How to Tell Market Signals From ADHD Restlessness

Hey, I want to tell you about 6 business owners, each of them is about to change something big, and they'll all say it's because their market has changed. But only some of them are right, the others are just restless and today you get to play along. I'll give you the case, you make the call: market signal or ADHD restlessness? By the end of the episode, you're going to know the difference and have 6 moves that you can make the next time this urge shows up in your business.

So let's talk about when to reposition your business and when to leave it the hell alone. Do you trust your gut or stay the course? Well, it depends. Your gut can't always tell the difference between a shift in your market and a shift in your mood. And stay the course is pretty lousy advice when the course has actually moved. The same brain that's really good at spotting opportunities is also pretty good at seeing opportunities that aren't really there. And getting it wrong costs plenty in both directions. Call restlessness a market signal and you tear down something that was working. Call a real market signal restlessness and you spend a year selling something your market has already moved past.

Neither one feels like a mistake until after you've made it. So let's learn a strategy and have a little fun in the process. Here are the rules, I describe the case, you make your call, and then I'll say mine. I'll give you just a moment to do it. I'll also tell you what I would say if this business owner were my client and they were sitting across from me, and I'll tell you why. Full disclosure, I made all 6 of these people up, but you're going to recognize them anyway. You might even recognize one of them in the mirror. Now, how you describe what you do and who it's for, your positioning, is the first thing that I work on with every client through the ADHD-ish Method. Knowing when to change it and when to leave it alone is a big part of that work.

Now, several of the cases I'm about to share with you are about positioning, but a couple of them are not. So to keep things engaging and fun, keep an ear out for which is which. Are you ready? Let's play. Okay, the first case I'm going to call The Compliment. A small creative agency composed of an owner and 4 contract writers. They do conversion copywriting for financial planning professionals. You know, the emails, the landing pages, all the stuff that gets a financial planner's clients to actually book a meeting. Their biggest client is a partner at a wealth management firm, and one day over a friendly lunch, she says to the owner, honestly, you should be doing brand strategy, not just writing the words. The business owner literally floats out of the restaurant, flattered AF. By the end of the month, there's a brand strategy offer halfway built.

The writers have been told to start thinking like strategists, whatever that means. And the agency's tagline on LinkedIn has quietly changed. Make your call: market signal or restlessness? Sounds like a signal, but it's not. Not yet anyway, why not? Because it was one person, one time, over a friendly lunch, you know, kind of a warm and friendly moment. That's a compliment. It's not the market talking and I get why it feels like it is. I mean, what goes on upstairs in our ADHD brain, our memory doesn't count things, it ranks them, and it ranks them by intensity. So one warm, flattering compliment is gonna outweigh 20 ordinary inquiries every single time. Now, that's true for most brains, but when you add ADHD into the mix, all of the research suggests that our working memory holds less information at once and our feelings run a lot stronger.

So the vivid thing doesn't just get extra weight, it starts to seem like what everyone is telling us. So one person said it one time, by week 3, the owner is remembering it as, all of our clients keep asking for strategy. Are they lying to themselves and their team? Are they delulu? No, it's just the way the ADHD brain works. One person asked and their brain made it really memorable. So if this was my client, here's what I'd do. I would tell them, go back to the person who said it for follow-up and ask 2 people who didn't say it. Going back to the partner with the follow-up questions so what would that look like if we started doing brand strategy, that is and would your firm have paid us for it last year? Now those 2 questions turn a compliment into data real fast and notice what they ask about.

Not would you spend on this next year, but would you have already spent on it? Because everybody will tell you, they would love something new from you. Far fewer people would tell you they would've already paid for it. Now you're going to go to 2 other clients who didn't tell you should be doing brand strategy and ask them one open question. Hey, if another financial planner asked you what we do, what would you tell them? And if both of them say something like, well, they write the emails that get our clients to book review meetings, you have your answer, that's what you're known for. That's what you get referred for and that's worth a hell of a lot more to know than a compliment. And by the way, this kind of information doesn't only come our way from clients.

It may be the podcast host who says to you on air, you know, you really should have a course, or the peer in your mastermind mind group who thinks you'd be amazing on the speaking circuit. One glowing review that praises you for something you don't even sell warm, flattering, memorable, and one person. Oh, and one more thing, because the business in this example is a team. 4 writers would've just spent an entire month trying to figure out how to sound like strategists. By rewriting their samples and second-guessing the work that's actually paying the bills. And by the way, no one's gonna push back because, hey, it was the owner's idea. So when you own a business with a team, your ADHD restlessness doesn't just stay in your head, it goes straight onto other people's to-do lists.

