My brain and my business: What setting up a psychology private practice taught me about my brain

Welcome to the Business of Psychology podcast, the show that helps you to reach more people, help more people and build the life you want to live by doing more than therapy.

Hello. And before we get into today’s episode, I just wanted to give you a little update on what’s going to happen with this podcast over my maternity leave, because if you’ve been listening for a while, then you’ll know that from October 14 I’m going to be on maternity leave, probably coming back at some point in January, but no specified date yet.

But fear not! This podcast is one of my favourite things to do, and I really value you guys as listeners, I don’t think I tell you enough. I’m often told by people in my life that I’m not very good at giving compliments, and I think that has translated into my podcasting. And I don’t tell you guys how much I appreciate you as much as other podcasters do, and I really do though. And as I said, I love recording this podcast, I love writing the content for the podcast, and I love doing the interviews. So the podcast shall continue. We’ve already recorded, in fact, most of the episodes that are going to go out across my maternity leave. However, there will be some breaks. So in order to make sure we’re giving you content consistently, we’ve planned to take a few breaks of just a week or two weeks here and there, where we’re going to have a little pause in the content, just so that we can keep up with ourselves and make sure it keeps going through the whole maternity leave period. So the best thing you can do to make sure that that doesn’t disrupt you and that you don’t miss any of the episodes we put out there is to make sure that you subscribe to this podcast. So whatever podcast app you use, whether it’s Apple, Spotify, Google podcasts, or we’re on Amazon now as well, you can click the subscribe button, and this podcast will be delivered to you every week, every week that we put one out. So please do make sure that you’re subscribed so that you don’t miss any of the episodes that we do put out there.

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Hello, and welcome to a slightly different episode of the Business of Psychology podcast.

So this episode is a bit different, it’s a little bit more personal. And that is because I’m recording this in September, but it’s going to be going out at the beginning of October, and October is ADHD Awareness Month.

Now a lot of you won’t know this about me, but a couple of years ago, I realised that I’m probably not the most neurotypical person. And although I don’t really relate to the label ADHD, mostly because I don’t consider myself to have deficit and I don’t consider myself to be disordered, and I don’t like giving other people that label either, I have found it really, really helpful to think about the ways in which I might be neurodiverse. And maybe some strategies that I’ve been taught that should work for me, in business particularly, don’t work for me, and that that’s okay. And letting go of some of the shame I’ve always felt around certain things that I’m not very good at has been very, very powerful for me.

So, I’ve been approached recently by quite a few psychologists and therapists setting up their own business, who shared with me that they also think that they’re not neurotypical. And you know, maybe they’re feeling like they can’t do it because they feel like they’re not good enough at admin or they struggle too much with a particular kind of task. I just thought I shouldn’t really sit here silently when I’ve kind of been on that journey and learnt how to come through the other side of it feeling a lot stronger. And I actually feel like being in private practice and having my own business has finally allowed me to create a job where I can maximise my strengths and avoid some of the quite painful overwhelm that I used to experience when I worked for an employer, having to do things which are really not good for my brain, not something that my brain is good at. So I think we’ve got an amazing opportunity in business. But there are also kind of unique challenges that go along with it. Because in business, of any kind, but particularly in private practice, that’s what we all know, is when you start out, you have to do everything. So you learn what you’re bad at really quickly, which, you know, is a bit painful. I think we will all discover that there are things about running a business that we find very difficult, but it’s an amazing opportunity to get to know your brain, and how you work. It’s a great exercise in self reflection, setting up a business. And then secondly, once you’ve learned that, you can then build a business around those strengths. And like I was saying, I felt in my practice that has really given me the freedom to lean into the stuff that my brain does really uniquely well, and move away from the stuff which has caused me agony through my academic and professional career.

So I hope it’s gonna be helpful today for me to share a little bit with you about that journey, how I came to realise that I probably wasn’t that neurotypical, what that was like, but also the strategies that I’ve put in place in my business to work with my brain. I’m hoping that that will inspire those of you who maybe also suspect that you’re not quite neurotypical to think about how you could structure your working life around that and make the most of it. But I also hope that even if you’re like ‘yeah, I’m pretty neurotypical’, it will encourage you to look at your strengths and your weaknesses and make sure that your business plays to those strengths, because it’s something we should all be thinking about, I think.

