TCC Podcast #322: How Understanding Yourself Makes You a Better Business Owner with Martha Barnard-Rae

The people and stuff we mentioned on the show:

Join The Copywriter Accelerator
The Copywriter Think Tank
Kira’s website
Rob’s website
Martha’s website
The Copywriter Club Facebook Group
The Copywriter Underground
Free month of Brain.FM
Masha’s website

 

Full Transcript:

Rob Marsh:  Building a successful copywriting business is a challenge even when everything is running smoothly. But that almost never happens as most listeners would know. Several of our guests on the podcast in the past year started their business during the pandemic and worked really hard to overcome the challenges that presented. But there are other challenges to face down things like difficult clients growing your skills and some copywriters even have challenges, like things like ADHD. Today’s guest on The Copywriter Club Podcast is Martha Barnard-Rae and she opened up about what it’s like to run and grow a copywriting business with ADHD. And if you struggled with focus or lack of attention, you may want to stick around for this one. And even if you haven’t, there’s a lot of really good advice that she offers that applies to all copywriter businesses.

And now let me remind you that this podcast is sponsored by the Copywriter Accelerator. That’s our program that helps copywriters, content creators, and other marketers lay a solid foundation for their business. If you are already a good writer, you’re already good at the thing that you do, but you’re still struggling to build a business that supports you, the Copywriter Accelerator is the program that can help you get over the hump from thinking about your business as a CEO instead of as a writer or a service provider to strategies for getting yourself out in front of the right clients, building a great brand, creating packages that people want to buy the Accelerator will help you set up your business for success in the coming year and beyond. Go to the copywriteraccelerator.com now to join the waitlist so that you get notified as soon as we open up and we will link to that in the show notes just in case you are driving or otherwise occupied and can’t look that up right now.

And before we get to our interview, let me introduce my co-host today. It’s Masha Koyen. Masha is a copywriter and strategist for interior designers and builders. She’s a member of the Copywriter Think Tank and a former Accelerator member. Masha, welcome. Thanks for being here.

Masha Koyen:  Thanks so much for having me Rob. And thanks for the introduction and I’m so honored to be here. I’ve been a loyal listener for over three years and as you mentioned, I’ve been in Accelerator and now in the Think Tank and I absolutely love both communities. They’ve given me such tremendous support and community accountability and weekly trainings, all those things. So thank you so much.

Rob Marsh:  Amazing. So I’m thrilled to have you here and we’re going to chat in just a few minutes, but for now, let’s get to our interview with Martha.

Martha Barnard-Rae:  I was a teacher, I used to be an English teacher. So I live in a place called Denmark, Western Australia, which is on the southwest corner of Western Australia, 450 kilometers south of Perth, which is the most isolated city in the world. And the school that I worked at was 70 kilometers away from my house and my husband is the only paramedic in that place. So his hours are really weird and I was just, “I feel like doing all this driving and all of this stuff is just too hard and I don’t think it’s supposed to be this hard.” So I started looking for something that I could do and I’d always been a writer and I had a friend who was a copywriter and it turned out she was one of the first digital copywriters in Australia. She’s been at it for a while and she was just an amazing mentor to me and gave up her time.

I had Wednesdays off or something and we’d catch up on Wednesdays and talk about copywriting and we ended up being business partners for a couple of years. And it was really great because it meant that I didn’t make all the mistakes that you make in your first year of running a business because she had a template for everything. And she’d quoted for projects like this before and then after it just felt like, because she still had her own business at the same time and my business is called Word Candy and I was really focusing on Word Candy stuff and I just said, “I don’t know, I feel like we’re done here.” And she’s like, “Yeah definitely.” And we just parted ways amicably but we’re still friends. So it was a really, really good way to learn how to run a business as a copywriter.

Rob Marsh:  And forgive me if I’m mistaken, Martha, but you don’t sound like you’re from Western Australia. How did you end up there in the first place?

Martha Barnard-Rae:  So I’m from Toronto, Canada. And I moved here with a man and then I have a lot of friends that moved here with a man and they’re all broken up and so it’s like, “So-and-so moved to Australia with a man and they broke up.” And you’re like, “Yeah, obviously. Of course they’re broken up.” So we split and I stayed because Perth… I don’t know if you’ve been to Perth in Australia, a lot of people don’t make the trek, but Perth is offensively beautiful and it’s always warm and sunny and it’s gorgeous. So I stayed here and then I met my husband David and I stayed forever, which my parents are not happy about.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah, sure.

