Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel. In this episode, we're going to talk about

the three signs that the time for you to start your business is

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

mindset coach. And welcome to the Weenie cat.

Let's play a little game, shall we? Okay. So whatever your job

is now, whatever role you have, whatever work you

do, I want you to imagine. Imagine that you're

still doing this thing five years from now.

What does that feel like?

Now, let's go forward to ten years from now. You're still in this

job. You're still doing this thing. How does that

feel? And let's jump ahead 20

years. You've been here for 20 years doing the same exact

thing over and over and over again, maybe for a different company.

Are you okay with this? If you are a full bodied,

yes. I love this. Good for you. Amazing. You are where you're meant

to be. And hopefully it evolves with you over time. But

if you had a visceral reaction

against that idea, if you got a. Little sick to your stomach,

if you cringed, if your breathing

got a little short,

this is your sign that

your time is now. Whatever it is that you're doing day in,

day out, that's causing you to have that reaction. When you think

about doing this for. The next five years, this is your wake up

call that that is not what you're meant to do. And

chances are you know what you want to do. But for whatever

reason, you're either afraid to go for it, are convinced

that you're not enough to do it, smart enough,

creative enough, brave enough, funny enough, thin

enough, or you're intimidated by how. Much there is to

do and how much there is to figure out. And it feels overwhelming

to you. So here is your

choice. I know I said this was a game. It's not a very fun

game. Sorry

I dangled the idea of, like, a fun game in front of you, and then

I just made you think about all these awful things in the future. I'm

sorry. But it got you to pay attention, didn't

it? So here's the choice you have through this awful game

that I'm making you play.

Here's the choice. You can choose to believe these things.

You can choose to be afraid of going for what you really

want. You are an autonomous human being. If

that's what you want. I want you to have that fear. Go for

it. You can continue to believe that you're not

good enough to go for it. I know a lot of you think

that you've gotten to your level of success out of pure luck.

Like, oh my God, I'm just so lucky, I just happen to meet the

right people. No, you happen to be an excellent

networker who creates really valuable

relationships. I just happened to say something smart

once. No, you intentionally built a knowledge base

that allowed for you to make that smart comment that

got people's attention. But if you want to believe it's pure luck, go for it.

You might also have some impostor syndrome. You might think that you have

everyone fooled. You know what? If you got this far

by fooling people, good on you.

Good on you. Well done.

If you can get this far by fooling everyone in your world

without actually committing any fraud or doing anything wrong,

don't do that. But if you've fooled people into

thinking that you are competent and you get the job done,

you can continue to think that you're fooling everyone.

Or you can start believing that you actually do know what you're

doing. There's no one out there who can make you believe that except for

you. And sure, going for what you really want is

scary and big, and there are a lot of parts to it often,

especially if it's starting a business. And you can choose to live in

the overwhelm of it, or you can choose to do

something about it. You can choose to seek out help. You can choose to

just be overwhelmed and do it anyway. My favorite question right now is, what

if it were fun? What if it were easy? I bet you

deep down you know the fun, not overwhelmed

way to do this thing that you want to do. But the choice is

you can either choose to believe that you can do it, or you can choose

to believe all the bullshit that you fed yourself and let other people feed

you, that it's just not going to happen for you if you do that. Let's

talk through what your life is. Going to be like.

Now. Because you probably have ADHD. Because this is an ADHD business

building podcast. You have shiny object syndrome. You

have excellent creative ideas all the time,

and that's both a gift and a curse. If you

choose to do stuff with those ideas, think about where your life

is going to go. You get to choose to be in that

abundant state where you're constantly creating opportunities for things to

work out. Or you can be that

friend in your group who's always talking about their business

ideas and oh, I could do this if I really wanted

to. Oh, here's another idea I had. Oh, and here's another

one. Someday I'm going to start this business.

I used to be this friend, and let me tell you, it got boring

really fast. I feel really bad for my circle of friends back then.

They had to listen to me spew out ideas that they knew I would

never act on. And it's kind of like

when someone has a really massive crush on someone, but they're

not going to ask the person out, so you just obsess over them.

