Welcome to the The VICI Code, where we unlock real stories of small business owners who've battled chaos, crushed doubt, and conquered their challenges. Faith, family, and finances. No fluff, just raw, honest conversations that decode the path to victory, one story at a time. All right, thank you for joining us today as we explore NeuroSpicy Leadership, where we walk you through burnout to breakthrough, building sustainable systems for the ADHD brain. But first, let's jump in and just let you remind you that our listeners that new AG1 ambassador program, AG1 has been a staple in my life and my daily routine for several years. Every morning I wake up and I start my day with AG1. Just one scoop is packed with 75 high-quality ingredients, which combines a multivitamin, probiotic, and blend of superfoods. AG1 has been clinically shown to improve gut health and close common nutrient gaps. As a long-time customer, they've offered me a special deal for you if you're interested in trying AG1 yourself. You can use my ambassador code found in the show notes. With your first order, you receive one free year supply of D3K2 drops, 10 free AG1 next-gen travel packs, and a free 30-day supply of omega-3 pills. This is $130 value for free when you use my ambassador code. But to the next interesting thing is our next guest. We're shifting gears and the revolutionary idea that the world calls a deficit is often a unique operating system that just needs the right design. Skye Waterson is the founder of Unconventional Organization, an international support service for professionals with ADHD. Diagnosed during her PhD after repeated burnout, Skye's mission is to help entrepreneurs and executives with ADHD or suspected ADHD build sustainable systems, scale their companies, and actually enjoy the process. Her approach is science-backed, realistic, and built around how ADHD brains actually work. Now, Sky and I met in none other than Dan Martell's elite group. As you've heard, we've mentioned before on VG Code, Dan Martell is the author of Buy Back Your Time, a profound look at how to scale your business by changing the way how you operate within your business. Sky's personal journey from burnout and a late diagnosis during her PhD to founding Purpose Driven Business Centered on Neurological Differences provides a unique look at how you can apply dance lessons to those with superpowers of ADHD. Sky, welcome Yeah, yeah. Last time we saw you, you were on my podcast, which Yeah. I don't think I even had my first episode, but here we are. I'm super excited to have you on because I feel like ADHD people stick together. I have a lot of friends and a lot of business friends and clients that, you know, go through this and I kind of want to start with your origin, right? Your story is incredibly powerful being diagnosed with ADHD during your PhD after repeated burnout. Can you candidly describe the period of Yeah, 100%. I mean, I was from the school of just try harder. Everybody, just try harder, just add more stuff. And I did that. And by the time I finished my master's, I was working three jobs. I wasn't sleeping. I was just getting everything I could to get everything done. And I burned out so hard that I didn't even really register that I'd gotten a PhD scholarship. I just left academia, went and worked as a cashier at a bakery for a year, made art, and was like, I don't think I'm ever gonna be able to come back to academia, which at that point had been the thing that I'd been working on for years and years and years. I was in my late 20s and I'd started in my early 20s. And it was really only, when I realized that, okay, I do want to come back. I do want to do a PhD, but I need to figure out what is going on in my brain. And I went to my university's learning center and I said, help. Can you tell me what's happening? Is there anything? Is it just me? Am I just defective or is there something going on? And they tested me and went through everything. And they said, look, we think you have adult ADHD, which I mean, I taught ADHD in university. I'd learned about it, but only with kids. It was a huge shift at the time for me. commonly discussed as it is now. So it put me on a huge shift in terms of researching and figuring out, first of all, before any of this, before unconventional, how am I going What was the biggest professional or personal challenge you faced when trying to fit into the neurotypical corporate or academic system? And what was the breakthrough realization that led to seek diagnosis and ultimately Yeah. The biggest thing was the detail stuff. When you do a PhD, it is similar to business in that it's an independent project. You're the one who has to wake up every morning. You're the one who has to push it through. And it was, how do I do boring things? How do I do admin tasks? How do I stay on top of things and not miss appointments and meetings? All of those kinds of things. When you have ADHD, the biggest struggles you tend to have are around your working memory, time blindness, transition times, it's too boring, dopamine struggles. And so I really had to go into the research and figure out how I was gonna unblock each of those things for myself in order to continue to do something as big and unwieldy in many ways as a PhD without Was there anything that you had to unlearn about productivity and Yes, I love this question because I had to