Ep. 103: ADHD & Rejection Sensitivity in Sales w/ Diann Wingert
More and more adult women are learning they have ADHD, or suspect strongly that they do. There're many reasons why it's hard for women to get an official diagnoses, but the reality is that many entrepreneurs struggle with it, even without a formal diagnoses.
When you look at how entrepreneurship allows people to be creative, work in unique ways, and leverage what lights them up, it's easy to see why it would be a draw for people with ADHD. But one struggle that shows up a lot, especially among women, is an intense fear of rejection in selling.
While you may already struggle with time limits, memory loss, strategic planning and more...when it comes to talking about offers the fear of hearing "No" means that you might avoid talking about their offers entirely. Or only do it once, feel defeated, and retreat.
This keeps smart, deserving women struggling to hit their revenue goals, and generally just feeling like failures. If this speaks to you, you'll definitely want to check out this interview with Diann Wingert who both lives with ADHD and coaches women entrepreneurs with ADHD as well.
Diann Wingert is a former UCLA-trained psychotherapist turned mindset and productivity coach for female entrepreneurs with ADHD traits, with or without an official diagnosis. Her mission is to mentor women who are driven but distracted to overcome their limiting beliefs and disempowering habits to create a business and lifestyle that actually work for them. Diann’s no-BS approach combines decades of experience with how she leverages her own ADHD. Her goal is to take you from overdelivering and overwhelmed to focused, fired up, and flame retardant.
LINKS:
Website:http://bit.ly/dwcwebsite,
Podcast:https://bit.ly/drivenwoman,
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coachdiannwingert/,
Driven Woman Roadmap: http://bit.ly/thedwroadmap
Additional Links:
Waitlist for Rebellious Success: rebellious-success.com
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I'm so excited that I get to interview Diane winger for this episode of the CELT sister podcast. And I know you're, you are going to really love this interview with Diane. So Diane is a former UCLA trained psychotherapist turned mindset and productivity coach for female entrepreneurs with ADHD traits with, or without an official diagnosis.
Her mission is to mentor women who are driven, but distracted to overcome their limiting beliefs and disempowering habits to create a business and lifestyle that actually works for them. Diane's no BS approach combines decades of experience with how she leverages her own ADHD. Her goal is to take you from over-delivering and overwhelmed to focused, fired up and playing retirement.
You can find her at our website, which is at bit dot L Y forward slash DWC website, her podcast, which is called driven woman at bit dot L Y forward slash driven woman on Instagram. She's at coach Diane winger, and you can get her driven woman roadmap at bit dot L Y forward slash the D w roadmap. Don't worry.
All of those will be in the show notes. When Diane reached out to me, I was really thrilled to have her on the podcast because I know that I work with a lot of clients who have ADHD or sensory processing disorders, autism, and all sorts of other parts of who they are and how they show up in the world and their business that.
Need a different approach than just the standard cookie cutter one. And like, really this my approach goes for everyone. Um, but I do think it's interesting that I've realized over the years that I do tend to attract a lot of people who are neuro-diverse and I think at least in part it's because I am.
So focused on helping people with a plan that is personalized for them that sets them up for success rather than just a one and done one size fits all plan that may or may not be the right fit for them, or may or may not be. Truly sustainable for them to be consistent with over, over the long haul. And I don't view plans that don't meet those needs.
Like I don't view a plan as successful in less. It meets the person's needs. Who's actually going to be executing the plan. And interestingly as I'm recording this, I've actually been exploring, um, finding out on my own, if I. I also have ADHD. So it's been kind of a long and weird process, but, uh, it's something that I feel fortunate that I have the privilege of even being able to, um, explore.
You know, medical options, right? Even, even B being able to have access to doctors for a diagnosis or, you know, for a treatment plan and things like that. And I know that I'm not alone in saying that you know, about over the last year as. ADHD in adult women gets talked about more and more. There are a lot of us who are realizing that these things that we just thought were quirks or parts of our personality or these adaptations that we've used to run our lives are actually like, Oh, those are really clever strategic coping mechanisms, right.
Not just like, wow. What a creative productivity hack, right? It's Oh, it's because it's been essential. Um, I just, I, I find it really interesting how this conversation keeps coming up and as people learn more and more and are starting to realize like, Oh, maybe this is actually what has been under the surface all along.
And I think that that trend is only going to continue. Not because necessarily like more and more people suddenly have ADHD. I just think that we are getting better about understanding different ways that it shows up, especially in adult women. So that was a lot of rambling, but, um, I really do hope that even if you're like, you know, I don't know, I, I'm not, I'm not, neuro-diverse like, why would I, why would I listen to this episode?
