The ADHD Entrepreneur

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Your business is growing, the money is going up, and you still catch yourself asking why you're doing any of it. Straight off a coaching call with a client who couldn't picture her future, Jack breaks down why so many ADHD founders get stuck in that loop, and why the usual way of setting long-term goals keeps them there. The way out starts with a question most of us can answer in seconds: what don't you want?

Jack explains:
• Why a heads-down sprint ends in "why am I doing this?" every time you come up for air
• Startup syndrome, and what's missing when you keep tearing things down to start again
• Why the version of you from two years ago is the wrong person to set today's goals
• The North Star built on how you want to feel, with concrete goals kept to short four-week hunts
• The "don't want" list, and how flipping it tells you what you do want
• The satnav rule: pick the destination and let the route change

The ADHD Entrepreneur:

• Get The Debrief, Jack's daily email for ADHD founders: thehunterbrain.com/debrief
• Follow Jack on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.jacktaylor/
• Watch more on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@the.jacktaylor
• Connect with Jack on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hunterbrain/

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In this episode:

• Why money is a terrible motivator for an ADHD brain, and what it runs on instead
• The three signs you're running without a real anchor: idea hopping, the reset loop, and the "what is this all for?" questions
• How time blindness puts every future payout in the "not now" pile
• Why trophies don't work for us, but feelings do
• How to find your own version of the Ferrari, from the autonomy Ferrari to the craft and impact Ferraris
• The vision board on my laptop desktop that ended the "why am I doing this?" crisis every few months
• Why I run short hunts of four to eight weeks instead of ten year plans

The ADHD Entrepreneur:

• Get The Debrief, Jack's daily email for ADHD founders: thehunterbrain.com/debrief
• Follow Jack on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.jacktaylor/
• Watch more on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@the.jacktaylor
• Connect with Jack on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hunterbrain/

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Jack Taylor knew exactly how to build a six figure business, and for years he couldn't get his own past the same ceiling. He had buyers sitting in his DMs waiting for a reply, and he spent the day building a spreadsheet to manage them while they went cold. Then his mum and his fiancée laughed over dinner that he'd obviously got something, and when the official diagnosis finally came, it changed nothing at all.

This week Jack is the guest. Harvey Holt, who started out as a personal trainer too, had him on his podcast Changing Lanes and took him through the whole story. Jack is the founder of The Hunter Brain and the host of The ADHD Entrepreneur. He left school early, built a private training studio that was running 40 to 50 sessions a week until Covid closed it overnight, took an online fitness business to just under six figures, and then shut it down on Christmas Eve 2024 to work out how his own brain worked. He now helps founders with this brain type build their businesses around it.

He explains:

• Why he looks at ADHD as human variation, in the same way some people need glasses or factor fifty
• The chaos ceiling, and why so many ADHD founders fly in the start up phase and then stall
• How he burned leads sitting in his DMs while building a spreadsheet to manage them
• Why his official diagnosis changed nothing, and what actually changed his life
• Why seven figure founders push back on ADHD but put their hand up for the Hunter Brain
• Why he never sets yearly goals, and the two week hunt that made one client £28,800
• He opens up about the partying that ended in an overdose, and the years he calls circumstantially depressed

Timestamps:

