Are you having enough fun, for fun's sake?

Let's get into the significance of embracing fun and joy purely for the sake of enjoyment!

Not for content!

Hi! I'm Katie McManus, ADHD entrepreneur business strategist and money mindset coach.

And welcome to "The Weeniecast."

The Importance of Fun in Business for ADHD Entrepreneurs!

Hey there, squirrel squad!

This week we're getting down and dirty with a topic that hits home for all of us hustle-and-bustle ADHD entrepreneurs - the blurry, messy line between work and fun.

You know what I'm talking about, right?

That sneaky pressure to have our brains always dialed into business mode, as if our minds are some kind of non-stop idea factory.

Now, let me throw some real talk your way, 'cause I've been there, done that'.

I just had a conversation with my business bestie, Laura Bernhard, and boy did we come to quite the realization...

We need to slam the brakes on this nonsense and inject some serious joy into our lives.

It's not just fluff – it's the fuel that keeps our creative engines roaring.

I'm throwing down the gauntlet here – I challenge you, yes YOU, to carve out time for stuff that makes your heart sing.

And I'm not just talking about a quick giggle or a fleeting smile.

I mean those deep-down belly laughs, those moments where you forget to check your phone because you're having such a damn good time.

And while you're at it, surround yourself with people who get it, who cheer you on in chasing what makes you uniquely happy.

'Cause let's face it, our brand of success isn't cookie-cutter – it's as quirky and individual as we are.

So, make some time to join me for this unfiltered, no-holds-barred episode where I'm sharing my own struggles when it comes to striking that elusive balance between work and play in the entrepreneurial circus.

It's time to get real about finding joy.

Are you with me?

Towards the end of the episode, I set a challenge for you to share with me some ideas for things via a message on my Instagram.

Here's the link for you to find me on Insta - https://www.instagram.com/katie.the.coach/

And here's the link if you want to get yourself onto the waitlist for the hyperfocus group - https://weeniecast.com/hyperfocus

Timestamped summary

00:00 Balancing work, passion, and personal enjoyment.

05:19 Value joy and productivity, make impact. Consider life's purpose.

07:40 ADHD and business owners struggle with joy.

11:29 Variety crucial for relationships, business, and content.

17:36 Importance of community and personal growth through cooking.

20:12 A top tip for exploring local unusual and fun activities. Spoiler - goat yoga!

22:22 Seek supportive community, fun activities, self-discovery.

Mentioned in this episode:

Katie's May Birthday challenge

Clients can't hire you if they don't know you exist... Which is why it's SO important to post content to Social Media. Consistently. But that's easier said than done... To learn how to post consistently, you have to DO consistently. Which is why I've created the 31 Day Challenge- to hold your feet to the fire so you can create content, post, and finally attract your ideal clients to you, rather than chase them down...

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Squirrel. In this episode, we're going to talk you through why you

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need to have more fun. For fun's sake. For

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sake. Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money

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mindset coach. And welcome to the Weenie cast Squirrel.

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Here's the story of something that never actually happened. My friend Laura.

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Laura Bernard, I met in Denver this past year. It was a whole LinkedIn

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networking thing. We quickly became name business besties and we chat fairly

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often. Anyway, towards the end of the year, we decided we wanted to

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do like a whole manifestation live, where we would go through and kind

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of organize all of our goals for 2024. And we do it on a live.

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We make it a lot of fun. And she had this brilliant idea

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that we would do it as bingo cards. So instead of just having list

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of goals that you check off and cross off throughout the year,

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it would be like a year long game of bingo. Bingo.

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And if you're familiar with bingo, you have to have five categories,

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right? Bi N-G-O. We were trying

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to come up with our five categories of what we

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wanted to focus on, and so work, obviously, that's

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a category. Money. Great. Yes. That's another

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category for goals that we want to hit. Health was

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the third category. Working out, eating healthy, being

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our best selves, all that jazz. But then we couldn't figure out any other

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categories. And we spent a good 20 minutes on the phone

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trying to figure out. What we both did for fun,

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because. We don't really do anything for fun. We do business stuff.

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And this is one of the pitfalls. Of having

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ADHD and being so excited and hyper

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focused and obsessed with what it is that you do for work is that your

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work becomes your fun.