I would say, just give it a shot anyways, because Diane has a lot of really great stuff that she shares in this episode. And I think. You're really gonna like her know her, no BS approach as well. Okay. Onto the episode. Hey Diane, thank you so much for joining me on the sellout sister podcast. I'm really excited to be having this conversation with you today.
Well, I am such a huge fan of your podcast that I have really been looking forward to meeting you. And I think what we're going to talk about today, I hope it's going to help a lot of people. Yeah, I know. I know it will because I have people in my audience who I know have ADHD, or they assume that they might have ADHD, but they haven't been formally diagnosed.
And I know that part of what you're going to be talking about also applies to anyone regardless of if they have ADHD or not. So, um, I definitely know that this this'll be a really good one. Sweet. Well, I think we should probably start with like all the, not maybe all, but some of the myths, myths and misunderstandings.
That's a mouthful about ADHD. For example, it's become kind of like common in our language now that people will say, Oh, I'm, I'm my add is really acting up today or I'm so add or your so add, um, so let me start with this. The, the technical term is a D H D. Whether you have hyperactivity or not in, it stands for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which is such a terrible name.
So stigmatizing and really inaccurate because people with ADHD can pay attention, even hyper attention, but it has to be something they're interested in. We'll come back to that later. But anyway, the, the notion that it doesn't exist wrong, that everyone has it. Also wrong that technology causes it, that sugar causes that, that video games cause it, that it, uh, is only true for a little boys.
All of that is wrong. They're the fastest growing group of people being identified with ADHD. I prefer the term identified rather than diagnosed is adult women. Why? Because of the gender bias and diagnosing that caused us to be missed for generations now. Yeah. And we were chatting a little bit about that before we started to record and I felt we were also chatting about tic-tac and just like how fun tick that gives someone a time suck.
But I feel like, uh, so many people I know. And so many people I follow on Tik TOK. It's like, because people are really giving, like, it's not just all dancing over there. It's like really high value content. And a lot of, you know, for a lot of it and people are starting to realize, and I should say, adult women are starting to realize that like, Oh, these things that I just thought were like quirky personality traits, or like, Things that everyone dealt with or just, you know, personal obstacles to overcome.
It's like, Oh, that's actually a symptom that I might have ADHD. Like, that's really interesting. I just always thought it was like, yeah, I can't stay still at my desk. So I definitely feel like adult women especially are a little bit, I don't know, just surprised right now feel very overlooked and, and are having a lot of.
Realizations and revelations about just how, how their brain works. It's so true. Erica is a matter of fact. I'm glad we're talking about tech talk because there are so many wonderful people who are using the tick-tock platform to share their, add their ADHD. Experience with other people and they're doing it in a clever way.
They're doing it in a fun way. They're doing it an engaging way, man. Maybe there's dancing. Maybe there isn't, but it's like, wait. That's ADHD like, Hmm. I never really thought about that. And people with ADHD are often prone to spending just a little bit too much time on social platforms of all kinds.
Twitter is usually a very popular one. Why? Because it's moving so fast. That's a clue tick tock, because it's fast, it's visual. It's apparently engaging. There are certain clubhouses becoming very popular with folks with ADHD. So I think it's anything where there's fast action and you never really know what's going to happen next.
It's very, it's very stimulating to our type of brain. Yeah. That's that's, that's good. That's interesting to know because yeah, it's a definitely get easily sucked into social media for sure. Um, and that makes sense. It's like that thrill of, of like the, the stimuli of what is going to happen next for sure.
Because you teach sales. Um, what I think is interesting is that, uh, a very large percentage of people who are in sales, Have ADHD, whether they know it or not, because of the nature of sales. That is so interesting. And I want you to talk more about that because when we were emailing back and forth and stuff, I was like, wow, I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have thought that.
And I feel like just, I know a lot of entrepreneurs in general, who. Either definitely know that they have it or suspect that they have it. And I feel like the common thread that gets woven throughout is like, Oh, I like, I've kind of designed these like hacks and systems and things for myself to be able to like deal and be a professional and be a high achiever because it wasn't working for me in the regular, like.
Nine to five world or these, these like things that I do that might seem like quirky to other people, but they help me be productive is like, I it's been a lot of trial and error. And I feel like that is such, you know, with entrepreneurs, it's so much of that, like creating their own world and their own life and their own schedule that it does seem like it would make sense that there would be a lot of overlap when you look at it between people who have ADHD.