Kira Hug:  Okay. So can you share a rough timeline if you can add any dates as far as when you left teaching, when you started the partnership? Because that just helps me piece it all together.

Martha Barnard-Rae:  Yeah. It was at the beginning of 2019 that I was like, “I need to do something else.” I took a copywriting course and then I started that mentorship with my friend Beck and started the business during the beginning of 2019 and then by the end of 2019 because the school year ends in December here. So by the middle of the year I was like, “This is good. This is working, I’m earning money,” not enough to replace my salary. But I was lucky enough that that was okay for a period of time. So I resigned and finished teaching at the end of 2019, the best time to finish teaching in the history of the world.

Kira Hug:  Well, done.

Martha Barnard-Rae:  Because obviously of the pandemic. So when everybody at the beginning of 2020 was like, “We’re all learning how to work from home and it’s really hard.” And I was like, “Yeah, I’m learning how to work from home and it’s really hard.” And that was when I started to think, “There’s something going on here with focus and attention and that sort of stuff.” And then that partnership, I think we finished that in 2021. So yeah, we worked together in a partnership from 2019 to 2021 and then I’ve been a sole trader since April of 2021.

Kira Hug:  Okay. That’s really helpful. So as a follow-up, I guess, how would you advise other writers to look for a partnership like that? Because I think most of us don’t start off that way working closely, almost like an apprentice with another copywriter. I think that’s a really great way to start. So what would you look into to find an opportunity like that, so it works well for other copywriters?

Martha Barnard-Rae:  Listen, it was a complete fluke that that happened. So it wasn’t something that I planned. The interesting thing was that I got onto social media and was doing some social media stuff and my partner Beck, she just doesn’t have any social media channels for her business because she’s all word of mouth because she’s been doing it for so long. So she was the one who was like, “This is cute, but why are you doing it?” And I was like, “Because this is what you do.” So it was interesting because she didn’t know anything about social media and so we were able to help each other back and forth in that way. But I mean I guess you really need to find somebody that you gel with and someone who’s willing to make that investment in you. And I feel really grateful that she did.

And I think too because we were working together and she was earning money as well, it felt a little bit more… I didn’t feel so greedy for asking her for assistance and stuff, but we just had a situation where we would go, “I’ll work on this project, you work on this project.” But everything that went out for the first year and a half, she looked over. So I got a lot of feedback from a professional writer. I was listening to your podcast this afternoon with Mary, I can’t remember her last name.

Rob Marsh:  Atkins.

Martha Barnard-Rae:  Atkins, yeah. The writer talked about how you shouldn’t let your friends fly a plane or it wasn’t that, but it was getting advice and feedback from a person who actually knows what they’re talking about is so valuable and that was really valuable. So I think it’s really just luck that I found her and that I knew her. And then I guess I just asked for help and I said, “Hey, can I ask you some questions about copywriting?” And then she was just super generous. So I mean if anybody can swing that, I highly recommend it.

Rob Marsh:  So this might be a hard question to answer, but in these kinds of relationships, obviously somebody is giving you something that experienced the feedback, possibly helping find clients, that sort of thing. But you had to bring something to the table too. Obviously you knew something about social media, but what else did you do to make sure that that partnership worked for both partners for two years and it wasn’t just somebody giving you and giving you and giving you, which obviously is a recipe for failure eventually.

Martha Barnard-Rae:  Well, I’m really fun, Rob.

Rob Marsh:  I believe it.

Martha Barnard-Rae:  So we had a spreadsheet where we would put in whatever the project was and then the effort that each of us put into that project. And then it was very clear, we’d never really disagreed about how much effort it was, but it was really clear if I put in 75% of the effort then it would spit out the amount that is owed to me in the end. So we were both earning money commensurate with what we were doing on each project, but then I was doing everything else. So when it came to networking and marketing and all that stuff, I was the engine of the business and she was the one that came in at the end and was like, “I recommend this and I recommend that.” I mean I think it came at a good time for her as well, I think because she had always been super busy and was in her first slow period and she was getting a bit… She has a very fatalistic idea about these things and she was like, “Well, I guess this is it. I’m never going to write another word of copy again.”

