#13 — Avoiding Meds, Working Smart, Ancient Wisdom | Meg Holloway

All right. So as always, every time I speak to someone, we have these amazing chats before I press record. So we're going to just I'm going to ask you to repeat a little bit of what you said. So just tell me a little bit about the. diagnosis story for you and then the medication what happened so i got diagnosed when i was 30 After about, I'm going to say about six months of research, I told nobody that I was going for the diagnosis either. And yeah, I did go private.

i was in a place where i just couldn't i couldn't wait for the years and i was like i'm just gonna stump up the money so i did go private and um it was a quite straightforward experience um

But yes, got my diagnosis. And the first thing the assessor said to me was, right, OK, let's talk about medication. And I do actually remember saying. oh is there not like a therapy option and it was very much like yeah you can but it's expensive and we'll have to like go through the nhs and just all this really kind of like let's just get you on the smarties and i'm not saying every assessor is like that

And maybe that's the best way to go for people. But for me, yeah, as I say, in my background, absolute good girl, did a bit of weed in uni, hated it. pretended that i liked it um but i just i just have literally hand on heart never touched a recreational drug in my life

And like my partner gets mad at me if I've got a headache. And I'm like, no, I don't want to take paracetamol. And he's like, oh, for God's sake. I don't know what it is other than control. That's the only thing I can think of. It's about being in control. So. the idea of going on meds. I know for some people, it is a real relief. They feel relief knowing that there is potential medication.

For me, it actually felt like you would be taking the ADHD even further out of my control because from what I understood... me taking the medication was going to potentially dull certain experiences that I have with ADHD.

And I am an extremely curious person. And I wanted to know more. I didn't want to know less. I didn't want to make this any less. I felt like this was something that my diagnosis was basically giving me permission. to get the fuck on with just learning what this was and how my mind works and all that kind of stuff so um and you know as i said saying about it's cocaine you know derivative all this different and they actually tell you that when you yeah yeah

And it was just words that I was just like, well, I don't do those kinds of things. And just the idea of titration and look, if the titration doesn't work, then you have to do this and all these different complicated steps. And then, yeah, as I mentioned, I did because I'm a good girl and I thought, yes, OK, I'm going to go along with what this man is telling me to do. I said, OK, I'll try. I can't remember which one it was, but I said I'll try it. Obviously.

I completely forgot to go pick up my prescription. And when I finally went, the chemist said, look, sorry, it's a controlled drug. We can't give it to you. It's, you know.

out of time or you've you've run out of time or whatever um whatever it was and i i it's weird i can literally picture being stood in this chemist and like i was like i could feel like shakes and little tears pricking at my eyes and thinking really thinking and I think I even said to the woman but I but I need my medication and then in that moment going how the fuck do you know you haven't even taken it yet

And walking back to my car and just thinking, really, is this really what this has come down to that you you're now desperate for this for this drug? And yeah, from there, just thinking. you know, ringing up the psychiatrist receptionist and being like, oh, you know, first of all, feeling bad, quite shameful, I fucked up, I didn't go get it. And she was very much like...

This is very normal. I've heard this one before. But she was like, OK, so you have to go back to the assessor to talk to the psychiatrist to re-get the prescription. And I was just like, I'm out. I'm absolutely out. I'm not doing that. And also...

Like, come on, Meg. Golden opportunity here. You're a curious person. Let's go see what else could potentially... potentially help me and what are the gaps what don't you know there's loads you don't know about this you've done lots of you know connecting dots watch plenty of TikTok videos of people talking about it. But let's, you know, let's read some books now. Let's watch some YouTube videos. Let's really...

fill your head so that you, that's what I've always been like. I just need to know, give me all the information that makes me feel better. And then I can make some more informed decisions. I'm exactly the same. yeah and it got to the point where I was like you can start taking this medication but that medication is not going to give you any more information about the way your brain works and I didn't I didn't like the sound of that

In a minute, I'm going to ask you about what you're doing instead of the medication. It's just something that's coming to mind as you're speaking.

um obviously all these experts i've obviously been through this process as well and i all these experts are telling us this is this medication this is a derivative of cocaine derivative of speed whatever it is that they're saying and then um they say you should take it this time and it will last to this time and they've got all the answers right so this this just came to mind as you were speaking have you heard of the skin in the game principle yeah okay right one of the reasons why it's safe

for us as human beings to get on an aeroplane is because the pilot checked the plane before they fly it to the destination. So it's in their best interests to... Make sure there's nothing broken on it because it's their life as well as the 200 passengers. I think that before a pharmacist hands out medication, they should have to take it themselves. The same for scientists. I think scientists that make these meds should be forced to take them. I'm serious. I know for certain that that is safe.