And people who sort of chart their own course. It's absolutely true. In fact, instead of saying a lot, most people in sales, um, have ADHD, which is true, but what's also true is it's estimated that about 70% of entrepreneurs have ADHD traits. And from where I sit and I was a licensed therapist for 25 years, I've been a coach for the last five.
And I diagnosed a lot of people with ADHD. It's got nothing to do with your intelligence. It's got nothing to do with whether you did well in school or not. Most women with ADHD did well in school. Um, but it's how you learn. What motivates you, what you pay attention to and what. What you require to get things done.
Like for example, um, most people will pay attention to what is deemed important. We pay attention to what we find interesting. Now think about that. Like go back to childhood. If your teacher says this is important, you need to read all of chapter two by Friday and you crack open the book and you're like, I'd rather die.
This is so boring. Now you may know it's important. You may like your teacher. You may want to please her. But if it's not interesting to you, you will put it off, put it off, put it off, put it off. And at the very last minute, the adrenaline of running out of time will overcompensate for the disinterest.
And you will read the chapter. That's kind of a classic thing. Now, why does so many people with ADHD end up becoming entrepreneurs? There's a couple of reasons. One we're too creative. To last in a corporate structure that says, this is the way we do things with we're there. We're like, wait, why do you do it that way?
Because this is the way we've always done it. And you're like, that doesn't make any sense. Why don't you do it this way? If you're in a corporate setting, that's usually not welcomed. They usually think of that as like you are, you don't follow the rules. You are, um, Sometimes it's a negative, like you're a troublemaker or whatever.
And it's like, but now some companies are catching on it. Like, no, we need these people because people with ADHD and entrepreneurs, they challenged the status quo. They're looking for the most satisfying, the most streamlined that the most logical according to their brains, but our brains are very capable of seeing connections.
And cuts that other brains. Don't see. So when we're in a, in a meeting, in a corporate setting and everybody's like, well, you need to do it this systematic way. Point a point B point C. And we're like, I would do it this way. And it's a little work around that nobody else would have thought of. And you're like, nah, I gotta carve my own path because this.
Things move too slow. There's too many meetings and people are too stuck in doing things just for the sake of having done them that way in the past. And that's talking about the entrepreneurial traits. Like I want to do it my way. I don't need permission. I'm willing to take risks. I don't have to know everything in the future.
I like to change my mind if this doesn't work, I'll try that. We like to do a bunch of different things, right. Once, I mean, I'm sure this is all sounding very familiar to you lately. Yeah. Yeah. And I just thought, like, I feel like I just always assumed everyone was that way. Like it it's really, uh, yeah. I, I kind of joke.
I'm like, I'm, I'm unemployable. And, um, and I really, and I feel like it's because of that, like, If I can see there's a better way to do something like, yeah. Why, why, why wouldn't we just do it that way? And some that is like a really hard, that is really hard for me to wrap my head around. And also just like, I don't know, arbitrary, like working times and stuff.
And what's interesting is I actually like the last like job jobs I had were very physical on my feet. Um, rapidly changing by the minute they were not just like sitting at a desk and that I could do, um, because it was just, yeah, it was that fast pace. It was like going, going, going. And I used to joke, um, in February, February would be our slowest month in retail.
And I would tell my other managers, I'm like, if it's a slow day, And I'm bored and I'm saying, I want to go home and I'll just use a vacation day. I'm like, literally do not let me, because I will regret it later in the year. But it was just that, like, I hated that feeling of. In what was usually a fast paced environment of being bored.
Like I'm happy to be bored at home when I'm watching Netflix. But like when I'm like working, it's like, I want to be stimulated. I want to be doing something that is engaging and stuff. So it's just, it's so interesting. No, this is taught. This is absolutely characteristic. And because the thing is, I always say I have ADHD.
I have given birth to three kids who all have ADHD. The boys diagnosed in childhood. The girl, not until adulthood in college. This is very common. Um, girls are better at suppressing the physical hyperactivity. It tends to be mental hyperactivity for us. So while boys are punching each other and yell, you know, speaking out of turn and being physically restless, girls will channel that drive and that creativity.
In a more internal way. So we may have very, very active minds, but probably we're doodling on a piece of paper or creating things in our mind or staring out the window and fantasizing, we're not disrupting the class. So people just think we're slow or we don't care. So usually women have these labels that, you know, you're slow, you're dumb, you're unmotivated.
And you get told things like, well, if you. Just try harder. Or maybe if you, you know, um, wouldn't make careless errors. And so, you know, the beauty industry full of people with ADHD, fashion, full of people with ADHD sales. Also true. Um, anything fast paced the stock market, um, uh, first response wanders, where there's a lot of action and there's a lot on the line.