Okay, so firstly, I’ll just say a little bit about how I came to realise that I probably wasn’t neurotypical. And it wasn’t when I worked in services, supporting people who were not neurotypical. So I did have, I had placements, a paediatric placement particularly where we talked a lot about ADHD. But it was all kind of badly behaved little boys, if I’m honest, and I couldn’t relate to that. So I never saw myself reflected then. And this was some time ago, there wasn’t much literature at the time that I was aware of anyway, about girls, and how things might look different for girls. And we just saw lots and lots of similar presentations that didn’t look anything like me. So it really didn’t occur to me when I was doing that paediatric placement. And then I came across it again, as I was working in learning disability services, often there’d be people with sort of mixed diagnoses. But again, those… I didn’t see myself, I never saw myself in, in those people. And possibly it’s something to do with being younger as well. I wasn’t perhaps as reflective as I am now. And I was still caught up in a lot of scripts really, that I’d been given, a lot of stories about myself that I’d been given through a not so easy time at school. And messages that we have about what it means to be female, what it means to be a woman in our society as well. So I had stories about myself, like, I’m useless at, you know, names and dates. Lots of very… I was very, very hard on myself about the things that I wasn’t good at. So I thought I was stupid, because I’m not very good at admin, and I would make admin mistakes. And anybody who’s worked their way up through the pathway to becoming a clinical psychologist, or I think probably any type of psychologist knows that you actually spend years doing jobs that are essentially admin jobs. And I’m kind of embarrassed to say, but even when I was qualified, I was still asked to do quite a lot of admin for other people, as well as obviously having to do my own admin in the NHS. And I often felt like I was, you know, not very bright because I would make stupid mistakes. And people would extrapolate that, people would think, oh well, she can’t even photocopy correctly, she’s obviously not clever enough to go and do a cognitive assessment with somebody. And, and those are the kind of messages that you hear growing up a lot when you’re a bit wonky like I am, and it was like that all through my schooling really. So there were subjects that I would really struggle with, like maths and physics and geography. My brain just didn’t take, just, it was just like the information it would never go in. I think, I suspect, I was probably bored. But I wouldn’t allow myself to acknowledge that because being bored was seen as such a bad thing. Good girls are not bored. So I never admit to being bored, but I suspect I was, and that’s why I wasn’t concentrating very hard. But anyway, for whatever reason, I couldn’t get myself to concentrate on those subjects. So I would do really badly and then I would try and compensate by learning in my own time. Because I knew I couldn’t concentrate in class, thinking about actually knowing what I know now, it was possibly also because classroom discipline wasn’t very good at my school in those subjects, and what I know about myself now, and we’ll talk more about this, is that I either have to focus or not focus, there is no middle ground for me. So if somebody is tapping me on the shoulder, if there’s a loud conversation going on right next to me, then I haven’t really got much chance of getting into that focus state. So that might actually be, that might actually be quite a contributing factor to my schooling as well. But anyway, that kind of wonkiness was, you know, perceived with a lot of suspicion, when I was growing up. People would think it was laziness, people would think it was stupidity, and people make a lot of assumptions about me that I just sort of took on board. And I was carrying all of those with me through my career, so I think that’s probably why rather than thinking I wonder if I might be non neurotypical, or if I might share some qualities with some of these people that I’m assessing, in my head I was like, no I’m just a pretty rubbish person. Which is sad when I look back at it, but I think there’ll probably be some people listening to this that can relate to feeling a bit like that.

So that narrative started to change for me when my mentor, and she was my coach at the time, Janet Murray, got diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 45. And Janet put out a podcast about her journey with that. And I was seeing Janet really regularly at the time, we had weekly sessions and we were talking about it. And what it took for it to hit home to me that this was probably a journey that I was on too, was her podcast was playing in my kitchen. And my husband was sort of pottering around behind me while I was cooking, and he overheard some of Janet’s podcast. But he didn’t hear that she was talking about ADHD. He just heard her talking about herself and some of her qualities, some of the things that had been challenging in business, but also what made her really good. And what he said to me was, oh I’m not surprised that you hired Janet as your coach, she’s exactly like you. Everything she’s saying, it could be about you. And I was like, oh, yes, yes, it could. And actually, that probably is one of the reasons that I was attracted to working with Janet, is that our brains do work in similar ways, in a lot of ways. And, but it took, I think it’s interesting that it took that moment of somebody else reflecting it back to me, for me to go, oh actually, maybe there is another way of seeing some of the more difficult experiences that I’ve had in my education and in my career. And perhaps I could investigate what it would be like to apply a different narrative, rather than all of the shame and beating myself up about the stuff that I’m not brilliant at.