They obsess over them. They're like, oh, my God, he wore an orange shirt today.

I don't like him in orange. I wish he'd worn blue.

Oh, my God. Did you see what they posted on their instagram? Oh, my God.

Who are they hanging out with? Do you think they're dating them? Like, if I

were dating them, I'd take them somewhere better. You're doing this in your business, in

your nonexistent business, just like that person is doing

all that speculating on their nonexistent relationship.

It's boring. As your shiny object syndrome is

not going anywhere. Your ability to come up with creative

ideas for businesses and money making opportunities

is not going anywhere. So if you choose

to believe all these negative things that you believe about

yourself and to not go for what you really want, you do not

have a choice. You are going to end up being the all

ideas, no action friend that people avoid spending time

with. And at some point, you're going to cross that line of becoming the

shoulda coulda woulda storyteller. Oh, back in the day, I should have

done this. My life would be so different. Oh, that one

time I had an opportunity, I could have taken it,

and this is what my life would look like, but I didn't.

Oh, you know, if I would have done that, things would be so different

right now. I know I've talked a lot about your deathbed, and I know it's

a little morbid, but don't you want to have better stories on your

deathbed? Don't you want to be more interesting

on your deathbed? I know I do. But if you're

okay with having a really boring death and having people

just roll their eyes and be like, yeah, this is sad, but can you just

go already? This is like, yeah, we love you and we're going to miss you,

but shut up. We're tired of you doing the show to Kota. Wouldas like we

had to listen to it your whole life. Can you please just go be in

peace and leave us in peace. That's an extreme.

I hope no one says that on your deathbed. But anyway, it could happen.

And I know it feels like you need to have every

single step, every single part of this figured out

before you start taking action on it. But that is the

biggest excuse, the biggest bullshit excuse that people have.

Here are the three things that you have to have figured out, and you don't

even have to have them all figures out before you make this

change, before you start a business. So the number one thing that you

can figure out before you figure everything else out is, what am I going to

say next? Well, you'll have to keep listening to find out. But first, squirrel,

squirrel, squirrel, squirrel.

So, the number one thing that you can figure out before you figure

everything else out is what you want to do. Do you want to build

houses? Do you want to coach, be a

consultant? Do you want to tutor people on the english

language? What is the thing that you're most passionate about doing?

Growing up, I was so jealous of the kids that I went to school

with who were so sure that they wanted to be a doctor. They had no

question, like, they wanted to do medicine or they wanted to

get into law, they wanted to be a lawyer. They wanted to be in a

courtroom. Whereas I flitted from, oh, maybe I'll be a fashion

designer. Oh, I could be a teacher. Oh, I could do this. Oh, maybe I'll

be a doctor. No, actually, I don't like that. I don't like science. Okay,

great. Maybe I'll go back to being a teacher. Oh, maybe I'll be a

politician. Oh, you know what? I'll be a news anchor,

because I'm on Harrich High School's news, sports, weather, and more every week.

Unfortunately, when you're starting a business, there's no clear cut

path, especially if you're doing something that just

hasn't existed up until now. Coaching is one of those things if you want

to be a coach. I know, like, coaches didn't really exist

the way they do now 20 years ago, when we were all kind of

daydreaming about what we'd want to be when we grow up. So if

you have a clearish idea of what it is that you want to

do every single day, that is enough. The

rest can be figured out. It's what I do with my clients every single

day. It can be figured out, but you have one of the

most foundational parts already decided

on. This is your sign to go do it.

The second thing that you can have figures out, and you don't have to have

the first one figured out. If you have this one figured out is, who do

you want to help? Who do you want to help? What's the

impact you want to have in the world? Do you want to help

people who are getting promoted into management for the very first

time and have no idea what they're doing when it comes to motivating

other human beings to do what they need to do? Do you want to set

them up for success so they can climb the ladder and reach their

career goals? Or do you want to

work with parents whose children have just been diagnosed with a learning disability?