what you're talking about you know we say like um there's a few of us who say this whole thing about you know you've met one person with adhd you've met one person with adhd You're talking about this massive group of people and then you're really saying that this one drug is potentially going to help. or all of them and I know they say like oh this might not work and that's what titration's for and stuff but yeah and you know what from your analogy I've just made a connection like

I'm an ADHD coach. That was part of my journey further down the line. I trained up as an ADHD coach as well. I've had ADHD coaching. I know it fucking works. So that's why I can advocate and talk about it. the cows come home because I know it's something that is extremely powerful and really helps people um and I have clients who who are on medication or ask me about medication and I just have to jump straight over it because I'm like

I don't know I've never taken it and I'm not about to tell you what you should whether that's something for you or not so yeah I quite like that that's um makes me feel a bit better about my job actually there you go that's it and you know it's interesting because um I do

work with people who are on medication because the very nature of what we're doing and i have taken the medication even though i was told not to by a doctor because i had to for because i was so curious and i realized this is just stripping me from me It took my personality out of me completely. I wouldn't even use the word numb. It deadened me. I could see how I would be effective at being a normal human being. I don't want to be a normal human being. I just want to be me.

yeah like because i'm i've learned to disconnect and this is not natural i don't think but disconnect from the outcomes of the action that i'm taking so instead of saying my goal is x i'm gonna go

i'm good at these five things and whatever the outcome of doing those five things is i'm okay with yeah therefore i don't need to take medication to force myself to get a goal when i'm okay with the outcome because i was born with these things and i was bought i was born

being good at a small number of things and born shit at almost everything so the thing is like just do those five things really well and you'll be fine you can pay your mortgage your kids are all right yeah my life's happy like that's it I mean, what else do we want, really? I mean, come on. And so... What was I going to say? Yeah, so I just didn't see the point. I was like, I don't want to be normal.

Now, obviously I speak to a lot of people that are on medication and I understand why they take it. Again, this sounds like I'm being judgy or in this conversation, but I'm not. It's just a lot of people... get onto the medication and realize that it's opened their eyes to the world they can see everything's like the lights have been switched on but that just never lasts yeah i see people coming to me all the time saying i'm not really sure the medication's working anymore

and i'll say right okay right stop taking it then just for a couple of days and see what happens they'll come back to me and go it was horrendous it was horrendous it was awful i was like was it worse when you were off the meds than before you ever took them and they were like yeah definitely definitely i was like well does that make you want to keep taking the meds and they go no and do you know what that's so that's so true as well of i guess my

Because I literally have zero judgment. I really don't. I work with clients who take the medication, don't take the medication. I really don't. It just doesn't come into my sphere of interest simply because. It's down to personal preference, but my personal preference is I don't think I want to experience what other people see.

Because I don't want that to then make me forget that how I see things is also really unique and wonderful too. Like you said, I don't want to be like other... people um the thing I'm more interested in is the fact that I love the idea of like category of mind that's how I think of ADHD it's just another category of mind can you explain that a bit more so

i know i'm a very positive person maybe i go into toxic positivity but i'm happy i've made i've made you know i've made you just be you yeah literally like i've made i've made peace with that But the idea of category of mind for me is that actually, you know, whenever it was, a couple of hundred years ago, we all absolutely fundamentally believed that the world was flat. it was flat as a pancake and there was a guy upstairs somewhere deciding how everything worked and if you had the flu

Obviously, you'd have to go to a doctor and he would bloodlet you. That's how you get rid of the, you know, there was these fundamental things that nobody argued with. And, you know, we look back on that now and think, oh, my God, that was so silly. What if? Just what if?

Where we are right now is realising that that is the same for your brain, that there are just lots of different brains. There are lots of different categories of brains. Same as there's so many different bodies, ethnicities, cultures. this different stuff what if there's just lots of different brains and what if at some point in history we started developing a world or somebody said this is the right way that the world was supposed to work

in the neurotypical neural normative whatever you know phrase you want to use for that brain if you like. So we then decided that any other brain that didn't match that brain was wrong.

not different just wrong and what we're now realizing kind of coming out of the um industrial revolution and all that kind of stuff is that i've got this thing of if i've got this kind of um theory that pre-raphaelite renaissance anybody who was like involved in kind of like you know moulin rouge kind of all that kind of stuff probably had adhd autism all these different things right there was a place for them in the world