Because at the time, I was really beating myself up about the fact that I kind of struggle with things like baby groups or groups for parents with toddlers, and I struggle for two reasons with those. Firstly, there is so much competing background noise, and I have to divide my attention between my children and other people trying to have a conversation with me. And that is just overwhelmingly stressful for me, I really can’t do that. Like if we meet up for a playdate at a soft play cafe and it’s loud and my kids need me to be watching them, I can’t also talk to you. So I find that really, really difficult to start with. And then I also really struggle to remember details and, particularly in the community that I was in time, there was a lot of value placed on remembering kids’ birthdays and things like that. And actually, I really struggle to remember birthdays of people that I’m very, very close to. I’ve developed compensation strategies for it, because we all know it’s not acceptable to be a woman that doesn’t remember birthdays very well. So I’ve got calendar reminders, physical reminders, I make sure that I don’t miss the birthdays of people I’m very close to, but I’m very unlikely to remember a friend’s child’s birthday, unless it’s made it onto that list, which a few do. And that would put me in lots of awkward positions and difficult conversations in this particular community that I was in. And I’d always just thought, oh that’s because I’m rubbish, that’s because I’m bad at being a mum. But actually, having this different frame to put around it, a different way of seeing it, made me realise that, you know, I wouldn’t judge somebody else for struggling in those situations. And there might be things I could do to make them easier on myself, and to make those relationships run a bit smoother. So it was a big revelation for me both personally and professionally, because it made me start questioning what I was doing in my business, and how I could do that differently, because my relationship with Janet was a business relationship. But it also really made me think about my personal life and you know, how possibly had not been the most compassionate person to myself over the years. So it was a big discovery for me.

But what were the key qualities that I noticed that I realised I needed to kind of work with in my business? I thought it might be helpful for me to talk a bit about that, and the practical stuff that I put in place to work around them. In case any of you listening have similar experiences. But even if you don’t, it might help you to think through some of your own strengths and weaknesses.

So the first thing that we’ve already touched on, that I realised I needed to work with in my business was my hyperfocus. So if you haven’t heard that term before, it’s this kind of cool ability, actually, to completely zone everything out and just work in a total flow state on something that you’re very interested in for very long periods of time. And for me, as a child, this was very exaggerated. So if I pick up a pen, and I start writing, I automatically go into hyperfocus. And that must have started for me when I was in infant school, I think. Because I’ve, my mum had these exercise books of mine, where I, I’d literally filled up whole exercise books in one sitting of just writing stories, just writing basically. And I would be in this total flow state doing it. And the upside of that is you can in a short space of time, because you’ve got nothing else going on in your head, I can only describe it as total clarity in, in what you’re doing. There’s nothing distracting you. So you can achieve an awful lot in that time. And that’s why when people ask me oh, how can you put out so many podcast episodes, write so many blogs, do so much that is effectively writing? I’m like actually it’s not very difficult for me to do an awful lot of writing in a fairly short space of time because my brain will go into this hyperfocus state and just allow me to block the entire world out. Now the downside of hyperfocus is that, well for me anyway, I’m sure it’s not the same for everybody, but for me, I don’t even notice that I need the toilet. I don’t notice that I need food, I don’t notice that I need drinks. I don’t notice that I’ve been in the same position for hours. It is literally total. And I’m very irritable if I’m pulled out of it. So even things like, my husband’s working from home today, which we’ve not done a lot of because as you’ll know if you listen to this podcast a lot, he’s away a lot. And when he’s not away, his job is not office based, he’s in the armed forces. So it’s really unlikely that he’s going to be working from home, but he is this week and he is neurotypical I think, certainly doesn’t, doesn’t have this hyperfocus quality. And so he will come and interrupt me, usually for perfectly legitimate reasons, just to you know, ask me an opinion on something or ask me what I’d like for lunch or yeah, I mean I feel like a mean person complaining about it because he’s being reasonable, he’s really not being annoying, but it annoys me. Because when I’m in that hyperfocus state, all I care about really is the task at hand. The one exception to that is when my children are around, I can’t go into hyper focus when my children are around. Not at all. Sometimes I will do when I’m playing with them, which is really fun, and I wish I knew how to make that happen more often. But most of the time, I can’t, I can’t go into hyperfocus when they’re around, because I’m always giving them a little bit of my attention. So this can only really happen when I know that they’re safe, well and cared for by somebody else. And we’ll talk more about what that has meant for my business, and how I do things. But basically, that’s hyperfocus. And what I’ve had to make sure that I do is make time to allow myself to hyperfocus. So I’ll allocate, say this morning, I knew I have two hours, where I’m not going to be interrupted at all, and I was just going to focus on getting this podcast written and getting this podcast recorded. And that allows my brain to do its thing. Ideally, it needs a bit longer. Ideally, I’d have whole days where I could hyperfocus on one subject. And I’m trying to move towards that in my business, but it is hard to make that happen, but that’s definitely what I’m going to try and work towards, as I’m kind of designing my business going forward. Because I know that works best for my brain. Give in to the hyperfocus, make the most of it. But set alarms for drinking and looking after personal care. A tip for anyone else that has that quality!

