Discovering Strengths: A Guide for Neurodivergent Entrepreneurs

Welcome to the Overgivers Anonymous podcast. My name is Angela Mondor, also known as the Geeky Girl. In this podcast, we’re going to be talking about some amazing things to help you get over overgiving.

Hi and welcome to this episode of the Overgiver’s Anonymous podcast. My name is Angela Montour. I’m also known as the Geeky Girl and today I want to talk to you about identifying and leveraging your strengths as a neurodivergent business owner, entrepreneur, however you identify yourself in that role.

Let me say that There’s some common struggles that happen and we face these things in non traditional ways, obviously, because that’s what’s fun about our neuro spicy brains. We don’t typically fit into these typical business models now, I know that there’s a lot of people that suffer from imposter syndrome, but .

We definitely have a lot of times where imposter syndrome is quite strong for us, for a lot of us neurodivergent people. And we end up focusing on our weaknesses rather than our strengths because we have been taught, especially if you’re later diagnosed or you haven’t been supported well in your neurodivergent journey, the stories that we’ve been told have been You’re not as good as, or you need to be as good as so and so.

You need to be better. You need to be like so and so. There’s these constant stories about us constantly looking and acknowledging and hearing our weaknesses over and over and over again. And It doesn’t work. Focusing on our weaknesses, trying to be better at our weaknesses isn’t what is going to help us be better.

It isn’t what is going to set us apart. And that is why I think it’s important to really lean on and leverage your strengths. Now, I’m not saying ignore your weaknesses because that’s just silly, but look at those weaknesses. and mitigate them in a way that’s going to help you to spend less energy towards them.

Now, if you have weaknesses that other people are saying, oh, you should do, you should, you know, or you’re shitting all over yourself about those things, really take a look at those things and see what are the things that you can do to change. A, your perception about those situations, but B, how you interact with those things.

As a business owner, when you first start out as a business owner, a lot of the business lands on your shoulders. You literally are everything about the business and you have more time than money usually. And so that usually means that you’re trying to do it all. And I’m not saying you can’t do it all.

I’m just saying that when you’re trying to get it all done and there’s things that are difficult for you. If you spend less time shitting on yourself and more time trying to figure out how you can get those things done or how you can be supported best to get those things done, you’re going to be way far ahead.

Okay. Now there are a few things, well, there’s a few, I mean, you’re going to have a different experience than I do than anybody else does. That’s for sure. But some of the things that you could be thinking about that can help you with these strengths. And perhaps even some of the things that you have been doing along the way.

One of the things we do is mask. So, we put on the happy face, or we tell everybody everything’s fine. But underneath there’s that self doubt that happens underneath. You’re, you’re set, you don’t feel like You are fine. You don’t feel like you’ve got it all handled. And so that niggling self doubt that comes underneath there from the masking is, is detrimental.

It’s certainly not valuable to you trying to fix it or it’s not helping you. In fact, it’s causing you to struggle more. So when you think about that mask you’re putting on so that everybody else thinks you’re okay or that mask you put on so that everybody thinks you’re normal, neurotypical, whatever the case may be.

Acknowledge to yourself that it’s a mask and it might make you feel better in, Certain situations, but honestly be be honest with yourself that it is a mask that it is something that you Are doing so that other people maybe find you more palatable. Whatever that is. That’s what masking is all about We’re trying to make everybody just look like when they see us, we’re normal and it’s okay I encourage you to find ways through that to stop masking.

Obviously that doesn’t telling you to do that isn’t helpful. I get it because in certain situations, I still mask. So I understand that there’s different places where those things are still important to us still. I mean, not important, but they’re still used for us. Okay? And so, but when, when you do it, if you can honor yourself by saying, Hey, you know what?

I know I’m masking in that situation. It helps to reduce the self doubt. It helps to reduce that feeling of not good enough because you know that you’re not trying to live up to that. You know that you’re doing it because you’re trying to get through a certain situation or you’re trying to get through a certain thing.