unlearn a lot. There's so much advice you get given. Some of the advice I got given was just do it in one hour a day. Just write for one hour a day. Transition times mean it's really hard to write for one hour a day. It's hard to get in the zone, write, stop, do it again, things like that. Just start and you'll feel so much better. didn't work because the way our brains are wired, we don't seem to get the same boost at starting a task because that's just how our brains seem to be. We get more of a, this is super boring, why are we doing this kind of energy? And so there was so many of those idioms and things that we'd learned and things that I'd learned, because I was looking for any strategies that was going to help me, that turned out to just not be built for my brain at all. And that's why I'm so passionate about helping people build systems that do fit And so I've been diagnosed with ADHD and I would say relative to when people are diagnosed now, you and I were diagnosed relatively late, right? So I'm curious, why is the late life diagnosis so common among high Because we want to burn out first before we ask for help. probably. I think there is a thing where we push through. A lot of people got diagnosed during COVID. There's a lot of conversation about why. And one of the reasons was because it was just the last straw. Sometimes things really, you get to a point where you're like, okay, I could do school, but I couldn't do school and work, and I couldn't do school and work and kids. There's a level at which everybody starts to realize that they need to tap out in terms of the executive functioning load Yeah, no, that makes sense. Especially when you just don't know what's really going on. You're not even seeking a diagnosis. You just keep moving and you just keep thinking that if you work harder and try harder, that there's something wrong with your effort. And it's just not. You just have to realize that there's a different code. There's a different path to get to the final destination for those with the ADHD. superpower, as I like to call it, because once you can decode it, it really does become a superpower and it is an advantage. And I want to focus the next question on finance and neurodiversity. For many with ADHD, finances can be a major source of stress. From hyper-focusing on an idea to neglecting critical admin, what is the most common financial challenge or system breakdown you see in brilliant visionary entrepreneurs There's an interesting combination of fact. Sorry about There's an interesting thing that we do when it comes to finances. I've seen sort of both sides of the coin. So when we're talking about business, one of the things I see is maybe the one that people would expect, the more classic one, overspending, you know, impulsive spending. deciding, oh, I need this and going for it. That's short-term thinking, essentially, which makes it really hard. So we talk about things like impulse buying. We also talk about this idea of hobby buying, which is very specific to ADHD, where you're like, this is my new thing. It's going to take over my life and you buy everything for it and then you don't do it. Things like that. But I've also seen on the other side where people get so anxious about their previous decisions that they've made. They might have come through a few financial struggles where they have invested in something and it wasn't the right thing to do that now they feel afraid to invest at all. And I definitely was on that train for a while when it came to business development, for example, being afraid to invest in business development because I had invested in it in the past and I'd hired some people and thought that was going to improve my business and it hadn't done that. And, you know, that feeling of, you know, like, Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm just making impulsive decisions actually held me back from doing the things that eventually grew the ROI on my business. A lot, so it's sort of, it's that all or nothing that can be really difficult and teaching people how to look at their weekly scorecards, build a cadence and do things that are a lot more intentional and a lot less reactive is a lot of what is Yeah, I can relate to that so much, you know, going all in on certain hobbies. And then once you pick up the patterns, you start doubting yourself and you start questioning, well, am I being this way? Should I not do this? And then you get into that weird you know, area where just you feel almost like you can't make a decision and you get a little bit paralyzed. So I can definitely relate to that. What's the unconventional system or mindset shift you coach them through to bring clarity and control back to Yeah, so the thing we teach is focused, balanced growth. So we help people go from overwhelmed, just everything is a mess. People sort of just come to me and they're like, I'm so overwhelmed, I can't work with you. And I'm like, that's exactly who we work with. Then we help people get their time back, huge unlock for a lot of people with ADHD, usually by reducing procrastination, helping with prioritizing, helping with delegation, because a lot of people struggle with that. They don't know how to delegate with an ADHD brain. And then we talk about how to grow consistent revenue. Because we can grow revenue, but is it consistent? Is it there on a good month and a bad