If you've ever felt overwhelmed, boxed in, or just plain bored by traditional business plans as a small business owner with ADHD, this episode is for you!

Host Diann Wingert is here to reimagine business planning in a way that's actually ADHD-friendly—lean, flexible, visual, and, most importantly, useful.

Whether you’re new to entrepreneurship or tired of winging it and hitting hidden roadblocks, Diann guides you through a business planning approach that celebrates how the ADHD brain works best.

Get ready to create a plan you'll actually want to use!

Episode highlights:

The Big Lie:

Your ADHD brain thinks planning cramps your style—but done right, the opposite is true. Planning can be the external structure that fuels freedom, creativity, and calm in your business.

The trick? Ignore the boring templates and create a plan tailored to how your brain truly operates.

Why Traditional Business Plans Don't Work for ADHD Brains:

• The pitfalls of rigid, lengthy plans and how they trigger resistance and procrastination.
• Why our tendency to wing it isn’t always as productive (or painless) as it feels.

The Hidden Costs of ‘Winging It’:

• Missed opportunities
• Wasted energy
• Unfinished projects.

Introducing the ADHD-Friendly Minimal Business Plan Framework:

• Four simple pillars (instead of 40 pages)
• North Star: Your “why,” distilled for everyday decisions.
• Revenue Reality Check: Getting real with three simple numbers.
• Zone of Genius: Maximizing what energizes you and minimizing the rest.
• Next Three Moves: Concrete, short-term steps—no five-year forecasts here!

Making Your Business Plan Visual & Flexible:

• Why a one-page, visual dashboard beats a document you’ll never open again.
• Tools and formats—Trello, Canva, voice-to-text, and more—that play to ADHD strengths.

Get it Done (Without Overwhelm) with The Sprint Method

• 25 minutes a day, one pillar at a time, over four days.
• Walk away when the timer rings—even mid-sentence.
• No giant blocks of time, no perfectionism, no overwhelm.

Homework:

Take 25 minutes this week and pick ONE pillar to focus on—whichever feels easiest or most fun. (Money anxiety? Start with your North Star instead!)

Next week, another pillar. Within a month, you’ve got an ADHD-friendly business plan that you will actually use!

Share your ADHD-friendly business plan with Diann

• Email: diann@diannwingertcoaching.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diannwingertcoaching/
• SpeakPipe voice messaging: https://www.speakpipe.com/AskDiannAnything

About the Host:

Diann Wingert (she/her) is a former psychotherapist turned business strategist with a passion for supporting neurodivergent entrepreneurs.

With real-world experience as both a clinician and a business owner—and her signature no-BS, motivational style—Diann specializes in helping business owners find strategies and systems to balance their passion and purpose, with profit, and avoid burnout in the process.

Be sure to subscribe/follow so you don’t miss future episodes full of practical, ADHD-friendly business advice!

© 2025 ADHD-ish Podcast. Intro music by Ishan Dincer / Melody Loops /

Ever felt like your business is just as “ADHD-ish” as you are? This week on the ADHD-ish Podcast, I dove into an eye-opening conversation with Diane Mayor about how ADHD traits show up in our business, for better or worse.

Diane Mayor is a business-model strategist who deeply understands that revenue is a dopamine number, but profit is a reality number and that you can’t scale what you can’t see. Diane has the kind of ADHD that makes systems and structure make sense, but she also knows that if it’s not fun, it’s not going to happen, so she makes sure that it is.

If your business model looks sparkly on the front end, but is duct-taped together behind the scenes, don’t even think about scaling before taking the lessons in this episode to heart. Here’s what to listen for:

• Dopamine Is a Double-Edged Sword
• ADHD brains seek stimulation, which fuels creativity and enthusiasm—but the excessive pursuit of new ideas can lead to chaos. The trick? Channel that energy into a structured “idea parking lot”—capture your sparks, but choose your focus.
• Systems Don’t Kill Creativity—They Enable It
• Many of us with ADHD bristle at the word “structure,” but minimum viable systems (even something as simple as a checklist instead of a 10-page SOP) create the freedom to play, innovate, and keep the momentum going.
• Rejection Sensitivity & Executive Dysfunction Are Sneaky Saboteurs
• Uncomfortable truth: your business can’t scale if you get hijacked by every emotional reaction or caught up in decision paralysis. Building in “pause and process” moments—and asking for help where your brain’s not wired to excel—protects both you and your team from ADHD inertia.