So there's a lot of intensity city cops, firefighters, military first responders of all kinds, skydiving instructors, I mean, but the entrepreneurship is like, you get an idea and you want to act on it. You don't want to go through a fricking committee. You don't, you don't necessarily want to do market research.
Okay. If you get bigger and you got more on the line, maybe you can do it. But so many people become small, small business owners or solopreneurs because they can literally take an idea and put it out in the world in days, if not hours, sometimes. And that's so efficient, you know, we just love not, not having to be slowed down according to other people's timetables.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And that's, it's so like, it's so refreshing to hear you explain it that way. Cause I'm like, yeah, that's exactly why I like being able to do what I do and, and everything is just taking inspired action and creating something. When I feel like I want to create it. It's, it's super important to me to have that level of flexibility in my life.
I wish that our public schools and our institutions did a better job of understanding. Neuro-diversity because, you know, I say probably about four points, something percent of adults have been officially diagnosed with ADHD, but I think the real numbers are somewhere between 10 and 12%. And in certain industries like tech and, you know, beauty and fashion, this very, very high percentage also like, um, uh, writing, um, publishing journalism, you know, they're just certain fields that really draw.
Folks like us like a magnet, but I think if public education did a better job at understanding, neuro-diversity we wouldn't label kids who need a lot of stimulation as either a problem child or, you know, somebody that like, you know, I, I think. With an ADHD, mind boredom is, feels like a life-threatening condition.
Like we literally cannot tolerate being bored. What do people do when they're bored? And they have no alternative to do something other than what they're doing, they get into trial. I mean, we have to yeah. Do something, right. So if you are creative, you can doodle. But what happens when you just can't sit still?
You know, so a lot of us go into the trades because we think. What is college, but having to take a bunch of courses that I have no desire to learn about. So I can have a balanced education who the hell cares. I wanted to learn what I want to learn, and it's tortured to be forced to take classes that you're not interested in because somebody who's never going to meet you thinks you need a balanced education.
It makes sense to a person with a fast brain. Completely completely. That's me sitting through two semesters of philosophy class at my liberal arts college going, I hate this. This is pointless. Why am I here? Yeah, absolutely. And you have a really interesting background as well. So I would love for you to talk about your professional background and also like what prompted you to.
You know, like start thinking about like, Oh my gosh, do I have ADHD? And like talk a little bit about that journey. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Um, well I think one of the things that, that contributes to females in particular being late in identification is. We are socialized to different expectations. So girls are better at sitting still, and girls are more concerned about being liked, fitting in, you know, being approved of by adults and so forth.
So I think what ends up happening is that a lot of us kind of conform to the norm at our own expense. Like, and we end up becoming depressed or anxious, or just, just generally miserable because while we may be doing what others expect of us, we don't feel like ourselves. So my, um, I've had four careers, three husbands, three children, three dogs.
I mean, actually I'm, I joke about it now. I used to be very ashamed about it, but that's another thing is we have a tendency to. Have more jobs, more careers live in more places and probably more partners, the boredom factor. And also a lot of people can't keep up with the energy and the need for constant stimulation and change and stuff.
But my first career was in the fitness field. My second career was in sales. I was in sales for a while. I was in medical sales, um, because it was interesting and challenging to me to sell the smart people like doctors. Um, I felt that that was very challenging. So I sold pharmaceuticals than malpractice insurance.
Then I was actually one of very few women selling orthopedic implants, which meant I wasn't in, in the operating room with the doctor, making sure he put the hip replacement or the knee replacement in. Right. So we wouldn't get sued. Wow. Very, very excited. I do not faint at the sight of blood. I think it's all very fascinating.
Um, but that. Part of my career. Couldn't last very long because while I did enjoy the high ticket sales and all that went with it, I had three young kids at the time and my territory was all of Southern California. So it became unsustainable. After that, I had like a early midlife crisis and I went back to school.
I got a master's degree in social work. And for 25 years, I was a clinical social worker I worked with, um, Mostly kids in families, kids with mental illness. And, um, during this time, my oldest son was identified with ADHD later on my daughter and my second son, never officially, but, um, I really started to notice that.
There were a lot of people who had these traits, but they ended up being identified with other things like anxiety or depression or substance abuse or eating disorders. And during my, um, therapy practice, um, I worked in a lot of different settings, community, mental health and child welfare and so forth.
Eventually I was in private practice and I just started seeing these women, a lot of them entrepreneurs. And creatives that they had anxiety, they had depression, they had eating disorders. And as we were getting into this stuff, I'm like, tell me more about, you know, this and that. And the other thing. And I said, you know, has anyone ever suggested you might have ADHD?
