Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / DAY 300 | ADHD and Travel Agency Systems: Build a Business That Works With Your Brain
Transcript
- Rachel: Welcome to the Travel Agency New Year podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Kay, and this is for travel advisors building businesses that are bigger than just their own validation and happy fun time spending money. I'm a travel agency owner myself. I'm here to help you get past six figures and multiple six figures. My dream would be Be to see many of you hit seven figures in annual commissions. Today is day 300. The harder side of ADHD and ADD for travel advisors. Whom wap wop. It is a strength to be a little neurodivergent for entrepreneurs. And we're gonna be honest about everything. There is the harder side. In In yesterday's episode, we talked about entrepreneurs who understood the harder side and their own challenges and how they found people to place on their team to mitigate that. Okay. And if you can understand your own real challenges, that's exactly what lets you build systems that actually support you and how your brain works rather than fighting against it. And this was like the foundation. I still have my courses. I don't promote them. If you are have taken any of my courses, you can still log in and check them out. But this is like the foundation of how I would teach people because I have fully understood, I can't be like, just do exactly what I did and you're gonna make fifty thousand dollars a year. Trust me. That's why I'm selling courses to you now. Like what's no. So I would just teach the foundational principles and all of the options when with a particular subject so that you can build your business your way. Because me telling you this is exactly what I did doesn't mean it's gonna work for you. Okay. So this is kind of why, and I've weirdly drawn in a lot of like neurodivergent travel advisors who are like, I've tried everything else and nothing's working and it's like because you aren't trying to build things your own way. So that's like a big reason why I've gone into c small group coaching and custom mentoring rather than courses, because even with the courses I would be like you can do it this way, you can do it this way, you can do it this way. There's all these different ways. Which one works for you? They would still need a little more help in sorting that out. So let's frame ADHD as a superpower and also, or ADD, whatever, and also understand and acknowledge there are challenges. The challenges can, if you like, go full to Lulu, be like, I'm a superhero. This is like the extreme version of that. You can feel like you're failing at being the cool and innovative, neurodivergent if you're struggling. Okay. So if you acknowledge the challenges. That's what really lets you build around them effectively rather than being blindsided by them or using them as an excuse to never really step up fully. So time blindness. gosh, I'm just diagnosing myself over here. Time blindness. Accurately sensing how much time has passed or how long a task will actually take. This is me. This is me. If it's something for I know for a fact if it's something that's gonna be a huge undertaking, but also to my brain, if it feels like it's just like a little admin. system implementation, I'll be like, this'll take ten seconds. and it ends up being me screaming at the computer for twelve hours because I also will not give up until I'm finished with it. Whereas the things that I'm most terrified to do for some stupid reason, if I know it's gonna move me towards Future success or potentially failure, either way, just like moving forward and it's like email. Like I will be like, well, let me put that off for ten weeks until the eleventh hour. And then it's like five minutes, and I'm like, why did I do this to myself? I also have a tendency if I if if I'm just self-diagnosing at this point. I also have a tendency if I get really sucked into a task and I'm really engaged with it, I will totally forget to eat and just go all in on it. Okay. Inconsistent focus rather than too little focus. yeah, ADHD and ADD doesn't mean you don't have the ability to focus at all. It means it's really hard to direct it towards tasks that aren't stimulating for you. Like the routine admin. I'm just self-diagnosed myself, it's fine. And hyper focus on something that's really engaging for you, that can run so deep it's hard to pull away from, even when something else needs attention. And I see this with many a travel advisor and myself right now. well I'm working I'm I am doing a little bit more. It's fine. where you hyper focus on perfection and perfecting your plan instead of any marketing and then you're like, why am I not getting any business? Because nobody knows you exist. And you hyper focus because it's engaging for you. Like I feel like if you're that type of travel advisor, you probably love some Legos. And you're the type of person with Legos, you will build an entire community and then be like, well that's done. No time to play. And then smash it all and build something else. Instead of like building it and also playing with it. So you can hyperfocus, you can follow directions. It has to be something that you really, really, really enjoy. Hmm. Yeah. The Legos. Or like if you I'm thinking. Different toys from growing up. Like Barbie, you may have had, I don't know if you'd have the Barbie Dream House or anything, but like I had my mom's Barbie furniture, which was like mid-century modern. It was like weird corduroy couches and chairs and like the old school telephone tables. And I would set up the entire house and then be like, good, now what do we do? I'm done with that. If you played G.I. Joe, you'd probably set up like the entire Cobra Command versus G.I. Joe and then never actually had the fight. Who knows? Okay. Another thing, emotional intensity around setbacks. So if you are experiencing rejection and you have ADD ADD or ADHD, or criticism, or perceived failure with unusually strong emotional intensity, sometimes that's referred to as rejection sensitivity. Though this isn't a formal clinical diagnosis, that's just an experience. This can make ordinary business setbacks like a lost lead or critical feedback. Feel disproportionately heavy. Many a travel advisor I've been working with is terrified of getting anything less than a four or five-star review. And that's the rejection sensitivity coming through. I'm not saying that you do have ADHD, but there is that. Like, so maybe if you struggle with service. Or yeah, 'cause you gotta learn how to close the sales. You just gotta develop the skill. So with closing sales, if you get rejection sensitivity type feelings from that The best way you can, the best advice I can give you is every no is one step closer to a yes. So make gamify it and be like, I need to get as many no's as possible. Let's say out of every 10 consultations, you have a 10% close rate. So every 10 consultations, nine of them are gonna say no. Okay? That's not a normal close rate. Average-ish close rate is 