People with ADHD are probably more likely to struggle in normal jobs.

Normal jobs being, um, like employed jobs because our brains have just got so many ideas and fundamentally we are interest-led, so rather than importance-led we’re motivated by what we’re interested in, what we’re inspired by or fantastic ideas. We are nonlinear thinkers.

So like when I started my law job, I was like, I’m going to start up a Twitter account and a podcast and this, and when my manager started and was like, what are you doing? She’s like, you’re a legal policy adviser. I was like, yeah, and we can have a podcast for it. And she was like, no you can’t.

No Bullshit Talks is a podcast for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs. There’s too much bullshit out there especially when it comes to business. This podcast aims to highlight what’s true and what’s not in the world of entrepreneurship, bringing you honest and raw conversations about the roller coaster that is in entrepreneurship.

Each week my guest will be a high performing entrepreneur sharing the ups and downs of their journey and helping you prepare for the road ahead while providing you with actionable insights and absolute gems of knowledge.

Stay tuned as I introduce this week’s guest.

Leanne Maskell is a former model who is now a certified ADHD coach, running her own company and working with the likes of Google and Disney. She’s written four books, selling thousands of copies all over the world. Leanne is now dedicated to training other people to become ADHD coaches and bringing awareness to neurodiversity issues.

I present to you this week’s guest, Leanne
Maskell.

Welcome Leanne to the No Bullshit Talks podcast today.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

Thanks for coming. It’s been exciting to chat to you about what we’re going to talk about today because I feel like it’s a topic that, you know, means a lot to me because I feel like I have a lot of friends as well who are going through some difficult times when it comes to ADHD and, I think it’s a very talked about topic at the moment and I think there’s a lot of misconceptions or a lot of bullshitaround it.

So I would love for you to come on and just bust a lot of that bullshit I think would be great, and just, you know, just I’ll just pick your brains about a few things which would be amazing.

But I would love for you to introduce yourself first to our guest.

Hello, I’m Leanne Maskell. I was terrible introducing myself. I run ADHD Works, which is a company that does ADHD coaching and we also train ADHD coaches. We also train companies like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and write books.

It’s very ADHD to have that many different plates spinning. It’s fun, it’s never boring.

Yeah, I mean that’s basically the same as me, right? And I think people always ask you that, I hate introducing myself too.

But do you know what? It’s fun being a multi-hyphenate. I think there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of stick about that too, and people tell me I do too many things or I need to slow down and I’m like okay part of that’s probably true but you know also it’s who I am and I love doing so many things and I’m actually genuinely really passionate about all those things. It’s not like exactly, it’s not like you’re doing it and then you’re doing one that you don’t really like, you’re like, oh but it’s, it’s you know, that’s who you are and I think it’s great.

And, yeah, see exactly all those sort things you’ve done. So I think I really talk to you about founders and ADHD because I obviously work with a lot of founders, a lot of other entrepreneurs and I just think that there’s a lot of entrepreneurship. I do think there’s a trend between entrepreneurship and ADHD. I think it’s, it makes sense, you know, the way like, you know, an ADHD brain works, it’s like so many ideas, all these things.

It’s natural that they’ve gone into entrepreneurship. So I think that also there’s a lot of entrepreneurs who probably don’t know they have ADHD but I’d love to talk about that and, you know, why, what is it with founders that you’ve seen, that, that, you know, why do so many have ADHD and like, and how can founders who are already super busy doing a million different things cope with running a business while they have ADHD?

Good question. I don’t know. You just try to survive, just trying to get from one day to the next.

Um, but I think there’s loads of research out there linked with entrepreneurs and ADHD. Apparently you’re 300 times more likely to set up a business if you’ve got ADHD.

300 yep, um, okay times or percent? 300 something. Okay, that you, that is very different to like actually keeping the business and running it.

And it’s really funny because we are very good at like the new novel, having new ideas like “I’m going to start a new… for women” or “I’m going to make an umbrella that goes across your body,” whatever lovely idea. And then because we don’t have the concept of like planning and time and thinking ahead and like all the boring bits, we just think about the fun bits and then before you know it, we’ve got—I saw a great quote which said, “Not every idea needs an Instagram handle.” We’ve already got the domain name with logo. We’re like, “Oh yay for women,” and like, “Oh I’ve got to actually set this up,” and it’s quite boring.

