estimators and whatever it is, either way, I think what you just mentioned is where we get hurt by ADHD. It's the I don't. I'm not getting the motivation to do what I need to do, because what I need to do is to support you and I have zero interest in what you need.
Speaker 2:Not that I have no interest in what you need, but it's like oh, you need a process put down for how your vacation is going to be handled. I don't care about just take time off. Take time off right, as opposed to all right, this company needs this. This employee needs me to sit with them every Friday and go through their jobs, even though I feel like they shouldn't know how to do that by now. I'm not going to do it because I don't have time and that's not interesting to me, as opposed to hey, let's sit down and do this. I want to show you and train you and teach you how to do this on your own and be here to support you until you get to that spot.
Speaker 2:But that's not. There's not. There's not a lot of motivating factors in a support person. Yeah, right, and that's what you are as a leader in a company. You are support for everybody else. You are the training motivator. How do you do this? Let me show you, let me give you support, let me step in, let me call that client for you, that sort of thing. You don't have a lot of passion about that often. Yeah, but how do I get to a spot in my brain and say Well, some people do Like that's some people's bag.
Speaker 2:That's true. I love being support my wife she loves to be a support role.
Speaker 1:She doesn't want her face in front of everything she loves supporting. Yeah, and that's just not. Um, I don't think most people, like most people with our condition, is not like I want to support, they want to go, they got the gas tank, they're like yeah all gas no brakes, let's go, go, go.
Speaker 1:I mean, the the kind of the trick of it is taking time with the process that you're trying to build and actually sitting down with that and walking through the whole thing and being really tedious actually gives you freedom down the road exponentially, because here's our hiring process. This is how we train, this is how we do this. This is how we train. This is how we do this. This is how we onboard and you build that process and then you can. You actually need to train somebody to do it and not just, hey, here's the process, like, spend the time with them. Once you can do that, you free yourself up down the road, and it's really, really difficult, almost impossible, sometimes, to believe that in the moment when you're like, I don't want to do this, yeah, it's like if I did, though, the benefit that I would receive down the road is is huge, but it feels like I can't, it feels like a theory, like it feels like totally, yeah, maybe I'll like if I do it right and then you get.
Speaker 2:I'm going to procrastinate until I have to do it. It has to be perfect now.
Speaker 1:Yes, you get hyper fixated on making that process watertight, when and this is kind of talking out of two ends of the mouth but like, the enemy of good is what is it? Enemy of greatness is good Good enough? Enemy of greatness is good enough enough. Enemy of greatness is good enough, or the enemy of good is whatever? Don't spend too much time trying to do something that you're like we, this functions, this works, and we will need to make adjustments to it in the future. We know that, regardless of if it's perfect right now.
Speaker 2:I would say, also as a leader. One of the spots where ADHD has hurt me is I will build a process because I want to fix what's going on. So I'm pretty good at building processes and procedures and laying out how do we fix the issues. Because that's all it's. It's novelty, right, like there's an issue here. I think we can iron that out. That's going to be better and everyone's going to like it and I'm making the product better. That part's fun. I enjoy that part. Then I say, okay, james, this is what you need to do, this is how we're doing it. Here's a process.
Speaker 2:The hard part is then babysitting that process, fine tuning, doing the last 10% of like, hey, let's talk about this once a week. So, what's going on here, what's not going on, what's working well, what isn't working. And once the novelty wears off of this new process, it's fixing things. And, yeah, things are fixed, but we still need to fine tune it. That's hard for me in terms of I know that about myself and so I have to schedule the times on my calendar. Okay, every Wednesday morning I'm going to sit down and do this and not just a repeating schedule. But all right, this Wednesday I'm going to work on this part of the process, and next Wednesday I'm going to work on this part of the process, and next Wednesday I'm going to work on this part of the process.
Speaker 1:What does, what does this person need of the people that you're coaching? How many?