So she was like, “I’m going to just work with Martha because maybe my whole business has dried up across all of Australia and maybe I need to focus more on this other type of business.” So it was just I think really good timing for both of us in that way.

Kira Hug:  Yeah, I’d love to hear what you did marketing-wise since you were putting in an effort there, what that looked like and what was working at that time, what pulled in clients and maybe it’s something that you’re doing today as well.

Martha Barnard-Rae:  Well, at that time Instagram was a different beast it feels like. So I just was on Instagram and being helpful and learning bits and pieces and sharing them and I targeted at the beginning of the business at the DIY copywriter with tips and tricks and that stuff. And then after a couple of years, I still do a little bit of that DIY stuff, but my target audience is not the DIYers so I’ve focused a little bit more on LinkedIn lately. But yeah, I feel like the whole marketing kettle of fish is a bit up in the air right now. So I don’t really honestly know what I am… Well, I think I’m getting some good leads and stuff from LinkedIn and putting a little bit more effort into that and that is paying off. But yeah, I started off just on Instagram and I really just focused on Instagram and now I’ve moved on to LinkedIn and my email list.

Rob Marsh:  And what does a typical project look like working with you, Martha? Is it generally websites, is it still social media, some combination of all of the things? If I’m hiring you, what am I generally hiring you to do?

Martha Barnard-Rae:  So I don’t do social media anymore because I just don’t enjoy it. Most of my projects at the moment are website copy projects. Because I used to be a teacher, I’ve done quite a bit of work with schools. So at the moment I’m working with a school in New South Wales, which is in another state across the country and they do a semi-annual yearbook that I’m writing all the articles for. So they’ve realized, “These are a bit not great and no one’s really reading them,” and that’s a bit of a retainer thing. So we’ll do that and then we’ll do a website project and then we’ll just work on different things with that client.

And then a lot of website copy and now more and more, because I’ve been promoting my hyper-focus week service, people are realizing the value of email sequences and nurturing the clients that already know about them and that stuff. So I’m doing quite a bit of that as well.

Kira Hug:  So when you left that partnership ended in 2021, what did you do? Did you have to work on your mindset or is there anything that you had to focus on to take that leap or did it just feel really natural and you were ready and you just took off after that?

Martha Barnard-Rae:  Yeah. Well, it felt really natural because she and I had a conversation and I said, “I want to do a bunch of stuff and I wanted to invest a bit in the business,” and she just has a very lean business model which has worked for her. So I was really not interested in putting money back into the business. And there was stuff that I knew I wanted to do. I’ve also been doing quite a lot of speaking gigs and that sort of stuff, which is my own thing. And that had nothing to do with her. So it was a matter of there are lots of things that I want to do. And at one point I said, “What do you think?” And she said, “I honestly don’t really think about Word Candy that much.

And I was like, well yeah. And we just both went like, “Yeah, I think it’s time to separate.” And we had a partnership agreement from the beginning where I think we both put in 1500 bucks or something and we had a partnership agreement where we laid out what we each expected and what we had planned to do in the event that we wanted to split up or whatever.

So we just did those things and then it was fine, which was really good. I know that a lot of partnerships can go really badly and the reason why I wanted to separate is because I could feel myself getting resentful about I live and breathe this business and I think I pictured it also being more of us working together and it just didn’t end up being that way because of just the way that we work and her other work and that stuff. But it was really great while it was happening and then we just ended it at just the right time.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah. It sounds like it worked out perfectly. So when you were telling us about your transition away from teaching, you hinted at this, at least I picked up on it that you found it difficult to focus as we came into 2020. And I mean looking back, I’m not sure that that wasn’t a pretty common thing for a lot of us because so much going on, but for you, I think it was a little bit more than just the pandemic. Will you talk a little bit about that?

Martha Barnard-Rae:  Yeah. So the really interesting thing with teaching is that it’s very regimented. So it’ll be like, “I have 20 minutes to do this thing,” and so you just do it. But when you’re working from home there’s unlimited time. So what I was finding is, I was getting really frustrated by the fact that I would have these three things that I wanted to do and I really wanted to be productive and I just wouldn’t do them. And I was like, “I know that I can do these things, I have the skills to do these things, I want to do these things and I just wouldn’t.”