Yeah, I bought a beauty day. Yeah, oh goodness yeah. The amount of people that I work with who own like millions of domain names and I’m like, stop, cancel all your subscriptions, let’s go through them all.

So there’s that. And then I think there’s also the fact that like people with ADHD are probably more likely to struggle in normal jobs. Normal jobs being, um, like employed jobs because our brains have just got so many ideas and fundamentally we are interest-led, so rather than importance-led we’re motivated by what we’re interested in, what we’re inspired by or fantastic ideas. We are nonlinear thinkers.

So like when I started my law job I was like, I’m going to set up a Twitter account and a podcast and this and that. My manager started and was like, “What are you doing? You’re a legal policy adviser.” I was like, “Yeah, and we can have a podcast for it.” And she was like, “No you can’t.” And I was like, “Why not?”

So it’s like when you’ve got all of these ideas and then trying to fit into an organization where it’s like, no, this is your segment and these other people’s roles. And actually I was just coaching someone this morning and I said your normal is your business is like 250%, but they don’t realize that. You know, you’re just running at such a high speed and have so many ideas and you’re doing so much all the time, but other people aren’t actually doing that much. It’s just that that just feels normal for us.

So I think that kind of brain really lends itself to being an entrepreneur, which is great because on the one hand it’s like having no boundaries—like anything is possible, why not? Why can’t you just write a book? Just write a book.

I’ve got four books. You just do it. After I talked to you last time we had a chat, you said like, you know, what advice would you give to founders? And then I was like, oh it’s a good chat, I’m going to write a book. And I wrote for three weeks nonstop. I believe that when you told me that I was like, that’s amazing. But it’s also exactly what I want to help people do, right? Is to inspire them to do something, just ask questions, have really interesting conversations with people.

But that’s amazing that you just went, okay, three weeks, book done. Just—

Well that’s the big point, three weeks, book done. No, we had three weeks where I did nothing else except write that book constantly, dreamed about it, was like so happy and inspired and was like, yeah, finally got my like inspiration back to write a book, woo.

Can you help, advice? And then I got up to 75% and then I just could not look at it. I woke up one day and I was like, I don’t want to look at it anymore. Couldn’t open it again and still haven’t opened it again.

And so that is like—that’s the thing. Well actually, and then I was like maybe I could turn it into a course and then I was like, and then I’ve made a whole course for it. And then I was like would anyone actually do this course? Is that actually a good idea? I’ve got all of these other things to do.

And now it’s on the shelf of half-finished or three-quarter-finished books. So I think that is a good analogy for like ADHD entrepreneurs. We’re very much more likely to start all the stuff because they’re like “yay woohoo why not,” and then when we lose the interest because it becomes normal then it’s really really hard to sustain it.

So I think to your second question of like how do you survive in a business when you have ADHD, it’s being aware of that and knowing that that will um go and then having boundaries and measures in place for yourself like knowing that the high is going to fall off.

How do you do it then? Because I feel like I’m just thinking about—I had someone once tell me, describe me, I didn’t know this, behind my back, described as “the girl who never finishes anything.” That’s how I was described. It’s just, you just get bad memories of this now.

But it’s like, okay, so even if you’re aware that this is what you’re like, it’s one, okay self-awareness is the first step and the most major step for a lot of things. But even once you’re aware of it, how on earth do you get to like—you’ve got 25% of this probably amazing book left to do—how do you complete it? Like what do you do?

Well, nothing has ever finished, right? Like no. That’s what my response would be to them.

And so I think it’s like for me coaching. So I wrote a book called *ADHD and A to Z* a few years ago, they did very well I guess. I was just early on the trend, well earlier than a lot of people. I wrote it after I was diagnosed, exactly the same 75%. Wrote it at work actually. Then one day I just was, couldn’t look at it anymore, didn’t touch it again for eight months.

And then I found out about Access to Work and that they could pay for ADHD coaching, which I was like what, not which I thought about ADHD for eight months, I was just like busy doing other things.

Found out about this, like oh my god, ADHD coaching. And again I would say I’m definitely autistic as well, and like took it very literally in that first coaching session because the coach said, she said “is there anything that you want me to help you stay accountable to finishing for next time?” And I was like oh I need to say something. So I was like, and I was like I’ve got a half a book. I so much.