Now this is, I should be embarrassed, Erica, to be honest with you. But during this time I was completely. In denial about my own ADHD traits. I thought they were character flaws. And I think this is a really important point for anyone listening. Um, the fact that I can't tolerate boredom, the fact that I need a lot of stimulation and change in my life, the fact that.
That I changed jobs a lot. I changed friend groups a lot. I would have a hobby that I would be obsessed with for six months and then drop it like a hot potato and pick up something else. I was changing my hair color constantly. Like there's certain things that I just thought, well, you're, you're flaky or you're quirky or you're you lack commitment or whatever these things.
And I, it didn't occur to me until. A number of years had gone by that. I wonder if this actually is ADHD, but there's so much misunderstanding about it. That at first it was like, Oh, girls don't have this. And then it was like, Oh, women don't have this. Oh, it's because you have a trauma history because I grew up in a very abusive, dysfunctional family and.
There's certain traits of people with ADHD that are similar to those as trauma. So I just kept thinking, Oh, it's this? Oh, it's that? Oh, it's the other thing. Oh, it's and you know, it just had all these different theories. It actually wasn't until just five years ago that I thought, you know, it, it was once I started working full time for myself from home, that real struggles became apparent.
You mentioned earlier about like work, you didn't call it this, but I call them workarounds, call them hacks, you know, whatever, like the things that we need to do to make things work our way. And. In the regular workplace, the systems, the structures, the routines are there and you may not like them. You may feel like you're chafing at the bit, but they're there for accountability and organization.
When I started working for myself from home, I had to step away from all of those routines and structures. And I literally felt like I can't get anything done to save my fricking life. I don't know where anything is. I don't remember when I'm supposed to do things. I don't know how long anything takes.
Um, and then I had this lifelong habit of waiting till the last minute. So everything was under pressure. Sometimes I would double book myself. I mean, it was just a F and mess. And that was when I said, okay, I need to figure this out. Um, because I guess I didn't have as many workarounds as I needed. Yeah.
It's, it's so interesting. How it just, yeah. Working for yourself, really amplifies all of those things, especially. Yeah. When there are no structures or there's not another person that is going to reprimand you, if you don't do something or. It's the accountability, right? Yeah. Organizational pieces is important because a lot of us, I mean, the traits that we're talking about, impulsivity distractability disorganization.
Poor memory. I'm not being very good at planning things or sequencing things like what order do I do this in time? Blindness? Like usually not on time, usually late, no idea how much time to estimate for a particular task difficulty setting priorities. So what ends up happening over time? And you probably see this with a lot of, um, the people you work with as I do, um, They end up defaulting to.
Prioritizing, what other people are asking of them. So instead of saying, okay, these are my priorities, these are my goals. These are the things at the top of my list. I'm going to focus on them. We end up defaulting to, well, I have to get this done for this client because like they're gonna fire me or. You know, yell at me or whatever, and you get in this kind of hamster wheel situation of not charging what you're worth.
Taking on too many clients doing everything at the last minute. I'm not being assertive enough with your boundaries. And then just being on this frenzied fricking treadmill, that feels like, Whoa, why did I want to work for myself? Like this sucks. Like, uh, when you consider the hours that you're putting in, in that kind of situation, you're, you're probably making less than you were without benefits.
That's often when they're like, okay, maybe I need to deal with this. Now you can take medication for ADHD and it does help, but it's not a magic bullet. Like you need, you know, you teach this, you're a strategist, you got to have systems, you got to have routines, you need some boundaries and you have to have some way of knowing what is the most important thing to focus on, or you're just going to be running around like a crazy person trying to do whatever anybody else wants you to do.
Yeah. And then I feel like it's just, it makes those shiny objects even shiny or cause you're like, well, maybe that will be the thing to solve. This issue, this pain point, whatever. And yeah, it's not usually it's like, it just takes you down another rabbit hole of, of being busy and. Feeling kind of out of control.
You know, one of your recent episodes I really loved is like, I think you called it, like, do I really need this? Because you know, and I see this a lot with my clients that, um, FOMO is particularly acute for us because when you have difficulty with your executive functions, the ones I was just talking about planning.
Estimating, prioritizing, organizing sequencing, all of that kind of stuff. When you have difficulties with that, you tend to just say yes to all the requests and then you're scrambling trying to get it all done, but you don't really know how much time to estimate and it ends up being a frenzy, but then.
Of course at the same time, you like, there must be a better way. It's this, I gotta follow this coach, or I gotta listen to this podcast or I to buy them. Usually it's a course these days, let's be honest. I gotta to buy this course. And what we actually have to do is learn how to deal with our own impulses and the beliefs that we have, that there is a magic.