Case number 2, this one I'm gonna call the one who talked herself out of it. So for this one, I want you to think about, how about a career coach who helps nurses move up into leadership positions? Charge nurse, nurse manager, director of nursing, that kind of stuff. For about a year now, something has been drifting in the inquiries that she gets. More and more of them start off with some version of, you know, I really need to get outta nursing altogether. And every time she steers them back towards seeking a promotion because that's her lane. And she's heard all the advice about not chasing shiny things. If she has ADHD and listens to this podcast, she's heard it from me too. So she's decided this is just her being restless and the grownup move is to stay the course and stick with what she's already decided.

And here's another detail, she's not excited about changing anything. In fact, she's kind of annoyed. Every time she gets an inquiry asking for something else, she gets irritated just a little so make your call. Well, this time it's a real signal, and the trap here was that it was the opposite of the first example. Here's how to tell, other people's words. Strangers who don't know each other are telling you the same thing over a period of months, piling up whether you like it or not and notice the feeling that came with it. Not a thrill, irritation, restlessness usually shows up ready for action, but not always. This time it showed up as a stack of annoying emails. So here's what to do and this one's a quick check, the kind you can run in your head in under a minute. Who would notice if I didn't change anything? If you stayed exactly where you are, would anyone outside your head feel it?

Well, in this case, the answer is yes. Every single week, the people that she is in the very best position to help are getting pitched something they don't want. They're feeling it, I tell you what and the gap between what she's selling and what they're asking for, that's what's showing up in her inbox. And I wanna say this part loud and clear because I talk a lot about resisting the urge to chase shiny objects. If you have a long history of restlessness-induced regrettable decisions, you can actually swing too far in the other direction and start ignoring genuine market signals. I think that's what happened in this example, it's basically the flip side of making the same mistake. So what should she do with this real signal? Well, not a rebrand, not yet anyway.

She should stop arguing with the data and maybe take on one or two of these clients who say they want to get out of nursing instead of moving up the ladder. Pay attention to what they actually need and want from her. She can also ask the nurse educator who sends half of her referrals, are you hearing this from people too? And then the answers can decide what's going to change. A real signal doesn't have to mean blowing everything up, it does have to mean that you quit pretending you didn't hear it. Now, in your business, it might not be inquiries. It might be the referral partner who keeps describing you to people slightly wrong, but always using the same words. Or it could be the new clients who are showing up at a different stage than the one that you've built everything for.

Case 3, this one I'm calling the morning after. Okay, the third example is a web designer who just finished the biggest site build of his entire year, that was a Friday afternoon. Huge project, months and months of work, big-ass payday. Saturday morning, he's in the shower and a brand new business idea arrives in his mind fully formed, complete with a new niche, new name, new color palette, and the first few posts announcing it. This has all happened before he's even finished toweling off. You know what he's going to do? Multimedia websites for craft breweries. Now, by the way, no one has asked him for this, he's never had a single brewery inquiry. He doesn't even drink that much beer, make your call. This is obviously restlessness, I mean, come on, I made this, I made it too easy. You got that one for sure, right? But in case you didn't, no shame.

Here's how to tell, the idea showed up first and then it went looking for a justification. Compare him to the career coach, hers took a year and annoyed the hell out of her. His took one shower and thrilled him, real signals hardly ever arrive fully formed. I know they feel great when they do, they tend to pile up, real signals tend to pile up slowly, sometimes annoyingly so. So if your new direction showed up complete with visions of you shopping for a new wardrobe for your media interviews, Be suspicious. Be very suspicious. And here's why it feels so convincing, that sense of, I just know, it feels like a logical conclusion, like you reasoned your way there, only you didn't. Certainty is a feeling, but it comes from the same brain that craves excitement, never forget that. And for those of us who feel everything at full volume, conviction is going to show up at full volume too, but loud is not the same as right.

And here's the sneaky part, the more creative you are, the more convincing your own ideas are going to sound to you every single time. You can build a case for almost anything. Now, that is a real gift when you're solving a client's problem. But it can be a liability when the idea is about your business. And yes, I've talked about before why ideas like this love to show up right after you finish something big. So I just wanna say one more thing about this, notice the timing. Here's what else to do, and this one's a quick check as well. Ask yourself, problem first or idea first? Did a problem send me looking for this, or did an idea show up and I went looking for a problem to justify it. Hey, if the reason came second, you know for yourself the idea is doing the driving and that, my friend, is restlessness.