And she was like really? I was like yeah it’s about ADHD and that’s the people play and—

And then she was like wow that’s amazing. And I was like yeah okay and I like I’ll finish it. And then in that week I finished it. Oh wow.

But then I was like oh god now I have to like do—because then she was like amazing and she was like what’s the next stage? And I was like well I actually don’t, like I didn’t write that book to publish it, I just wrote it kind of out of boredom and like wanting to learn about myself.

So but again then that was a kind of problem with her because she was like cool now what. And then I was like um okay I guess I can publish it on Amazon and I just self-published it. But then at first I really regretted it because I was like I didn’t even want to publish it and I misspelled the title as ADHD which I only realized after putting—

Which is worse. I say nothing has ever finished. And then like another eight months later um a publisher bought it from me and like now it’s still out there doing what it’s doing.

But that’s incredible. And that’s a fair so many—I’m just like amazed about all those things there. Like first of all I don’t know anyone has actually had a book self-published and then a self-published book bought, so that’s amazing achievement because publishers usually don’t do that. So that must have been doing so well.

And I obviously have seen it everywhere, like it’s been—and it looks great as well. So I think it’s just a really fantastic thing.

But also just like the, you know, the accountability things I want again to touch on that because I think, you know, what I want to get out is to everyone out there with ADHD or people who are going through something that think is ADHD and they’re not sure about—we’re going to talk about all this stuff—but I really want to delve into the little things because I think so many people offer this big generic advice but they don’t really get into actual.

Yeah and it’s like okay great that sounds yeah that sounds exact.

But so I’m like right okay so you went from—you finished in a week like what was it that what actually was it like? Was it the accountability that that was I was like…

Oh my god this one has told me that she’s going to read my book and I’ve told her I’m going to finish it in a week and now I must finish it in a week okay so that—

And I think because like I love accountability partners like it’s great.

I was so stressed that’s why coaching is so effective for people with ADHD because it’s like people pleasing to yourself for your own benefit so it’s really really effective for us because it’s like there’s a 30% developmental delay in executive functioning skills of ADHD and particularly self-awareness so that self-awareness part is why we struggle to like do what we know.

So if you’ve got someone that can like be your body double like your coach or can—

God I had this morning like the biggest experience I’ve had a really bad burnout week really really bad like yesterday had a huge kind of meltdown and this morning I went to a personal trainer really randomly they emailed me and offered me a free thing and then I went and was like I don’t exercise I don’t leave the house at all like I don’t do anything.

And I was like this is really going to be really good though. But this is like a coach for your body and he was like yeah yeah it is. I was like oh my god this is exactly what I need because I really really struggle to make myself even leave the house but exercise get a routine.

And I was like oh this guy can get me to come to the gym and like even just leave the house.

So I think it’s recognizing that like you need other people and other—and that’s why you mentioned you have those journals—it’s like you can buy all the journals and try all of the yeah routines habits in the world and be like why isn’t this working but you just have to take it like little bit by bit like do the book whatever one go done like marathons into sprints yeah um and treat it like little hills rather than like huge mountains and beating yourself up for never being able to finish anything and then like scrolling on Instagram being like why can everyone else do this thing but not me.

But it’s just find someone and then get really someone that really gets your brains I think is really important.

And then that’s it because I think that not everyone with ADHD is the same and they have varying different degrees of ADHD and like you said elements of autism plays into it and that really changes the brain.

I think people don’t get it and and you see people getting frustrated with other people and then I think that makes it worse and it’s like if that could actually cause so many more problems yeah so I feel like getting the right person is so important.

I’d love to talk about that as well because you said Access to Work and I think that so many people don’t know about it. And I think those who do know about it now are still kind of—there’s a massive waiting list with everything in the UK, right? So it’s like I think you have to wait months and months and months for it.

But can we explain just what Access to Work is? Because you said it massively helped you and obviously I know it’s changed a lot of people’s lives. It’s incredible actually what they’re offering. So I’d love to just, like, you know, can you explain a little bit about Access to Work and how it all works and how people are going to get a hold of it?

Yeah, and they have a whole chapter in my book, *ADHD Works at Work*, and a course. And a course. I’ve got three courses.

