How Phil Drinkwater Helps Founders Unlock Their Next Level

In this episode of Success Leaves Clues Podcast, host Pedro welcomes Phil Drinkwater, ADHD Business Coach and strategist for high-performing founders, CEOs, and executives.

Phil shares his fascinating journey from psychotherapy training and business leadership to becoming a sought-after coach specializing in ADHD and neurodivergent entrepreneurs. Together, they explore how ADHD impacts leadership, decision-making, delegation, overwhelm, burnout, and business growth.

Phil introduces powerful frameworks such as the RAG Framework and the Friction Principle, explaining how founders can identify bottlenecks, delegate effectively, and build businesses that work with their brains rather than against them. The conversation also dives into perfectionism, capacity management, neurodivergent leadership, and practical strategies for scaling six-to-nine-figure businesses without sacrificing wellbeing.


Connect with

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/phildrinkwatercoach
Website: https://phildrinkwater.com/

Transcript

Phil Drinkwater 0:00

So another one of my frameworks called the friction principle, which is, you know, a lot of the challenge that we experience is down to friction. And, you know, that the the friction principle, fundamentally, what it says is you can remove it, you can change it, or you can delegate it. And delegate it these days can also mean, you know, to AI or something like that. Um so we'd have a look at it and we'd say, well, what needs to happen here? What's in the way of this thing? You know, if, for example, you you're not delegating a particular area of the business and say your perfectionism is in the way or something like that, we go, right, what needs to happen for that perfectionism to get out of the way? And instead of spending three years doing therapy almost on that to become comfortable with it, what we often say is, well, how can we do it in a safe way for your brain?

Davis Nguyen 0:42

That's it for this episode. This episode, as well as this podcast, was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help business owners elevate their business to six, seven, and eight figure years all without burning out. If you're looking to grow your business, as well as get the time freedom that you are looking for, visit us at join purplecircle.com and see what we can do to help you and your business.

Pedro Stein 1:31

Before his own late ADHD diagnosis completely reframed how he understood his journey and inspired him to retrain as a coach, combining psychotherapy training with the neuroscience of neurodivergence. Phil worked with scaling founders, CEOs, and senior executives at six to nine figure businesses as a strategic partner, focusing on three interconnected areas the individual, the business, and team and how they are interacting. Phil redesigns team and company systems, changes work systems, and reshapes leadership roles around cognitive architecture. His rare combination of real business operating experience and deep understanding of ADHD and AUDHD makes him uniquely equipped to help brilliant, successful, neurodivergent leaders stop fighting their brain and start building around it.

Phil Drinkwater 2:34

Welcome to the show, Phil. Thank you. It's great to be here.

Pedro Stein 2:37

Great to have you. Excited to talk with you from the moment I met you. Okay. Now, I'd love for us to rewind a bit and go back to your origin story because, you know, every coach has that moment where they look at their life and say, Yeah, I guess this is what I'm doing now, right? So when was that for you, Phil?

Phil Drinkwater 2:54

Yeah, well, it has been a journey to be fair. I actually trained as a in psychotherapy about 20 years ago, whilst uh my other business was kind of just in its infancy, really. And I started to think, you know, I really like the idea of the brain and what we can get from people's brains. It's fascinating to me. And uh and how much we can actually do if we change some things and and get out of our own way. But I decided not to become a psychotherapist. Now, fast forward about 20 years, so this is about you know five to six years ago now, and uh and I started to think, you know, it's time for me to go and do something else with my life. And I kept thinking back to the psychotherapy stuff, and I still was like, it's not for me. Um, and then I took on my own business coach, and one of the things that happened during that journey was we did uh some analysis on what really suited me. And uh the thing that came out top was being a business coach, ironically. So so yeah, I decided to kind of you know retrain as a business coach. It just felt right. Everything, all of the stuff, the things that I am, it just felt right. And there was nothing else really that that suited me quite as much. And as I say, I got to that point of thinking it's time to move on. And and I just got I just realized that you know, coaching was the thing that allowed me to use all of the bits of myself, all of the things that I'd consider strengths and all of the things that I enjoyed.