Pill. If I find the right coach or the right program or the right app or the right social media platform, everything will be made easy. Listen, I've been in business for myself for 10 years. You bet the same. It's not going to be easy and it doesn't have to be this hard chasing after all those things, looking for the magic is actually making it so much harder and expensive than it needs to be.
Yeah. Oh my gosh. That is, that is so, so true. Oh, so expensive and such such a time. Suck for sure. And I know one thing I want to make sure. That we have time to talk about, because I know this is something that applies to even people without ADHD and especially women in business who are selling, um, is what you were educating me on about rejection sensitivity.
And this is something that I see all the time. And, you know, in, in total transparency for myself, I always was selling. Stuff like things that weren't me and, um, retell initially, right? You're like, I'm just representing this product. It's not a piece of me. Yeah. I was always selling something that another person had created with the exception of like, when I was farming, I mean, I grew the vegetables, but it's like, I'm not going to be offended if somebody is like, I don't need salad mix this week.
Right. Like, it's just like, cool. You don't need salad mix. Like no big deal. Um, so when I switched to selling me like M essentially my brain, um, it, I, I had to do my own work around that. Cause I was like, Oh, I, you know, I could sell anything, um, to anyone and not, and not really worry about hearing no, or no, thank you.
Whatever. Uh, but then when it, when it switched, when the tables turned, I was like, okay, well now if people say no, like I know all the logical stuff about sales and selling and, you know, I know all of that, but like, it still feels like, okay, but is it me like isn't, excuse me, is that they don't want the thing I'm selling or is it actually that they like secretly hate me, you know?
And, and it is such a mindset shift. And I see it with my clients all the time. Um, and so I know, I know this is not an isolated thing, and I know it's a huge barrier to reaching our goals is probably, I would say if you line it up alongside knowledge and skill and expertise, Rejection sensitivity, negates all of them.
Like, you know, a lot of people talk about imposter syndrome or imposter complex and, you know, fear of failure and all that. But you're absolutely right when your product is you. If you are a servant, if you are a service based, um, You know, entrepreneur, a coach, a consultant, um, you perform any service for our client and you ask them for the sale and they say, no, you have to manage your mindset around it because it's almost to be human to say, they're saying no to me.
Now you can have a lot of sales training. You can have a lot of mindset work, but. There's always that little nagging doubt. Like, especially if you happen to find out they go and hire a competitor. You're like, I knew it. It was me now. What is this rejection sensitivity thing? Well, in ADHD circles, and I don't only work with people with ADHD.
I work with female entrepreneurs. Many of them identify with ADHD traits. I started seeing in ADHD circles. R S D and I thought, Oh crap. What the world does not need is one for mental health diagnosis for women. It's actually not a diagnosis. It is an experience. That is very common to women with ADHD. I personally think it's very common to women period, because we are socialized to be liked.
We are socialized to fit in. We are socialized to put other people's needs ahead of our own. We are socialized to want people to pick us. For a date for a job, you know? And so I think it feels more weighty for us when we're saying I made this, do you want it? Or, Hey, I have this expertise. You should hire me.
And it's like, Oh my God, I I'm probably going to be struck dead on the spot. Like, that's just, it feels selfish. To promote yourself. It feels risky to say, as a matter of fact, I am an expert. It feels like, Oh my God, that's just not, I could never say that. It's like, but you are an expert. And they say, no, what if rejection sensitive dysphoria basically means that you anticipate being rejected?
And it will be so triggering to you that you will immediately go into a sink hole of despair. Like you get a no, and you're like, I'm a worthless piece of crap. That's like, use me. They just said no, or not now, or I don't have the money or, or I need to think about it or talk to my partner or whatever, but it's like, what you heard is.
You have zero worth. It's like, how does that happen now? Not everybody experiences it to the same degree. Not everybody like goes down as hard and stays down so long and can't get back up again, but I'm sure you've seen this with people that you have worked with where they're super experienced. They're super talented.
They really know their stuff. But they can't ask for the money or they can't their website out. I had worked with one woman who had this beautiful website. She had like 10 episodes of a podcast recorded, edited the whole thing. She had a beautiful ebook. She had the whole, like the whole ecosystem, but she couldn't push publish.
Why? Because then people would know, okay. So they know then what. Well, what if they say now? What if. Yeah. Like, Oh no. So you go into kind of an avoidance thing, you know, self protection. It's like, okay, if I put it out there and I ask for the sale and they say, no, I'm just going to go into a depression and I'm going to doubt myself and I'm going to think, Oh, I'm no good.