Maybe you just went through that and you want to pay it forward

because you figured it out for your family and you want to support others

who you know are struggling with this. You know that's who you want to help,

but you have no idea how that is. Fine. You have a foundational

piece. Maybe you want to teach people the magic of underwater

basket weaving. This one's a little harder, I have to say.

There's not a big market for it. But you know what? I am a firm

believer if you are passionate enough about it, it

can be turned into a business. However, you might want to save

up more money for the Runway to get started if you're doing underwater

basket weaving. Yeah. Anyway, so if

you know who you want to help, that is enough to get

started. This is your sign that it's time to get started.

The third thing that you can have figured out, even if you don't have the

first two figured out, is, what kind of space are you

craving in the world? Are you craving a

laundry mat wine bar with a television so that

you can go and do laundry and have a glass of wine and hang out

with friends and watch a show? Are you craving a cat cafe

where you can go and play with cats? Hopefully, you're not allergic to them, because

that would be inconvenient. Are you craving a

community where people get to figure out their own version of spirituality

together without the constraints of the beliefs

of religious institutions? Are you craving a community that

supports women who want to run for office because you want to

run for office and there's no support for you? Let me tell

you, if you want it, it is wanted

in the world. We think that we're really creative

people. We think that we're the only one who

has our problems, right? We think that we're the only one who

wants the weird that we want. Can we just acknowledge that the book

50 shades of gray proved this wrong? Right. How many

people are like, oh, God, I'm really into kink but no one else is. And

all of a sudden there's a whole book series and the freaking whole world went

absolutely nuts for it. Hey, if you want to start a BDsm

club, there are people out there who will sign up for it. If you

want a space in the world, I guarantee you there are other people out there

who also want it. Even if you have nothing else figured out,

that is enough to start with. To start a

business. You don't need anything more to start now.

And I know a lot of you are going to think, well, I have these

ideas all the time. I have business ideas all the time. And then I

move on. I get excited about another one and another one and another one.

What happens if I start the business and then my ADHD takes over

and I get bored with it and I want to move on to something else?

Can we talk about that whole belief system for a second? You had an

idea for a business. You started it. You learned all the steps

to starting a business while starting this one business. And at some

point you decide you want to start another business and leave this behind.

Guess what? You just gained all the skills that you're going to need to be

able to start that second business. It's

not like you're going to be starting from square one. You're going to be starting

from square seven. You're just going to have to redo the

steps to build that second business. Bonus.

If that first business isn't reliant on you as

the brand, you can sell it. There are people

out there who buy businesses from other human beings all the

time. How cool would that be if you started a business

three years in, it's profitable, but you're just not feeling it

anymore. And there's someone who's like, hey, if you're selling this, I would

like to buy it because I see it's profitable and I have

some ideas to grow it. And if you're no longer interested and you want to

move on to other things, I will pay you actual monies, actual

dollars. I will put them from my bank account into your bank

account so that you can go and buy things with them so that I

can have this business. Imagine what that

would feel like. And then to be able to go and start another

business where you might continue to be interested in it forever

or where you might be able to sell it again in a

few years when you get bored and you want to move on. Once you learn

how to do something once, like you learned how to ride a bike

once. Okay, every year when spring comes around and it's

nice weather and you can go bike riding again, do you have to relearn how

to ride the bike? No.

Maybe you got a new bike and it has like a new feature and you

just kind of have to learn that new thing. Great. You learn that new

thing and you're fine. But you know, the fundamentals, the

fundamentals do not change. Even if you stick within that

one business forever, there's going to be new things that

you have to learn to keep up with the market. That is

normal. But once you learn how to do something once,

you're not going to have to learn how to do it again.

And for those of you who are like, yes, Katie, yes, absolutely,

I am fully bought into. I don't have to believe my fears. I don't

have to think that I'm not good enough. I either know what I want to

do or who I want to help, or the space I want to create, or

I know two or three of. Those things,

but I don't feel ready yet. I think I want to wait until. I feel

ready and then I would. Like to do it. I'm calling bullshit on you.