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But at a certain point, it kind of stops being the fun thing that

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you do. It stops being the hobby that you do in addition to your corporate

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job. And it becomes your job, it becomes

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how you support yourself. And there's a lot of pressure on that. And so

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I think we settled on. We weren't going to do bingo. We were

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just going to do bing. Because we couldn't come up with that

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fifth category. It wasn't landing. And it's like we didn't want to

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give ourselves goals that we weren't actually excited for. But then, of course,

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I got sick. I had Covid between Christmas and New Year's,

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and we didn't do it. So it didn't actually happen. So you wouldn't have seen

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this live ever. But it triggered this conversation that I've been having with myself

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over the last month around. Am I boring?

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Is this what I want to do with my life?

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All the existence stuff, walking my dog, cooking meals, which

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I do enjoy cooking, working on my business, which I love. It is

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something that brings me so much joy and inspiration, and I'm very

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passionate about it. Doing this podcast, for example. I love doing this

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podcast. And I thought back to when I considered

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myself the most fun. And it was really when

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I worked in corporate, it was when I worked in sales and I was doing

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well in pretty much all the facets of my life. And there's a difference

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between working for a company and working for yourself,

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obviously. And when it comes to fun,

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it's that you can walk away from your work for the weekend, you

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can leave work at work for the most part. You might have a couple

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of thoughts about, I need to get that done on Monday. But you're not

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responsible for everything, right? You get to go and

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have little adventures, do things that you really

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enjoy and really just go and live life in your spare

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time. And that changes when you become a business

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owner. When you're a business owner,

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every moment you're awake and mostly

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conscious, you're thinking about stuff you should be doing in your

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business. And I know I'm not alone when I say

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I fall into the trap of thinking of fun things to do,

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but then making it a work thing because I make the fun thing

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into content. Carving pumpkins, that's

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content. Going to a museum, that's content.

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Cooking something for the first time, that's content trying

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to get my dog to go swimming with me when she really doesn't want to

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go swimming. Content. Although you're never going to see that video anyway.

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So instead of actually having fun, you make the fun things

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into more work, which is not the point of having

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fun. Let's talk about the benefits

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of having fun.

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A. It's fun. It brings you joy.

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Joy is valuable. I think as a society, especially in western

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culture, we don't create space in our

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lives for joy. Right. And I think also we see

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other people having quote unquote fun, and they're doing so in a really

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expensive know, they're having fun on their private

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yacht. They're having fun by spending gazillion

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dollars at, I don't know, a designer place like Chanel. I was

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buying time. I couldn't remember the name of a designer. Anyway, let me see.

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I'm honestly struggling for other things that people do for fun. This is

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how out of touch I am with fun right now. We

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don't value it. We don't value just pure joy.

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We value productivity, we value getting things

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done. We value making money. We also value

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things like having impact about fulfilling our

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passions. But without joy, without creating space for

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joy in our lives, how are you going to feel when you're on your

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deathbed? Wow, we just went dark, didn't we? Okay,

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so as an existential question, like what is life without

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joy? And how do you want to look back on your life? Do you

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want to look back and be like, oh, I crossed off my to do list,

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got everything done? Or do you want to look back and think about all the

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times that you experience pure, unbridled joy

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or a combination of the two? It's up to you. But as business

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owners, there is a consciousness that we

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have to approach joy with. There is an intentionality that

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we didn't have to have when we worked in corporate. Because all of the

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responsibility of this business lays on our shoulders. And

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especially for those of us with ADHD, with our

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minds that go a million miles a minute and constantly

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make connections to things that we have at work, things

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that we have ideas for, creative ideas, blah, blah, blah, that's constantly

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in that swirl. We have to find a way to get ourselves

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out of work mode and into joy mode.

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Now, the perks to your health, experiencing joy on a

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regular basis lowers your stress levels. When you

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have less stress, you live longer. When you're joyful

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around your friends and family, guess what? Those relationships become

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stronger. And even as I'm describing this, my brain is going

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to the perks to your work. When you really set aside time for.

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Joy, when you're in flow, when you're. In flow in something

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that you really enjoy, this project, it's creative, it has different parts of

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your brain working. You're going to get ideas for work.

