How ADHD Affects Daily Life with Sophie Riley

 “You don't have to feel it the way that I feel it.  But there's definitely ways that as you learn about it, and as you learn more about yourself, there's definitely ways that, I don't want to say that we can improve because I think that we are all absolutely perfect just the way that we are made, but make our life easier for sure.” - Sophie Riley 

 Welcome to Imperfection In Progress, a podcast for ambitious women who are people pleasers, perfectionists, or procrastinators. Want to feel less stressed and more joy in your life? Then this is for you. I'm your host, Dawn Calvinisti. 

 Sophie Riley shares the pros and cons of her experience with ADHD both in her business and in her life. This is such an encouraging episode with so much grace extended to all of us as we figure out the stuff that makes us who we are. 

 CONNECT WITH SOPHIE: 

Website: https://www.theviphub.ca 

Free Gift: The Plan B Workshop 

Link to Free Gift: https://www.theviphub.ca/ohshitworkshops 

OTHER RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST: 

Private Podcast Anxiety Deep Dive: https://www.pursueprogress.com/deepdive 

Umbrella Virtual Solutions: https://www.umbrellavs.com 

Book Your Free 30 Minute Strategy Call with the host, Dawn Calvinisti: https://link.theviphub.ca/widget/bookings/dawncalvinisti/strategy 

Connect with Dawn.
Website/Email/IG/Tiktok/YouTube
200 Affirmations for the 3 P’s

Transcript

[DAWN CALVINISTI]

Welcome to Imperfection in Progress, a podcast for ambitious women who are people-pleasers, perfectionists, or procrastinators. Want to feel less stress and more joy in your life? Then this is for you. I’m your host Dawn Calvinisti.

In this episode I’m joined by Sophie Riley. Sophie is CO-Founder and CEO of The VIP Hub (An All-In-One Sales & Marketing Platform). A self-described Automation Nerd & List Building Obsessed, she is also a host, Speaker and Mom. She helps coaches and course creators build systems and passive income to free up their time and their mind so that they can focus on literally anything else while increasing their productivity and minimizing problems.

You can learn more about Sophie by visiting her website theviphub.ca

Sophie shares her experience with ADHD as an entrepreneur and mom. Sophie’s sense of humour comes through in her stories of how ADHD shows up in her life in ways that are struggles and in ways that are advantages. If you need some encouragement then I know you’ll enjoy hearing Sophie’s journey.

Here’s our conversation.

[00:00:00] Dawn Calvinisti: I'd like to welcome once again, Sophie Riley to the podcast. She's been here before and I'll put it in the show notes so that it's linked to the other episode we did. But thank you, Sophie, for coming and talking about ADHD today.

[00:00:13] Sophie Riley: I'm really excited to be here. And that's it's such an exciting and important topic to talk about. So excited to get into it.

[00:00:22] Dawn Calvinisti: Yeah, it was so funny as I decided like, okay, the month of May, we're going to focus on ADHD, and I've had more and more friends, family members, just acquaintances, people that I've been following, who all have started talking about the fact that they were diagnosed with ADHD, but not until they were adults, and I'm like, okay, this is a topic that I had no idea how common it is.

And then I thought, okay, we got to talk again, Sophie, because I know we've, we've talked lots, I know a bit about your ADHD, but we've never talked about it on the podcast. So tell us a little bit about like, when did you notice? What did you do? Did you get diagnosed? Like, where did it start for you?

[00:01:03] Sophie Riley: So I was still in the Canadian forces then, and it's when I hit a Burnout actually, so then I the way that my burnout kind of showed up was with a Transemic Oh my gosh a tia mini stroke. We're gonna go with a mini stroke because this frenchie can't pronounce it But it was a mini stroke. Okay, so I am dropping off my kid To my parents for a weekend.

I'm flying out And I no longer have the ability to speak Nothing, nothing's coming out, nothing's making sense huge migraine after that, so obviously hospital visit, and that migraine, like we're not talking headache, we're talking migraine lasted months. Months. So now you can imagine the doctor appointment, the specialist referral which came to the last specialist that I saw with what, which was a psychiatrist asking me a whole bunch of question.

