ADHD can be good for business: If I’m tuned in to working.
If you’d told me a year ago what I’d learn running Nero Divergent Travel, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. I thought I knew what my first year would look like. I was wrong about almost everything.
The biggest misconception is that ADHD is just a liability in business, it’s not. Hyperfocus is a superpower when you know how to use it, I can get things done. I can go deep into detail with something in a way most people can’t sustain. When it kicks in, but when it kicks is hard. The problem is there are days I can start early, and other days when I can’t start, when my brain won’t engage, and nothing lands.
With dyslexia mixed in, I can’t always force my way through a dense document. I read something five times over and my brain just gives up. So I find something else that will engage me. What looked like a weakness became useful in an unexpected way: when I’m scrolling social media, I’m not procrastinating. I’m checking my work, searching for things I can share, finding what I can get involved in. I’m doing business while my brain is actually willing.
The trick is learning to work with how my brain actually works, not against it.
One of my biggest mistakes in this first year was the website. Someone created it for me and it looked really good. Professional. Polished. But it didn’t fit my business at all. It didn’t have my colours, my brand, my logo. Looking back, I think it probably was off-putting to my audience, even if they couldn’t quite say why. But I didn’t speak up about it, I didn’t want to offend the person who’d done all that work. I thought it would only take an hour or two to add bits here and there and make it more on brand.
Twelve months later, I’ve spent many nights almost redesigning it. Nights that could’ve done better things. I finally have to accept that it doesn’t work, for my audience or for me, It needs a total rebuild. The lesson is painful but: looking good isn’t the same as working well. I protected someone’s feelings about their work, and it has cost more than speaking up.
When I started, I jumped straight into holiday content. Beautiful destinations, travel tips, all the polished stuff you’d expect, and nobody was interested. What did grabbed my audience from the beginning was the neurodivergent stuff, the articles. The two articles that people love are, “the hidden cost of travel” and “We weren’t given a parenting handbook when your child was born, let alone when you got a diagnosis”.
It took time to realise this, I kept thinking travel content should be interesting, It should work. But what actually worked was the honesty, stuff. The stuff I was almost embarrassed to put out there, the real, messy, personal stuff, that’s what people connected with. This was the scary part exposing myself, my neurodivergent and my family. Now travel destinations are interesting to my audience, but I earned their trust first by being genuine. The polished content didn’t do that, The honest stuff did.
Marketing isn’t my forte, I don’t think about campaigns or strategy, but I’ve learned that people don’t connect with polish. They connect with the human story, they connect with recognition.
A family told me they didn’t know there were so many options out there for them. They’d never thought travel was possible for their complex needs. They chose a staycation, something they’d never considered, before, they were so relieved.
Another parent was grateful that someone else did the thinking and planning of it. What I said would happen, actually happened. No surprises, no stress, all straight forward.
A Solo Traveller was so happy she could get exactly what she wanted instead of spending endless hours searching and settling for second best.
This is why I do this, helping people travel more confidently and safely in their neurodivergent minds, that’s the highlight of what I do.. That’s what keeps me going when the website frustrates me or I’m struggling to start a task or the dyslexia makes me want to give up.
When someone realises they have options they didn’t know existed, when they worry less, when they don’t have to compromise, that’s everything for some families.
If you’re starting a business, fight for it. Fight for your vision from day one.
Many people will give you advice. You’ll feel like you have to take it because you think you dont know any better, but you have to limit it. You can’t listen to everyone and follow everyone’s advice. Too many cooks spoil the broth.
The more I’ve invested into my business and the more I’ve committed to linking travel and neurodivergent understanding, the clearer it’s become: this is where I am meant to be. This is where I can help people. I’m not an expert in the field. I’m not going to pretend I am,
but I can share my knowledge, my experience, my understanding, and that might help one person, or many families.
That’s it, that’s everything, that’s why I am here.
Jemma Wild
Founder, of Nero Divergent Travel
nerodivergenttravel.com