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You'Re going to get ideas for how you can serve your clients better, you're going

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to get ideas for how you can make some system easier on the

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back end for what you do in. Your day to day. You're not going to

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have those ideas if you don't invest your time into. Things that are

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joyful. And this is not as easy

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as it sounds. I mean,

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granted, I've only been really focusing on this for about a month,

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but in that month I've really struggled to figures

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out what I do for fun, what I find fun.

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This is something that a lot of ADHD people go through cycles

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on, right? Because when we're hyper fixated on a new hobby,

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that's the thing that we do, and it brings us so much joy. But when

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that hyper fixation ends and we have to find a new

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hyper fixation, going back to that old hobby isn't actually as fun as it used

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to be. So we're constantly in this cycle of

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going through things that bring us joy until the

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point that they no longer bring us joy. And the more business owners I speak

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to with ADHD, the more convinced I am that this is a

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specifically tough challenge for business owners. With

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ADHD, it's so common to

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burn out through all your hyper fixations, but then you're working for yourself, and so

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that kind of becomes your hyper fixation and you stop making

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time for fun in your life. In my whole self

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exploration of what brings me joy, there are a few things

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that I've identified that I think will be fun, and I kind of have

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fun with already that I'm consciously making more time for.

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Now, one of these things is cooking, and there are two kinds

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of cooking. There's the cooking for meal prepping, which is fine. It doesn't bring me

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joy, it doesn't make me miserable. It's just kind of like a neutral thing that

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I have to do and a neutral thing that I do that sometimes I don't

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even eat the food because I don't want to eat it because I'm hyper

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fixated on another food group at the time. But this is my routine.

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But what I'm talking about with cooking is like cooking something you've never

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tried before. This past weekend, I decided to

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venture into making lobster risotto arancini the next

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day. And if you're not familiar with what arancini is, it's

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a roman dish where they take a bottle of risotto, they bread it, and then

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they deep fry it, and they usually have a little bit of cheese in there.

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But with a lot of lobster, I didn't think cheese would be necessary, and it

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wasn't. It was delicious. It took a fucking ton of time.

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I had to go buy the lobsters. I had to kill the lobsters. I had

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to cook the lobsters, then remove the meat from the lobster

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shells. I had to use the shells to make a broth that I then had

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to use to make the risotto. And if you've never made risotto before, you basically

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have to stand there for almost an hour stirring it. I had

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to chop up vegetables for the stock, like all these things. And I know I'm

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describing this, and this does not sound like fun. This was so much fun. I

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got so invested in it, and it was like this new adventure that I got

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to embark on. And the

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best thing about cooking for me is cooking for other

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people, right? Because you spend all this time

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following the instructions, seeing how things turn out,

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and then you get to serve it and you get to see people's reactions.

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I'm not cooking risotto all the time. It takes too much time for me to

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do

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so. When we think about fun, we make fun complicated.

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But it doesn't have to be fun. Can

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be having an adventure in your own kitchen. You know, another thing

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that I've been toying around with over the last couple years is I have

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an idea for a fantasy novel. Now, it may be

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terrible. Who knows? It probably is a terrible

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idea. But I decided as part of my

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goals for 2024 that I want to. Take a

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whack at writing this novel. So I signed up for a fiction 101

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class. I may start this class and think it's terrible and not have

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fun with. It at all and then give it up. There's something to the

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adventure of trying. Something new, and it's something that is.

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Really hard to incorporate in your day to day life. But it is so necessary

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to people. With ADHD, because we don't just like.

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Variety, we have a need for variety. If you're not

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giving it new experiences, it's going to come up in your business,

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it's going to come up in your relationships, and it's going to royally fuck you

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over.

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Because if you're not feeding that need for variety with

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hobbies and little adventures and fun, then it's going

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to transfer to your business where it's going to undercut all the

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consistency, all that momentum that you've built. The other

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thing that I really had to set aside is having fun and then creating

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content out of it. As soon as I'm

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doing something fun and there's a pressure to record

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and to track it, it stops being fun for me.

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It starts being a performance. And I

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know, like, everything is content and we want people to feel

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like they know us and we want to have kind of an

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interesting story that we can tell on social media. But

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for the vast majority, the people that you connect with on social media

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aren't going to remember you 40 years from now. Are

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you living life for them, to entertain them for a few seconds

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now? Or are you living life so that at the end

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of your life, you don't have any regrets?