And then he just looked at me, he knew he's like, have you ever been diagnosed with ADHD? And I'm like, I don't even know what that is or what that means. Twenty nine at that point. And he's like, all right, well, I'm going to prescribe you this medicine. If you take it. And it feels like you're on speed.

You probably don't have ADHD and we can talk back, but if you take it and everything starts to slow down and make sense, you absolutely have ADHD. And then we're going to take it from there. So that is actually how I got diagnosed.

[00:02:47] Dawn Calvinisti: Wow. That's like the extreme way to figure out that you have

ADHD. Yes, 100%. But you know, what's funny is when you hear something new and you start to do research, and then TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, everything that you see here will start to show up, and then you start to learn and be more educated about it, but it was definitely an interesting, an interesting way to find out.

[00:03:17] Sophie Riley: I'm going to say it that way.

[00:03:18] Dawn Calvinisti: When I first started hearing about ADHD in adults and the difference that, it isn't necessarily that you're totally, bouncing off the walls and can't do anything. And the way that I, I always thought ADHD, ADHD was because I heard about it in kids. one of the first people that I heard talk about ADHD was you as an adult.

And so, yeah, so it was, it was funny to me because I know you can be very focused, you can be very driven, you can stay on task, you can get things done. And so suddenly I'm like, okay, wait a second, I don't think I really know what ADHD is when it comes to it in adults, because you, to me, were not what I would have thought of as ADHD.

[00:04:03] Sophie Riley: That's really funny. Well, you know what? So now we are dealing with also getting ADHD and autism diagnosed for, let's just say we're a whole bunch of family, like this whole family is neurodiverse. Okay. We're learning a whole lot about neurodiversity in children and adults. And the first thing that I'll say is that, yeah, kids tend to be a little bit all over the place, but it's actually called your proprio, your proprioceptor, your, your driven, what, what, I'm hoping I got the word right.

Again, I am French. We may have to put it in the show notes, but it's the, it's your body. Who basically wants to touch everything and what I've learned is that You can tell me to stop it a thousand times I can't right so we like this is when we see it in children. Obviously, I am an adult and I don't know.

I still want to say that I touch everything in IKEA when I go in so I'm not sure but it it's Though it manifests in certain ways into children, and it's not because we don't feel it as adults, we've just been, let's call it disciplined, taught to not do certain things. And, the spectrum is so big, so something that I'm experiencing, if you had ADHD, you may not experience.

It doesn't have to be this this cookie recipe, right? So we we could have completely different ways that we feel the ADHD. So it's definitely not something like if you if you hear me talk today and you feel like, OK, well, I can't focus on a task or I can't complete a task. I want to say that's completely OK.

You don't have to feel it the way that I feel it. But there's definitely ways that as you learn about it, and as you learn more about yourself, there's definitely ways that, I don't want to say that we can't improve, but I, because I think that we are all absolutely perfect just the way that, that we are made, but make our life easier for sure.

[00:06:30] Dawn Calvinisti: Yeah, so because I know that you like you run your own business and you're fully capable of doing that to an amazing degree Where do you see it show up when it comes to trying to get you know? Your life in order or get do your do your job in ways that are Useful to you as well as in ways that are totally not helpful Yeah,

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[00:06:51] Sophie Riley: So one of. Here's a funny thing about my ADHD that maybe a lot of people can relate that has nothing to do with my business, but I absolutely love it, is I always have about a minimum of three types of drinks with me at all time. One is not enough. Like, I'll have an ice cap if you, like, if you're in Canada, that's a Tim Hortons.

Coffee smoothie. I don't know how we would describe it, but it's delicious and I'll have like my pre workout which is energized I'll have some water. I may have another drink. I always have like a multiple of cups Everywhere, which is awesome ADHD shows up. Let's go with the, with the maybe negative, maybe negative.

Listen, the shiny syndrome is hard. The wanting to do something new is probably my biggest obstacle as somebody with ADHD because I want to do it all. I want to experience it all and I get bored. Really? Really, really fast. I am not going to lie. I, I, this, this can be a big problem because the best way to build your business is to stay consistent.

And I don't know if you've ever heard you want to do, you want to have one niche, one offer, one, one, one, one, one, one, like it's like. It's five ones. I don't remember them, but you want to concentrate on one thing for one year. You want to sell it one way. That is the hardest thing that I, I don't know that I've ever accomplished it.