What Access to Work is, is a UK government scheme from the DWP, which is very ironic because they talk a lot about disability and pensions and benefits, and this isn’t a benefit, it’s a grant. So it’s not like a disability benefit, and anyone with any health condition can get up to £69,000 a year per person of funded support to help them at work.

The whole point is, which I don’t know how good this is, but the whole point is to help someone stay in work because I think it’s more expensive for people to leave the workforce because they’re not able to stay in it because of a health condition, and then to retrain them and get them back into it. But the whole point is that it keeps you in your work.

You mentioned the waitlist. The waitlist now is six to seven months, quite long. The application is not very ADHD friendly. That’s why you may want to do my step-by-step free course because it is incredibly, incredibly helpful.

It’s one of these very frustrating loopholes basically. Like if you can withstand the very, very painful application. I basically fight with Access to Work every single day because we have a lot of coaching clients that get funding from there. We have a lot of employers that we’re helping to navigate through the process, and the process doesn’t always work.

Like if we want to talk to Access to Work, we have to call them up and it takes like an hour on hold on the phone. They’ll only talk to you about like one person’s case at a time.

Adulting. Yeah, it’s a very stressful life.

But I know all the guidance off by heart. But it’s great. It can be really great. Like, you know, it helps me with, what was it called, a virtual assistant, like someone that helps me with all my admin. I would not be here without them honestly. I wouldn’t do anything that I do. And especially the coaching.

But it can pay for all kinds of things like laptops. It won’t pay for reasonable adjustments, which are like what an employer should pay for, but it can pay for people to have support additional to that. So anything like chronic fatigue coaching or any kind of specialist equipment that might be useful or helpful. It can pay for travel. So it’s a super, super, super helpful scheme.

The only problem with it is that it is highly inaccessible. And sorry, I should have said, if you are—and any founder should know this—if you were due to start work in the next four weeks, I believe, or to become self-employed in the next four weeks, then your application will be fast-tracked.

Like, you know, we’ve hired two employees at ADHD Works in the last couple of months and both of these people got their application within the week.

Oh wow.

Yeah, shortcuts.

That’s really crazy. So is that because they want to make sure they’re prepared for the job and that it doesn’t fall through?

I don’t know.

I guess because like you said, it’s more expensive to leave.

You have to know about that. Obviously I know about it, so as soon as I had them apply for Access to Work. But for most people, first of all their employers don’t know, second of all even if their employers do find out, then they’re like what is it? And again it’s very inaccessible, so it’s quite confusing for them to know how to engage with that process.

And then even if they do apply for it and they get that funding, then there’s a huge mix-up on education for the employers of knowing, like, is this a reasonable adjustment? Do we need to do anything else for them? Especially if there’s a delay, which often happens, which is why I write about it in the book, because then they can get a bit mixed up because someone just has to tell their employer about it when they apply.

Yes, so it’s super, super helpful. But I think most people probably in reality wouldn’t tell their employer, especially if they’ve just got a new job, to be like I’m going to apply for Access to Work. Because you obviously have to tell them about how you struggle at work.

So it’s quite a vulnerable thing to do, but I don’t think a lot of people feel comfortable doing that and admitting things, which is tricky.

But I’d like to focus on the founders at the moment just because that’s most people who watch this podcast.

Yeah.

But I think that the question is, I think it’s so difficult with all that sort of stuff. You’re a little bit skeptical about whether the government is actually going to follow through. And like you said, there’s a six or seven month waiting list. How often do you think people get rejected as well, and what are the criteria? Because you said £69,000 is a lot of money, but even if you just got £15,000 or £20,000, that’s a lot of money that would help possibly exactly anything.

Like, you know, that’s going to be life-changing to a lot of people. I know that it’s not a life-changing amount in terms of you’re going to go buy yachts and jets and stuff, but it is a life-changing amount for someone with ADHD who’s stressing as a founder, who can’t do all these million different things and would like to have a VA, an ADHD coach, just kind of help manage their brain a bit more and understand themselves a bit more. It’ll be life-changing literally.

It’s life-changing.

But how? Do people get rejected? I’m guessing they do, and under what grounds?