And actually where we are now, there doesn't seem to be this place because actually we've just decided that it's wrong. So I am far more interested in how do we start to work. work with that you know I've been in meetings over the years when I was in when I was employed where my boss would be like how did you get there like that's an incredible idea like and I'd be like why doesn't everybody else just you know why isn't everybody else having that idea

And just so I know the things that I can do that potentially other people can't do and blah, blah, blah. So I am much more interested in a blend where all these different categories of minds get to come to the table rather than... potentially taking medication to make you more like one particular brain i i have nothing to add i agree with absolutely every single word you just said oh good absolutely bang on

That makes two of us. Great. And that is like, I can clearly see you would probably, well, I don't want to say you probably wouldn't have done, but you might not have even come to that conclusion. if you'd started taking the medication agreed because then it would have been i have an adhd and that's a thing that is fixed

And if we take medication, it makes the ADHD not bad or not there or something like that, whatever the assumption would be. Yeah. And I think a lot of people assume. Well, it was it was it's interesting. So I'm like.

doing like content creation for my business and stuff and something I had an idea about linked to something else I'm doing was about me when I was employed versus when i've been self-employed and i you know the adhd kind of came smack bang in the in the middle of that to be honest um the diagnosis anyways so i recently um asked my mum like because i know i used to ring my mum like every month

crying or frustrated or angry about whatever job it was that I was in at the time uh so I said to my mum like look I've got this content idea can you just send me a message just describe like what was I like when I was employed like when I used to ring you every month and stuff and I then asked the same question to my partner who has only actually known me

self-employed um like you know what does he notice in me about um you know what i do and blah blah blah and um my mum's my mum's response was completely true but also showed a lot in terms of the ADHD so my mum said um unfulfilling with a hint of self-destruction and it felt like you were wearing someone else's life as a costume wow

If that's not masking, I don't know what is. Yeah, literally. You know, I did. I really tried so hard to be like corporate girly, like climb the ladder, like all that bullshit. And I'm so far away from that now that, you know, I know we're probably going to get to this, but like.

Being self-employed helps my ADHD twofold. I know it's not possible for everyone. And also maybe a lot of people just aren't interested. But it was a huge, huge component for how I... manage my brain for sure yeah i mean well i've been self-employed since i was 21 right i don't even really remember what it was like if i you know what the last job that i had before i became self-employed was this is genuinely true in in the peak district where i live there's a

stately home called chats with house which is like a big destination my full-time job seriously it's so funny to say this i'm i mean we're talking about a massive stately home here i used to just change light bulbs all day seriously that was my job i would just i'd heard a radio uh on my trousers and someone would say there's a light bulb out in x y room yeah yeah fine light bulb go next one light bulb it's constantly did you enjoy it

um not really i think it was like it was an amazing place to work like in this big stately home there wasn't a huge amount of structure yeah so that was great yeah but then i founded i ended up i'd always been interested in i've been a very creative person and i had um started messing around with like built making logos and things like that and i ended up like there was a cafe um

close to chats with house and i ended up making a logo for them and they loved that and they they still use it now like when i drive past i'm like fucking hell still the same one and then like um that ended up growing into an agency and i moved to manchester and hired loads of employees and stuff And I sold that in 2017. So it just like, and I wasn't actually diagnosed ADHD until 2017. Okay. All the way up to 2017, I'd never felt structure, like corporate structure ever.

But then in late 2018, I was co-founded a financial technology company and we ended up getting VC investment like millions. And that was like working in a corporate environment immediately because we had about 25 investors and every single one of them was just on top of us all the time and like trying to create structure. And it was the worst thing ever. I hated it.

Well, it's interesting you say about running an agency because my last job before I went self-employed was working for an agency and the way I had to work. in the agency is actually what led to me going for the diagnosis that doesn't surprise me at all yeah so i and it's not to say that it made it any like And it didn't create the ADHD or anything. It had always been there. But the working parameters that I had to work in made it all a lot worse, if you like, and made me kind of think.

I don't know. Something's going on. there's something going on with my brain, but I have a feeling it's always been there. And this situation is just making it like 10 times worse. And after I got my diagnosis, I then looked back at every job that I'd ever had. And all these little patterns were starting to.

you know we're starting to show up um but you know i it's kind of a funny story i guess but and it's not it's not as simple as i'm about to say but i tell people i got diagnosed with adhd um because my job made me complete

tried to make me complete timesheets and that is that is literally what led to my diagnosis what i can understand i literally remember visiting my sister in nottingham and she asked me how work was going and i was i literally just burst out crying and i was like i can't do my time sheets what

explained what a timesheet was and she was like, I don't get it. And I was like, I can't do it. And she was like, what do you mean you can't do it? I was like, I cannot physically fill out this fucking form and I can't tell you what I've done for 7.5 hours. of a day, and I have to account for every single minute, and someday... That's insanity.

yeah someday this task will take me four hours but then the next week it'll only take me 20 minutes but but I can't do any more than the 20 minutes like it got everything out like and you know trying to explain it and my sister was the one who turned around and said Do you think you might have ADHD? Yeah.