So I actually wasn’t concerned about it really because everybody was like, “Working from home is so hard.” And because at that time everybody was working from home and actually, I had a doctor’s appointment for a completely unrelated thing and this doctor just was asking me about anxiety because I had been diagnosed with anxiety after I had kids, which is very common for women with any issue. They’re like, “You’ve had kids, you must have anxiety.” So I was diagnosed with anxiety and I was talking to this doctor who happened to be a friend’s brother and was happy to have this super long appointment with me, which was just amazing.

And he eventually was like, “So what is your anxiety like?” And I said, “I just get really overwhelmed and overstimulated.” And he was like, “How do you go with grocery shopping?” And I was like, “I cannot grocery shop. What about looking for things?” So he asked me all these questions and finally, I was like, “Do you think I have ADHD or something?” And he was like, “Well, I can’t diagnose you but there is this diagnostic test that you can do,” and you guys, I got a really high score and I got off the Zoom and I went out into the kitchen and my husband was standing there surrounded by every dish and vegetable that I’d used to make my lunch two hours earlier.

And I was like, “John thinks I have ADHD.” And my husband David, he looked around and he’s like, “Yeah, that makes sense.” I used to be a teacher and so I thought that I knew quite a bit about ADHD, but it turned out I didn’t really know very much about it at all and it really manifests differently in women and girls as well. So I learned a lot about it and what I really learned is that like okay, this thing about me, this affects every part of my life. I think a lot of people think that ADHD is just about you can’t focus but it’s not. There are between eight and 12 executive functions that our brains know how to do to some degree.

And people with ADHD can really struggle with some or all of those executive functions. So there are things like task initiation, task completion, metacognition, which is making connections, changing from one task to another, but also emotional regulation. So there are some really significant things that are affected by ADHD. So when I was like I just want to do these three things and I can’t do them, that affects your mindset and why can’t I do… I’m not stupid. And I was like, “Well, maybe this isn’t the right job for me.” You just start questioning everything. But then when I got diagnosed with ADHD and started taking medication to help me with my focus, I was able to feel better throughout the day and have these successes as opposed to “failures” throughout the day.

So that when my kids got home at the end of the day I had more resilience in the tank to deal with that stress if there was stress, if that makes sense. So I describe ADHD as death by a thousand cuts. So when you explain the things, the ways that it affects you, it feels like just really insignificant things. But over time it’s just really draining and you just have to work harder than other people at normal “easy things.” So like grocery shopping. So I hate looking for things and grocery shopping is just an hour of looking for things, I would rather die. So those things that everybody finds so easy, I was like, “Why can’t I not do these things?” And a lot of that is to do with ADHD.

Kira Hug:  Okay. I can relate to the grocery store for sure. How do we know if we’re overwhelmed and just a naturally anxious person or if it is ADHD? I mean definitely, we should get tested. That’s definitely a good step. But I think that’s where I get tripped up because I’m like, “Am I just an overwhelmed person or is this something else?”

Martha Barnard-Rae:  Yeah. So there are reasons why women and girls are not diagnosed. One of them is that the little boy child that you think about when you think about ADHD that is bouncing off the walls and behaving, my youngest son is, that’s stereotypical, but in girls, it manifests in different ways. So it can manifest, like the hyperactivity can be in the mind rather than in the body. So if you’re anxious, if you’re an overthinker, it can lead to stomach aches or muscle pain. And there’s all different kinds of ways that hyperactivity can manifest.

Honestly, I mean I know there’s all this conjecture about people self-diagnosing on TikTok, but that’s actually the democratization of medical care. So it’s actually people sharing their lived experience and other people can go like, “Oh my god, I just thought I was useless. I didn’t realize that I had this neurological condition.” So my doctor said to me, “Girls also work around diagnosis or get looked over because the pressures put on them to be compliant and to be good and to be quiet. They just find ways around people noticing that anything’s wrong.” And my doctor said to me, you put all these things in place to help yourself and then they work until they don’t work anymore. So before I had kids, I was okay, I didn’t really struggle in school and I didn’t really struggle in university, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t have ADHD.

People have it in really different manifestations I guess. But when the things that you put in place fall apart, it’s distressing. He said, and he said, but there’s so much we can do to help you. ADHD is the most treatable condition in psychiatry. So if you are resonating with the content that people are dismissive, but the content that people with lived experience are making and you’re going, “Oh my god. Yeah, I really resonate with that,” then go to your doctor and have a conversation with them. There are tests that you can do online and all that stuff, but I don’t know how it works in the states. But in Australia, I went to this GP and then I was referred to a psychiatrist and the GP wrote this letter that was like, “Martha got…” There’s inattentive type ADHD, hyperactive type ADHD, and combined type ADHD. ADD is not a thing.