No, they don’t. No, they don’t get rejected. But they also say they don’t need a formal diagnosis. You don’t need a formal diagnosis of anything to apply, which is great.

Because not to get too technical, as in law basically it’s a legal test, it’s not a medical test. They’re not giving you specialized support, but as I say it’s a very inaccessible process in general. Very admin heavy, very asking questions that are not really very neurodivergent friendly.

Like how many hours a week do you need the support? You’re like, I don’t know the answer to that. What support? Yeah, I don’t know what support is available. Like one week? I thought I worked 100 hours a week and I do. I genuinely work 100 hours a week. I work from 6:00 a.m. until midnight every day.

Even when you’re sleeping, your brain—

Exactly. I work nonstop.

But what does happen very often is that you apply and then it is literally just luck of the draw. You get a case worker. They’ll open your case and they will usually do an independent assessment for you. They refer you to like a third-party person, which actually the majority are pretty nice.

Again, it’s just luck of the draw. If you get a nice person, they might help you.

So for example, if you apply and you want coaching, well I’ll tell you my experience. The first time I applied was basically after being told about it by a coach that I talked to completely by chance, and I was like I need her help.

They did this whole process. The assessor talked to me and I was like I would like coaching with this woman. She understood my brain perfectly. She was going to change my life.

And he was like yeah, it was like self-effectiveness. Then he basically awarded, after all this months of waiting and challenge and having to talk to my employer about it, like £750 for coaching with a provider that wasn’t specific even to ADHD.

And I was so angry. I was like after all of that, are you kidding me?

And then I said, if you’re making me go through all of this process, why can’t I just get the support from this person? I’d rather use that money for her.

And the thing is you actually can use the funding with the supplier of your choice. So they don’t have to. If they give you £750 and you want to use that with a different person, that’s up to you.

But I appealed it. I applied for a reconsideration, which I didn’t think would work, but I was so angry and so emotional and so like this could be the thing.

And I was like also if I get this coaching with these people that are not specialists in ADHD, it’s not going to be helpful. My employer is going to be really angry because they’re going to have higher expectations.

I think they were like, just give it to her.

Then they gave me the funding for my coach. And I was right because it wouldn’t be a useful use of taxpayer money to have given me that funding for coaching that wasn’t specialized to my needs.

But the coaching that I had genuinely enabled me to stay in my job. I was working on all of the COVID legislation at the time, mental health and immigration, Brexit. It was very stressful.

But I stayed in it. I did it. I did stuff for the country. I returned the favor and now obviously hopefully helping a bit with the ADHD crisis that the country is in.

But yeah, it is honestly life-changing. Without coaching I would have just burned out and crashed out. I was living over the road from my job and then just happened to knock. No one made me, I was just so determined not to quit that I was like I’m going to live on chicken.

Oh my God, get it.

Yeah, so that’s not actually that effective of a long-term strategy. And then that office shut down anyway.

Oh my God.

Not my fault. And then COVID hit.

So yeah, it was interesting times.

Sorry, that was a huge tangent for your question.

No, that was great.

You just mentioned the ADHD crisis our country is having, so I want to touch on that because there’s so much in the news and I don’t know what’s weird and what’s not.

But I know that so many people I know who have relied on ADHD meds all their life are now going, oh my God, what do I do? Because it’s this massive shortage and they just feel like they can’t function. They are stripped of everything they know about themselves and some people are turning to recreational drugs now as a result just to compensate for what it is.

And also just again, with the diagnosis, people who sort of have been going most of life having all these symptoms, they don’t know who they are and they suddenly realize actually I might have ADHD. They’re having to wait, what, it’s now two years or something for an official diagnosis?

Seven years. Seven years, ten years.

What? I don’t understand how that can be. I don’t understand how it such a delay but why?

That’s why I wrote that book, *ADHD: Do You Need to Know?* because there’s a whole long story.

But when I was diagnosed, to give the context, I was diagnosed and I didn’t think I had ADHD. I just knew that I didn’t fit into society after studying law, graduating, went over to Australia, kept starting jobs, quitting them, didn’t try living the original life.

And then I basically became really suicidal all the time, but then I would wake up feeling fine. I was like we’re not going to tell anyone about that.

And then I was completely all over the place, being like I’m completely insane because how can I feel that bad and then wake up feeling fine?