Now, hyperfocus if you’re, if you’re inclined to have hyperfocus, obviously it can be. A great thing. It can be an awful thing as well. Certainly, hyperfocus can get things done. And I, I personally love the feeling of hyperfocus. Being, diving deep and digging into it. In fact, recently I was going to take an afternoon off to read because I hadn’t been reading lately as much as I want.

I read every day, but I, there were some books I wanted to get through. And I was like, I’m gonna take half, I’m gonna take half a day and I’m gonna sit down and I’m gonna read and that’s gonna be my present to myself. Well a project I was working on sparked. There was something there. And then I started to hyper focus on all of the data and the automation.

I just, I loved it. I had so much fun just continuing to dig down the rabbit hole. And hours went by. And I forgot to eat lunch, and I forgot to go to the bathroom, and I didn’t drink enough water. Because hyperfocus. But I enjoyed myself. So it can be great because it can help us get things done. We can’t always control hyperfocus.

Sometimes it just shows up and you either say okay, let’s go. Or you get halfway down the rabbit hole and go, Oh, darn it, this is where I’m at. You can, you can work with yourself and your body and your mind if you’re managing your energy flows. You can help yourself through those or even to have hyperfocus movements.

But it is like alchemy to get that hyperfocus. I can’t get it every time. There’s times when I really want it to work and I think the hardest that I, when I was like, I really want it right now and I don’t get it it’s frustrating. One of the other things that we can have occur. Is a blindness to our strengths.

I’ve suffered with that a lot myself. With strength, blindness. And part of it is that we just keep doing. We do, do, do, do, do. And we just assume that everybody else is able to do the things that we’re able to do. And it isn’t until I started to realize that there were things that I was innately capable of doing that other people weren’t.

And it was during those times is when I thought. Why doesn’t everybody have the ability to do X, Y, and Z? Or to be able to recognize that this was my gift. There are a lot of ways to look at this. If this is something you personally struggle with, like I said, you know, it was something I definitely struggled with.

It wasn’t until I started to ask people about these things. So they would say, Oh my gosh, you’re so good at blah, blah, blah. Or I just realized that, you know, this thing you do, yada, yada. And rather than just brushing it away, like, Okay, fine, yeah, yeah, whatever. I was actually starting to ask questions about it.

It’s like, oh, well, do you not think XYZ? Or are you able to do blah blah blah? And then when I started to ask those questions and started to lean in rather than brush off those compliments, I was able to learn more about my own gifts, the way that my brain works, the way that my self works, versus the way other people worked.

Then I was able to ask other more poignant questions such as When you see me, or when we’re working together, what do you see as something that is a strength of mine? Or what do you see as something that you think is really cool that I can do? That’s when I started to put together my strengths and thinking about these things, because I had straight blindness.

I wasn’t able to see myself. I’m still, I’m getting better. But a lot of times it is about me finding from other people. So what I did at that time, I had a really great coach. I put up a piece of paper on my wall over here because sticky notes don’t stick to paint. So I used contact stuff, whatever they call that stuff, on the back of the paper and stuck the paper to the wall.

And then every time somebody said something nice about me or to me, around me, I would write it down on a sticky note and I’d stick it to the wall. It did two things for me. A, It gave me the ability to see what people were saying about me that was positive and uplifting, which helped me be more and uplifting about the way that I talk to myself.

But it also helped me see my strength through other people’s brains, right? Through other people’s experiences with me. That was really helpful to me. In fact, it lives there. It’s still there today. It is still a valuable piece of information. I can look at that and say, Oh, here’s what these people thought of me.

Or here’s, here’s the things that are my strengths. And if I’m having a lower period of time, I can look at those things. And they’re helpful. I haven’t added to it in a while. Because I’m getting better at listening and, and rather than brushing off, I’m getting better at embracing and listening. So, for me, that’s how I dealt with my strength blindness was to actually lean into those compliments or those conversations.

And that allowed me to be able to say, hey, what can I learn about me through other people’s eyes? Overwhelm is a thing, that’s for sure. And I would encourage you not to change everything all at once. Not to try to do all the things all the time. We can be overwhelmed by all kinds of things. And being able to manage my energy is something that’s really important to me.