month? Are we holding to those daily expectations? Do we have a team that we're making sure that they're holding to daily expectations? Or is it more like, I have a new idea, let's go for it. Sometimes it's boom, sometimes it's bust. And that can sometimes be the way that we run our businesses when we have ADHD. So That piece is where that financial really comes in the most, where we're talking about, first of all, how do we make sure we don't use our business for dopamine? Because sometimes when business starts to go well, we can throw a grenade in it. Because actually, it's the thing that gave us a lot of, when I say dopamine, I mean, a lot of energy, a lot of interest. It was the most exciting thing that was happening. It was the most stressful thing that was happening. When the business starts to stabilize, we can be the people who go, you know what we should do? We should add another product. We should set up a conference. We should do this and that. And so now it's back to that stressful thing that we're doing. Then also looking at measurement. How do we measure what is going well? How do we help other people, not us? Because again, figuring out numbers is kind of boring. How do we measure How do we make sure other people are measuring the key metrics that are moving our business forward? And how do we put that in a weekly cadence? We're meeting with people and we're having those opportunities to to say, this is what's going well. This is what's not going well. We're not waiting until that gut wrenching moment where you think something's going wrong. You're pulling out the back of a napkin and you're just writing numbers down until until you feel better or you don't. And then you're doing Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So what about, you know, leadership and integrity that you talk about? You help high-level professionals build sustainable systems and scale their companies. In your work, you are teaching them to lead with integrity to their own brain's needs. What's the biggest leadership challenge an ADHD founder faces when Yeah, so the biggest thing I would say is, you mentioned superpower. I tend to talk about strong strengths, strong weaknesses. So with ADHD, we have strong strengths, and this is backed up by research, creative thinking, original thinking, outside the box thinking. If you have ADHD, your brain's probably gotten you out of a couple of tight jams in the past, but also struggles with time blindness, working memory, executive functioning, that kind of thing. If you have a very neurotypical team, and often I see this with the relationship with the EA, which can be kind of a tricky one for some people to manage, you probably have a team, if they're good, that aren't like you. We don't want a team of people like you. That's actually a trap because now we all have the same strengths. We all have the same weaknesses. It feels very unbalanced. But we need to have that mutual respect. They need to understand, hey, No, this person is not going to be the person who collects all of the numbers and makes sure that they send the email by this exact time. That's an admin strength. There's no point in focusing on that. Your job is to, especially when we're talking about executive assistants, your job is to support that person. But this person is great at creative thinking and original thinking and building the brand and driving the business forward. And so that's great. This is a good partnership. And we want it to go the other way as well, where the business owner isn't going, well, it's all about vision and ideas and who cares about execution and is not really appreciating the work that the other people are putting in. So usually, When we're talking about leadership, and I work with a lot of high-level leaders with teams and things like that, it's usually a conversation about being confident about who you are and how you work. and then appreciating how other people work and having a team around you who do the same back to you. So there's no eye rolling. There's no, I'm such a mess. Who could do this without me? Could you do this without me? Or I'm a God, et cetera, et And I think you kind of hit on this with that last piece, which is like with your clients, how do you help them communicate their unique operating system effectively to ensure their team Well, the number one thing we don't do, a lot of people are really surprised by, is we don't come in and say, I have ADHD. Yeah, Because it doesn't tell you anything. Like for people who have, you know, yes, you might have deep dived ADHD. You might understand what it means. You might understand what it means for you. But if you come to somebody and you say, you know, oh, by the way, I have ADHD, that could mean anything. Like that could mean the ADHD that they saw in high school with kids that they knew. It could mean that you have ADHD and you don't have any strategies. So you're gonna be, you know, falling over in terms of details and things like that to a really extreme extent, it could mean that you have systems and you have strategies, but you still have ADHD. You're still going to have these struggles. I missed a meeting last week. I wrote about it in an email. It's the first time in two years I just completely missed a meeting because I still have ADHD and I still have these struggles and these systems that support me. So what we want you