Started Googling it, being like I’ve got every single one of these conditions, bipolar, borderline personality. Like how can someone have all of the conditions?

I was terrified. I remember how absolutely terrified I was to go to a doctor. And I kind of mentioned it to a GP once or twice and they were just like, oh you’re fine. You’ve got a law degree.

I was like well they think I’m fine, and then I feel exactly the same that night.

But eventually I became very, very bad and decided to end my life. Fortunately I got ADHD, I’m still here.

Terrible humor to laugh.

I always make that joke and I do talks in companies and they’re like what did she just say?

And then I follow up with no one ever laughs at this joke and I think it’s because I only did half a stand-up comedy course.

But luckily at that point when it got really, really serious, I decided to go to a psychiatrist because I was like you know what, you might as well. I was literally ready to be taken to hospital all the time.

Because I’d never talked to anyone about what was going on in my head properly.

So I just decided to do it. It cost me thousands of pounds and I didn’t even have a GP in England.

And they said, yeah, you’ve got ADHD.

I was like no, I’ve got a rare problem.

And he was like no you don’t. You’ve got really bad ADHD.

I was like well fine then, actually give me your drugs.

I was like that’s actually not that bad. I’m not going to hospital now.

And he was like no, I’m not going to give you drugs straight away. You have to come back. We have forms.

It’s all very painful, part of this process that everything to do with ADHD seems to be an incredibly un-ADHD-friendly process.

He was like we’re going to give you these forms to get your friends and family to fill in and look at your school reports.

And I was like first of all I have no friends and family because I’ve had bites of all of this. And also I have no idea where my school reports are.

And I had a holiday the next day for two weeks to Bali.

So he said come back after your holiday.

I went to Bali and met a stranger on the beach and moved in with him and did a partner visa.

And then a year later I came back and I was like I believe you. ADHD is real. Okay yes, I believe I have ADHD now.

And then I finished off that diagnosis, went on the medication and it was life-changing already.

Because he mentioned ADHD to me, I kind of looked into it a bit more and it was only when I learned about the emotional dysregulation part, which is commonly associated with this thing called rejection sensitive dysphoria, which is basically extreme emotional pain at real or perceived rejection that can lead to very, very strong emotional mood swings including feeling suicidal.

I was like, oh, all right. That I accept.

And yeah, once I got that diagnosis my life completely changed because of the medication.

Although it’s a long story, but that medication made me really, really unwell initially because I had to pay £300 for it every month and I had no money.

So being diagnosed didn’t make things better overnight either. It just made me more like, woohoo, now I know this about myself. I’m going to make all of these impulsive decisions and now I know my life.

And then being like actually nothing has changed.

Even talking to the psychiatrist cost me hundreds of pounds, so it was a really, really stressful time. And the medication nearly almost killed me ironically.

So eventually I went off it completely and I said, like, I’m just going to go for the NHS because my doctor had told me that I couldn’t do that. The psychiatrist, he was like, no, they’ll make you go for all the year-long waiting lists.

I said, I think like I literally cannot afford the subscription. And he wrote me a letter and then my GP who I signed up to told me that they could accept that.

And I was like, so if I hadn’t done that and gone through all of that, I would have never known I could have got this on the NHS.

But many people, again, it’s really complex, which is why it’s so simplified in the media and on social media because it takes a long time to explain these kinds of issues and hear them and to realize it’s different for everyone.

Like some people, their GP won’t recognize private prescriptions. Some people, their GP will.

Some people usually have to go through titration for a period of months before they can. It’s just a complete—some diagnoses cost £3,000, some of them take, like, you know, like my process involving all these steps. Some of them take like half an hour.

So actually my one on the NHS that followed up took like half an hour.

So like it’s a real, real minefield.

But right now, so that happened to me six years ago and then that’s basically why I wrote this book, *ADHD and A to Z*, because my new GP said, okay, we can give you this medication, but they were like if you want to change your medication or go higher, then you’ll have to go through the NHS again in future.

And he said that’ll take seven years.

Like what?

He was like—

So I was like, if I had to wait seven years, I would definitely be dead. I would not be here.

And I couldn’t believe that was the case. And there actually is a five times higher risk of suicide for people with ADHD than the general population, so it’s a really, really, really serious issue.