And that was in secret. I'd been researching it. Like literally, I just sat on Google one night and just typed in everything that was going on in my head. And it was just article after article of ADHD.

So, but yeah, that was what led me to just go, I don't think this environment... works for my brain at all um and my company you know to be fair to them did try and give me some adjustments and stuff but it was very much uh we kind of need to make sure that everybody's on the same thing so I got to you know I was a consultant I was working with clients I came in-house hoping that that meant I didn't have to do a time sheet right really uh yeah it was

so what what's the what are the main what were the main differences like upon self-employment then within the first few months what happened you were you were then in control so yeah yeah so i've been yes i've been self-employed for nearly 12 months now and I think that what I'm able to do is work.

with my ADHD not against it I have flow I have days where I'm just like all right well I have a feeling I'm gonna get absolutely nothing done today and i'm not going to shame myself i'm not going to judge myself it's just pure curiosity of interesting what what's you know i'll look at like

you know, like cycle and all that kind of stuff or what happened yesterday or, you know, all this different stuff. So I'm, that's what I mean. I'm so, I'm curious. I'm, I'm re I really lean into the kind of exploration of that. Now, when you're employed, you can't just turn around to your boss and say, by the way, my mind wants to do sweet FA today. And if I'm honest, I think I would I've potentially had jobs over the years where.

I could cover that up. I got pulled on all day. But if you looked over at my desk, I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm working away kind of thing. So I think, you know, that's where the masking came in massively. But I then ended up in a job where I couldn't cover that. I couldn't mask that. So, yeah, being your own boss and being kind to myself and just being able to be like, all right, it's not one of those.

days and you know I'm Friday we're recording this on a Friday after this I'm done for the day I'm not bothered I'll probably go to the gym or something yeah this is the last thing I'm doing but also that's why people need coaches with ADHD for that because they don't have the confidence to do what you just said so they need someone to go hey it's okay

Exactly. So pretty much most of my ADHD clients at some point, we are having a conversation where they're hoping that I'm going to tell them what the magic thing is to make them start to start being more productive. whatever it is. And actually what they get from me is what if we lean into this? Don't hate on it. Exactly. Brilliant.

There's ways and means that you have to do that. I know it's not everybody's self-employed. So I understand that there's always going to be parameters. And that's where, you know, there's some incredible work being done with employers so that they understand and all this kind of stuff. but it starts with it starts with you you have it's that thing I think I don't know if you might have done a post about this but it's this thing like

You're not taking medication to get rid of the ADHD. It's always going to be there. So you can literally spend as long as you want taking these meds and almost like holding it at bay. Yeah. What if you just open the fucking door and let it in and just... be befriend it get to know it understand it maybe even love it kind of thing i don't i think a lot of people think like

i've been told before like you probably you obviously don't have it as bad as me like you must have like mild adhd and stuff and i'm like come step in my brain for 10 minutes um don't i have Awful days. I have days where I have to cry to my partner and just be like, my fucking head. But I wouldn't change it. If you said, we can get rid of your ADHD, we can cure you.

neurotypical kind of sounds boring it does doesn't it exactly what i'm gonna go and like be normal and sit in an office for eight hours a day for what yeah i mean yeah kudos to you if that's what you want to do great i fucking don't i honest to god i and this is why i asked my mum i can hand on heart say like i love my life i really really do i've made some really

important decisions for myself some scary some hard but i've you know i've got to where i want i'm self-employed i live in a you know i live in the lake district i live in a beautiful part of the world i found an incredibly supportive partner bless him who every day is trying to learn more and more about my brain you know and and I like advocating for it and helping people and all that kind of stuff and

I just so happen to have ADHD. You know, it doesn't, people seem to think like, fuck, I've got ADHD. I'm like down here somewhere. And that's what I quite like. You know, I've talked to people before whose kids have got ADHD and their child is really struggling to come to terms with it.