You can absolutely harness ADHD as a strength in your business, but not if you ignore what makes your brain unique. The goal isn’t to “fix” anything, but to build a business that works with your neurodivergence in mind.

About Diane Mayor

After a successful career in corporate finance, Diane transitioned to becoming a business model architect and systems aficionado, after discovering both her ADHD and her passion for untangling business chaos. She helps entrepreneurs create sustainable, scalable businesses built around their unique neurodivergence—not despite it.

Website - LinkedIn - The 5- Minute Strategist Podcast - Strategic Business Diagnostic

Mentioned in this episode:

Marshall Goldsmith’s book “What Got You Here, Wont’ Get You There.”

Next Steps:

“You can’t scale what you can’t see.” If this tagline lands, you might be ready for Diane Mayor’s Business Blueprint, a laser-focused strategic business diagnostic for telling you exactly what to keep and what to toss before you scale. Click this link to book yours now.

Not quite sure whether you want to scale? Click this link for a custom playlist of past ADHD-ish episodes to help

It’s 2 AM, and you’re lying in bed, reliving every word of an email you sent hours earlier, your mind spinning worst-case scenarios that could ruin your business.

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone—especially if you have ADHD. Entrepreneurial life magnifies our emotional intensity, for better and for worse, and in this episode, I’m getting real about a topic most business circles avoid: the double-edged sword of emotional intensity for entrepreneurs with ADHD.

Running a business and being an entrepreneur with ADHD comes with a unique set of challenges, based on the fact that our emotional intensity can be both a business advantage and a potential hazard at the same time.

We are talking about the fine line between passion and emotional dysregulation. Emotional dysregulation is not “being too sensitive” or being overly dramatic; it’s brain mechanics.

The same executive function deficits that scramble our to-do lists also juggle our emotional responses, often treating every emotion as urgent.

If you wonder why advice like “just breathe” doesn’t work for us the way it does for neurotypicals, this is why.

Here are 5 keys you’ll pick up from this episode:

1. What Emotional Dysregulation Is: Learn why it’s way more than just “being sensitive”—it’s a real neurological challenge for ADHD brains.
2. Solopreneurship’s Perfect Storm: Discover how running a business solo can amplify emotional ups and downs, thanks to isolation and rejection sensitivity.
3. How Emotional Intensity Can Hijack Business Decisions: Find out how unchecked emotions can affect your pricing, negotiations, and every tough conversation.
4. Spotting the Difference Between Passion and Dysregulation: Learn concrete ways to tell if your drive is fueling your business or putting it at risk of burning down.
5. Practical Tools to Build Emotional Resilience: Get real-life strategies for pause protocols, circuit breakers, sleep/nutrition hacks, boundaries, and even the right kind of professional support.

Fun Fact:

Did you know that your ADHD brain processes emotions more like a smoke detector than a thermostat?

If you’re tired of advice like “just breathe” and want strategies that actually work for our 🧠 brains, this episode is for you.

Take a listen, share with a fellow entrepreneur who gets it, and let me know what resonated most for you! Remember: Feeling deeply is one of our ADHD strengths—we just need to use it strategically.

About the Host

Diann Wingert (she/her) is a seasoned business coach, licensed psychotherapist, and serial business owner with decades of experience supporting neurodivergent professionals.

Diann specializes in helping ADHD solopreneurs and small business owners turn their energetic passion into strategic success, blending lived experience with clinical insight for real-world solutions.

Connect with Diann

• Website: diannwingertcoaching.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diannwingertcoaching/
• Cognitive Bias Hacks for ADHD Entrepreneurs

Mentioned in this episode:

Dialectical Behavior Therapy for ADHD and emotional dysregulation

Cognitive Behavior Therapy...