Speaker 2:of them use their calendars Like it is seasonal, right, like it's it is. Calendaring for most people is a great idea and, yes, that should be done and I'll do it if I've got time. And then then you've got those like yourself that all of a sudden, like, if I, I know I can think of, of a guy I was talking to literally last week who was like I can tell how healthy my company is by how well I'm abiding by my calendar, cause, like he'll say, I was doing it. I was three months in every single day I had planned out and I was living and dying by my calendar. And then I got busy, I lost a project manager and I had to get back out in the field and it kind of went away and he was like, and I can literally track my mental health by looking at my calendar and seeing how full or empty it is, because, like you, look, the last three weeks he had nothing on it because he was just flying by the seat of his pants putting out fires.
Speaker 2:Back in the rut that we fall back into of all right, I'm going to just do everything. I just got to put everything out and everything's reactive. And the hard part of this is we are really good with reactive ADHD brains, help you react really well and, like I said, run through the force without injuries. Okay, we got to just figure this stuff out without falling. We got to, we got to do it all and that's almost a safe spot for us because we're really good there. That like growing up, like you said, like being called lazy, being called like not understanding that I'm not being motivated. School doesn't motivate ADHD people like it does neurotypical people, and so I'm not motivated by getting an A. I know how to do that. I'm not going to do it.
Speaker 1:I didn't do anything in college. I got C's and B's, yes, and that's okay with me.
Speaker 2:Yes, c's get degrees. Same piece of paper on my wall is the guy that made an A plus in college.
Speaker 1:So now in hindsight, I wish I'd have spent a lot more time actually engaging because, like I, love that stuff. I love interest, I love it.
Speaker 2:There's more of an interest in history now than there was when you were 21. Right, and so it's, it's a it. I agree, I would love to audit college right now and just go back and just sit and learn, Cause I'm I watched jeopardy. Now I'm an old dude, right, and so like that stuff is interesting, so I'd like to go do it.
Speaker 1:I'd like to go in to audit a class at a local university and just battle the teacher on everything, with no knowledge. I don't think that that's what happened?
Speaker 2:Microbial no, no, no, no, no, no, no, yeah, no. But again, I mean, it is understanding that side of it and being able to say that's who I am. That's where that's what I'm going to struggle with. And I can raise flags when I'm procrastinating, when that's happening, because I can identify and say, okay, this is what's going on. I know I'm this way, so I'm going to force myself through self-control to get these three things done right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean that's where you got to lean. I can't force myself, I don't feel like hardly to do anything. But one thing I have done that I think has helped me a lot with the calendar is using it almost more like a journal where I'll plan my days out. I'll plan my days out, um, but if something goes off, which it always does I can just I move that. I move the calendar thing that I'm missing.
Speaker 1:I have to move it somewhere, like that's my agreement with myself, that if I write, if I put something on my calendar, it needs like I have to do it, and it doesn't mean I have to do it on the time that I put it there. But that's the goal. But if I, if I have to move it, I have to physically move it and put it somewhere and in its place. I have to put what I did and I'll, I'll write it down so that I can go back, like three weeks ago, and say, um, and I can tell because it's my calendar, but like, oh, that this block, this giant block, that's because something had to be dealt with, and I can look at that and read it and say, oh, I had to spend three hours doing this so I can audit myself. I can go back in time and look at my calendar and figure out where do I lose time or where do things pop up that take more of my time.
Speaker 2:I lose time, or where do things pop up that take more of my time and that takes some diligence. But, um, do you, do you enjoy that, Like doing it and managing the calendar that way, or you enjoy the results later?
Speaker 1:I enjoy it now because I've tasted it. There's no other way for me to keep track of all of the things that I'm doing throughout the day other than to like always have the calendar open and always be ready to put notes in, either in the current or in the future job notes. It's like I'll have something three weeks down the road that's a calendar task and I'll have a Google Doc somewhere that I just keep interacting with that I'm writing notes, just thoughts about that specific thing. So when the day comes that that is time to work on, I pull out my notes and I have something to start with. I'm not starting from scratch. I've got. I've got stepping stones, I've got thoughts, I've got ideas, I've got things that I need to start putting together, and so I always try and set the table for myself with everything. Like I'm going to have a call with a client later today, I'm going to plan. Even if it's five minutes, small little project, I'm going to plan. I'm going to sit down, I'm going to write notes from their email about what are the stuff that we might need to talk about, because I don't want to get caught with my pants down.