I was talking to a woman at the weekend and she was, you know, her son was saying stuff like, oh, I'm weird and, you know, what have you. And one of the most, you know, impactful things I've found to help with kids is like...

go find out about the celebrities who have ADHD, the entrepreneurs, the famous people, basically. How have they got to where they've got if they've got a weird, you know, undeserving brain as we... we are led to that just goes back to your i can't remember the wording you used but i'm just going to call it the boxes that like you know like the brain types and it's like well if you take a dog and force it to pull a carriage

right then you're gonna think what's fucking wrong with this tiny horse so we need to put the dog where it needs to be exactly right and that's the issue and the medication

isn't going to make the dog pull the carriage any harder it might just make it a little bit less sad yeah i don't know but it's like again it's like the if thinking about like through the lens of paracetamol, for example, like why would you take paracetamol? Because you have a headache. So if you went up to someone and said, what's the problem? They're never going to say, I haven't got any paracetamol. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're going to say, I've got a fucking headache.

That's not the way that we're looking at it with medication. It's like, I haven't got my medication. It's like, no, the medication is fine. It's paracetamol, but it's not. But once it's worn off after six hours, you're back to... not dealing with it again which is sadly not the individual's fault at all it's the healthcare system's fault because like you said to me you get diagnosed and they go medication not can we help you with that yeah

not so what what are people to do yeah well yeah and i guess that's it isn't it it's and then it comes back to this idea of you know medical professionals and stuff like that you're just you you view them as in the know they you know and i've unfortunately you know had clients or i've chatted to people in my dms before where they're like i went to my gp i told them i showed them all the research

they laughed me out the office they gave me some bullshit about everybody's a bit adhd or for god's sake new trend you know a gp is saying that to people i had a client who the psychiatrist wanted to put them on antidepressants and said,

give it six months, meet somebody, go get married and have kids and you won't be worrying about this kind of stuff anymore because you won't have time for it. That was a psychiatrist. Jesus. Yeah, so how are we... people supposed to do when the very people that we believe have that knowledge know what they're talking about are just kind of feeding us a little bit of bullshit some of them not all of them and it's to your point like

So you don't have ADHD and you've never taken this medication. You have no idea what's going on inside my brain right now. um and i like to think that's why i make a good coach because i'm like yeah i know i get it no no i can see that and it's like um we live in a an age where everyone's willing to put some scientific literature in front of your face especially on social media they haven't even read it to begin with look at this and it's like yeah but what do you think

yeah yeah what do you think what do you experience what do you what happened with you like let's look let's look at this as more of a human thing rather than a scientific thing yeah i think that will solve a lot of problems but whilst we're handing out the smarties as you said in the way that it's happening that is not going to be the case is it because they are saying basically saying to us all this medication is going to solve your problems yeah

But even ask someone who says the medication works for them, they don't even say that it's solving their problems. Well, no, because it's not created.

to do that it's you know the cocaine derivative amphetamine speed whatever it is it's doing a specific thing in your brain but as we know adhd is so complex there's so so many nuances of it that it's it's not you know it's it's only doing one specific that you know it's the focus element basically but you know what I don't know, for me, the focus thing, I'm like, cool, but, you know, if you, me, if you're telling me that I'm going to get focus, but my...

ideas my creativity might be a little bit dulled that day and and also it might make you forget to eat and all these different you know it just uh personally nobody has given me a good enough argument yet that it's worth it in the long term and I am I'm long term thinker not in detail because I've got ADHD but I am a long-term thinker I'm thinking about my life in general I'm thinking about general happiness and joy so actually

short term i'm gonna thanks but no thanks i'm gonna go look at some other stuff that i could could do so where did the name the joy project come from is that is that what you call it yes my yes that's my business is a joy project um literally comes from that i believe that our whole lives are one big

joy project so life is one big project it starts when you're born finishes when you die but you know any kind of project is very much trial and error some people come in and help with stuff and then they leave um you know we're make it maybe taking it in different directions with blah blah blah so life's just this one big project it's never right or wrong it just is and then the idea around the word joy was that I um

I think happiness can be fleeting. There are certain things in life that create... that happiness we people hate it when i say this we're naturally negative beings we're not positive beings um humans are naturally negative fight flight freeze all that kind of stuff but for me joy is something that could be there.

on the undercurrent it's you know you could be having an incredibly shitty day or you know a bad time or you know i don't know god forbid maybe you're going through a bereavement and then i know you're lying in bed and sun comes through the curtains and you're like oh that's quite nice on my face that's

that's joy that's not happiness that's joy so the joy project was about this idea of that's that's life and we want it to have a good amount of joy throughout it and obviously I work with people that aren't quite feeling that way so it's okay how can we what do we need to clear out so we can get you back on project you know back on milestones and all that kind of stuff um and yeah that just seemed to be a good way of