And I got really high scores on both inattention and hyperactivity. So I have combined type ADHD, and he said something in his letter, “Martha got five out of six on the first half and 10 out of 12 on the second half and she missed one question altogether.” And I was like, “How dare you?” So it was pretty obvious and it was just so affirming to be like oh my god. I couldn’t do all these really difficult things but I just can’t do these normal things because they’re so boring. And my mind is just always after the dopamine. It’s a brain function issue and you can’t get around it by positive thinking or lavender. There’s some real good things that you can do that can help.

Rob Marsh:  And I imagine tracking along with this kind of a thing, the rise of phones and social media and distractions and notifications and all of the things going along just makes it worse. Is that true?

Martha Barnard-Rae:  Yeah. I mean it does. For example, the other day I was having a really hard time with… The ADHD was strong in me on Sunday. So I was trying to leave the house with my son and we were going to meet a friend and I was late and this woman that I was late to see was the woman who organized the TEDx event where I did the TED talk and she’s a dear friend and she knows that I have ADHD. And I was like, “I don’t want to tell her because then she’s going to know that it’s because of ADHD and you just get so negative towards yourself.” So I was nervous about being late and I was nervous about telling her. And then I went in and out of the house seven times probably because I forgot the wetsuit and I forgot this thing and I forgot that thing.

But the most ADHD thing that happened that day was I found myself standing in the kitchen with no recollection of why I was in the kitchen because I had forgotten I was hungry. And you’re standing there and you’re like, “I know I must have come here for a reason.” And then you have to think about it and you’re like, “I’m hungry.” So it’s just much more than a distraction. Sometimes it’s like just wading through water and it affects sensory stuff and the way that I hear and process things. And it just is amazing to me now that I know all this stuff. I don’t know how I was living before. I understood this about myself. And yeah, phones are distracting, but I also find looking at the phone and taking a few minutes and just, I find it actually regulates me a little bit.

So if I am overwhelmed or whatever, I can sit down and watch some talks or read some articles or something. And I find that very calming. I mean, listen, I do get distracted by the phone a lot, but it’s bigger than that kind of, “Look, a butterfly. It’s a real…” Yeah, an all-encompassing thing that’s really difficult to explain. And thankfully, I was diagnosed at a time where a lot of people are at least trying to be understanding, which is lucky.

Rob Marsh:  So we’re about halfway through our interview with Martha. Let’s break you in and talk about a few things that stood out to us. So Masha, I’m going to let you start. Initial thoughts, what these first 30 minutes or so has struck you as being important?

Masha Koyen:  Yeah, I absolutely loved this conversation with Martha, especially about her partnership. I love the idea of having a partner, like she said, someone you gel with. I think there’s not enough conversation about partnership with copywriters just because it’s so hard to find a good one. But it got me thinking for a second. My dad had a partner for over 20 years and he was a very successful businessman. He was an entrepreneur before I even knew what entrepreneurship was. And he was with a partner for 20 years. I think it was such a perfect partnership because you have to be aligned, you have to balance each other out. They were completely polar opposites, but I think that’s why it works.

So it got me thinking that I’d love to maybe consider partnership in the future. I provide website copywriting. I’d love to find maybe a web designer to partner up with, but I don’t know. It’s hard. What about you? What do you think about that?

Rob Marsh:  It’s funny because every time Kira and I are asked to appear on somebody else’s podcast, we tend to get asked about partnerships. So we’ve definitely talked about it quite a bit and we’ve talked about it here on our own podcast a bit. But I think that a lot of us could do more, maybe not even with formal partners, but having other service providers that we can rely on, like you said, connecting with a designer in your business. So if you write sales pages or websites, being able to work with a designer who is familiar with your processes can make it so much smoother for the client. Can be a value add that you can charge for. So rather than just saying, “Hey, here’s all the copy and go find yourself a designer,” or even here’s a couple of designers that I recommend, being able to take that project and say, “Okay. Here’s the copy. If we’re good to go, let’s start working with the designer to put it together.” I think that that can work really well.