So the second thing that I need to work with, with my brain, is the fact that I can’t do half focus. So we already touched on that I either hyperfocus, or I’m not focused at all. If there’s loads of background noise, if it’s a busy office, I can block out a busy office, but what I can’t do is be polite, and block out a busy office. So anybody who knew me from my NHS days might remember this, that I can be very chatty, if I’m taking a break at lunchtime, but I can’t do chat at the desk. Or if I am doing chat at the desk, there’s no chance I’m doing any work. I can’t, I really can’t divide my attention in that way, there is no such thing as half focus for me. So for me either working somewhere completely quiet, or somewhere where I, you know, there’s no expectation that I have to talk and be polite to people like a cafe or a co working space is fine. But if there’s somebody who expects me to kind of talk about the weekend, while I’m checking my emails, that can’t be done, I can’t manage it, my brain hurts, even thinking about it.

The third thing I’ve learned to work with about my brain is that I have a huge energy for new projects that will carry me through all kinds of challenges. I have huge resilience and ability to just find a reserve within me to keep going with something that I’m really excited about, which is brilliant. And I have a great vision for the bigger picture. I love thinking about long term strategy. I love thinking about, you know, the change that we can make in the world through our practices. I mean, you’ve heard me talk about it loads of times in this podcast, I’m sure you know that. But all of these things make me feel really passionate, really energised, really excited, and light me up, basically. But the other side of that is that I do really struggle to finish things. So once I’ve got something up and rolling, all the systems are in place, and it’s working, I then really struggle to just work in the project. I’m like, oh great, it’s working, I want to move on to the next thing, my brain has a really strong tendency to be like, great, that’s worked, I’ll go on to the next thing. And obviously, I’ve had to compensate for that because you wouldn’t have the qualifications that we need to do our jobs if you gave in to that every time. But at the same time, it is quite painful for me to force myself to kind of dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s on a project. And I’ve realised that over the last few years that it, you know, sometimes it’s a bit of an uphill struggle and it is a bit better to get somebody else on board who really loves that detail, really loves finishing things off and let them kind of take over the reins once I’ve got something to a position where I’m really happy with it. But we’ll talk more about what that looks like in a minute.

