Entrepreneurship & Neurodivergence (Part 1 of…a few?)

When I started my first business during the pandemic, I didn’t have a lot of direction and I certainly didn’t have a business plan. The biggest driving factor for me was that despite the numerous industries that I had worked in, I didn’t feel like I fit in anywhere. Office work was far too droll and retail made me want to pull my hair out, so what was the happy medium? I wanted to work somewhere I didn’t dread going to and to do work that didn’t feel soul-sucking. Other people seemed to at least be able to tolerate the work they were doing, so why couldn’t I?

Here’s a little lore for ya. I moved to Portland in the winter of 2018 and promptly got divorced (it was the best decision I had made at this point in my life). After the divorce finalized in the fall of 2019, I decided that I needed to take my life into my own hands and make it what I wanted it to be. I spent a lot of time following someone else’s dream, it was time to follow mine. I attended esthetics school, hoping to get a better paying job that wasn’t retail and wasn’t office work. I needed something to buy me more time to figure out what it was I wanted to do long-term. I finished esthetics school very conveniently in February 2020 and got my license a week before we went into quarantine. This promptly shattered the job market for esthetics in Portland and I have yet to see it return to what it was pre-pandemic. When I started school, there were a lot of jobs in the industry and suddenly there were almost none.

For the remainder of 2020 I was able to keep the office job I was working and worked remotely. This made me realize that remote work was something I needed to be able to do eventually. I was thriving! The freedom of aligning my day however I wanted was so good for my brain. 2020 was also the year I realized I probably had ADHD and that this was why I was struggling so hard to work in the same environments other people seemed to do well with. This was also the year that I realized corporations were likely not going to ever provide me with the work environment I needed in order to be functional and happy. Micro-managing was making me feel literally bonkers and I was on the verge of just straight-up rage-quitting. I stuck it out for another year (let’s be honest though I really checked out and was barely doing my job), but once they wanted me back in the office 5 days a week I put in my notice and found a different job that was more flexible.

During that last year at the office job, I started two businesses. I opened my esthetics studio and I was designing and screen printing t-shirts out of my apartment. I put most of my efforts into growing my esthetics studio and was finally able to go full-time there in 2022. I dropped the screen printing (not very fun to do in your apartment) and focused my extra time on my branding and web design for my esthetics studio moving forward. (Spoiler-alert, this was a turning-point for me and directly lead to me launching Marmalade two years later!)

Business-ownership was very eye opening for me and I have learned a lot about myself over the last four years. I realized that if no one was going to give me a chance or allow me the accommodations I needed to work comfortably - I was going to give myself one. I loved esthetics, but I did come to realize as someone with a disability and mental health struggles - it was really hard to show up every single day. It was challenging to be present for clients when my mind was racing or I was incredibly stressed. I think folks associate business-ownership with Scrooge McDuck levels of money but like, only Jeff Bezos is living like that. I was still paycheck to paycheck, because of years of being underpaid and overworked. When I thought I was finally going to catch up, something would come up and bring me back down.

Okay, now that I’ve told you all the lore, you can get where I am coming from when I say that business ownership was the best and worst thing for me as a neurodivergent person. I ended up absolutely wrecking my body doing esthetics. Apparently, sitting like a shrimp all day is bad for your bod. AND come to find out, we neurodivergent folks are more likely to be hypermobile (I am) and that means that strain on your muscles and body can be more severe (it was). I hit my best revenue months in 2023 but destroyed my body in the process. I was in pain every day and spent all of my days off in appointments trying to fix my body. I felt very defeated, so many other people in my industry were working way more and making more money. I had finally found a job I didn’t dread going to! Why wouldn’t my body just let me?

If you are also neurodivergent and/or disabled, this might be something you are familiar with. Why can’t my brain just let me? Why can’t my body just work? It was challenging not to fall into the thought pattern of blaming my body, I had come so far and it felt like it was going to be taken from me. I knew that I wanted to maintain self-employment, I just wasn’t sure how I was going to do that. I felt like the hustle culture and solopreneur folks were not my vibe and also gave pretty bad advice.

This is where business ownership can be life-changing for a neurodivergent person. It allows you to shape your work environment exactly as you need it to be. I am not going to tell you that EVERY neurodivergent person should own a business, it is not for everyone and since neurodivergence is a spectrum, it can look a little different for each person.

Personally, I think that once I learned to better manage my ADHD, it helped me become a better business owner. If there’s one thing about me, I am going to learn how to do something on the fly and keep things moving forward. The whole “jack-of-all-trades, master of none” is not necessarily true for folks with ADHD. I am a master of lots of things, even if they are not always useful. I am also very confident in my ability to learn new software or a new skill as needed. These traits have allowed me to continuously improve my skills and nurture the creative side of my brain that felt very neglected in every job I’ve had before.

Sometimes I do think it would be nice to be able to “clock out” and not worry about the business when I am off. I haven’t been able to do that for three years, and now running two businesses while being in school and having a part-time contract job, my plate has felt overflowing and the to-do list neverending. I am confident that I am taking the right steps for me and my future by building a sustainable, online business that will give me the financial and physical freedom to live my life as I want and need to.

I truly wish this for everyone, if not business ownership I at least wish you the freedom to exist comfortably in a world that wasn’t really built for us. I plan to talk more about neurodivergence and entrepreneurship and how we can make businesses that work well for us. I may be here primarily to give you rad branding and websites, but I also want to see your business succeed! If you’d like to continue to hear from me, you can sign up for the email list. I promise not to spam ya. <3