to do instead, and you can say you have ADHD as part of this conversation, but a much more important conversation is, this is how I work best. These are my strengths. These are my weaknesses. This is what I need your support with. This is where I want to support you. And doing the same for the other person as well. Where do you work best? Where are your weaknesses? Where are your strengths? And having, again, that collaborative relationship about how we work, not about this idea and then they have to go away and research it and they come back with something that you're like, that's not Right. Yeah. That makes sense. Now, For the neurotypical manager listening, what's the single best way to utilize the superpowers like hyper-focus and creative problem-solving of The biggest, the best space for ADHD team members, generally speaking, obviously everyone is different, is creative out-of-the-box thinking. So usually your team member is really gonna struggle if you put them in a process-driven, job and you say, I don't want to hear your ideas. I don't want to know about this system that you have or these thoughts that you have. I just want you to do ABC every day and get it done. That's usually a really negative place to put people in. A really positive place to put people in is we have this problem, we have no idea how to solve it, and we need it done by Friday. Does anybody have any ideas? is a really great place to put people with ADHD. And if you have then somebody who can come in, who can be an implementer, who can take those ideas and turn them into something, that combination can work extremely, Yeah. Man, this conversation is just so I can relate so much to it because I feel like it's there that those chaotic moments where it's like, okay, like where us neurodivergent people kind of, you know, shine a little bit where we're like, all right, well, all hell's breaking loose. This is what we gotta do. But I think where I kind of fall short is like finishing things, right? You know, if you can put us in a situation to problem solve and get crazy and just get excited and, you know, come up with a solution, having that neurotypical element come in and try to really tie it all together and finish it off is always a good way to balance that out, Exactly. Yeah, when you look at the research, this is called sort of divergent versus convergent thinking. So with ADHD, we're really good at divergent thinking. So we're good at taking something and kind of exploding it if you think about a mind map, going, actually, this is the case. And have we ever tried looking at it from this angle? And with AI now, I bet we could do ABC, like that kind of thinking. And then when you're more on the neurotypical side, you don't struggle with ADHD symptoms, you're better at convergent thinking, which is, okay, well, we've got these three ideas here. Let's bring them together. Let's see what we can make in the next quarter. So working together can be a really good way to do that. And like you said, it's that idea of, of having somebody who can come in and build out the ideas. And not just like, oh, we could do this and we could do that, but people coming with expertise and knowledge and understanding to say, these are the different ways we could solve this problem. This is how we could do this faster, more effectively, that kind of thing. And then having somebody else doing it and then maybe checking in, you know, at a regular, you know, saying, this is where we've gotten to so far. What do we need to do next? And it's one of the reasons why CEOs are often ADHD, because it's a big strength. Like when you think about the job of a CEO, it's waking up every day. Are we going in the right direction? Are we aligned? Do I have the right people in the right places? Those kinds of things are very ADHD friendly, that kind Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Now, what about a sustainable living? The Vichy Code emphasizes family and fitness. When you're focused on building sustainable systems for your clients, how do you coach them to apply those same principles to their personal life? What is the most non-negotiable fitness or family boundary that an ADHD professional must This is a really good question because often people ask me, they'd say, you know, is this going to work for my family as well, for my home? And the answer is 100% because we're building systems that are going to regulate you. They're going to help you focus. They're going to help you get your time back. That's always a good thing. A really great example of this actually is our step into focus formula. And I actually have that. So if you guys want to DM me at unconventional organization, just message me, Joe, and then I will know. It's coming from here, and you guys can get an AI chatbot that will walk you through the focus process. But that process is really about going, okay, I think I have 200 things I have to do today, and a lot of business owners and people feel like that, but what do I actually need to do? What is actually important? What is actually urgent? and giving us a sense of how to understand how to do that. Because a lot of the time, what will happen when you talk about boundaries is we will have a very unrealistic list of things that we were planning to do that day. And we'll be sitting there, first of all, we'll procrastinate, so we won't do the things. And then