I always get distracted and I'm not going to lie. Like it's not, it's not perfect. And every time I do get distracted, I make my passive income doesn't grow. It's okay. I probably had fun and I learned something along the way and it's all good, but the shiny syndrome is my biggest obstacle as somebody who has ADHD.

Biggest, biggest, the accountability. If you don't have an accountability partner for whatever your goals are, whether you want to lose weight, whether you want to keep your house cleaned, whether you want to, it doesn't matter, accountability is everything. I don't know if you've ever seen on Tik TOK, but like the best way to get somebody with ADHD to clean their house is to say you're coming over.

That is real. And I'm not going to lie, that is very, very real, but well, you can use that in your business as well. I do a lot of collaboration. I do a lot of collaboration with, we have a mutual friend, Janine, and it's always more fun. It always gets done faster because I have that accountability.

I have that privacy. for that person that you know, we have that timeline together. That is very, very real. So knowing that I love to do collaborations because it always going to get done faster. It's always going to be easier. It's going to always going to be more fun, and I'm not going to get bored. It's when I, When I hide part of my business that nobody knows about, but I know that it needs to get done, right, that I kind of procrastinate on, right, because nobody sees it.

That's the biggest problem with the ADHD is that if I hide part of my business, the, the things that you don't see, those are the things that I probably do not do. Unless, unless I have, I need that accountability. I need that, that person to be. Dawn, you can't just be sitting on the other side. You need to be able to see it and say, Soph, what's going on here?

I see you. It's the same thing as when you've, you've messaged me and say, okay, I'm, I'm coming over. Well, I can guarantee you that I haven't dusted my house in 30 days because I hate it. Sure. My house is clean ish. Emphasize on the ish, clean enough. It's acceptable if somebody was just to pop by but it's the same thing for my business.

But let's talk about ways that. ADHD and the type of neuro spicy brain that I have. Is so freaking epic. I see my business, any business let's call it 3D. Everything at the same time. So, I don't know, like, those machines and you have like this piece, interlock with this piece, interlock with this piece.

And when you turn it, it turns the wheel as it goes on. I see everything. So if we were to talk about your business, Right now or a project. You're going to walk me through it. I'm going to ask some question and I see it. I'm able to visualize it in my in my head, and I could tell you in a half a second what you're missing.

That's really useful is my business because I'm able to see. I don't know. Let's say it's a summit, a bundle. A launch, a masterclass. I'm able to see every single piece in my head. I don't need a checklist. I don't need, like, a how to. Which is also very annoying when, when you're like, Hey Sophie, how do we do this?

Well, hold on a second. It's all up in here. I don't have to write it down, but that is probably one of the biggest gifts that I have with the ADHD. It's That 3D brain model. Absolutely.

[00:12:07] Dawn Calvinisti: It's interesting you say that because that's probably one of the first things that I did notice about you is that you have a real gift for being able to take all the parts and, and totally flesh it out. And it's fast for you, like, really, the speed that you understand and can then implement or say like, this is what you need is pretty, pretty impressive.

And I think that's such a cool part of being someone with ADHD. Yeah.

[00:12:33] Sophie Riley: Yeah. Like don't get me wrong. The ADHD comes with a lot of things and it's all about getting to know how your experience experiencing it. Getting the knowledge from it. And be okay. What do I need to overcome? This right? Me accountability doing collaboration. Completely propels my business forward.

Right. Automations. The stress is real, right? When you send that email with the first launch, you want to throw up a little bit like it's nerve wracking. Those are the things that I have to automate. There's absolutely no way shape or form if I had a list. Okay. So on this day, I'm gonna send this email this day I'm gonna send this email.

Listen, I would fail every time. I would I get distracted on a daily basis If I didn't have my automation, it would not be here today having a successful business So you really have to say okay. So this is how I'm Experiencing business with ADHD and this is what I need 

[00:13:42] Dawn Calvinisti: So when, I'm just thinking about other areas, when you're, you're working through these things, like, I could see that this could be interesting, like, even in relationships and friendships, where do you notice that this comes out? Like, how do people, I guess, respond to you, react to you? Are there things where you think, oh, I This doesn't work well in relationships or are there things where you're like, oh, this really helps me in relationships?