Pedro Stein 4:14

Interesting. It sounds like to me that you're almost like creating that hybrid approach that that you could, you know, talk about business and psychotherapy at the same time, right? So it's the the whole feel was into action and parts of that you you have a lot of interest in, right? Now I'm curious about one thing, you know, because I know you're a CEO from past businesses. We mentioned that, we already established that, but then you move to coaching, right? And it's a different venue, let's like it's a different path. And in in the early days, Phil, it it starts usually for people in the coaching space from helping people, advice giving, you know, testing waters to eventually become a uh a real business, you know. So can you walk me through how did that fell for you? When you like, okay, this is actually a real thing, you know. I I have a coaching business. Is it the first invoice? Is it the first paying client? You know, how walk us through how that feeling went for you.

Phil Drinkwater 5:11

Yeah, so my early days was a lot of you know building my website and my search engine optimization. The first, the first time that it felt started to feel real was when I was I got my first really good link into my website. So I was doing some link building. For those who know anything about SEO, that's when it started to feel real. I got a link from, you know, a major company and suddenly I started ranking really well for London Business Coach. Because back then I was just trying to get whatever I could out. I wasn't doing the ADHD stuff. Then my first customer came through the door and I thought, there's something a bit familiar about you. You know, I was I was trying to book people and and they just weren't booking. And later on, obviously, I realized that's because they weren't Eurodiverse. Neurodiverse people tend to, you know, to fit together better. The things that I was selling, you know, didn't suit these other people. So the first customer that I got, that was when it did feel properly real. You know, my first call, I was sat there thinking, well, how do I structure this? I mean, I'd been through my coach training, so I had lots of lots of experience from that. But at the same time, you know, you sat in front of a real customer who's paid you real money and they are looking for an outcome. So yeah, that's when it felt really real. Number of months later, I switched into the ADHD world, and and that's where suddenly my business kind of shot up because I realized so many of the people who, you know, who need help out there and uh business owners are also ADHD.

Pedro Stein 6:32

Okay. Now you mentioned something that really sparked my interest because in the early days, right, for coaches, as we already established, sometimes we're trying to help everyone. I mean, I did that, okay. I'm a coach too, as we already audience knows that. I'm not sure if I told you, but I'm a coach too. Um so here's the thing. Eventually we niche down, or even people that don't, right? And you did. You mentioned the you you weren't doing the ADHD stuff. So why did you make that change, that transition, okay? And right now, who do you serve specifically?