I like that a lot. I love the description. Actually, and you are right. We are naturally negative, like seeking danger all the time, even though there isn't really any danger around us. and it's like to be honest with you we've talked a lot about ADHD and talking about um site that we mentioned the scientific side of it I'm really not that interested in the scientific side of it I'm interested more in the

I mean, like there's so much that we can learn about ADHD or just about humans, but as it pertains to ADHD from ancient wisdom, ancient texts. Like, for example, something you mentioned there, just tweaked it in my mind, which is the Buddha.

said two and a half thousand years ago even more he said um that hey all suffering is created by desire yeah and what he really means if he could actually change that to all suffering is created by preferences so what he means is i would prefer it was different to how it is yeah so i'm suffering instead of saying i accept it that it's this way It's not the best thing in the world, but I accept it. And that's okay.

And that's like that difference between that seeking of happiness. The seeking of happiness is a desire and the seeking itself creates suffering. Whereas you're explaining this undercurrent of joy all the time. That's really the thing that we...

if we can or is the wording maybe to settle into the joy that's like underneath that's where we really want to be but we're always seeking this happiness thing which is the more we push towards it the further we push it away almost yeah and there's a thing called it's called the happiness baseline and it is a bit sciencey but i i really like it and it's this idea that everybody naturally

and everyone's different everyone naturally has this like happiness baseline so it's just where you're content let's let's say and some things obviously make you super super happy but you will always come back to that baseline and some things might make you happy but you will always come back to that baseline and it's you know it's that thing of like okay so let's say you get like a new job that if you're a naturally you know

high baseline that might make might make you extremely happy but you're still going to come back to just happy you but if you're somebody who has a quite a low baseline then getting a new job for you might just kind of make you like yeah that's pretty good but then you'll still come down to that baseline. And for me, it's almost like accepting that everybody is different. And to what you said about preferences.

In my experience, you know, coaching with clients, nine out of ten times, those preferences, they're not your natural preferences. They are societal, parental. You've learned...

to think that they're the things that you want and you know if i think about before this kind of like chapter of my life so the last chapter of my life which was basically my 20s um was kind of like okay bigger house more salaried job travel the world out every weekend doing different shit all this kind of stuff I have quite a simpler life now Biggest thing I do mostly is hiking. I have a smaller amount of friends. I don't travel as much. I live a pretty chill energy.

life my partner is very low-key like it all feels a lot smaller and yet it is just so much better um because like you said it i like the word surrender like just surrender to just being alive i think you know it went around tiktok and instagram for a while the thing jimmy carr says on um

i think the steven bartlett podcast about you know what's what's the meaning of life and it's whatever he says like five words it's just like basically just just being alive just the joy of passing time or whatever he says And that's it. Yeah. Preference for me is when people are like, but I should be doing this and I should be doing it. Says fucking who? Says who? So, and I think, you know, if you think about that with ADHD.

All those shoulds are probably you thinking you should be thinking like an erotypical, doing like an erotypical. And like, again, why? Exactly, exactly. It's interesting. I'm so glad you said the word surrender because that's exactly the way I think about it. It's literally the word I use every day. And it's like when I was trying to control every aspect of my life, again, preference, control.

I was going through a cycle every two weeks of being, like you said, that happiness thing. Going up really high, then down really low, then up really high, then down really low. And it was like constantly seeking something, getting... excited about it but not actually achieving the thing and then plummeting down below the baseline and then what do i do so as i'm below the baseline i go to my disturbed mind in a state of disturbance and ask it

how do I solve this problem? How the fuck is my mind in that state going to give me a good answer? Exactly. I listen to it and it goes and I get excited about it because not because anything's happening, but because of the idea of it. But when I realized that that's not actually going to happen, I crash again. So then actually I read The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer.