[00:14:05] Sophie Riley: This is funny because this is like a completely neural spicy household, so things can be interesting. But we do complement each other, but at some point you have to not take things too seriously, if that makes sense. So some people with ADHD are constantly late. This household. Oh my goodness, Dawn.

This also shows up early to absolutely everything that we do. Did I pass this on to my kids? Absolutely. Does my teenager have absolute anxiety if he's not an hour early someplace? Absolutely. Which is, which is odd because usually, people are late. Like, if you tell me that you're going to be here at 1 p.

m., you can. That's everything that I have, that I am ready, my house is clean and I'm sitting by the window just waiting, just seeing if you're gonna get here. I like, I'm just waiting, like, at least an hour to 30 minutes before. It's, it's a little crazy. So, honestly, you have to understand that we don't do it on purpose.

Right? Like, it is what it is. So, I'm gonna give you a few examples. Something that both my husband and I completely are not great at is the, is the laundry. Like, I just started a load that I think we've started combined like four times. I am not gonna lie, but you know, like, if we work it to get mad at all the things we know we're not great at, oof, things, things may not go as smooth, right, into our relationship.

So honestly, just communicating is, Is everything we are. Listen, do you see those those purple wall? My husband came home. Obviously, this is a podcast. I'm I apologize. I have purple walls. Okay. My husband came home from a deployment. He is deployed on a ship. So if you can imagine a ship, there's a lot of people.

It's a small space. There's always a noise that goes on. And his ADHD was is. Out of this world when he came home, okay, my furniture was changing daily, the colors of my walls, he painted shelf green, I have, we started with one fish tank, then we had three fish tank, and now I have one bigger fish tank, like, have to give space for the things that you can't control, and just let it be okay.

Like if I got mad every time my couch moved don't know that we would have a relationship. That's something that's very specific to my husband. The furniture will move daily, okay? Like I'll go upstairs and my whole bedroom That is, is completely moved. I don't know why, but it's okay. My teenager, what he needs the most help with, is keeping his space tidy.

I know that he has ADHD, and I know, just like me, that he can't help it. So getting mad because his room is dirty is not the answer by giving them, him the tools, trying new things to see if we can help him keep his room tidy. Because teenagers, we're always going to get mad because they, but when you know that this is a problem, that it's not doing it on purpose.

If you take that approach. I feel like everything, in, in relationships help. The problem is, is that not all of our friends understand ourself as much as we do. So sometimes communicating that piece can be really, really important. Like, listen, if I did not answer your text, I saw it and I forgot about it.

Just message me back. It's okay. I didn't do it on purpose.

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[00:18:16] Dawn Calvinisti: I love this because I think, I mean, I think for a lot of people, not just people with ADHD, but often we think that when it is, it's something that we're really concerned about and somebody else doesn't seem to be as concerned about it. It's like, oh, like you don't care or you don't, you're, you're upset with me or we make up some story, right?

Like why they're doing that. And. In reality, it just is what it is.

[00:18:37] Sophie Riley: Oh yeah, I completely forgot about it. It's nothing personal. I, I saw it, I decided I was going to answer it later and later, later never came.

[00:18:47] Dawn Calvinisti: So I want to ask you, like I ask everybody, and I know I asked you this the last time we were on the show, but right now, what would you tend to go towards the most? Would it be people pleasing, perfectionism, or procrastination?

[00:19:01] Sophie Riley: It's a really hard one to choose if I'm being honest, because I, I'm all three. All three, but if I had to pick one, like we are coming into the sunny season here in Canada, it's going to be nice and I am moving into my procrastination space. I know it though and I prepare for it and I like I automate as much as I can in my business and I know that come July, I am, I am not going to be productive.

And you know what? I just decided that that I'm okay. I'm going to be procrastinating a whole lot. Yeah, if I had to choose one right now, I'm gonna go with Procrastinating a hundred percent

[00:19:50] Dawn Calvinisti: And if you were going to give a word of advice to somebody that's listening, and maybe they've just been diagnosed with ADHD, what would you say to them?

[00:20:00] Sophie Riley: give yourself space space to learn space to learned a bit more about the ADHD space to learn about yourself and maybe you know, I'm not saying go into like the deep dive, but Try to pay attention during the day on things that maybe you've been conditioned to do, that you were told that maybe you were not great at, or that you couldn't pay attention, that you couldn't focus.