There's no such thing as being ready. There's no such

thing as that cloud of the feeling of readiness,

like lighting upon your shoulders and engulfing

you and making you magically feel ready all of. A sudden, didn't know

how to ride. A bike and I told you to go for a two mile

bike ride. You'd look at me like I was nuts. It's like, no, I

don't know how. To ride a bike. To be able to go for a. Two

mile bike ride and be confident. That you're not going to

fall and land on your face and break your skull. You have to first learn

it. You have to get uncomfortable. You have to be willing to fall.

You have to be a little wobbly. You have to do that thing where. Someone

holds the back of your seat. And kind of keeps you upright. As you learn

how to pedal and as you learn how to hold the handlebars and as you

learn how to. Brake, readiness comes from doing it before

you're ready.

Your first dozen sales calls you do for your business, you're not

going to feel ready for. But at some point, after you've done it a

dozen times or a couple dozen times, it's going to be the easiest thing in

the world. Learning to create content to promote your business,

that's going to be really scary and uncomfortable, and you're not going to feel ready

to do it until you've done it for two months

straight and it's part of your routine and you kind of understand

what works and what doesn't work. Waiting to feel ready is one of

the biggest bullshit reasons to not start now, and I'm calling you out

for it. For those of us with ADHD, we have rejection

sensitivity dysphoria, which means that when we're thinking about doing something

outside our comfort zone, we start making up all

these stories. We start imagining a future where people

reject us and it hurts, where they turn us down, where they think what we're

doing is stupid, where they say, no, I don't want to buy your thing, and

you should quit and do something else because this is really dumb. Never.

Oh, my God, my business is six years old now.

Never in my six years of running my coaching business has anyone

ever told me that. And you can either choose to

believe your rejection sensitivity dysphoria side of your

brain and assume that everyone's going to reject you and think what you're

doing is dumb, or you can

acknowledge that that part of your brain is just a part of your brain. It

doesn't mean that it's true. Just because your brain thinks the thought doesn't mean

that it's true. If that were the case, my

dog Luna and I would be having full out conversations because my

brain is constantly thinking of the things that she's saying back to me and all

the rude things she's saying when I refuse to give her treats or refuse to

take her for a walk because we just went for one. Your brain's only

job is to come up with thoughts, to identify risks in the

world so that you can defend yourself. And this comes from

millennia of evolution, where there were predators out in the

wild who wanted to eat us, where there were other tribes, people

who wanted to unalive our tribe, where a lack of

rain for a season meant that everyone was going to starve that

winter. Your

brain has not evolved beyond that. It hasn't gotten the 21st century

update. It still sees a lot of this stuff as life or death,

and its only job is to come up with random shit that you should be

afraid. Of, but it does not mean that it's true. So this

is your sign. You need to go and get started.

And if what you want to start. Is a service based

business where you are offering your expertise to other human. Beings

for money, and if you do. Not know the steps to get

started, I invite you to book a generate income strategy.

Call with me what we'll do is. We'Ll hop on the phone for 30 minutes.

We'll identify what your big goal is, what the dream is of what

this business could be. We'll figure out where you're getting stuck in

building it on your own. And then, if, and only if, it's a fit

for both of us, we'll talk about different ways to work together. Now, it could

be my build your own business group program, where you get to work with other

beginner entrepreneurs to establish a foundation of this

business. Or it could be working together one on one, where you have

me holding your hand every step of the way. Or it could be

me sending you to another resource that's going to serve you best. But if you

choose not to get started now, and if you choose not to book a call

with me to figure out what the next step is, then I want you to

remember you are choosing the five years from now

person who's miserable in their job. If you're miserable in

your job now, you're choosing to be the friend who's

all idea, all talk and no action about all their crazy

business ideas. You're choosing to be the shoulda coulda woulda storyteller on

your deathbed. And that's okay. You get to be that person.

But know that it's not happening to you accidentally. It is voice that

you are making, whether you realize it or not.

Let's get it on. Is that a Barry White

song? Marvin gay. Oh, Marvin Gaye. Okay, cool.

I can't sing for, so I apologize.

Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel.