I am so excited to share this conversation with you! I sat down with Katie McManus, a fellow ADHD coach and business expert who has become one of my favorite people on LinkedIn (yes, LinkedIn can actually be fun - Katie's going to teach me her secrets).

What started as a mutual TikTok friendship turned into one of the most authentic conversations about entrepreneurship, neurodivergence, and building a business that actually works with your ADHD brain.

Katie's journey is wild - she went from sales and marketing to becoming a dating coach for men (plot twist: all her clients were women), then transitioned into leadership coaching, and finally found her calling helping beginner entrepreneurs build their businesses.

But here's what I love most about Katie: she doesn't just teach business strategy. She teaches magic. She teaches you how to turn words into money while doing something you truly enjoy every single day.

Episode 022: From Dating Coach to Business Maverick with Katie McManus

I am so excited to share this conversation with you! I sat down with Katie McManus, a fellow ADHD coach and business expert who has become one of my favorite people on LinkedIn (yes, LinkedIn can actually be fun - Katie's going to teach me her secrets). What started as a mutual TikTok friendship turned into one of the most authentic conversations about entrepreneurship, neurodivergence, and building a business that actually works with your ADHD brain.

Katie's journey is wild - she went from sales and marketing to becoming a dating coach for men (plot twist: all her clients were women), then transitioned into leadership coaching, and finally found her calling helping beginner entrepreneurs build their businesses. But here's what I love most about Katie: she doesn't just teach business strategy. She teaches magic. She teaches you how to turn words into money while doing something you truly enjoy every single day.

The Moment Everything Changed

Katie's entrepreneurial fire didn't ignite from a single "I can't work for anyone else" moment. Instead, it was thousands of moments building up - particularly in sales roles where she was expected to use pushy closing tactics that went against everything she believed in. "I would usually over perform, but on really tough months, I wasn't going to push people to make a decision that they weren't ready for," Katie shared.

The real catalyst came after a serious car accident that resulted in a traumatic brain injury. For eight months, Katie couldn't read more than one line of text, couldn't look at computers or TVs, and had to wear earplugs during walks because her brain was working so hard to heal. During this recovery period, she finally enrolled in the coaching school she'd been stalking for years.

Here's what struck me about Katie's experience: as neurodivergent people, we already have sensitive nervous systems, and when you add a brain injury on top of that, everything gets amplified by a thousand. This experience taught Katie something crucial about honoring your brain's needs - a lesson that now infuses everything she teaches about building sustainable businesses.

The Real Talk About ADHD and Business

Listen, I've met coaches who try to work with neurodivergent people without being neurodivergent themselves, and I find it weird. I don't like it at all. Katie gets diagnosed early (lucky her!), but what I love is how she naturally attracted ADHD clients simply by being authentic about who she is online.

"I didn't start being a business coach specializing in ADHD," Katie explained. "I just naturally attracted people because I was so authentic and normal about who I am out on the interwebs that I just naturally attracted people who saw that I would understand them."

This is so important. We've been flocking together our whole lives - those teachers we loved, the friends we connected with, the people we looked up to. They were all probably neurodivergent too. Your art teacher, that history teacher who brought weird details alive in class - they got us because they were us.

Money Mindset: Where Most Entrepreneurs Get Stuck

Katie spends significant time with her clients working on their relationship with money, and for good reason. "You're never going to be able to build a six-figure business, a multiple six-figure business, or a seven-figure business if you're not working on that first," she told me.

The shame around money shows up in so many ways - believing you're bad with money, thinking you have to be hypervigilant about every expense, or worst of all, doing emotional labor for your potential clients by assuming what they can and can't afford.

Katie shared a perfect example from her solar industry days: the cosmetic doctor with the mansion and designer everything who couldn't pass a credit check because of two bankruptcies, while the blue-collar guy with Costco furniture was a multimillionaire with perfect credit. You cannot assume anything about people's financial situations.