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And it's hard to take time off from your business to do something that's not

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productive in any way, shape or form. That isn't helping you

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make more money, that isn't helping you reach your goals, that isn't helping you get

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more clients. But it is so necessary

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to living the life you want. Something I have to remind

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my clients about all the time, when they're first starting out or

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when they are scaling their business to multiple six

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figures. You need to be really intentional about how you do

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this because it's fairly simple to design an

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arbitrarily successful business that brings in a certain amount of money, that helps a

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certain amount of clients. But that's not what we're after

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in the brave weenie world. We're not after arbitrary

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success. We're after individualized success. We're

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after designing a business that is successful in all the right

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ways that it can support you in living the life

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that you want. That's absolutely terrifying,

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because to be able to design a business that supports you in living the life

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that you actually want, you have to actually figure out what you want. And you

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have to have the ovaries to state it, to demand

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it, to ask for it. You have to be

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brave enough to have those conversations with your

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partner and with your family and with your friends.

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As people with ADHD, we've grown up knowing that we don't

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quite fit in to this neurotypical world. But we've also

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been bombarded by all the same messaging that everyone else is getting about

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what a successful, happy life looks like. It's the spouse

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with the 2.5 children and the dog and the cat and the white

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picket fence. At least it is in the United States. It may be different in

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your country of origin.

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We're handed this vision and we're told like, this is the thing that's going to

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make you the happiest. It's like a conveyor belt. You go through elementary school,

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middle school, high school. You're supposed to go to college, even. Though

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in the United States it also involves crushing debt. And then

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you have to go and. Get a job where you work 40. To 50 hours

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a week, hopefully have enough to save for retirement. You work for

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40 years, maybe longer, and then you retire, and then you

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die. At no point in that story

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is there a point where you're supposed to. Stop and ask,

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is this actually what I want? Do I actually want the white picket fence?

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Do I want to get married? Do I want to have kids? Do I want

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to work in corporate 40 to 50 hours a

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week? One of the hardest things about knowing this and

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going for it is you have to explain to a bunch of other people who've

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been sold on that. Story, and they're not going to get it. This

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is one of the biggest reasons why you need a community that

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understands exactly why you're

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making these changes, why you're breaking out of the mold. Because for them, it doesn't

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work for them either. I've said this before, and I will say it a million

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times more before I die. Building a business takes a

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village, and. Not because it takes a lot of people to do all the things

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to build the business, but because you need the village around you to

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remind you. That you're not crazy, that there's nothing. Wrong with you for

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not accepting the status quo that has been sold to. You your whole life,

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that it's okay to want something different, and it's okay.

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To go after whatever it is that you want in a way that feels

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aligned to you. So here's where this conversation kind of becomes the chicken and

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the egg. Oh, what am I going to say next? Well, you'll have to keep

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listening to find out. But first, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel,

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squirrel.

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So here's where this conversation kind of becomes the chicken and the egg. So

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if you need to design a. Business that will be

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successful in all. The right ways to support you in the life that you actually

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want to. Live that brings you joy, then you. Have to know what it

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is that you want, what you want that life to be that brings you joy,

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so that you'll have time for things that are fun. But in order to

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know what any of those things are, you have to. Start having fun now. You

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have to start experiencing Joy for Joy's sake now.

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Because who knows? Like, in my ideal life, one of the things

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that I cannot wait to have happen

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is to have a house that has a beautiful garden

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with tables set up, and pretty much every Sunday night to have a

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family dinner. And not just family. When I say family, I mean adopted

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family, too. I cook something special. Everyone kind of brings

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a dish. If they have kids, they can kind of run around and do whatever

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they want. But you hang out, you have

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that final bit of respite before the week starts,

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and you have your community around you. That's

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something I really look forward to. And I wouldn't know that that's important to me

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if I weren't making time for the joyful act of cooking.