Nobody, nobody likes me. I'm never gonna make any money at this. I can see if I can get my job back, um, move in with my parents, you know, whatever, whatever it is, but it's tying yourself worth. And your mood to being accepted in a sales situation. Well, you know, what, what comes of this people just stop selling.
And it can be, it can be kind of like sneaky. Like they're always working on their new lead magnet and it just, or it gets finished or there, you know, after having a nice following on Instagram, they're like, I think I should try Twitter. I think I just need to put all my attention there and it's like, um, you know, you need to put.
An offer in the world and start asking people to buy it. A lot of people can spend a lot of money and a lot of time playing it online business without ever asking for the money. And if that makes no sense at all, it's possible that what they're actually doing is trying to avoid triggering rejection, sensitivity.
Yeah. That makes sense. Absolutely. And I, I mean, I think the thing that's really hard, hard, and really frustrating and not, I not like put out there enough. I feel like it it's constantly dealing with like unmet expectations or whatever. Like it, like just being an entrepreneur is. Having goals and it's, you know, setting up things, you know, knowing, Oh, this is what I want.
This is what I would like. You know, this is my ideal. And then you could work really, really hard and care a lot about that thing. And there could be a lot of factors why. People don't sign up for whatever that thing is that you're selling so many things. And when you, yeah. That have nothing to do with you, and when you look at it objectively, it's like, okay, well, how many people saw it?
And what are industry conversion rates? And you know, what about this? And what about that? There's, it's, it's just this elaborate experiment all the time, but it's so easy. To not be able to step out of yourself objectively and look at it like it's the moving parts and pieces of an experiment. And instead go, everyone hates it.
Like nobody wants to, nobody like believes in me. Nobody wants what I have. I saw. I'm never going to be able to like, reach my highest goals. And at the end of the day, like just the reality is, is that it's, uh, It's like, literally, like in my mind it feels like literally like scraping your knee, like again and again and again, and just being like, well, I'm going to keep getting up and I'm going, I'm going to keep walking because I believe like strongly enough in the thing that I'm, that I'm doing that I'm, you know, and it's not all scraped knees and like blood and scabs and everything, but it's, you know, there's, there's a lot of that where you're like, Yeah, I worked really hard on this thing.
And then now I'm maybe need like a little bit, you know, I need a bit more people to even present it to, to get an accurate, more accurate depiction of, is this thing amazing or is it crap or like, it's just, it's re it's, it's a real big challenge. And I feel like, um, it can be hard to get used to. Living in that space where you're like, yeah, I might get like high fives today or I might get a scraped knee, but I'm going to just do it anyways.
And I might get a week of scraped knees and then next week I might get like a really awesome high five, but it's, it's like living in that weird nebulous middle space where nothing is guaranteed and, and it, it can be very frustrating for a very long time. I love. The way you said dealing with unfulfilled expectations.
Like, I think that should be my latest tattoo because it's like getting this, this is really why. And I know you've heard this said before, Erica, that entrepreneurship is the ultimate personal development program. Oh, yeah, it may not be what we signed up for, but if you don't feel came out and go crawling back to your job, uh, if you stick with it and you keep going, you become a resilient human being.
Why? Because exactly what you just said, you do the work you are just as talented. You have just as much expertise is anybody, but yet. Inexplicably. It does not always happen. And if you take it personally, you will eat yourself up. You have to learn. I mean, and it's tricky. It is, it is tricky. And it does take some mindset work because we have mirror neurons in our brain and, and our heart rhythms can detect.
You know, if, if somebody is, is in sync with us or not, like when I'm talking to someone, even on zoom like this, I can tell if we have a connection or if they're just being polite. And so part of it is that a lot of people who go into entrepreneurship, a lot of women who go into an entrepreneurship are sensitive.
And creative. A lot of them identify as impacts or highly sensitive people. A lot of them have anxiety, depression, ADHD. These are the people who really have the greatest need to learn how to manage their mindset because you're right. You got to think like a scientist. You have to learn how to manage the fear, the uncertainty, the self doubt, and just be purely stubborn.
And stay in the experiment. I'm going to try this didn't work. And that's interesting. Okay. Maybe, maybe I need to change the conditions. Let me try it again. And literally on learn, taking things personally. And it is, it is learned. I mean, I don't think we're born taking things personally, but we learn, like I remember being in kindergarten and, um, being told.
Don't do something because you're going to hurt someone's feelings. Now I teach people the opposite. You can't hurt anyone's feelings. If their feelings are hurt it's because they had expectations that were not fulfilled. Yeah. Very hard. Not to have expectations because disappointment feels like ass. I don't enjoy it.