Phil Drinkwater 7:04

Yeah, why did I make that change? Well, it was a little random, if I'm honest. I mean, I was just learning at that time that I was ADHD, and I was thinking, I wonder whether other ADHD people are struggling here. And I so again, my SEO background, I went and had a look at how many people were searching for ADHD business coach, and it was pretty much no one. And when you searched on the internet, there was only one other person that came up. I thought, I'll just go and do it because, you know, I'll put a page up and see what happens. And then that's when my business suddenly went like this. You know, within three weeks, I think it was, you know, I had 10 calls in a week, you know, and I'd only been getting, you know, one or two previously. You know, it was clear that that was the most important thing. That was the thing that people really wanted from me. And yeah, the the niching bit is actually really interesting because every single coach seems to go through this. And, you know, I've spoken to so many over the years. And and I think you gravitate towards something over time, something that seems to fit how your brain works and how your nervous system is wired. You know, a lot of people work in, you know, wellness, and they've often had a a challenge with wellness themselves. A lot of people work in, you know, nervous system regulation. They might have a lot of challenges around nervous system regulation themselves. For me, you know, ADHD, and I'm also uh almost certainly on the autistic spectrum as well. I recognized how I think I'd been fairly lucky in the past that no one had really pushed me to become someone that I wasn't. I just found my own way. And that really was what you know led to my business success, really. So as I went through this journey, I was like, I started to realize that other ADHD people were having problems that I could clearly solve for them. I could highlight what the problems were and help them solve it. So today, my audience is you know, typically, you know, six to nine figures, although I do help some earlier entrepreneurs as well. I'm building some kind of options for you know earlier entrepreneurs. But a lot of the people that I do the kind of deep transformational work with are, you know, people at that kind of six to nine figure range, uh particularly the kind of six to eight figures, because you're in that scaling area of trying to make your business go like this, and you've got a team that you're building, and suddenly it's all confusing, and the only books out there are neurotypical. So it's literally the worst advice for our brains. And no one's written the manual yet for how to go and do that as an ADHD person. It may even be something that I end up doing because you know, because there literally isn't something out there. I also help with uh other kind of you know, CEOs, execs in corporate and and those kinds of things, because they're stuck often between a rock and a hard place of I've got people above me telling me what I need, and people, you know, who work for me telling me what they need, and I feel stuck in between, and the only thing that can give is me. And uh so they often get, you know, quite exhausted and uh and it's a challenge to get them out of the thinking patterns that you know maybe they see from their neurotypical colleagues.

Pedro Stein 9:58

Interesting. It's almost like you're detecting the reason behind the ceiling they're hitting, right? It's usually themselves, it just so happens it could be potentially a DHD or it could not, but most of the time it is because there are some coping mechanisms they created, they have a hard time letting go and all that, right? Now, I want to do a quick exercise with you, Phil. I want to pretend I'm the your ICP, which I kinda am, right? Well, we're gonna talk about that later on, but first of all, I'm let's pretend I'm one of the six to nine figures, a business owner, A A D H D. Okay. That hit a ceiling. First of all, how would I be able to find you, okay? Marketing-wise.

Phil Drinkwater 10:38

Yeah, so phildrinkwater.com. So that's my website. From there, you can get to my LinkedIn, which would be, you know, a good place for people to kind of have a a quick look at, you know, my but my website and and LinkedIn are uh the best places for now.

Pedro Stein 10:52

Okay. So let's say I went through your website or even your LinkedIn. I resonated what you got out there, you know. I mean, Phil looks cool. I want to work with them. I reach out, okay. Let's pretend I reach out. Um, we went through the sales process, however, that looks like we can speed up that. Uh let's just say there's alignment. I want to work with you. You can you realize you can actually help me, right? So can you walk me through how does it look like to work with you, Phil? And what are the potential outcomes I can expect out of it?

Phil Drinkwater 11:23

Yeah, so those are the important questions, really, aren't they? So my work's designed for ADHD people, and that means, you know, a a number of things. Uh one of those is, you know, I tend to write on a mirror board as we're going along. So it's not just you and me talking, because most ADHD people have a working memory which is a little bit more goldfish. So, you know, we forget things a lot, and we also have a lot of complex whole difficulty holding complexity because we can't hold it all in our working memory. So we have a mirror board. We put everything down on the mirror board as you're talking, I'm writing, and we're connecting things through, and you physically see those connections. And then as we go through the mirror board, it's normally almost like a journey left to right as we go through the call. You know, we work out where we started and how it relates to where we ended. So the person gets that full transformation of whatever the problem is that we're dealing with in a way that their brain actually can handle. Because working memory is a serious challenge for execs and you know, more established founders for all of us. But you know, you know, when you've got a team and 20 people are coming at you with different things, you're already overloaded. I don't want to be another cause of that. So we spend our time uh sitting down and working out what's really going wrong and what's actually going wrong, and what's really actually going wrong, you know, so we're really digging into the things that are actually happening. Because it might be, for example, you say, Oh, you know, I'm a bit of a perfectionist, and then we go, right, okay, so what does that mean for your business? Well, you know, I didn't deliver this piece of work. And then we go and have a look at your business, and we we realize that 18 of the decisions that you could have given someone else, you've held on to because of this perfectionist nature. So it's not just this piece of work, it's everything about your entire business that's held together with sticky tape with the words perfectionist on it. And and so those are the things that we're really trying to find. The things that make the the huge differences in our businesses when we can let go of something like perfectionism, suddenly a working memory which is overloaded isn't overloaded anymore because you give away responsibility and outcome as opposed to just a task. Because that's something that typically happens in the particularly in the six to seven figure range. People don't understand how to delegate, they've never run a business before, so they're doing their best, but they don't understand this stuff. So we're picking away at the things that are really going wrong and fixing one thing at a time.