And in it, he's explained his entire life about how he surrendered to the natural flow of everything that happened. So he removed all preferences, all desire. And by doing it, he became ecstatic, basically. He became extremely joyful. So about two years ago, I was like, fuck it, I might as well because this isn't working. It's not just isn't. So anyway, I started and really the whole thing is that like things are going to happen in your life that you don't really want.

but they are being given to you. And so say, for example, i'm running my business but i'd like oh you know oh i wish i could run that business over there instead and then i start getting pulled into it and then i think no this is the business that i'm running and i go back to that again or like maybe i have a meeting that i have to go to that i don't want to but

that meeting has been booked in and everyone expects it. So the only thing I can do is surrender to it and do it. And that removing of preference, saying it's okay, this is what's happening, it's just made me happy. almost all the time i'm almost never not happy yeah so and i used to be a total mess so it's and actually i was wealthier and perceived had a higher perceived status yeah so

And I was way more miserable. So what does that say? My life is very simple now. Yeah. And that's, you know, when I text my mum and asked her like what I was like before, because I kind of.

forgot like it does just fall out your brain a bit and I was you know and it's in those moments when you know running my own business it can be difficult and it can be hard and then adding the ADHD element on top of that but I only have to remember what I used to be like and what I used to how I used to try and behave um to kind of fit into what I thought and you know just having those moments of like

it feels like everybody around me knows how to adult and I like I haven't I don't feel like I've caught up yet and I'm waiting for the penny to drop or for somebody to tell me what the magic solution is or what have you and you know years later annoyingly realizing that it was like well yeah but if you start leaning into the way your brain works you are going to start seeing those shifts that

you won and that's massively been the way it is you know I'm aware I probably run the joy project different to other coaches or different to other businesses and you know even surrendering to um kind of like you know my relationship and stuff and the stuff I've had to learn and not try and control and all that different stuff um moving up to the Lake District you know I moved I was living in South Wales I was like five six

move and I remember friends of mine being like what the fuck are you doing like that's so far away and all I remember thinking is like I'm just supposed to go there I can't explain it my parents live up there nobody else I know does but yeah that's where i'm supposed to go that's what i'm supposed to do and i'll just figure it out yeah and that is not a story a narrative that we as kids and whatever that shared with us of

Let's just see what happens. It's literally, okay, so you're going to do this, and then this, and then this, and then this, and then this, and then this, and then you'll die. That's just madness, though. Yeah. The thing that that was even possible. Yeah, if you try and come off that journey at all, you're a nomad, you're not part of society, you're not, you know, not supporting society, all this different shit. Forgetting that...

that could and does make some people extremely ill because you're trying to keep them on this one path that was never meant for them. And yet there's 8 billion other people trying to do the same thing. and you think everyone's trying to do what they want it's never gonna work yeah yeah yeah and it's like i remember again i'm i mentioned the surrender experiment michael singer is just someone that i'm like fond of and he said something like something that stuck with me he was like

There's 13.8 billion years of evolution before you that came before you and all the forces of physics and the universe that happened up to this point. And you expect to get what you want. Yeah. is insanity and in fact it is absolute insanity of western society that makes each of us feel like we deserve exactly what we want yeah that is just pure and utter ego

Yeah. No, it is. It's completely ego. And I think... you know do a lot of coaching on this like the ego doesn't always have to be a bad a bad thing it's what makes us pleasant to be around it's what makes us helpful or you know can make us super um

successful it can make us inspiring to others and you know all this different stuff but every now and again it's really just worth checking in with yourself as to whether this is actually what you what you want and like deep down what you want or are you making this decision based on what you think you should I got a big thing about what you should about what you think you should

be doing who are you trying to you know who are you trying to impress I'll never forget one of the first clients I ever had in coaching she literally said you know we were talking about external validation and she said something like Yeah, but we all care what everybody else thinks. That's just what we're all like, isn't it? That's the way it's supposed to be. And I was just like, whoa. No. What do you want? No, no, no.

I really need to care. And it's really important that I care what other people think. And I just, it's that deathbed thing, isn't it? When you're on your deathbed, are you really going to give a shit about that boss when you were 28?

about whether that presentation went well or not or you know whatever whatever it is I've got a thing in my head about um eight and 80 like what does eight year old you hope you're doing and what will 80 year old you which i think is a nice little check-in for when you're getting in getting into your own head a bit that's interesting you say that because i think the number one thing for me is that i'm just happy and content and doing what i'm supposed to be doing

It's like, again, I love that thing that you said. I'm going to keep coming back to it about the different brains. And it's like, well, there's certain things that society might have almost influenced upon me. like that i could become like obviously i started a fintech company we raised millions in investment what was i thinking was going to happen of course i was thinking i was going to be a be a fucking billionaire that's what i thought again arrogant and um well i just not meant for that

yeah that's just not what i was put on this planet for that's just i'll never be able to do that i'm not built that way so to accept and surrender to who i actually am that's the only way and just accept you know this is this is the outcome and that's great it's good I had a really rude awakening to that kind of late last year of working in the coaching industry and stuff. And obviously there's loads of different coaches, loads of different types of coaching. But I...