The other thing that I have learned about my brain is that I pay very little attention to certain details. And I can’t actually control that. I used to, I always knew that I didn’t pay very good attention to details, but I thought that if I worked hard enough at it, I could force myself to be better at it. And what I’ve learned, the hard way, from being in business is that actually I can’t, and I will continue to get it wrong, even when I’m trying extremely hard and putting a lot of effort into it. So the best example of that is dates. When I look at a calendar, the overwhelm that I feel is massive. I mean I actually feel a bit tearful when I open up my calendar. So at the end of, when I was booking my own appointments, at the end of every clinical appointment I did with somebody, I would open up my calendars to try and book them in and literally feel like I wanted to cry. It is very, very strong. If I’m trying to rearrange an appointment that I have, even with a friend for coffee, looking at my calendar and being like, where does this fit, it just totally shuts down my brain, I go straight into the freeze part of the fight or flight or freeze response. It’s really, really strong. And I think, you know, how that manifests is often me just making a very quick like, oh yeah, it’ll fit in there. And I’m always wrong. I’m always double booking people. And then I can’t see the solution. It’s like the calendar, it’s kind of jumping all around. And I’ve never met anybody else who has exactly that experience. But it’s extremely stressful and overwhelming. And I have learned that there isn’t really a compensation strategy that works for me, I’ve tried them all. There are a few books that are really helpful actually, if you’re looking for strategies that might help you work around things. Like I get on really well with A Radical Guide for Women with ADHD, I’ll link to it in the show notes. That’s been really helpful for me. But I’ve still not found anything that helps with my inability to retain dates or times. The only thing that’s helped is getting a team around me who can support me with that. And that has been a real game changer. It used to get me in so much trouble in the NHS, because you know how difficult it is to line up clinical space with y’know your patient’s availability, and all of that. Oh god, it just used to stress me out so, so much. So actually, there are two things I’ve done to compensate for that. Firstly, I got exclusive use of a premises. So before we all went online exclusively, I found it a lot easier on my brain to have exclusive use of my clinical room. It just took a huge weight off my shoulders not having to double check another calendar for the room’s availability, that was just too much for me, it was a layer I couldn’t handle. But also outsourcing scheduling to my assistant has changed my life. And I really recommend it to anybody who feels even a fraction of what I feel when they look at a calendar, because it is just not worth making yourself feel that way.

And the last thing that I’ve noticed about my brain that I have to learn to work with and kind of learn to love, if I’m honest, is that my brain doesn’t switch off. Now, this was really extreme when I was younger from childhood and my teenage years, and in my early 20s. My mind really wouldn’t take a break at all. And it’s often thinking about kind of new creative ideas or things that I want to work on. It doesn’t always have to be work-work, it is at the moment because I’m super passionate about my business. And my business has lots of exciting things coming up in it. So it’s often on that track at the moment. But it doesn’t have to be. I’ve had lots of hobbies over the years that have taken up this kind of space in my head. And it’s just a very busy place, whatever the content is, it’s always kind of thinking about something and trying to give me things to do. And when I was younger, this was so extreme that I’d try to sit and watch the soaps with my family in the evenings, because that was what we did as a family and it was like nice bonding time. But in order to focus on what was going on, I’d have to be on an exercise bike or doing sit ups at the same time. And I honestly didn’t have the awareness at the time that I was doing that because I couldn’t relax otherwise, but I really couldn’t. And it wasn’t, it was never kind of oh I’m doing this to be pious or I’m doing this because exercise is good for you. That’s never been my relationship with exercise. My relationship with exercise has always been it gives me clarity in my brain. It gives me a break that I don’t get any other way. And so it’s always been an essential for me. When people say, oh you’re so good because you exercise every day. That is not how it feels. It’s like saying, oh you’re so good for eating a cake every day to me. It’s that much of a treat, really for me to feel like I’m, you know, able to slow down a little bit in my head. And that’s what exercise does for me. And that’s why I’ll find a way to do it, even in difficult circumstances. It’s not because I’m super motivated to be healthy. I am motivated to be healthy, but I struggle with that motivation in the same way that everybody else does. But exercise serves such an immediate function of relief for me, that it, that it has just always had to be part of my everyday. So it’s not as bad now as it was when I was younger, possibly because having two kids and another one on the way, it means I’m already a bit more exhausted physically than I used to be. And I do find that now I can kind of get away with doing exercise before I sit down to watch something like a film. And that will probably be enough to get me through it and help me to focus. Because it used to be so extreme, even when I met my husband, so I was 18 when I met my husband, and even then, if we tried to watch a TV programme together, I would not concentrate well enough to remember what had happened at the beginning by the time we got to the end. So I could never make any sense of the story. And it’s definitely not that bad now. But then potentially, I just have a lot less time to watch TV. So I’m always knackered by the time I do sit down, I suppose. But there is no way still that I would be able to switch off completely for a whole holiday or a whole weekend. So I’ve had to develop strategies that work with that. So for example, I would always take a notebook with me, if I’m going on holiday, or if I’m, you know, trying to relax. Even for a friend’s wedding, I would always have some kind of notebook with me, so that if I have an idea that I want to follow up on later, I can write it down. It’s really simple but it just means that I don’t, well it does still whirr around in my head, but I don’t feel bad about that. I’m like, yeah, this is good, some of my best ideas come up when I’ve got no pressure on me, and I’m just going to work with that. And no, I’m not going to take the laptop and get the emails out, even though I might want to do that, but I am going to allow myself, if I have a creative idea, to make a note of it and come back to it and value it at a later time. And so that’s been really important for me, because again, I used to feel quite a lot of shame about the fact that I couldn’t lie on a sun lounger or completely immerse myself in fun activities, that there was always part of my brain sort of working on something else. I used to think that that made me kind of a workaholic, or one of those negative terms that we use for women that work too much. There are so many. But actually I’ve come to realise that this is where some of the really good ideas I have come from. And I should probably be grateful for that and make the most of it rather than trying to shut it down all the time.