Pedro Stein 13:49

Okay. Now I'm gonna throw you some examples of my own experience, which to be candid, I'm not like diagnosed with ADHD formally, okay? But I want to talk about me, and then I'm gonna ask you a uh some questions so people can detect if they have it or not in their business specifically. Like they're thinking, oh, do I got it? Or maybe can Phil help me? Well, how could I notice I I do have it? Okay, so first for example, myself, okay? I forget things a lot. I have multiple glasses in my house, like four to five sometimes. That's one. I work with multiple checklists, you know, just make sure I have it and I didn't forget things. That's two. Three, it was sitting in front of class all my entire life. I told myself I was sitting there because I didn't want to do homework, but honestly, I just couldn't concentrate what I would I was in the back. That's number three. Number four, I cannot talk with my wife while the TV's on. I focused on the TV, I cannot have something distracting me. So strike number four. Okay. Now, my question to you is, Phil, imagine I'm still your ICP and I'm in the fence because I'm not sure if you can help me. I'm not sure if I do have it, right? What would you say, for example, are people that were pliants that you onboarded and they realized they had it? Some good examples. And if I'm on the fence, what would you say to me? Check this out. Maybe you're doing this. You know what I mean?

Phil Drinkwater 15:14

Yeah, well, the first the first thing is because I'm ADHD as well. I don't remember your list. Fortunately, as you were going through each one of them, I was giving each one of them a ticker across. So I remember you got four ticks. I mean, we've got to laugh about this stuff.

Davis Nguyen 15:29

Yes.

Phil Drinkwater 15:29

I'm ADHD as well. I'm not superhuman. I don't I haven't suddenly fixed my brain. The whole point is that we can't. We just got to work with it. So that was one of my little, you know, little traits. I was like, right, I'll go through. I know I'll forget this list. I'll go, I'll go and tick them as I'm going through. So you got four ticks on those. Okay. So, first off, I can't diagnose people officially, and I'm not qualified to diagnose people. I have spoken to a lot of ADHD people though, and I know most of the traits. There's even some physical traits in some people that you can kind of see, and also sometimes where they how they hold themselves, how they behave. Same with people who are autistic as well. You know, you'll spot start to spot the little traits, the behavioral and physical traits. For many of my customers, the number one thing that they come to me saying is I'm overwhelmed. Now, I'm not saying that neurotypical people can't become overwhelmed, but it's much less likely. Because what they tend to do is they work through things in a normal fashion. So they'll just go, here's the start, and I'll just go like that. Whereas an ADHD person goes, here's the start, don't want to do that. I'll skip to number four. I've just had another thought about number three. So, oh, and that's now where was I? Was I at number? No, oh, hang on a second. Something else has just happened. And, you know, a team member's come back to me, and and and all of these problems are because you're ADHD. The reason that the team member came back to you is probably because you're delegating in a w in an ADHD fashion, you know, because you're not really delegating in the right way and you're not very organized and stuff. And and so number five happened because you were doing all of those things whilst you were still trying to work out which one you were dealing with previously. So the number one thing that people really come to me with is overwhelm. The other one that people come to me with very regularly is some level of burnout. And now people who with some autism tend to experience a higher level of burnout than than people with ADHD alone, but both experience, you know, a level of burnout and an exhaustion. And so those are two things that I would say are fairly good indicators. The company is messy and a bit confused. No one quite knows what they're supposed to be doing. The other one that obviously happens pretty much right throughout is knowing what's important, but still not doing it. You know, people have literally sat in front of me and said, you know, if I go and make all of these calls, I'll double my turnover, you know. And this was someone that was doing 50 million a year. So, you know, he's saying that this is big stake stuff. If I go and make these 20 calls every day, you know, that's that's gonna double my turnover. And yeah, it was still a real challenge. So these things that are important and that we know are important, we still tend to, you know, procrastinate them because our brains aren't activated by importance, they're activated by interest or external dependency.