Here's what I tell him to do with the brewery idea. Don't delete it. Put it in the idea parking lot and get back to serving the clients who are actually calling. If a brewery ever does reach out, you'll be ready. And if none ever does, you've just saved yourself a whole-ass rebrand for a market that only existed in your mind, and in the shower at that. Now, your grand idea might not arrive in the shower, by the way, although it's amazing how many of them do. But maybe it's the new name that shows up the week after a big launch, or a whole course idea that you just happened to outline on a 4-hour flight, or the niche you discover at midnight because you read an article that you couldn't stop thinking about and go to sleep. Fully formed, wildly exciting, and nobody fricking asked for it, parking lot.

Okay, friend, quick pause cuz we're halfway through. You've heard 3 examples and there's a good chance that at least one of them sounded a little too familiar. If you've got an urge that you can't figure out on your own, bring it to Di AI. Tell her what you're itching to change and why, and she'll be your second opinion and pushback partner. Hey, if you're new here, Di AI is my digital clone exclusively trained on the ADHD-ish Method and now available as a monthly subscription in both text and voice chat modes. There's a link in the show notes if you wanna check it out. Okay, back to the other 3 examples, starting with number 4, the one I call the wrong-sized answer.

Okay, case 4, the owner of a medical aesthetics clinic. She's got 3 nurse injectors, 2 estheticians, and a front desk that is busy, busy, busy all day booking treatments and taking payments. Every week, the front desk gets some version of the same question, and the estheticians hear it in the treatment room too. Is there anything I can do to make my treatment last longer? Well, the owner's heard it enough times that she's decided the clinic needs to become something much, much bigger like, think a full longevity center, IV drips, hormone panels, a new name, a bigger office, the works. Make your call. This one is a real signal, but listen really carefully to what it's asking for. Something to make their treatment results last longer, that's it.

Nobody, not one person, asked for an IV drip. Here's how to tell, the signal named something specific and it wasn't who the clinic is. It was something the clinic could sell, a maintenance membership perhaps, or a between-visits skincare program. Something that keeps clients connected in the weeks between their appointments. The market did ask for a new offer, but her brain heard a new identity. Those things come with very different price tags and with a team, the price tag gets much bigger, much faster. A longevity center means new hires, new training, new questions about who's qualified to do what, and a bigger lease that she now has to worry about covering every single month. A membership, on the other hand, means a pricing page and a new line for the front desk folks to remember to say at checkout time and when the phone rings.

Either of those she could test by the end of the month. The other one she'll be paying for, for years and this happens in every kind of business. Clients keep asking for the same add-on. Your team keeps getting asked for something you don't offer, and your very best clients keep buying that workaround from somebody else. That is the market naming an offer. Listen for the specifics, they're usually a lot smaller than what you come up with in your head. Here's what to do with this one, and it is especially for those of you with a team, ask the people who answer the phone or open your emails. When you have staff, they're going to hear what the market has to say before you do. They're the ones who are taking the calls, booking the appointments, catching the, oh, by the way, at checkout time.

So ask them, what do clients ask for that we don't offer? Tell me their exact words and then say Longevity Center out loud to them and watch their faces. Your team is the second opinion that you probably never ask, and you're already paying for it. Use it. And if your team has learned over the years, just don't argue with my ideas, this one's going to matter even more. You're going to have to learn how to ask for it in a way that's safe for someone to say, honestly, boss, nobody's asking for that and remember, I said 2 of these cases aren't really about positioning, that's the first one. It was never about who the clinic is, it was always about what the clinic sells.

All right, here we go with case number 5, this one I'm calling The Waitlist. The owner of a group physical therapy practice, 6 therapists, 2 locations. The owner has self-pay patients who are booked out for 4 to 6 weeks. And nobody has pushed back or even questioned the self-pay rate in over 2 years, not once. His therapists are also just about fully booked and often have to turn people away. So the owner's decided he wants to charge more, so the practice is going to need new branding, obviously, something with Performance Institute in the name. Make your call. It's a real signal, but you knew that. It just isn't telling him to change the sign on the door. It's telling him to raise his prices or hire another therapist, probably both.

Here's how to tell, a waitlist and zero pushback on pricing are the market talking. And what the market is saying is loud and clear. It's not talking about who the practice is, it's talking about what it costs and how much of it there is to go around. But notice why the rebrand felt so logical to the owner. Somewhere along the way, a lot of us have picked up the message that in order to earn higher prices, you've got to become something fancier, you don't. You earn higher prices by being booked out, which this owner has already done. So here's what I would tell him, let new patients decide with their wallets. Raise the self-pay rate for new patients only then watch what happens to your waitlist.