The Neurodivergent Advantage in Business

Here's what I love about Katie's approach: she doesn't try to fix our ADHD or make us "normal." Instead, she helps us leverage our neurodivergent strengths. She blocks her client calls to just Tuesdays and Wednesdays, gives herself three non-negotiables each day (visibility, something for her soul, and something for her body), and reads her energy to determine what "taking care of my body" looks like on any given day.

Sometimes it's a full gym session. Sometimes it's a 10-minute treadmill walk. Sometimes it's an afternoon nap. The key is not shaming yourself for not sticking to some arbitrary plan.

When it comes to medication, Katie had such an interesting perspective. As a kid, ADHD meds helped her buckle down and do homework she wasn't interested in. But as a business owner who's learned to utilize all her ADHD strengths - the creativity, the ability to connect dots in wild ways - medication actually hindered her. "Whenever I take meds, like all those voices go away. I don't have access to them," she explained.

This is crucial: the medication makes us easier for other people to experience, but it doesn't necessarily make our experience better. We need to decide what works for us, not what makes other people comfortable.

Practical Systems That Actually Work

Katie's approach to organization is refreshingly honest. She showed me her habit tracker behind her - filled out three weeks ago and never touched since. "I tracked my habits for two days," she laughed. This is real life, people!

Instead of fighting against our ADHD brains, Katie focuses on systems that work with them. Her course videos are never 40 minutes of fluff - they're direct, actionable content: here's what you need to do, here's why you need to do it, here's how you do it, now go do it.

I completely agree with this approach. We need energy optimization, not perfect routines. I don't call it a to-do list anymore - it's my agenda for the day. I assign specific times based on when my energy is best for different tasks. For me, that's filming content between 12 and 2 PM when the lighting and my energy align perfectly.

Intuition Over Everything

One of my favorite parts of our conversation was about trusting our intuition. Katie has this beautiful visualization where she imagines a ball of light floating in her skull, then draws it down into her heart, lets it pulse there while her lungs hug her heart with oxygen. Then she does the same with her gut.

"Your inner leader lives in your heart and your intuition lives in your gut," Katie explained. As women, we really have to give ourselves credit that when we know something in our heart or gut, it's true.

This connects to something I'm passionate about: recognizing that we are not our thoughts. We are observers of our thoughts. When we can detach from our brain and ask "who benefits from this thought?" we can start making conscious choices about what we focus on.

The Real Secret to Sustainable Success

Here's what Katie understands that so many business coaches miss: we can't build sustainable businesses using strategies designed for neurotypical brains. Everything from our sleep needs (hello, emotional support shows playing all night) to our energy patterns to our creative processes is different.

Katie's business reflects this. She named her podcast "The Weenie Cast," her money mindset program "Wealthy Weenies," and her whole tagline is "Stop being a weenie and start your business already." I love that she owns her business so she can name things however she wants.

This authenticity carries through everything she does. She blocks her calendar in ways that work for her brain, creates content that feeds her soul, and builds systems that support her neurodivergent clients in becoming the best versions of themselves.

Ready to Build Your Own Business?

If you're a beginner entrepreneur ready to stop being a weenie and start your business already (see what I did there?), Katie's BYOB (Build Your Own Business) program might be exactly what you need. She trains everything in an ADHD-friendly way, and her group coaching approach means you're not doing this alone.

Want to stay connected with insights like these? Sign up for my newsletter at mindsetmelanie.com/newsletter where I share the tools and strategies that help ambitious neurodivergent women reach their goals.

Listen, building a business as a neurodivergent person isn't about fixing yourself or becoming someone else. It's about understanding your strengths, accommodating your needs, and creating systems that work with your beautiful, complex brain. Katie McManus gets this, and that's why I'm so excited you get to learn from her.

Connect with Katie McManus

Website: katiemcmanus.com
LinkedIn: @katiemcmanusleadership
Facebook: @katie.mcmanus.leadership
Instagram: @katie.the.coach
Podcast: The Weenie Cast at theweeniecast.com