Pedro Stein 18:16

Does that answer the question, Wolf? It does. It does. I forget half no, I'm kidding. No, it does.

Phil Drinkwater 18:22

Well, if you remember half of that, you're doing very well.

Pedro Stein 18:24

Right. No, I do have a curveball for you, okay? Really interested about your answer about this, okay? Here's the thing you're talking about overwhelming, right? People that feel overwhelmed and all that. And uh burnout too. And I see a lot of coaches out there feel that they burn out themselves while advocating against it, right? So how do they do that? They're wearing all the hats in the coaching space. They're the business development, they're the sales guy, they're the marketer, you know. They have to do the coaching itself. So, how do you think about capacity so you don't stretch yourself too thin?

Phil Drinkwater 18:58

Yeah, so so I actually have a framework called the RAG framework, which is red, amber, green. And we tend to classify people's tasks into red, amber, or green. Uh tasks and projects. The things that are red we automatically know are draining, but we still go forwards and do them because we think no one else is going to do them or could do them as well as us. There's the perfectionism. And so we hold ourselves to this to this stuff, and it actually creates a ceiling in the business because you know, we can't manage all of the reds as well as the ambers and the greens. So capacity is one of the most important conversations that I have with every founder or coach, because you know, coaches come to me as well. So capacity is an important thing. Now I only coach on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays specifically for this reason. You know, I find that you know coaching calls sometimes can be quite tiring. Not always, but sometimes they can be. And, you know, it's better for me to, you know, have a break. Some people, when they're founders, for example, might uh have a a day that they have a meetings day and it and that exhausts them. Some people it excites them and they love it, some people it exhausts them. So we've got to have a look at you know the particular person, the particular week, and get some idea of what it is that's really going on and design a week that suits them. But most importantly, get rid of the things that are draining. A lot of founders end up in um so I I I design business as like a we'll define business as like vision and strategy up here, in the middle, ops and management, down here, tasks and projects and things that you're supposed to be doing. This ops layer in the middle is where most of our red tasks lie. So when you're a uh a coach, not only are you dealing with all of the task stuff, as in having the cause, which can be red tasks because we're taking on other people's you know challenges and helping them solve them, we're also dealing with the structure of the company and and everything that's going on around it. And as you say, all of the sales and stuff, but but we're having to organize everything and remember everything, and we don't always have systems in place for those kinds of things, and that can be a real challenge.

Pedro Stein 21:01

It's very interesting because I have a problem delegating, right? And not just delegating the workspace. Let's talk about my kids, right? I have two boys because you mentioned something that really resonates with me, which is the curiosity, the interest about stuff. And when that's kind of dialed in, we kind of lose this part. And when we lose this part, we just browse through it, right? We're like, I already handled it, I don't care about this anymore. And when we're explaining to someone, we kind of don't do it in the proper way, at least myself, right? I just push through it, and that's hence comes the problem with delegating sometimes, right? Now, we mentioned the what, right? You explained me that you have the the green, the amber, and the red light, right? Now let's talk about a little bit on the how. So let's pretend I was dealing with some stuff or in the onboarding of I mean I was on boarded all that. You detected I have a problem with delegating. Let's put it like that. You detected I have uh not just delegating, but I have A red light because I tend to move on doing stuff that are low value tasks, right? Which is a classic for the founders, the unbillable hours they're wasting their time, then should be doing something else. Now, can you walk me through an example on top of your head, how you would be able to solve that or help me solving that?

