How to Stop RSD from Sabotaging your Business

 Welcome to the Outsmart, A DHD podcast. I'm your host, Jamie Catino, board certified occupational therapist. Two-time Ted Speaker, A DHD coach, A DHD, advocate and Reality Show, contestant. Now let's talk about A DH. D.

  Hello friends. Holy shit. It's been a long time, hasn't it? I keep saying, you know what, now I'm gonna be back to doing this every single week and then shit hits the fan. But that's okay. I'm here now. I'm not gonna spend too much time giving you an update on my life 'cause you're here for your life.

You're not here to hear about mine. But I will tell you that I got a really cute puppy and he is an absolute shithead. I am crossing my fingers and my toes that while I record this, he is not a complete shit head in his crate since we are crate training. He's so fucking cute. The rescue that we got him from said that nobody else was even interested in looking at him for three or four adoption events.

When they said that, I'm like, okay, clearly this dog is going home with me. He's so cute. And he's a big old shithead. So if it's even harder for me to find words than normal, it's because I got four hours of sleep last night and it was interrupted. But that's okay because I'm here with you. Okay, so today I'm talking about.

RSD and how it can affect your business. What is R-S-D-R-S-D is rejection sensitive dysphoria and what that is an intense emotional reaction to the perception or reality or of rejection, criticism or failure. It's most commonly associated with people with A DHD, although it can also occur in other neurodivergent individuals.

So features of RSD can be. Extreme emotional pain after perceived criticism, reduction, or failure overreaction to minor comments or neutral feedback. Sudden mood shifts from calm to intense sadness, anger, or shame people pleasing or avoidance behaviors to reduce the risk of rejection and internalization, feeling worthless or externalization feeling like they're being unfair.

As a way to deal with the emotional pain, it can feel like a punch to the gut. It is so much more than just, oh, that person hurt my feelings. It feels like a very deep wound. Your body might react to it with a headache, with a stomach ache crying, depending on how dysregulated you are. Your reaction to RSD is going to be more intense.

RSD, although there is not a pinpoint here is what it's caused by. These are all the complexities with it. We do have a general understanding that it's. At least in part due to the way that the A DHD brain is wired, which is why you can't stop RSD from ever happening ever again. Don't go to therapy simply because of RSD.

Okay? Especially if there's not like underlying trauma causing it. If it's just RSDA, like there's not a therapy modality that works for that. But we're gonna get into what to do for RSD later. RSD, the way that it can show up in your business is having fear of posting online because of how people are going to interact with you or how they're going to perceive you.

This is something that I really struggled with for a long time in my business. I honestly really struggled with it until I had a really solid coach that helps me to regulate through it. Because here's the thing, there are shitty people everywhere. They're on the internet, they're in real life, they're everywhere, and there are trolls.

It's so funny because after the last podcast episode that I recorded, I had someone literally go out of their way to respond to me in an email being shitty to me, and I'm gonna read off what that message said because. It is so not uncommon for me. I don't know if I have a sign on my head that says shit on me.

I can take it. But it's wild how people have gone out of their way to shit on me in my Facebook group and online, and it is just the price of doing business, especially with an online business. So I'm gonna scroll back on Facebook and find the damn post so that I can read it to you so that you know that.

You are not the only one that is dealing with people like this. Okay, so this is what they said. Hello Jamie. And then they put hey name. Like quoting what I said and then said, Hey, is for kids is a real, is really the first strike from me. I'm not able to listen or communicate with someone who's supposed to be a professional and speaks with so many F-bombs and belligerents.

I'm stunned. A DHD doesn't give you a free pass to do this. It's quite a shame that you have good information, but I cannot put myself through such. Choice of language to retrieve it. I will be unsubscribing now. There's no excuse for the lack of professionalism. There's no place for this language, period.

They also didn't unsubscribe.

I can't remember if I went in and manually unsubscribe them, but hey girl, if you're still listening thank you for giving me some really good content to go with what I was already planning on talking about. Use silly fucking goose. So there's gonna be people like this when I was on threads yesterday.

Which is another place that I do my marketing other than Facebook. I had some man arguing with me trying to make me feel like shit mis, like purposely misinterpreting What I'm saying, something that my coach told me is that people love to misunderstand you and it's true. They never have all of the context and some people are having a shitty day and they just like to take it out on you.

So those are some ways that it has showed up in. My life, especially prior to having coaching. Like I said, it doesn't go away, but it does get better when you have someone to help you to regulate. Another place that it can show up in your business is, say you have a service-based business and you do consultations.

This is also in my case, you may get to the end of a consultation and completely avoid asking them, Hey. What do you think about working together? Not in a pushy or sleazy type of way, but because, hey, they're here because they wanna talk to you. You are the expert. You are the exact person that they felt like might be the best person to help them to solve their problem, but.

You're feeling like if I ask that question, then I have to deal with whatever they say back, and you might be feeling sensitive to being told, okay, I can't afford it. You might internalize it as, no, it's not that they can't afford it, it's that they don't wanna work with me. What it could be just they can't afford you.

It doesn't mean you're charging too much. That could just be the what it is. It might be that they don't super vibe with your personality if they don't end up hiring you, and that's okay because you are a strong cup of coffee and people love coffee or they can't stand coffee, but there's a lot of people that love coffee.

So not asking what they even think after doing a consult is another way that it can show up in their life or in your life and in your business. You may be afraid to ask them, Hey. Do you know anybody else who could benefit from my product or service? Because you're worried that they're gonna say, no, I don't have anyone.

Which, if we think about it logically, that person is paying you because they think that you're doing a good job with whatever product or service that you're providing them, especially if they've stayed on for any sort of time. So if they don't have anyone to refer to you, it's because they don't have anyone to refer to you because they trusted you with their hard-earned money.