(00:00:00) What If You Were Never Broken?
(00:01:45) What Sun Cream And Glasses Teach You About ADHD
(00:03:27) Why Different Always Gets Filed Under Bad
(00:07:21) Growing Up Broke After Dad's Covent Garden Days
(00:08:22) The Moment He Realised He Was Interest Driven
(00:09:56) Covid Took His Studio Overnight
(00:11:01) The Chaos Ceiling Every ADHD Founder Hits
(00:12:01) The Dinner Where His Mum And Fiancée Called It
(00:16:12) Twelve Weekends Of Raving And An Overdose
(00:17:20) Burning Leads To Build A Spreadsheet For Them
(00:18:08) The Operational Whiplash That Stops Anything Compounding
(00:20:12) Why Every New Strategy Sends You Back To Start Up
(00:22:07) The Psychologist Who Quit After One Session
(00:23:32) Why The Diagnosis Changed Nothing
(00:26:31) Where The Hunter Brain Idea Came From
(00:29:10) Why Founders Say No To ADHD And Yes To Hunter Brain
(00:33:49) Why ADHD Is No Excuse To Be A Dickhead
(00:36:15) The Diagnosis Test Written For A Seven Year Old
(00:38:33) The Years He Was Circumstantially Depressed
(00:43:45) Why Scattered Brains Build Scattered Businesses
(00:44:59) The Morning Routine That Leaves You Exhausted
(00:49:30) How Body Doubling Kills Friction
(00:52:08) Why Moving Daily Is Non Negotiable
(00:52:49) Why He Doesn't Set Yearly Goals
(00:53:39) The Two Week Hunt That Made A Client £28,800
(00:57:57) What's Next: Richard Branson And The Boardroom

Harvey Holt:

• Changing Lanes on Spotify — https://open.spotify.com/show/6HNghsuZihxmxWwIsTfRXD
• Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/changing.lanes__/

The ADHD Entrepreneur:

• Get The Debrief, Jack's daily email for ADHD founders: thehunterbrain.com/debrief
• Follow Jack on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.jacktaylor/
• Watch more on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@the.jacktaylor
• Connect with Jack on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hunterbrain/

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This is the first of a new, more off the cuff style of episode I'm testing. If you're enjoying it, drop me a message on Instagram and let me know.

In this episode:

• Why school spent years taking me from shit at science to mediocre at science, and what that cost the things I was actually good at
• Why most ADHD advice is about coping, and what it does to your best work
• Everything I pay other people to do now, from the food shop to my lunches to my training
• The CEO of your brain, and why for an ADHD founder he's often on holiday
• Why I call money freedom tokens, and how to cash one in the moment you hit a new revenue milestone

The ADHD Entrepreneur:

• Get The Debrief, Jack's daily email for ADHD founders: thehunterbrain.com/debrief
• Follow Jack on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.jacktaylor/
• Watch more on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@the.jacktaylor
• Connect with Jack on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hunterbrain/

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👇🏼 WORK OUT YOUR EFFECTIVE HOURLY RATE (EHR):

https://thehunterbrain.com/rate

The ADHD Entrepreneur:

• Get The Debrief, Jack's daily email for ADHD founders: thehunterbrain.com/debrief
• Follow Jack on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.jacktaylor/
• Watch more on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@the.jacktaylor
• Connect with Jack on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hunterbrain/

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Get the free episode playbook, every big idea from this conversation in one place: https://thehunterbrain.com/episode-playbook-chris-lee

The good day arrives out of nowhere. Six hours vanish, the work gets done, and then it will not come back for three weeks. Dr Chris Lee has spent ten years working out what actually fires that state, and he says it is never random. The trigger is usually the most boring thing in your house.

Dr Chris Lee is the founder of Elemental Shift, a neuroscience led consultancy, and he reaches a weekly audience of more than two million people. He coaches executives running billion dollar companies, though he only takes four one to one clients at a time. He studied biology, chemistry and environmental science at Siena Heights, took his doctorate in chiropractic at Life University, then trained in functional neurology at the Carrick Institute and in neuroscience at Duke, Peking University and Stanford, all of it after his own life came apart at 23. He is currently finishing a book on dopamine and how to stay in the driving seat of your own attention.