Phil Drinkwater 22:18

Sure, yeah. And this is the the work that I really do. So another one of my frameworks called the friction principle, which is you know, a lot of the challenge that we experience is down to friction. And you know, that the the friction principle, fundamentally, what it says is you can remove it, you can change it, or you can delegate it. And delegate it these days can also mean, you know, to AI or something like that. Um, so we'd have a look at it and we'd say, well, what needs to happen here? What's in the way of this thing? You know, if, for example, you you're not delegating a particular area of the business and say your perfectionism is in the way or something like that, we go, right, what needs to happen for that perfectionism to get out of the way? And instead of spending three years doing therapy almost on that to become comfortable with it, what we often say is, well, how can we do it in a safe way for your brain? So it's more of a coaching-based approach than a therapy-based approach. So I would kind of say, right, you know, so you're uncomfortable with delegating. So let's create a little sandbox for your team to go and play in. And but we'll make sure mistakes don't get out of the sandbox for now. Chefs talk about it like this they say, don't let mistakes get out of the kitchen. They stay in the kitchen. So if you're worried about, you know, your your team messing up and that causing, you know, problems later on with, you know, your actual customers, then we say, right, let's make sure that the problems can't get outside of there first. And then we start to slowly say, well, how can we build confidence in that? So maybe you check in with the team twice a week at first and then and you spot check 10 things that happen. Well, maybe a week later you only do it once in the week and you spot check half the amount of things that happen and whatever pace is right for you. But the goal is that you're building safety around delegation because perfectionism's really there as a to protect you against failure. Whether that's failure to your pride or failure to your business, we can have a look at those kind of things. But fundamentally, we want to build a business that's safe for you to operate. So the question is, what's the thing that's in the way of that happening? And that gives us the solution. In this case, it might be something like pacing.

Pedro Stein 24:28

Interesting. Appreciate the insight. Now, I want to shift gears for a second. Okay, Phil, I want to talk a bit about future. So looking ahead, where do you see the business going? You know, are you are you thinking about on scaling hiring? Or is there a next step you're excited about? You know, yeah.

Phil Drinkwater 24:42

So right right now, the thing's exciting me as I'm I'm going back to some of my old days as a when I used to be a programmer and I'm working with Claude, the AI model, to to go and do kind of coding and stuff for me. So I'm building systems for my business. So I built a full event management system with uh with Claude, which allows people to book events with me, multi-day events, they can pay for them, all of that kind of stuff. And that's my own system, so it works how I want it to. Yeah, so I'm building you know lots of kind of systems and and uh and those kind of things to help me. One of the other things I'm gonna build is a system to manage reminders for my customers for their calls to book it, book the calls. Because I don't do a you have to have this slot. I know a lot of coaches do, you know, a slot for a particular customer. I don't do work like that because people can't always guarantee that they can get to that slot. So I work a little differently. So I'm gonna build a system to go and deal with that. So that's quite exciting. And my brain loves those kind of things, so you know it's it's enjoying that stuff. Probably should be focusing on some other things, but I like to have a bit of a mix, and at least I'm building assets that the business can use. Long term, what's happening? So I'm gonna move more into programs in the medium term because I'm very conscious that you know there's only one of me and and I'm trying to, you know, service an amount of customers that which is you know probably too large, to be honest. And and also, you know, that not everyone can afford, you know, to hire me, you know, one-to-one, and that's you know, that's fine. But that doesn't mean that I can't go and help them. So I think that's my you know one of my next steps. Now, will I start hiring people to help me with those things potentially? I already have a small team though, so I have a kind of a fractional COO slash task manager person who I work with directly to help me on, you know, maintaining my own cadence and have two other people who help me with marketing and kind of PR and those sorts of things. So I'm already kind of in that phase, you know, it's that, you know, you you've got to do the things that you say are right, right? You know, otherwise it would be ridiculous. You know, if I sat here and said, I don't delegate, but you should, then uh that's not gonna work for people. So yeah, I've already given away some of the things that, you know, are not great for my brain.