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And this is one of the reasons why I'm launching the community, like, hyper

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focused. Because for you to be able to identify those things that

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you want, you have to have a sense of safety, that

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it's okay for you to want those things

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and for you to have that sense of safety, that it's okay for you to

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want those things. You kind of have to be around other people who are

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already going for the things that they want, setting up their own vision

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for what their own ideal life looks like, and

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unapologetically going for it. There's a saying that

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I heard about ten years ago, and it was really painful to hear

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when it first came up. And it has continued to be painful as I've grown

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as a human, as I've changed, as I've evolved, as what I want has

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evolved. And it's that you are the sum total of the five people you spend

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the most time with. Now, the reason this is painful is because sometimes you

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look around at the five people you spend the most time with and you love

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them and you cherish them. And also, if you want the

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things that you want, if you're ever going to get them, you

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can't continue spending time with these people, or at least not as much

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as you have been. There's a distance that has to be

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created, and there's a new group of people out there that you

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need to start spending more time with. So I ask you,

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what do you do for fun?

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What are the things that bring you small moments of joy?

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And I challenge you this week to block

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off three to 5 hours to doing that thing.

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And it can be ridiculous. It could be making a blanket

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fort in your living room. It could be dressing up as a wizard and just

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going to a coffee shop and sitting there with your

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cappuccino and, like, chanting weird things over it. Actually, that sounds like a lot of

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fun. And I do have a wizard costume because I was Dumbledore for Halloween one

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year. However, the glasses never arrived. And you just can't be

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Dumbledore without the half moon glasses, which I

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get. He's probably reading old texts with weird, scribbly,

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small writing. But doesn't that drive you nuts? Doesn't it just feel like

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they're about to fall off your face? I wouldn't know because the glasses never arrived

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and I couldn't wear them.

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If you're struggling for ideas, here are some different areas you can check

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out. Eventbrite, I always forget exists, except when I'm going networking. There

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are tickets to goat yoga on Eventbrite. There are like haunted

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house tours, there's cooking classes, Airbnb

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experiences. That's another venue where you can figure

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out local fun things to do that get

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you out of your comfort zone. Weirdly, where I am now,

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there's a lot to do with like alpacas and llamas, which for a

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seaside town seems odd. I didn't realize

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we had that many alpacas and llamas here. This fun thing that you go to

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do will probably bring you joy. Probably isn't going to be like, oh my

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God, this is the thing I want to do for the rest of my life.

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But you're going to continue making time for fun things that

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are outside of your norm until you find that thing.

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Because again, you cannot strategize and

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plan and work on a business that is going to be successful in all the

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right ways that supports you in living your ideal

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life unless you know what that ideal life includes.

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So your work right now is to figure that out

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if you take this challenge and you find something that's fun, weird,

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wonky, outside your norm to do. I would love it if

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you found me on Instagram at Katie

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the coach, not Katie the

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couch, which a lot of people mistakenly thought I

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had. Katie the coach. I would love it if you found me there and sent

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me a dm and just tell me about what you did

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and if it was fun or not. That's

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data that tells you that's not something you want in your ideal life, that tells

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you you do not need to structure your business in a way. That lets

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you do that thing because. You don't want to do that thing. That's fine. I

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don't like being on boats. They make me sick. I'm not going to design my

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business around the idea that I want to be on a boat all the time.

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And I will personally keep you posted about what brings

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me joy and if. Things work out in this writing class, you might be

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seeing a fantasy novel for me in the coming years. Who knows?

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Wouldn't that be funny to be like, yes, I'm the host of the Weenie cast

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and I teach business strategy and I write fantasy novels. For

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a young adult, that would be the most adhd life.

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It would be so on brand. You see here, I'm already

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planning how. This could work for my business. We really can't

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help it. If you realize that you need people who are

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more supportive of you, branching out, doing fun things,

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trial and erroring your whole life to figure out what it is that you want.

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Then I want you to get on the waiting list for the hyper focused

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membership. My producer asked me when this is launching and my

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answer was when I get my shit together and he was like cool. If I

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asked your OBM Heather when this is launching,

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what would she answer is the date? And I said she would

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answer when Katie gets her shit together. But the community is absolutely

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going to be incredible because it's going to be people like you

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who want to create a life on their own terms

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and have to do so in a different way from

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all the neurotypicals. And I'm really excited for it and

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I really do need to get my together. And to get on the waiting list

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you want to go to weeniecast.com

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hyperfocus and you'll find that link in the show notes.

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I asked my clients about what she does for fun and she's like, I don't

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know. I bought a sign that says life is short, lick the bowl

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and it's meant for your kitchen, but I put it in the bathroom. Other than

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that, I'm not that fun. Squirrel, squirrel,

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squirrel, squirrel.