I manage my energy through a lot of different avenues. And it all depends on what I’m going through and how my energy is impacted. It definitely will manage will matter on how I manage the energy. Right before I got on this To record this for you, I was listening to some music that was helping me to get into the right headspace to be able to do this for you right now.

There, I’ll read certain books to help me. Some people will say, well, which genre of books do you like to read? Well, honestly, I think about what my mood is right now and what I need to work through. And sometimes I need to work through some feelings that aren’t great. And so I’ll find A topic that will help me with that through somebody else, through a character’s eyes.

I can learn a lot about life through reading about characters in fiction. Podcasts obviously are really great things. TV shows, movies. I like to be entertained. Lots of people, most of us like to be entertained. However, I tend to find my entertainment as helpful for me to move through emotions as well.

So for me, emotions, I’m very, I have certain emotions that are easier for me to handle than others. And with the emotions that are more difficult for me to work through, I find that art, right, entertainment, helps me to move through those things and help me to work through what I’m going through. So for me the overwhelm that I feel is sometimes emotional.

There’s all the, obviously, you know, there’s overwhelm that comes with too much work, not enough time. I said recently, I think this week, I think I even posted, jeez, you know, I wish I had 12 more hours every day so I could get done all the things I want to do and read the books that I want to read. We have broad skill sets.

All of us do. Every single human on this planet has broad skill sets. And, it depends on where you hone your skills and where you want to put your time. Now, I might be, I mean, I can throw pottery, but it’s not great, yet. I need lots of practice. I am not somebody who has easily picked up the art of pottery, but I love doing it.

I enjoy the process of making it. In fact we go often to Crate Pottery and sometimes I, sometimes I come out after working the, the wheel for a couple hours and never make anything. I mean, I make things, but I just go, okay, well, that’s done and squish it into a ball and keep moving because it’s not something that I want to bring home.

So, when I’m thinking about the pottery, for me, it’s not about the end. I don’t want to say, oh, I’m making a jar, or I’m making a bowl, or I’m making a mug, or whatever the case might be. I go for the experience, I go for the moving of the clay, for me to learn the clay and what it feels like. For some people, They’re solely focused on, I’m going and I’m going to make a mug, and if I don’t make a mug, I’m not successful, okay?

So, think about your broad skill sets and how you see them in yourself. Just because you’re, I mean, pottery is an easy thing to think about, because we think about, you know, if you, this isn’t pottery, but, you know, you make something and you can see a thing after you’re done, it might be that you just enjoy the experience moving through it.

So you have certain skills that you can use, but maybe you can’t get to fruition, and like with pottery, For me, I have the skills. I’ve learned how to do things. I’m not quite where I’m able to get to a great end result yet. I’ve made a couple cute little bowls. I’ve made a cute couple things. But of all the hours that I put into it, I’ve certainly, you know, somebody who was a master would have created so much more, but I don’t want to compare myself to a master.

I’m not a master. I’m simply somebody who is there to experience the experience of playing with clay. So think about your experience as an entrepreneur and the skills that you have. You might have skills to take you this far. And you want to go the next further step. You’ve got just this much more to learn to do.

Now you can choose to learn or you can choose to say this is good enough and now from here I can hand it off to somebody else. Because maybe it still needs to get done. Or maybe you say, you know what, I can get to here and this is gonna have to be good enough. better done than perfect. So if I was at a place and I was like, I need to finish this pottery item, I’d have to get to a place where I said, well, then it’s better done than perfect.

Maybe I wanted to make a bowl, but I ended up making a mug, which would be harder. But anyway, other way around, maybe I wanted to make a bowl and all I made was a finger bowl. So think about those things in terms of yourself as well. Like, where are your broad skills and where do you want to have them? Do you want to grow those?

skills because not all skills are worth growing. Okay. I like painting sort of, but I never want to put in the time and effort to become a painter that where I could create art and hang it on my wall and people would be able to recognize that it’s a bird or a sunset or person or whatever. I don’t want to put the skills into that.

I don’t want to put my time into that. That’s not where my joy lies. Okay. So, think about what it is that for you, where can you put those boundaries for yourself? So that you can say, I don’t have to be a master of all. You don’t need to be, but you can choose to grow in places where you’d like to.