He explains:

* Why an ADHD brain runs on a lower background reserve of dopamine, and what that does to an ordinary Tuesday
* The one minute plank he gives his ADHD CEOs before they sit down to work, and why it fires hyperfocus on demand
* Why the thing that triggers your best day is almost always the boring task you did ten minutes earlier
* Why masking around the wrong people flattens your motivation for days afterwards
* How to run the week on three stretch days and two admin days, and who to hire on each side of it
* What rest actually looks like, and why doom scrolling leaves you more depleted than the work did
* He opens up about losing his dad to suicide at 23, finding out four months later that he was going to be a father, and why he calls it the worst and the best thing that has ever happened to him

Timestamps:

(00:00:00) The Dopamine Trigger Nobody Told You About
(00:02:40) Ten Years Ago He Was Training To Be A Chiropractor
(00:04:19) White Ceiling Syndrome And The Question At Night
(00:04:46) Hit By A Car On The Way Home From School
(00:05:45) The Phone Call About His Dad
(00:06:01) The Worst Thing And The Best Thing
(00:07:15) Four Months Later He Found Out He Was A Dad
(00:08:03) You Would Die For Them, Would You Live For Them?
(00:15:44) Why A Regulated Nervous System Is About Trust
(00:19:03) What Billion Dollar Executives Actually Ask For
(00:21:46) "You Know What To Do. You Just Cannot Do It"
(00:23:25) Why Being Yourself Costs An ADHD Brain So Much
(00:27:43) What The Nervous System Actually Is
(00:30:16) Sleep, Food And Movement, The Whole Platform
(00:35:14) Tonic And Phasic Dopamine Explained
(00:39:02) The Rat Experiment Behind Your Phone Habit
(00:43:50) How To Trigger Hyperfocus On Purpose
(00:44:53) Why Deadlines Feel Like A Reward
(00:46:20) Look At What You Did Before The Hyperfocus
(00:47:11) Sprinter Or Jogger, And Which One You Are
(00:53:20) The Tax You Pay For A Hyperfocus Day
(00:54:23) How To Build The Week Under 100k
(00:55:28) What Rest Actually Looks Like
(01:00:25) Who To Hire As A Sprinter, Who As A Jogger
(01:08:34) The One Thing To Do This Week
(01:13:36) What He Would Say To His 23 Year Old Self

Dr Chris Lee:

* Website — https://www.drchrislee.com
* Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/drchrislee
* YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/@Dr.ChrisLee
* LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/drchrislee/
* His podcast, Wired for Wonder — https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wired-for-wonder/id1469100234

Mentioned in this episode:

* The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer
* The Surrender Experiment by Michael A. Singer
* Mindset by Carol Dweck
* Ultrahuman, the biometric ring

This episode discusses suicide. If you are struggling, Samaritans are free on 116 123, any time.

The ADHD Entrepreneur:

• Get The Debrief, Jack's daily email for ADHD founders: thehunterbrain.com/debrief
• Follow Jack on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.jacktaylor/
• Watch more on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@the.jacktaylor
• Connect with Jack on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hunterbrain/

Send us Fan Mail

The ADHD Entrepreneur:

• Get The Debrief, Jack's daily email for ADHD founders: thehunterbrain.com/debrief
• Follow Jack on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.jacktaylor/
• Watch more on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@the.jacktaylor
• Connect with Jack on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hunterbrain/

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One of my clients got on a call wanting to talk about a new service line he'd just tested. He'd made £1,500 in three days and he was buzzing. By the end of the hour we'd found £16,000 a month of profit sat in the business he already had, and the new service line was dead. The £16,000 came out of taking something away rather than adding anything to it.

In this episode:

• Why a huge opportunity and a tiny one take up exactly the same space in your head
• The maths problem you'd never attempt without a pen and paper, and why your business is the same problem
• Three reasons ADHD founders find it harder than anyone else to rank their own ideas
• The mental RAM you drain by holding everything in your head, and what it costs your decisions                                                                                 
• Why the thing that pulls you off course is always a sensible idea that makes money

Plus this week's question: I know exactly what to do and I still don't do it, why?