Obviously, that’s not the only partnership. You could have a couple of writers who are working together doing different things. You could partner with an office OBM, business manager, those kinds of things. I know copywriters who have partnered with product developers and they’ve done the marketing while the product developer created a supplement or a SaaS product or something like that. So there’s lots of different things that we can do as partners and I think it’s definitely something that more of us should consider.

Masha Koyen:  Yeah, absolutely. I agree with you.

Rob Marsh:  So another thing that really stood out to me is Martha started out by talking about how she got started and the idea of being an apprentice for somebody else. And this is something I think is really underrated and maybe not enough of us do. So if you’re starting out in an agency or even oftentimes you’ll work with a senior copywriter or you’ll work with a creative director or somebody else who can give you that guidance. But a lot of freelancers just tough it out, which I think is why programs like the Accelerator can be really helpful.

But I love that Martha found somebody that could give her direction and advice that she could learn from and that she could then provide something back as part of that partnership. So she said that she was doing social media and she became the engine of the business, so she was giving something back in return for that feedback. So I think that’s another thing that more of us can be doing is just looking for that person for whether it’s an official apprentice relationship or just somebody who can give you that feedback. Really important.

Masha Koyen:  Yeah, I agree. And I think I had an unofficial apprenticeship when I started my business and I’m so happy I didn’t jump into entrepreneurship right away like 17 years ago when I still had so much to learn. I think many of us should be testing waters and trying different things and working with more experienced writers or other service providers just to get that critical experience. Because that’s honestly the only way to… Not the only way, but the best way to get it.

Rob Marsh:  Experience and feedback are I think the two things that will help us grow the most. Okay. So last thing I just want to touch on, while we’re still talking about this first half of the interview, obviously Martha is talking a lot about ADHD and the second half of the interview will go even deeper. I’m not an expert at ADHD or any attention disorders, I don’t think that I have. Sometimes my attention strays or whatever, but I don’t think that I’ve had that experience. So I really appreciate that she’s talking about this because there are clearly others in our community and among entrepreneurs and people who start their own businesses, it’s pretty common. So just being really upfront about some of the struggles.

But she said one thing that I think was really key that just caught my ear. She said that things like mantras, positive thinking is not enough. If you have something like this, you can’t just will yourself out of it. So yeah, if you’re struggling with attention, talk to a doctor, you may have this thing. And if a doctor can diagnose you and help you get treatment, whether that be pharmaceutical or other strategies for managing it, that just will help you not only in your business but in your life. So I’m just glad she shared so much about her struggle with this.

Masha Koyen:  And I’m no expert either in this and I don’t think I have it. However, it’s funny, when Martha was talking about it and she was listing things like jumping from task to task and test completion, I’m like, “Yeah, I have that. I wonder if I have it or not.” So I definitely experienced something like that, but it got me thinking that if something keeps happening in your life, if there is some type of pattern, if something keeps bothering you, maybe it’s worth looking into it and understanding maybe there’s an underlying issue or something that needs to be resolved to have a better life or a more effective working environment. So definitely worth looking into things.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah, I think that’s a really good point. Paying attention to what’s going on, noticing patterns, negative patterns, positive patterns, leaning into the stuff that works, figuring out the stuff that doesn’t, if appropriate, talk to a doctor or a therapist or a counselor of some kind. Really important just to be aware of it because if we don’t read those early signals, we can get a long way down, burnout, struggles, failure, and that’s what we’re all trying to avoid.

Masha Koyen:  All right. Let’s go back to the interview with Martha to hear how she deals with negative thoughts.

Kira Hug:  Yeah. No, I mean it all sounds very relatable. I find myself in many places in my life where I’m like, “What am I doing? Why am I here? What was I doing?” I’m wondering how you have moved your way through that negative thinking that still might be with you, where it can be a downward spiral. Or even just the shift now that you know you have ADHD, is it easier to not beat yourself up? I mean, how do you deal with that? Because it can be a constant just like, “Why am I distracted? Why can’t I get stuff done?” And maybe you still deal with that today. It sounds like you were dealing with that maybe even Saturday. What are some of your go-to activities or not tricks, but to navigate through that so you don’t beat yourself up all the time?