Okay, so a little kind of summary of the strategies that I’ve mentioned that helped me is:

Making space for hyperfocus.
Outsourcing overwhelming admin. Anything that gives you a feeling of dread, anything that makes you feel like you’re going to cry every time you try and do it, or anything that gives you a boredom backache, which again, I don’t know if anyone else experiences this, but when I find something cripplingly boring, it actually hurts my back and that’s the first way that I know. I don’t know if that’s normal, but yeah.
The third thing I do is I make sure I have completer finishes around me. So when I’m looking to partner up with people for projects, when I’m looking to hire people in to do tasks for me, I try and make sure that they’re the kind of people that really love crossing t’s and dotting i’s and getting things over the finish line. Because I know that that’s the thing that I struggle with.
Number four, I never try to multitask. So it is very, very rare for me to even try to answer an email when my children are around, because I know my brain can’t divide attention that way without giving me that overwhelming I’m going to cry kind of a feeling. So I really don’t try and put myself through that. Because I also know that when I do get two hours to hyperfocus, I’ll get more done than I could possibly get done in six hours with half an eye on the children. So I really don’t multitask in that way very often. And I’m always saying to people, if your brain is anything like my brain, just don’t try and do it, it’s too hard, and it takes a huge toll on your mental health. So yeah, I don’t try and multitask very often. I try and block out time for specific tasks, and stick to that. So that might mean that I have to turn off all my notifications from all of the apps where I communicate with my team. I don’t have my personal mobile within reach, I have it so I could hear if the school calls. But things like Whatsapp, Facebook notifications, they’re all disabled, so that I’m not going to be like distracted by the kind of tech equivalent of somebody tapping on your shoulder and asking if you want a cup of tea, because I don’t work well that way.
And the fifth one is I always make time for exercise. Even on days when it looks like there is no space in my diary for it, I will cancel something if I have to, to make sure that there is some time for exercise. But I also, as I’ve been getting a bit older, and becoming more aware of kind of compassion focused work, I have tried to make sure that some of that exercise is coming from my soothing system, rather than always being very driven. In the past, it always used to be quite high intensity exercise that I would do. So I’d, you know, I ran marathons, I did a lot of high intensity training. And I still love that, I’ve got to be honest, I’m an absolute addict for that kind of exercise. So I haven’t given it up, but I do try and make sure that at least a few times a week that exercise session is more mindful, more about slowing down and activating the soothing system. And slowly, over many years of mindful movement practice, I have found that that is also quite a powerful strategy for helping to just slow down the pace in my mind a little bit. So I do really recommend mindfulness to people who are struggling with any similar difficulties to me. But I would say my way in was through mindful movement, I would have found it really difficult to just sit down and meditate at the beginning, I can now do a bit of meditation, and I really value it. But it was really hard. And I think often, when I’ve worked with people who’ve described themselves as not neurotypical, they’ll tell me that they can’t meditate, that it’s too hard. And if I go back, you know, 15 years, I would have said the same thing, I would have felt like I really couldn’t. Now I know that I can, and obviously you can’t get it wrong, so of course you can. But I do, I do feel that it’s an easier way in if you’re coupling it up with some kind of movement at the beginning. So for me, you know, I started out with mindful running. And there’s a mindful running pack on the Nike running club app, which I’m a passionate supporter of, because I find it really powerfully helpful. So I started out with mindful running, I then did a bit of mindful walking. And then I managed to get into kind of mindful stretching, yoga, that kind of thing. And I do find that really transformatively really helpful. So I just wanted to share that in case anybody else has a similar very busy brain, and does feel like they need a break from it sometimes, because although I’ve talked a lot about the strength of it, and I hope I’ve given you an accurate impression, that I actually kind of like the fact that my brain works this way, and I don’t find, I don’t think we should be pathologizing it, I do recognise that it also brings some real difficulties and I’m in a really privileged position to be able to build a life that means I’m not rubbing up against those all the time.