This one leans on visuals. If you're listening rather than watching, the diagrams are on YouTube.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@the.jacktaylor

The ADHD Entrepreneur:

• Get The Debrief, Jack's daily email for ADHD founders: thehunterbrain.com/debrief
• Follow Jack on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.jacktaylor/
• Watch more on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@the.jacktaylor
• Connect with Jack on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hunterbrain/

Send us Fan Mail

The ADHD Entrepreneur:

• Get The Debrief, Jack's daily email for ADHD founders: thehunterbrain.com/debrief
• Follow Jack on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.jacktaylor/
• Watch more on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@the.jacktaylor
• Connect with Jack on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hunterbrain/

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Every ADHD founder gets told the same thing. Get organised, get disciplined, get a system. Nick Shoolingin-Jordan directed one of the biggest shows on the planet with none of that, and without knowing he had ADHD at all, and he says the thing that made the work possible is the same thing that nearly got him fired.

Nick Shoolingin-Jordan is an Emmy nominated series director and a tech founder. He is the series director of The Dinosaurs, the four part Netflix series executive produced by Steven Spielberg, narrated by Morgan Freeman and made with Industrial Light and Magic, which went to number one in 70 countries and holds 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. He has also directed on Life on Our Planet, One Strange Rock and A Perfect Planet alongside Sir David Attenborough, and has founded Planet Lab Studios, whose AI platform George helps everyday investors make smarter decisions.

He explains:

• Why directing might be the perfect job for an ADHD brain, and how he splits a film into parts he can rotate through when his focus drops
• Why starting the task is the hardest thing he does, and the trick he uses to get himself into it
• Why rigid time blocking fails ADHD brains, and what he does instead
• How he built a memory vault with AI to hold the short term memory he doesn't have
• How his son's diagnosis explained his own brain at 50, and what changed after it
• Why crews have read him as rude, and how close that has taken him to being fired
• He opens up about the overwhelm nobody sees at the end of a shoot, and the one thing that always fixes it

Timestamps:

(00:00:00) Directing Netflix's No.1 Show Without The Manual
(00:02:09) Why School Called Him A Space Cadet
(00:06:03) Why Directing Is The Perfect ADHD Job
(00:08:59) Starting Is The Hardest Part
(00:09:24) Why Rigid Time Blocking Fails ADHD Brains
(00:11:55) Working At 11pm And The Three Body Clocks
(00:13:03) One Thing At A Time In A World Built To Distract
(00:17:03) The Three Tasks That Actually Move You
(00:18:55) What Working Memory Does To You
(00:20:10) How To Trick Yourself Into Starting
(00:23:26) Building A Memory Vault With AI
(00:26:29) The App He's Building With Claude
(00:28:28) Hiring Staff Who Aren't Even There
(00:28:37) Our Brains Are Not Easy To Live With
(00:29:48) The Scaffolding Every ADHD Founder Needs
(00:30:29) How His Son's Diagnosis Explained His Life
(00:34:21) What Actually Changed After The Diagnosis
(00:37:53) The Dual Brain: ADHD Connects, Autism Obsesses
(00:40:19) The Book That Made Him Feel Less Alone
(00:41:25) The Overwhelm Nobody Sees On Set
(00:43:16) The Only Cure For Overwhelm That Works
(00:44:15) What He's Most Proud Of In 20 Years
(00:45:41) What He'd Tell Himself 30 Years Ago
(00:47:04) The Attenborough Habit Worth Stealing
(00:48:00) Where To Find Nick

Nick Shoolingin-Jordan:

• tellthestory.tv — https://tellthestory.tv
• LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickdirects
• Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/nick_shoolingin_jordan/
• George AI, for everyday investors — https://mygeorge.ai
• Planet Lab Studios — https://planetlabstudios.com

Mentioned in this episode:

• How Not to Fit In by Jess Joy and Charlotte Mills
• Why Can't I Just Enjoy Anything by Pierre Novellie
• Limitless by Jim Kwik

The ADHD Entrepreneur:

• Get The Debrief, Jack's daily email for ADHD founders: thehunterbrain.com/debrief
• Follow Jack on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.jacktaylor/
• Watch more on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@the.jacktaylor
• Connect with Jack on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hunterbrain/