The ADHD Entrepreneur

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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/

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First one of these. A weekly series where I document building businesses around my ADHD brain, because when I went looking for this eight years into business it didn't exist. Everything I could find was about how to stop losing my keys.

This week: the first family holiday I've had in ten years, and why that mattered more to me than the biggest revenue month I've ever done. Then The Goal by Eli Goldratt, and the thing I've been chewing on since, which is that your business has one goal and it isn't the same as yours. Then a question from a client who runs a manufacturing plant. Everything in his business felt like it needed fixing and he wanted to know how to choose what to work on.

ASK ME A QUESTION

I answer them every episode. Comment under the video on YouTube, message me on Instagram, or email [email protected].

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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Owen Redman raised just under £1.2M for his student housing startup Roome, straight out of uni, with ADHD and autism. 

We get into how a brain wired to chase every shiny idea actually builds one focused business. Why business feels like a drug, how he runs his life on systems, and the constraint that killed the chaos. 

If your business runs on your energy, and your energy's all over the place, start here.

Related: Harnessing ADHD As An Entrepreneur (w/ John Torrens) | Ep 089 

All relevant links from the episode:

Owen Redman/Roome LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/owen-redman/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/roome-uni/

Roome Instagram account:
https://www.instagram.com/roome.uni/

Website:
https://roome-uni.com/

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

To celebrate 150 episodes of The Hunter Brain, I answered some of your questions live.

Here's some of what we get into:

• Why time-blocking has never worked for me (and what I run instead)
• How to identify a real distraction vs something worth your time
• The Type 2 door trick that kills decision paralysis
• Why you know what to do and still don't do it
• How I wind down a brain that treats bedtime like an insomnia trigger

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/

Send us Fan Mail

All relevant links from the episode:

Phil Graham's Instagram account:
https://www.instagram.com/philgrahamofficial

Phil Graham's LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/philgrahamoffical/


https://www.instagram.com/the.jacktaylor
https://www.linkedin.com/in/hunterbrain/

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

All relevant links from the episode:

https://www.instagram.com/the.jacktaylor
https://www.linkedin.com/in/hunterbrain/

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/

Send us Fan Mail

All relevant links from the episode:

Sally Wynter's Instagram account:
https://www.instagram.com/sally.wynter/

Sally Wynter's LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sally-wynter/

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/