Speaker 1:Phone rings oh, it's that client. I don't have their number yet. And now I need to be professional, I need to have my stuff together and when I already have something I can pull up, say, hey, mr Johnson, so I've got your stuff pulled up here, let's talk through the goals of the renovation. I see you want to do this, this, this. I sound great, I sound like totally on top of my stuff. He called me and I already knew exactly what we needed to be talking about, because I'd written it three days ago on my calendar. And being kind to my future self, yeah, like that is. I enjoy it now because I can. Literally I just I have to put everything that is in my head on something, or we know it's going to go away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what do you think? That as a contractor, as a boss to project managers, what do you think is currently your biggest struggle or weakness? That comes from ADHD. I mean it's. Should we call up the guys, ask them yeah, let's call up the guys.
Speaker 1:It's just, it's should we call up the guys ask them yeah, let's call the guys I. It's just, it's the tedium, it's the get insurance setup.
Speaker 1:I don't know enough about insurance, so when I get into it, I'm interested in everything yeah is one of the problems I want, and you know this, I want like, uh, quickbooks. Just have that person who I need to understand it at least in a small way, so that I'm comfortable with that person doing it like I have to understand, which there's some wisdom in that, sure. But I go to the nth degree in unhealthy state where it's like I need to be be a an expert in this and I'm going to watch the YouTube videos, I'm going to do this and I'm going to hate that part of it until I start getting some connections and still those neurons start like oh okay, oh okay, like those those hits like that's what I'm after.
Speaker 2:Next week when you can't find a deposit and you can pop into QuickBooks and figure it out on your own.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like that's the hit.
Speaker 2:That's the hit that I'm looking for. I also, like with what you're saying, also makes me think of like you get frustrated with wasted time or your time being spent that you didn't spend yourself. Yeah, and I feel like that's one of the things that the ADHD brain of I got to get all this stuff done. I know everything. I've got the whole day planned because I'm going to do 87 things today and get them all knocked out. And then the insurance paperwork hits and you had 15 minutes to fill out a piece of paper and all of a sudden, I need to do research as to what type of escort we are, whatever it is.
Speaker 2:I have to find the EIN again for the 15th frigging test, whatever it is, you get super frustrated with your time being stolen from you on something that feels worthless, useless, Like this is just stupid, and I think that's one of the things that is always going to be a struggle of like, how do I shift my brain in this moment when I'm pissed off because someone else is wasting my time into saying, okay, two hours for insurance paperwork is a necessity, like that's hard for me to like. How do I, how do I shift that in my self-talk, in my brain of that I need? It's okay to burn two hours. I'm gonna just burn two hours doing this and I'm gonna be okay with it.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna put on my favorite album, I'm going to whatever it is, but I think that's when I when I get overwhelmed and I have. So, back to the calendar, I'm moving things that need to get done. So eventually, at the end of the month or in the middle of a week, I look at my calendar and I've got stuff from like 2amm to 10 pm, all these little blocks that I've moved and I don't go to the next week because I want to still see them there. So I stack them up on the weekends, not because I'm planning on doing it on the weekends, but I'm just these are all my tasks.
Speaker 1:When you get to the point where you're like there's no way I'm getting all this done, you kind of need to take an inventory and you look at the stuff you've put on your calendar and you're like that's not actually important. That's not actually important and you need to look at the actual things that you're saying. I need to spend my time on this and have like an honest conversation with yourself about do you actually need to spend your time on that? I know you put it on your calendar, but what is important right now and sometimes it means I do need to spend that two hours I need to call this client and this client and tell them it's going to be another day before I can have their thing or it's going to be another two days, Like, give yourself the space, pull the bandaid. You feel like you're going to risk losing this client. Well, what's more, you need the insurance to work on the job. Yeah, so you've got to put things in their right place.