Right. So it's like, okay. The, the market says there's a 2% success rate for doing this thing. So if I want to get two clients, I need to put this in front of a hundred pairs of eyeballs. That same fair. No. Do I like it? No. Did I make it up? No. Am I willing to do? Yeah, because I want to stay in the game and, and I like what you say about making an experiment.
It's like, it's one experiment after the next and none of them are personal and that takes some work to get to that point, I think. Yeah. It really, it really does. And it's, um, I feel like that, that is the hardest part. It's the looking at? Yeah. Like. Industry open rates for emails and stuff. It's it's you, the, the kicker is you always have to do more than any result you'll ever see.
Even if that more is just like working on yourself and then it's like, amplified, if you have other challenges or obstacles you're dealing with, but it's like, yeah. I feel like, I feel like that is what it that's really what it comes down to is like, And we didn't always have to work harder. And honestly, I don't know about you Erica, but I don't remember signing up for that part of it.
Like, I, I don't think I realized at first based on those industry percentages, the majority of what I do is not going to bring a return. What the actual hell, like that sounds miserable. I used to say that I want to make money so I can outsource the things I don't like to do. I don't enjoy things. I don't enjoy doing things that don't stay done.
That's what I used to say. I don't like doing things that don't stay done now. Like 99% of what I do is not going to bring the return I want and I'm going to have to keep doing it. Anyway. I had to make some major changes. I think about it's like being a fishermen and just like bathing the hooks and dropping them in the water.
You got to put a hundred hooks out there to catch one fish. Does that sound like a good ROI? No, it sounds terrible, but it doesn't do me any good. To be outraged by that, or to be insulted by that, or to think that's not fair because all those thoughts don't change. The reality. That is the way it is. It's true at, uh, my, um, one of my best friends.
My friend, Kristin has, she has four kids. And so, you know, kids, as they love to do to say, that's not fair. She's the greatest thing ever. I've taught at so many people. This is what she would always say back to them. The fair comes once a year, kids. Oh, so good. Love it. I love it. But it's true. It's like, I mean, like that is the, that is the ongoing battle of being an entrepreneur.
Is that like it's yeah, it's the. The unfinished projects, the unstarted projects, the, um, yeah, the disappointments, the defeats, the, yeah, the, the fishing, the hundred fish hooks for, for one, uh, For one client and it's. Oh yeah. And also, you know, another thing with is that we're re we're creative people and our passion is what lights our fire and gets us to take action.
Not because someone else wants it or thinks that's important if we're interested in it. And, and we want to do it, we'll do it. But we have a tendency to lose interest once the shiny wears off. So there's a lot more starts than there are finishes. Especially painful for us when we did see something all the way through and they still didn't want it.
What the hell? You know, I know it's true. It really, it really is. And I actually just, um, at the time of recording this last month, I had a launch and I gave myself a whole month to focus on it. Cause I didn't want to be distracted. I didn't want to be doing too many different things. Am. I literally was like, I'm I promised myself, I was like, I'm going to see it through the whole month.
Like, until I fill all the spots or until the month is over. And that was challenging. Like I going to check in with my best friend, like every day with updates, because everything in me, you know, I got to the midway point and was like, This could be good enough,
50, 50 to 70% of the way. There's two different types. There's either you get to the hat between 50 and 70% done, and you're like, Oh, or inexplicably, you get 90% of the way and no further. And it's like, You're almost there. Just do it. I'm like, yeah, you don't really understand what it's like. This is an ADT thing, but you're smart because you enlisted an accountability, buddy.
When you have that accountability and you're like, seriously, I want you to come over and shave my head while I'm sleeping. If I don't do this. I am not kidding or make a donation in my name. Do you know something? I despise like public, like, I mean, whatever it takes, I think that's, you know, you know, as a coach, that's, that's a big part of the magic is having the accountability to keep on going when you don't feel like it anymore, because you won't.
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Well, this has been so, so awesome. I appreciate you and your time and your work. So I will absolutely have all the links where people can find you in the show notes of this episode, but where would you like people to come check you out? Anything that you. Um, want to let people know about feel free?
Um, I am, I'm building up my Instagram. So if you follow me on Instagram, I will love you forever at coach Diane Wingard. And it's D I a N N w I N G E R T. And I'd also love it. If you would check out my podcast, which is the driven woman, a lot of listeners have ADHD, but it's really, for any woman who wants to close the gap between where she is and where she wants to be.
I love that. Well, awesome. Thank you again so much. I really appreciate it. And I know people are going to learn so much from this episode. It was a pleasure.