60%. So if you are playing the numbers game. And you have 10 consultations that you shoot to get booked. If the first one buys, that's kind of hard for someone who is a little more neurodivergent, because you're like, yeah, I'm the best at everything, and then the next one says no. When it's just a numbers game, and then the next one says no, and then the next one says no, and then the next one says no. And then you get five more yeses. Okay, so every no gives you one step closer to a yes. Gamify and consider like the no's as your win because you're getting closer to getting those yeses. That could help you if you have rejection sensitivity with closing leads. if you have issues with critical feedback or criticisms, maybe just give yourself a day. If you get any critical feedback, now I'm not saying like close your doors the next day, but like the upcoming weekend, give yourself a day to really rest and see it as feedback and not failure. I had to make a sign that said failure is only feedback or something like that. Because clearly I'm on the spectrum of Dorin's side. Clearly. All right. If you have difficulty with routine detail heavy tasks. I like to tell people time block, and a lot of people I work with are like, I don't like that, I don't like the routine, man. And I'm like, just make it be your to-do list for the day. I don't feel like doing that today. Okay. So the same traits that drive your big picture creativity can make the unglamorous back end boring crap, bookkeeping, scheduling, routine follow-ups harder to sustain consistently, not from a lack of care, but from a difference in how sustained, low stimulus. Regulation attention works. Okay? I am neurodivergent. Confirmed. So I hate the routine detail heavy tasks. For me, what I like to do is I do force myself to do it a little bit each week. And then for me, I base it all around my cycle. So I'll do a lot more content creation, like get up and running during like follicular and ovulation phase. And then about halfway through the luteal phase before the start of a new cycle, I will go full admin and I will pull back and just be like, okay, do all the admin stuff. This goes back to the batching systems from days two of ten and two eleven. These every system I provide you by the way, if you're listening, you're like, well, I don't like how that works, just consider it as something you can tweak. So your batching may look different than my batching. You might love to do a full piece of content from start to finish and you feel like that's the most efficient and that's what really keeps you engaged and gets you to stay on track. And you might like creating content every single day, but then your batching systems might be the more detail-heavy, boring updating or migrating stuff over to a new CRM, making sure all the workflows work. Maybe consider batching that instead. So if you need to create or migrate over all your workflows, then Do it for like one destination or like one sailing, cruise line, whatever, when you're batching it. And only focus on everything for that destination until it's in your new system. and if that takes you two hours, then that takes you two hours. But you're only your hype this kind of gives your brain the ability to hyperfocus because you aren't concerning yourself with, well I gotta do all this stuff and now I gotta do the forms and now I gotta do the Payment processing and I gotta make sure that my URL and my C name and all that junk in the DNS is updated so that my website works and the landing pages have my branding. And I'm what if I needed to update my branding? Stop it. put in your Mexico automations. Only Mexico. So that might be a way when I'm talking about the batching systems to tweak it for you and your brain and your business. The delegation audit that we talked about on day two fifty-three also becomes super valuable here because the tasks, regardless of your neurotype, the stuff you don't want to do in the delegation candidates are gonna be strong. Sorry, but they might even be a higher priority if they're costing you more. Than they would with someone without these specific challenges. So if it causes you to start stressing out and start kind of spiraling, and then you get worn out from the spiral, even if it's only like a five-minute mini panic, that could ruin the entire rest of your day in terms of productivity. So if you get to that point with certain things, you might want to make a note of that, be like, this is something I need to delegate as soon as possible. If any of this resonates and it's affecting your well-being being and or your business, bring that to a licensed professional. I am not a doctor, I'm not a CPA, I am not an attorney. by the way, but a doctor or a therapist can help you with individualized guidance. rather than me just being like whoop self-diagnosing myself over here ha ha ha but like these are things for you to pay attention to and note okay so this is meant to like normalize like you're not alone in this and provide this information for you Not diagnosing you or replacing professional support. And if you're like, I feel like this resonates with me, write it down. And if you like listen to how I would do things, even though I'm not a professional, write that down and then bring that to your therapist or your doctor and be like, okay, what if we what about this? What if I tried this? Okay. The travel industry is built on creativity. It's built on pattern recognition across huge amounts of destinations and logistics information. We're not even gonna go into the polymath mind. And enthusiasm for novelty. That's exactly the kind of field that benefits from the innovative thinking associated with neurodivergence. Okay, so being a little neurospicy, add a little spice. Isn't something that should hold you back here? my battery just died of my mouse. Well, it shouldn't be something that holds you back. Real systems built around your specific challenges is a legitimate source of the industry's next wave of innovation. Okay? Maybe I should go back to school and then be like, I'll help the and no, no. Calm down, swirl brain. Understand that you're you have different challenges. They are real challenges. Time blindness is an example. In consistent rather than absent focus, you have the ability to hyperfocus. Emotional intensity around any sort of setbacks, difficulty with the boring routine, how you perceive them to be boring and routine tasks, so that you can build your systems around. An account for them. And as soon as you can, hire. don't forget to talk to your doctor or therapist about this. And tomorrow we're gonna go into New Stretch, which is thinking big, the Big Dululu. There's a book, by the way, that I can't wait for it to be published in April 2027 called Big Dululu Energy, and I cannot pronounce the author's name. However, if I talk about Big Dululu energy, please know I'm not trying to steal the title of the book. And we'll just say I'm promoting that book. Okay. This was Travel Agency of the Year, day 300. Have a wonderful day. I'll see you tomorrow.