Speaker 2:I think for me, like the end goal of this podcast is you got to start using your calendars more Right, Like that's the theme I feel like. But for me what's difficult? Like I've got we've got a, a meeting tomorrow, um, with the board and I've got to put some slides together for it, and that has been on my calendar since Monday, Then it moved to Tuesday, Then it moved to Wednesday morning, then Wednesday afternoon, Then it was going to be this morning when I got in here. I didn't get in here until we started this, and so now it's this afternoon, but we got the meetings tomorrow, so I'm out of time. But it's like I'm looking at when I can find something that moves on my calendar more than once or twice, I'm like, oh, I do not want to do that, Like that's boring to me, and so for me that's what I'm almost make that my challenge of. Like I'm going to not move this again, I'm going to carve out this time and do this because I'm not going to allow myself to move this task again, but it allows me on the calendar to be like well, I've clicked on this little thing four times now this week just because I don't want to do it just because it's not getting done. And the problem, I think the biggest issue that we have as business owners with ADHD, is there's a thousand things to do every single day. I'm going to do the 800 of the things that I really enjoy and the other 200 gets pushed to the back burner, to next week, to next month, to next year, to never get done. And so how do we step in and maturely say these are three things that have to get done this week that are not fun? I'm going to put it on my calendar and I'm going to live and die by getting this thing, this block done, to put it on my calendar. And I'm going to live and die by getting this block done.
Speaker 2:Whether it's every Tuesday morning from 8 to 10, it's going to be my crap morning. That's where I'm going to put stuff that I don't like. I'm going to get my coffee. I'm going to get set up. I'm going to do it. I'm going to create an environment for myself. Creating an environment, I mean that's something that we talked about earlier. How do you like, how do you enjoy the space you're working in? What albums do you listen to? And it's funny, we were talking like I listen to certain things when I'm doing certain tasks and then other things when I'm doing other tasks. And you know James doesn't like any music on that has words in it. For me, I need to have words, but I need to be familiar with them.
Speaker 1:I prefer music with words, so much so that it distracts me when I'm working.
Speaker 2:So if I'm working I need to have on music with no words and I, um, I need music with words so my like brain can be distracted by words that I know that I'm kind of going in and out of not really paying attention to, but also having the office in the background while you're cooking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's just something to keep the familiar, the back brain, occupied while the front brain actually does some work. To where you know that sort of thing. But I think that's the key. I mean, the key is self-awareness, to where you can say I'm bad at this, I know I'm keep pushing this off, I know this needs to get done. And then the self-control to put it on your calendar and own it and say, ok, I'm going to do this.
Speaker 2:One other thing we've said before do it in the morning. You have a lot more energy in the. The batteries are full in the morning to where you can push through and do stuff. If I push stuff to three 30 in the afternoon, it's not getting done. I'm going to find a way to procrastinate. Fires are going to pop up between now and then. Uh, having time in the morning before people start calling, knock out the stuff. That's more difficult, but the easy stuff in the afternoon allows you to really own your calendar, own your time, and you can't procrastinate on the stuff that needs your attention. As a business owner, as the leader there, as even the contractor for a client right, I need to prioritize picking out these colors, even though that is not an important thing for me right now. So figuring out those priority spots, owning it on a calendar and living and dying by that anything else that um, I don't have add.
Speaker 1:I have to be honest.
Speaker 2:Thank you for telling me that Well, outside of calendaring, is there anything else that you do that you think is in reaction to fighting your ADD brain?
Speaker 1:brain um, I pretend, like, honestly, I pretend I'm somebody different when I need to actually like no, I'm like, I'm gonna like, I'm just gonna get into this, like I, I'm yeah, I'm, I pretend, I pretend I'm somebody different because I I I've said this before to my wife like the fake it till you make it is not faking it, it's just I'm going.
Speaker 2:it's just a way to get from A to B. There there is. There is a hundred million people in the world that are really good at accounting. I'm going to pretend to be one of them and I'm going to be an accountant for the next hour and I and if I can do that, there is a reward for me at the end of like, oh done, all right, that's done, I'm, I can move on to the next thing and the good thing about the time we live in now and like there's a lot of ways to use things like chat gpt in a bad way, but a great way to use chat gp.