And let me tell you, people do not part with cash easily. I don't care if it's a dollar or $50. So if you're listening to this and you're thinking, yeah, but like I don't even know if my clients or my customers really like me, friend. Yes, they do. Or else they wouldn't have parted with their hard earned cash.

So if you're listening to this right now because you have a business and you have made any money doing it, I am saying a single sale that is a really big accomplishment. And that is something to be really proud of yourself for, especially when you have struggles like this that are related to A DHD.

Another way that RSD can show up in your life is not putting yourself in positions for really cool opportunities because you're worried about how people will perceive you. When I was starting my speaking business, I was terrified if I will not forget the first consultation sitting with them and telling them what I offer for a keynote for a workshop.

Mind you, I had never done it before. I knew that if they hired me, that I would, deliver and do a really good job, but I had no idea what I was doing. But in order to get to that place, I had to put myself in the uncomfortable position of doing something new. RSD is going to trigger more when you're doing something new.

It is still hard at times to get on social media and post or to show up to a consultation for speaking since it's a relatively new business for me. It's been about a year now, but I. It's a lot easier now than it was before, so it sucks, right? Because when you're doing something new, that's when it's the hardest in every way, shape and form.

You're still trying to figure out what does this look like, and you're dealing with not having the confidence in yourself. To go after that opportunity. Now, if RSD had completely taken over my business, I would not have had any type of speaking career. I would not have been getting paid $5,000 and more to speak at colleges on about A DHD and imposter syndrome.

But the only way that I was able to make that happen is because I did have someone there that was helping me to regulate when I felt like I was doing a terrible job. RSD. It will show up not only in the beginning, but it'll continue to show up to be very honest with you, when I have a consultation with a new person who is looking to possibly hire me, there is still the RSD voice in the back of my head saying, oh my gosh, Jamie, you are too much.

You're talking too much. You're talking too fast. They probably think that you're really weird. They probably don't think that you're gonna be able to help them. That's why they didn't hire you immediately. If they don't end up hiring me immediately. This monologue goes in my head, and then I remind myself, actually, no, my coach reminds me, Hey Jamie, you're a really good coach, and people don't part with their money easily.

And that having someone there to help you to regulate and who is outside of your situation is the best thing for. Not only your regulation, but your money and your business, because guess what? If you don't have a way to regulate after RSD, it will be paralyzing to you. For the first couple years of my business, I did not post on social media about.

Being an A DHD coach, I just didn't, I fostered a community in the Facebook group because, it felt safe to just have conversations and to validate people and to give free advice all the time. But it felt uncomfortable to say, Hey, I can help you with this further. Hop on a call with me and see if you wanna work together.

That felt incredibly unsafe, so therefore, the first couple years of my business, I didn't make shit for money. The first year of my business I made about $1,500, and the second year I made about $3,500. But then year three, after hiring a coach that helped me with RSDI made paid about as much as I did when I left my occupational therapy job, which was pretty fucking cool.

That is the difference between having someone there to help you through RSD and trying to manage it on your own chat. GPT can be helpful if you don't have the resources to hire someone to help you. But chat GPT is also wired to validate more than give. An objective opinion, which can actually be helpful for RSD, but for that reason, chat, GPT is not the best way to have a coach or a therapist.

If you don't have resources, it can be very helpful. But to really be able to thrive in your business when you have a DHD. I would honestly recommend finding someone who is qualified, who understands how the A DHD brain works, who has dealt with it themselves, and who has gotten the results that you are looking for.

If you are looking for someone to help you to navigate RSD in your business. Hire someone who has a DHD and has a business themselves. It's also important that when you're looking for help, that you're looking not only at, Hey, is this a person an A DHD coach, but are they actually qualified to help me?

There are a lot of people who. Decide to be a coach and they do it and they don't have the qualifications or the life experience, and it can be really harmful. It can be just as harmful working with an A DHD or who's not qualified to help you and isn't neuro affirming. Versus can be just as harmful to work with someone who's neurotypical versus someone who is a DHD and not qualified.

So as someone that is an occupational therapist, occupational therapy honestly should be called a functional therapist because they help you to function in your daily life. What that looks like for me and my clients is helping them with RSD in their business. I'll talk about what it looks like specifically with my with my.

A DHD business owner clients, it looks like helping them with their executive functioning from day to day, the RSD that gets in the way of making money and putting themselves out there to be able to make more money. It looks like helping them to lead a team or lead contractors if they have people working for them.

These are all things that I can help you with if you decide to work with me. Okay, if you would like to have a conversation about how I can help you in your business specifically, there is a going to be a link in the show notes where you can sign up for a free call with me. You don't have to worry about me doing any type of sleazy sales tactics.

Because let me be honest with you, I'm really good at what I do and I don't need to do that shit to be able to get clients, and that's not me being arrogant. It's just being honest and it's just not in my nature to be like that anyway. I have way too high of a sense of social justice to ever prey on people with A DH D'S impulsivity.

At the end of the call, I'm actually gonna tell you to go think about it before you make a decision, even if you're feeling like, oh, this is a fuck yes for me. My friend RSD does not go away, but it does not have to steal all of your money if you don't let it. It is time for you to make even more money in your already successful business, and I am so excited at the idea of helping you through that and to help you to regulate after.

The trolls shit on you online. Alright, my friends, that link is in the show notes. I'm hoping to see you on a call soon and I will talk to you next time. Bye now.

 Are you a high achieving woman with a DHD looking for a coach or maybe an event coordinator looking for a wildly captivating speaker? Perfect. Go to outsmart adhd.co. That's out. Smart adh adhd.co to get in touch. And before I forget, would you mind taking a minute to share this podcast with someone you love?

It would mean the world to me. Thanks, my friend. Until next time.