Things that maybe you were blamed in the past for doing, that it really was not your fault. Giving yourself some space, some grace, take a deep breath and just learn at your own pace. See what works for you. The only person that matters is you, and if you're happy with the person that you are who cares?

We're a little different, and that's okay. I

[00:20:57] Dawn Calvinisti: That's good advice. 

[00:20:59] Sophie Riley: Mean, it's hard. There's so much information out there, right? It is, it is really hard. And if, if you're somebody that's listening and resonate a lot with the autism or the ADHD community every time you see on TikTok, but you haven't been diagnosed. I know that the process to get any type of diagnosis is hard.

But something that we've implemented, especially with my son is just deal with the symptoms because yes, it would be absolutely amazing to get that diagnosis right away. But at the end of the day, getting the diagnosis is not going to fix the symptoms that you're experiencing. One symptom at a time.

[00:21:43] Dawn Calvinisti: oh, I like that. It's way less overwhelming.

[00:21:46] Sophie Riley: Yeah, I mean getting an autistic diagnosis and then let's not even talk about like getting the funding For everything that he needs, but we just went okay. Well, he has some problem with the speech. Let's tackle that He has problem. He needs physio cuz he's goodness. He just walks everywhere. He's His ankle needed a little bit of physio.

Awesome. He has anxiety. Let's go to occupational therapy. And honestly, it takes so much of the stress away because you know that no matter what, you're making a little bit of progress every single day.

[00:22:20] Dawn Calvinisti: Where can people find you if they'd like to learn more about you?

[00:22:23] Sophie Riley: Mostly on my website, theviphub. ca, that is where I hang out the most because my ADHD is seriously bored right now with social media, and I have tried so hard to get back into it, but every time I'm like, When my, when my teenager joined Instagram, I think it all died for me. I was like completely uninterested.

So my website is absolutely the best. You can also send me an email at hello at the VIP hub. ca.

[00:22:52] Dawn Calvinisti: That's awesome. And Sophie's giving us a freebie. It's called the Plan B Workshop. Tell us a little bit about what it does for us, Sophie.

[00:22:59] Sophie Riley: I think it's good for every entrepreneur, but especially with the people that are maybe a little bit neurospicy with the ADHD, it's, it's. Life happens. It's okay. Life happens to everyone, and not everybody has the, the means or wants to have a big team taking care of everything for you. So what I've created is a workshop where we set up a plan B.

Okay, life happens, and I have this plan B set up, which is an automation in my business that's designed to keep my subscriber, I want to say entertained, but entertained. Engage, nurture them and do sell, sell some of your products, your offers that are evergreen so that that don't need you, your presence, your coaching in those offers.

So once you have your plan be set up, which can be for however long you decide It would feel good. I always suggest four to six weeks because guaranteed, you're going to use it at least once a year when life happens, you take your entire list, you put them into your plan B sequence and you take care of of yourself, your family, and you know what, if you had a fantastic year where you didn't need to use it, well, you know what?

Take some take six weeks of the summer off. Take that whole pressure away. Stop working by the pool or at the cottage. Just put everybody into your plan B sequence and enjoy yourself. And you don't have to send that email like, Oh, sorry, I've been absent. Let me explain why we don't need to do that because we were not absent.

They didn't notice. Nobody knows.

[00:24:51] Dawn Calvinisti: This is an awesome gift. Thank you so much for that. And Sophie, thanks for sharing about what your experience has been and encouraging our audience too as they're trying to sort through what they're experiencing. I so appreciate that you were here.

[00:25:03] Sophie Riley: So welcome. Always love chatting with you.

[DAWN CALVINISTI]

Thanks for listening to today's show. If you found value in what you heard, please share it with a friend and rate and review us on whatever platform you listen on. It really helps get us out to other women who could benefit from listening. 

Check out our show notes for details from the show and to connect with me or our guests. Want to continue the conversation? My website is www.pursueprogress.com or DM me @pursueprogresswithdawn on Instagram. 

Until next week, pursue progress no matter how imperfectly.

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CONNECT WITH SOPHIE:

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OTHER RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

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Book Your Free 30 Minute Strategy Call with the host, Dawn Calvinisti
Private Podcast Deep Dive on Anxiety