In today’s post I’ll talk about being a Neuro Divergent in a start-up company

• Challenges

• My learnings

• Unexpected advantages

Before this point, I’d never worked for a start-up company before.

I was the first and only finance hire for this start up company; with the start up company only being four months old at this time. Cashflow was the important metric.

I’ve been accustomed to working in larger companies with revenues in the millions and billions.

I’ve always wanted to know what it would be like working in a start-up company. I can say I got what I expected.

My start up experience has been filled with:

• Fast paced action: Sometimes I don’t have time to think of a solution, a lot of the times I’m operating on instinct, particularly for the niggling day-to-day queries.

• Forever increasing to-do list: There’s always something new to do

• Multitasking demands: In addition to the above, most things seem to be important

• Information overload: For someone with inattentiveness this can a madness!

Sounds like chaos… But I thoroughly enjoyed my experience in the start up company. My executive functioning skills really went to war, and I learned a lot about my ADHD and the depths of my symptoms.

My Learnings and Takeaways:

• If I don’t plan, I’m screwed

I know that things change constantly, but writing things down gives me clarity and reduces my anxiety levels.

As discussed in the ‘My first 30 days post ADHD diagnosis’ post, I use a planner to help organise my thoughts and key tasks for the day and week

• Only the paranoid survive

There’s a saying by Andrew Grove that stuck with me for years… “only the paranoid survive” 

This has helped me be on high alert for the niggling queries and occasionally come up with meaningful:

• Problem solving

• Improvements

• Out of the box thinking

On a project work; If I feel a piece of work is not up to high standards and it’s at risk of criticism, I’ll up my game and spend more time working on improving it.

Although this has been at the expense of a raised heart rate!!

• My ‘beast mode’ is scary!

I think a start-up environment is perfect to help channel my irritability symptoms.

With the growing demands increasing my stress levels, I’ll likely get irritated, p!ssed off and channel that energy with my hyper focus to deliver the piece of work.

I’ll look back and reflect on how I managed to get that done and how proud I am for finishing it.

Michael Jordan another Neuro Divergent was known for transmuting that irritable energy on the court and winning in the process. 

Final thoughts:

I believe neuro divergent people can bring a few things to the table in a start-up company and environment.

Additional support to perform our roles may be required. In my case, I use my noise cancelling headphones a lot to limit my distraction and lock in.

The ADHD Professional

 Disclaimer: I am not your psychiatrist, coach, doctor. Neurodivergent Diaries does not provide medical services or professional counselling and is not a substitute for professional medical care. Everything I publish represents my opinions, experience, not advice.