The market will tell you a whole lot faster than any rebrand ever could. Now, if the waitlist barely moves after the new rate, well, that's the market telling him something else too. It's telling him he needs another therapist, which is a hiring decision, not a branding decision. And here's what I really love about this example, he was right that something needed to change, he was just wrong about what and the price signal sounds the same everywhere. Nobody's negotiating. You're booked out. People choose the most expensive option on your offer menu without blinking. Clients refer friends and say, she's worth every penny. When you hear that, the market is not asking you to become someone new. It's telling you the established value of your work already.

Now, in case you didn't notice, that was the second case that wasn't about positioning. The first time it was about the offer, this time it's about the price. We're wrapping up with case number 6, and this one's called, the 2 Lost Proposals. This one is an executive coach who's lost out on 2 proposals in the same month. In both times, he was absolutely certain he was going to be hired. In fact, he was already picturing the kickoff meetings. 10 days later, he's come to the conclusion that executive coaching is saturated, but the real opportunity lies in coaching founders. His new website copy is already half drafted. Make your call. This one is obviously restlessness, but with a side of hurt feelings.

Here's how to tell, look at what happened just before the brand new idea arrived. This one is related to my clinical training, so I can't ignore it. Telling yourself, maybe I'm in the wrong market, is just gonna feel a whole lot better than, they didn't pick me. The hurt is real. Losing out on 2 proposals that you were absolutely sure you were gonna get, that hurts and you know what? It's allowed to. The problem isn't feeling it, the problem is letting that feeling dictate your positioning. Now, if you have rejection sensitivity as part of your ADHD makeup, as many of us do, that move is gonna happen real fast. So fast that changing your niche feels strategic, but it's not. It's first aid, and you're allowed to need first aid, you just don't wanna rebuild your business on it. This case has 2 moves, first, the quick check. When you get that urge to change your niche, change your business, change your positioning, ask yourself, what has happened within the last 2 weeks? A big no? A launch that flopped or underperformed? A negative review?

Sometimes it's a big finish. If something stung right before that shiny new idea showed up, wait for the hurt to fade before you trust the idea and the outside read, ask the no. Now this one's tough, but if you can go back to the 2 firms and ask, so what made you decide to go another way? It's uncomfortable for sure, see if you could get yourself to do it anyway. Usually the answer is price, timing, or fit, not executive coaching is just too saturated. Either way, you're working with real evidence instead of deciding based on feelings. If the answer comes back price, that's a pricing conversation. If it's timing, you can follow up again in 3 months. If it's fit, that too is useful information. Maybe your best clients aren't who you think they are, and every one of them is going to be way more useful than picking a new niche. This is the one I'd ask you to watch for in yourself.

I have certainly been prone to it, and I bet you have too. The urge to change niches right after working with a client who was a fucking nightmare, or the urge to rename everything right after one of your competitors got something you wanted. If the timing lines up with an emotional insult, that's the place to start. Now, those are the 6 examples. 3 were real market signals, and 3 were cases of ADHD restlessness. Did you hear the other pattern? Every case of restlessness started with one person, a warm compliment that you kept replaying in your head, an idea that came to you in the shower, or ruminating over a rejection. Every real signal came out of other people's mouths. Inquiries from strangers, the front desk that keeps hearing the same question week after week, having a waitlist. So here's the line I want you to remember: if nobody but you could have seen it, it isn't a market signal, at least not yet. And solo or team, that rule doesn't change, with a team, there's just more people who can see it.

So if you have a team, here's a habit worth building. Whatever regular team meeting you already have, ask this question: What did clients ask for this week or this month, depending on how often you meet, that we don't do, their exact words. You will be amazed at what your front desk, your coordinators, your account managers have been hearing while you were busy being the one with all the big ideas. That's your market, talking to the people who are closest to it. If you're a solo operator, your version of that meeting is your inbox and the people that refer to you. Same question, just pointed at different people. Here's one more thing hiding in that scorecard. 2 of the 3 real signals weren't about who you are at all, they're about what you sell or what you charge. So when the urge to rename everything shows up, because with ADHD, you know it will, ask which part of the business the evidence is actually pointing at.

Deciding when to pause and when to pivot isn't the last item on your list. It's the thing you get to when everything else is sorted out. The question you ask about every part of your business, not just your name. Remember I promised you you'd leave this episode with 6 moves? Well, here they are in summary. When that urge hits, 3 quick checks. Problem first or idea first? What happened in the last 2 weeks and who would notice if I didn't change? In about a week or 2, ask 3 outside reads. Ask the person who said it and 2 who didn't. Ask why the no, and ask the people who open your emails or answer your phone. If you have a waitlist in your service business, raise the rate for new clients and watch what happens. And if you still feel like spitballing your big beautiful idea even after you've answered all these questions, sign up for Di AI and open up a chat in either text or voice mode. She knows exactly what to do because I built her that way, the link is in the show notes.