Martha Barnard-Rae:  I’m in therapy and that is helpful. I am so self-critical that I didn’t even realize that I was self-critical at all. So that’s a thing that I’m working on. But what I noticed was in the beginning when I first realized that I had ADHD, I was actually a lot more compassionate to myself because I was like, “Oh my god, you aren’t just like shit, there’s actually a reason.” So that made me feel better for a little bit of time. So I’m the chairperson of my kid’s school board somehow, and I had a big day of work this day. This was a couple months ago, and I’ve got these two dogs and I was like, “I’m going to take the dogs out. I’ll get all the things done.” And I had a folder with all the papers for the board meeting, this is related to your question, and I took the dogs out and one of the dogs rolled in a… There’s dead kangaroos up in this paddock near our house, and it rolled in a dead kangaroo and he got it on its harness.

And I took the harness  off the dog and I was like, “I’m just going to put this in a bucket of soapy water and then I’m going to go to this meeting.” And I put it in a bucket of soapy water. And then I left the house and the water was full blast running into the bucket, into the sink, but there’s a kid’s pair of pants in the sink. So it is fully flooded.

So I go to the meeting and it was great. I was super impressed and all the board felt really validated and we did a really good job and we did really important work. And then after one of the women who’s on the board, who’s a friend of mine, was like, “How’s it going?” And I was like, “I am a (beep). I am a mess if you want to…” And I was like, “I’m overwhelmed and I’m overstimulated and I just feel crazy.” And she’s like, “Well, you were amazing in the meeting.” And I was like, “Yeah, I was pretending.” That’s what masking is, is where you act what you think you have to act like. And she was like, “Well, you’re really good at it.” And I said, “Well, yeah. I think I’ve been doing it for my whole life,” and what I found… So I went home that night and my husband, who is just such a darling, was panicking because he knew that I would be really hard on myself for flooding the laundry room.

So he had cleaned it all up and he was just really worried about how upset I would be about it. But I actually found that being honest with my friend and saying, “I feel awful and I’ve been faking this whole time and I’ve been masking,” that honesty filled me up. I call it the resilience bowl. It filled up this little bowl of resilience for me that day so that when I got home and David was like, “The laundry room is completely flooded.” Instead of going into this shame spiral because he’d already cleaned most of it up, I was like, “The laundry room is flooded.” And I was like that doesn’t say anything bad about me as a person. It’s just a fact. The laundry room was flooded. And David was like, “Who is this woman?” And I was just like, “I don’t know,” and then I just went read my book and I really think that having had that moment of honesty and acknowledgment helped a lot to regulate my overreaction or reaction to that thing.

So that’s not a hack, but I think that just having a better understanding of why I have the reactions that I have can make me more compassionate. And then also I do have to, and I’m not good at this, but I do have to go, you need to just take a break now. Now I can feel my body when I need to take a break. There’s this thing called ADHD burnout, which is when you’re just really… Well for me, I’m really sensitive to noise and I’m really exhausted and really irritable and everyone becomes my enemy and it’s just rough. And that’s when I’m like, “I need to take some time off. I need to have a big sleep and I need to just do less.” And that’s very hard to do.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah.

Kira Hug:  Rob, I have to interrupt you. Are you going to ask the question? I think you’re going to ask, I hope you’re going to ask about the kangaroo?

Rob Marsh:  Probably not. I’d say the kangaroos to the end. Well, let me ask my question first, then we can come back to the kangaroo. So Martha, I’m really curious, you’ve talked about how this has all impacted your life, your personal life, but how have you changed your business or the projects that you work on in order to make this work for your business? Which, I’m guessing, there may be quite a few people who are listening and, okay, this is resonating and maybe I need to make some changes in the way that I work with clients in order to make this work.

Martha Barnard-Rae:  People with ADHD are a huge percentage more likely to be entrepreneurs. So Rob, I think that you are definitely right. I think in terms of my business, I feel like for the past probably a year, I’ve really been at a stage where I can say no to stuff that I don’t want to do or that I’m not particularly interested in. So that has been really good because if I’m not interested in something… I mean, it’s like if anybody’s not interested in something, it’s difficult. But if a person with ADHD isn’t interested in that thing, it’s just painful. So there’s that. And then I’ve really had a hard time understanding until when I was booked. So I would take on projects with really no, and I would always be like, “Yeah, I can do that in two weeks. I can do that in two weeks.”

Sometimes I was like, “I cannot do all of these things in two weeks.” So it’s taken a really long time to get a system that really helps me to go… When I’m on a call with somebody, I’ll be like, “I can do that at the end of November.” And then because I have the system, I can make that judgment and then not overbook. But the really important thing that I just realized i