Basically, this guy like contacted me on my Instagram and said something about like your you talk a lot on your website about.

and in your content about being an affordable coach and you know you shouldn't be affordable you should be like talking about high-priced tickets and all this kind of stuff just made me feel like absolute shit and really kind of questioning like okay maybe I should put my costs up and blah blah and then when I actually sat down and thought about it I was like oh wait no I'm I actually

i'm happy with what i charge and also what i charge is um an appropriate amount that who i want to work with can afford because i do have a specific person that I love working with and if I put my costs up I will price them out and then potentially be working with with somebody else and it just really made me think about like you say like i don't really think i want to be a millionaire i think i want to be content um but i actually think i'm more interested in the specific person that i

work with and I've seen it quite a lot talked about on LinkedIn and stuff recently about this thing of like don't fucking come after me because I'm affordable because I actually it's nothing to do with my self-belief or any bollocks like that I truly want to be affordable. I want to be the coach that I needed a couple of years ago. And guess what? I didn't have 10 grand to spend on somebody for six months.

months or whatever so um so yeah so yeah I love what you say about like you know actually you used to make more money than what you make now but you're happier and I'm I'm very happy with with with what I charge and I don't need to be any more expensive because there's also a larger part of it that I can finally say I fucking love what I do like I literally I

my job um I probably spend too much time in my business but it's it's it's just because I love it um and that's actually a very privileged I feel very privileged to be in that position but coming back to the ADHD, it only works that way because I've set it up for... Yeah, I can see that. You have a unique perspective.

There may be a lot of coaches out there, but there are a lot of coaches out there. You definitely have a different way of looking at it to anyone I've spoken to before. And for someone to come up to you and say, it should be, I don't know, for argument's sake, £10,000.

program well obviously they're gonna fucking say ten thousand pounds it's just an easy number to pick out of nothing and also does that then manipulate your uniqueness into becoming more like the other people who also charge 10 grand who are also overcharging and will that then lose that perspective that you that you have that makes you different

yeah and also um like how hard do i have to work to get that because actually a large part of being self-employed was freedom for me um so actually and you know they'll say it's really easy to make 10 grand or whatever But I could then be working with some people who are expecting like 10 grand's worth of coaching. And it's not that I don't think I'm good. I just, I can't be out. Yeah, that's great.

you know i love working with girls like me who are just a couple of steps behind me basically and don't get me wrong i'm fully aware i am an investment in your you know in your mental health mindset whatever you want to call it transformation all that kind of stuff but i'm you know i'm not about to get you taking out loans and shit to

no no no no for me um one of the most important things i ever saw about coaching was that it's my job to actually make myself redundant i usually work with people average about 12 weeks Don't get me wrong. Some people I work with for a bit longer. Some people do check-ins and stuff. But after 12 weeks of working with me, I'm kind of hoping that you're in a place now where you can crack on with what it is that you've just learned about yourself.

yeah this thing of i don't know if i want to work with somebody for six months that feels like a i don't know if my brain's got the attention no i don't to be honest i mean i don't think i could maybe the odd person but i mean are you so like how how Do you have availability at the moment or are you pretty stacked up? January was an extremely busy month for me, actually. But it's actually starting to clear.

clear a little bit now and and you know what that was a really big learning curve for me at the start of the year was like how many one-to-one clients I can work with at one time um so yeah so I do have availability at the moment um but I am quite specific with who I work with and you know I have a good mix of life coaching clients and ADHD clients although the two kind of usually overlap a little bit um but but yeah I am

I don't want to say I'm privileged to be specific. I think it's important that I'm specific with who I work with because as much as they say like, you know. there's you don't you shouldn't have to like you don't advise people in coaching obviously but I like when somebody tells me their story and I'm like I'm with you I've felt that I've been there

And just knowing that I can really connect with that. What it is, is it is a privilege to be part of that journey, whether it is learning about ADHD or just, you know, career development or whatever they need coaching for. um so yes i do long-winded answer megan i do have availability but i don't just work with anyone and and i will tell people as well and i also know lots of coaches so if i'm like do you know what you need to work with whoever yeah you know i will pass people people on i'm like

Everybody needs coaching. The same as everybody needs therapy. Everybody needs coaching. And where do people find out about you? On my Instagram, I am... on that app far more than i wish to admit um so joy project is that right yes it's the joy project coach drop me a dm have a little chat yeah is that where you get most of your clients from

pretty much i'd say like 90 yeah yeah awesome cool right well i'm sure people will check you out thank you so much for this conversation i've enjoyed it a lot thanks for having me no problem