So I do think that a real lesson for all of us in business and in our careers in general, is to get to know your strengths, and to play to them. And don’t be ashamed to play to your strengths and to delegate stuff that you’re not that good at. Because for everything that you struggle with, there’ll be somebody else who feels like they’re at their best doing that task. And it’s just brilliant when you can find a team that works in that way. And I think unfortunately, a lot of the kind of narratives, particularly for women, but I’m sure this is true for men as well, it’s just that being a woman is my experience, a lot of the narratives make it difficult for us to see what we’re really good at, and difficult for us to make sense of experiences that we’ve had in that way. But if you can cut through that, you know, spending some time in personal therapy, or in coaching, and recognise what those qualities are that you need to emphasise in your life, in your business, and what those qualities are that are going to make certain tasks more challenging, that really is the key to building a business that you love, and that is sustainable, and that isn’t a recipe for burnout.

So I really hope that this episode has been useful to you whether or not you identify as non neurotypical, or whether you’re just trying to make sure that you build a business that suits you in the best possible way. I hope that sharing my story has been useful, it feels really vulnerable to do, but I hope that it’s helped somebody. So if it has, then please do feel free to send me a message, let me know, I’d love to hear from you.

Another thing I wanted to mention today, actually, and I should have mentioned this at the beginning, and I forgot, possibly something to do with the way my brain works, I was excited to talk to you about this topic, so I forgot about the practical stuff, is that I am going on maternity leave in a couple of weeks. But we’ve prepared lots of good episodes of the Business of Psychology for you. So don’t worry, you will still be getting the business’s psychology into your podcast app as normal throughout my maternity leave. The only thing we’re going to do a bit differently, is we’re going to take little breaks here and there. The first one is going to be the next two weeks in October. We’re just going to take a two week break, just to give my podcast editor time to kind of keep everything going. The wonderful Natali, bless her, I’ve given her a lot of episodes to work with. And we just want to make sure that everything, you know we have time to make sure everything is perfect for you guys before it goes out. So there are going to be little two week breaks every now and again. But the best thing that you can do to make sure that you never miss an episode and don’t get disrupted by those breaks is to make sure you’ve subscribed to the podcast. So go to your podcast app, whether that’s Apple, Spotify, we’re on Amazon now as well, wherever you listen, and just hit the subscribe button. And that way whenever we put a new episode out, it will be pinged onto your phone and you can’t miss it. So I’m hoping that I’ll be able to keep up sending you my emails every Saturday to remind you about podcast episodes. But the safest way to make sure you never miss one is to make sure that you’re subscribed to it because they will still be going out throughout my maternity leave, there’s just going to be a few little breaks in there.

Alright, thank you so much for listening, everybody. I’d love to hear your thoughts, and I will speak to you next week.

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Links:

A Radical Guide for Women with ADHD: Embrace Neurodiversity, Live Boldly, and Break Through Barriers

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Radical-Guide-Women-ADHD-Neurodiversity/dp/168403261X/

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Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of the Business of Psychology podcast. If you share my passion for doing more than therapy, then make sure you come over and join my free Do More Than Therapy Facebook community, where you can work on getting your big ideas off the ground with like minded psychologists and therapists. I’d also love it if you could leave the show a five star review wherever you listen to your podcasts. It will help more of the people who need it to find it. See you next week for more tips and inspirational stories to help you do more than therapy.