Speaker 1:I heard somebody say the other day uh, you're the thing that you're best at, you're better than chat gpt at, so use it for the stuff you're bad at. So when I need to do the LLC or do the insurance or figure out what's the difference between Kentucky and Texas in terms of workman's comp, I go to chat GPT and I just double check the answers. But that can actually give you directional step-by-step type of thing, which we don't like step-by-step because that's boring. But if you don't know the subject matter, I have found for me a step-by-step is the only way for me to engage with it and I have found more enjoyment out of learning about these things using that type of tool.
Speaker 2:I think that's a great point in terms of we do get analysis, paralysis, we do get like, there's some, I'm just not, there's just I don't know, I don't know what to do about this. Right, and I think, getting like using a chat TBD just to get direction, which direction should I head with this? Oh, go to this website. Okay, cool, I can now at least have one step forward, to take the next step forward, take the next step to get what I need to get done, where, when normally I get to a spot I'm like I don't know what to do, I'm just going to go. Oh, I got seven emails. I need to get back to this estimate. I distract myself on purpose to do the more fun stuff because I'm stuck on the stuff that I'm not good at. So I think that's great. I think that's great. I mean, that's a good, that's a good shortcut.
Speaker 1:I think, overall, and like we, every everybody has some hangups. Everybody's got some level of stuff that they're dealing with that makes it hard for them to do certain parts of their job. Yeah, At the end of the day, you need to be kind to yourself. You need to have grace with yourself, because no one's ever like you don't get better by just beating yourself up all the time. Like you need to give yourself space to just.
Speaker 1:I need to take inventory. Why am I overwhelmed? Why are there too many things? What's most important? Like those are good questions to ask yourself. They're not cheesy like whatever. Like I wish that my day started every day with like exercising, because that can get me in a better head space to prioritize things, but I tend to just wake up and jump right into work because I'm anxious. Yeah, but that's one of the biggest things I think people with ADD need to fight is don't don't make moves, don't make decisions based off of your anxiety. Take inventory and then find ways that you can hijack those reward systems. It's going to be different for everybody. I mean, you and I have a lot of similarities, but the way that we uh curtail our issues with ADD is very different, and so you've got to. You've got to find ways, you know, try different things out. But um, yeah, I think most of all you need to have more grace with yourself.
Speaker 2:I love it. Yeah, I agree totally. I'd say, as a parting note, as a party note, as a party note, as a parting note, a try to live by calendar. Try to start. Don't fill every hour up for five days straight. Try to start giving some time blocks and trying to set aside, especially the stuff that you know you don't want to do. Put it on there, just put it on there and see what happens.
Speaker 1:And put on there taking a walk Legitimately. Take a. Take a 10 minute walk in between tasks that you hate and see what happens.
Speaker 2:Yeah, call a friend, like have connection with people, or put the task you enjoy after the task you hate and say I can't do that till this gets done. Yeah, but then I get to do something I enjoy. I get to be creative, I get to. You know that sort of thing.
Speaker 1:I mean, I know we're trying to get off, but social isolation is. We do that to ourselves as business owners as especially as ADD people, because you get in this like there's so much to do, I need to shut the world out so I can get stuff done. And we as humans need connection and you, you will quickly get down this path of like I'm not getting anything done because I've kind of I've lost connection with the world. I'm just in my own little chamber, like get outside, call a friend, get some human connection, make sure you get some every day. You got like it's part of how we're we're wired, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's good. I think doing that that all starts with the self-awareness, too, of the oh wow, I am at this spot, I keep pushing this stuff, I keep doing this and almost stepping out and grading yourself as your boss and be like hey, you need to fix that part of it, you need to push it a little bit more. And I think it's grace without excuses. That's just how I am, this is who I am, we're at where we're at, but I'm not going to use an excuse to not get this done.
Speaker 1:These things still need to get done, yep, and I need to find a way to do that. That's it.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, thanks for listening this week. If you want to talk to us, have any questions, go to contact us on ProStruck360.com. If you'd like a software to guide your company, prostruck360.com is a great construction management software. If you want coaching or any sort of consulting or want to come on our annual retreat, hit us up. We'd love to talk to you about it. We got all sorts of packages and ways to make it fit your company and your needs right now, so we'd love to chat with you about that. So click the link subscribe below. Hit the bell. All right, thanks for listening. Bye.