second of all, we will be doing that list at, we'll start working on that list at like 4 p.m. because that's when the dopamine hits in, that last minute, like, okay, now I have to get that stuff off my plate. And we're working through this massive list. Half of that stuff, more than half of that stuff doesn't even have to be done today. And so, we find ourselves working till six, till seven, till eight, taking the work home. And that's often a big frustration when it comes to family and being, even if you do close your books and you go home, being present because you still have this list of things. So with the prioritization filter, the focus formula, we have very simple strategies that are built for your ADHD brain that help you understand what's truly urgent, what you need to do next, and do it in a way that allows Yeah. Leaving things to the last minute and crushing it out, and then you get into a rhythm How do you leave that rhythm, right? How do you leave that momentum? And I find myself doing that as well. And I know that there's a lot of listeners who can also relate. Is there any final piece of unconventional yet crucial advice you would give to any listener who is feeling stuck, overwhelmed, and Yeah. The biggest one is just if you've tried to do things and it just feels like it doesn't fit, the chances are that the answer isn't just to work harder. Because often people will have a lot of shame around this. They'll have a lot of feelings and they'll sort of say to me, you know, they'll say, I think I just need to try harder. I just need to get up in the morning, listen to this motivational speaker and go for it. And that can work. It has short-term outcomes. But realistically, not only is it going to be a struggle to do long-term, trust me, I know. I tried it. I tried it really hard. But also, there is an easier way. If you use systems that are designed for your brain, it will be a lot less like walking through mud. It will feel more natural. Often people say to me, okay, that's it. I'm ready. Teach me these horrible systems that are going to be so frustrating and boring. And then they do them and they're like, this is kind of fun. And that's the biggest thing I would say is try to do things in a different way. You'd be surprised how Yeah, I feel like it all starts with knowing yourself. You talked about a lot of things that I can relate to, that I know our listeners can relate to, but if you don't know yourself, it's hard to pick up the patterns. I know working with you would definitely be helpful for myself and other audience members, but it really does start with knowing yourself, knowing what you're good at, what you're not, and knowing what your limitations are as it relates to being neurodivergent, right? So that's, you know, that's the ultimate leadership tool is, you know, knowing yourself and then the power of building systems based on reality, not aspiration, right? You got to work within your limitations. Otherwise, you know, you're just up against a wall and You'll burn out. You'll burn out. You got to really set up good systems. And then the breakthrough that comes from moving from a self-criticism to self-acceptance, right? So you just got to really appreciate what your gifts are and lean into them and accept that like, hey, this is who you are. I think we can all benefit from more humility. I think we all look around to compare ourselves. As they say, comparison is the thief of joy. Know who you are. and appreciate that and just know that we're not all perfect and if you can get better, it starts by knowing yourself. Sky, thank you so much for your time, your candor and showing us the world and power of the unconventional brain. I want to revisit how our how our audience members can get a hold of you. Obviously, you've got the website, unconventionalorganization.com, which we'll have in the show notes. And then on that website, can you tell them a little bit more about that, the five-minute focus coach? Yeah, so we have the focus formula. You can find it on the website, or like I said, you can go to Unconventional Organization Instagram and just DM me Jo and we'll send it to you to help you get focused. It just helps you if you're feeling overwhelmed, it's a good start. It'll walk you through all of the steps that we built. And then if you want to listen to more about business, about doing it with an ADHD brain, about the research into how our brains work, you can find me on the ADHD Skills Lab podcast. And we have over a hundred episodes there. We've been doing it for a long time and yeah, very, very cool conversations with some awesome people, including yourself, Joe. I'm on there talking about my problems. Yeah, so we'll also mention the podcast in the show notes too. On Instagram and Facebook, it's at Unconventional Organization. It's exactly how you would think it would be spelled, except for the Z in organization is actually an S, so you'll see that in the show notes. and then also on LinkedIn, Unconventional Organization. You'll also find Sky there as well. Thank you so much for your time. And thank you to our audience for listening to The Vici Code. Join us next time as we continue to explore the journeys of purpose-driven leaders. Thanks for tuning in to the Vici Code, where the underdogs rise and the numbers finally make sense. If today's story hit home, share it. And remember, faith fuels