Focusing on your strengths doesn’t mean never look at your weaknesses, but certainly don’t look at the weaknesses that you don’t want to grow. I never want to, I’m. My, my weakness in art is definitely painting and mostly drawing. I’m not, I don’t want to put the effort into it. I’d rather buy the art, rather have somebody else do it for me.

Okay? So, when you’re looking at those skills, think about those kinds of things. We have this fear of not being good enough and again, a lot of that comes from that concept that we’ve been put down or been told that we’re not good enough and we have to be better or we have to be as good as this other person so there’s this constant struggle to be different than we are.

But honestly, if you can embrace yourself and who you are and be the best you that’s possible, that’s what’s really great. You know, the content that I create is created in such a way so that I can be my best person. I can give, I can give my best information to you. I can help you the best way possible, but it doesn’t totally destroy my soul to make it happen.

So I love being on camera. I love speaking live. I love not knowing what I’m going to say from bounce to bounce throughout a conversation with you right now. I have an outline. I know exactly, I know what I want to talk about. I know where I’m going with it. But I don’t want a script. That would, that would just hurt my soul.

So for me, it’s really important for me to be able to say, here’s my outline. Here’s where I’m going. Okay, let’s go. And show up for you just like this. Now, turning this into a blog post, totally different beast. We’re talking words there, and I am not in my strongest point in order to be able to turn that into a blog for you.

So I have a team. My team helps me with that. Editing. If editing was up to me, you would get whatever I put down here. There would be no editing. There would be no taking out of the ums. There would be no recording any of these things over again. But as it is, I have a team. And that team does that for me.

So, if I didn’t have the team, Certainly, you would have a less polished video, but I’d still be able to get you the information. I’d still be able to get you what you needed. So, you have to make some decisions in your business about where it is that your strengths lie, and how can you use those strengths to still create whatever it is in the business that you want to create.

Okay? I encourage you to think about your strengths. That’s what this is about. Keep a journal if you like use the same thing I did where you put the backtack on the bottom on the back of the paper and stick your sticky notes to it when you hear people say nice things about you. Ask friends, colleagues, clients, ask them for your strengths maybe even talk to some people who maybe are in a community with you.

Business community. Maybe look at your customer success stories and see how you were able to get them to a successful place. Those are your strengths. See if you can dig those things out. Your strengths will become a valuable skill for you, or they are your valuable skills to begin with, but you’ll be able to shine a light on them and really see them when you are able to reframe them and look at them and honestly.

To, you know, say to yourself, Hey, these are the places where I’m really great. So if you’re having a hard time figuring out what your strengths are, those are some great tips for you to be able to take away from doing that. And if you already know what your strengths are, design your business around that.

Think about the way that I’ve designed my business with this content creation for you. How can you do that for you? Maybe you don’t like being live on camera. Find don’t you don’t have to be not everybody needs to be live on camera, but what are your strengths? Where do you lean on and how can you use that in your business to create what it is that you need in order to do your business?

So you definitely want to think about those kinds of things when you’re thinking about your strengths and how you can incorporate them into your business and know that. There’s some zhuzhing that needs to be done. What you implement today or how you put this together for yourself today in your business, it might work.

It might not. You may say, this is, I’m going to do it this way. I mean, certainly our content creation wasn’t built this way. We didn’t start out doing content creation this way. We, through iteration after iteration, after iteration, iteration found. The right way. And here we are. So, this is working for us now.

That doesn’t mean to say that in six months or a year, we might not change it. Because, we might. But right now, this is working for us. So, honor that as well. Know what your strengths are right now. Don’t try to fix all your weaknesses. Mitigate them instead. Okay, and if there are some places where you see weakness but it’s something that you want to improve on because that’s something innately is going to bring you joy, you want to do that as opposed to you have to.

You know what happens when neurodivergents have to do something. Then go ahead and make those, you know, but ultimately if you’re focusing on your strengths and you’re doing the things that you’re best at, that’s where your success is going to lie and that’s what’s going to set you apart from everybody else.

I hope you have a fantastic day and I look forward to talking to you next week. Bye for now.