Pedro Stein 26:52

Okay, gotta practice what you preach, right, Phil?

Phil Drinkwater 26:55

You do that was the phrase that I was trying and failing to remember.

Pedro Stein 26:58

Okay. Now, you know, we're you're building something, next chapter, future, all that sounds exciting. And whenever we're doing that, it's always something that we're refining in the present. So, what are you currently trying to improve or tighten up in your business right now?

Phil Drinkwater 27:13

I mean, systems is definitely one of them, but uh I'm doing a new website, or and it should be launched literally probably later today. And and hopefully that will improve my conversion rates on my website because that's a very important thing. It's designed to be very ADHD friendly, so it's it's designed around an ADHD brain. So it's not just lots of text, it's a lot more engaging than that, which is uh you know hopefully going to be beneficial for you know for my audience. So that's what I'm kind of focusing on right now. Outside of that, uh I'm looking to build some more kind of channels, some marketing channels and different ways of getting in touch with people. I've probably focused on SEO for sort of too long, really. I could have done other things in the meantime. So I'm moving into you know other types of marketing and I've got some really interesting plans for how to do that in a in a different way, in a in a way that suits my brain and and allows me to take advantage of you know who I am.

Pedro Stein 28:10

Okay, you're you're gonna have to paint me the picture of what does it really look like a website designed for ADHD users, because I'm like trying to wrap my head around it. So please do.

Phil Drinkwater 28:20

I mean, you can welcome to go and have a look later, but yes, I'll give you I'll give you a little bit of something. So the first thing is, you know, most of my landing pages there they start with like a like a bit of an interactive quiz. So you tick things and it counts up how many of those things you've ticked. A little bit later on down the page, there's an actual animation. So a little bit of a it shows you something that normally goes on. So you hit play and you see the the kind of one thing you're supposed to be doing. That's from the book, The One Thing, obviously, that so many people have talked uh talked about. And then it layers over all of these other things, which are the distractions. So it's making the point without you having to read loads of words, it's making the point that all of this distraction comes at you. Whereas, you know, when you're working with me, you you press the next button and it takes all of the distraction away. Because what I do is I help you hold to the things that are most important for you. And the rest of the page's got lots of little bits of animation and stuff like that. I'll probably improve it as well over time and do more. Maybe I'll I'll bake space invaders into it for some reason.

Pedro Stein 29:22

My god, you just gave me an aha moment. Okay. Here's the kicker: there are games out there called sandbox, they're like world or our role-playing games and all that. I've never could play them because they get they get I feel so overwhelmed of not being cornered into doing A to B. You know, I'm like, oh my god, there are so many options. I I can't even deal with it, you know? And when you mention the website, I feel like you're giving me direction to move from paint point A to B. And that makes so much sense to me because I was thinking about this game I played a while ago, and it the reason it worked clicked for me is because I didn't have a lot. I I mean, I have one obstacle at a time. You know what I mean?

Phil Drinkwater 30:02

Yep, exactly. Yeah, and you know, gaming is really common for ADHD people, but many of us prefer arcade style games as opposed to things that are deeper because our working memories can't always hold the right the amount of information. When I play a game which's got complicated controls, if it's really complicated with the controller, my brain can't handle it all. And and I immediately forget how to go and you know put my sword or something like that. And I'm like, I don't know what to do. So I prefer you know games that are much simpler and have a simpler interface.

Pedro Stein 30:33

My God, Phil. My God, that's me, right? I I love playing uh role-playing games with my kid, my my buddies at school in school, right? It's cool, college years and all that, but that was kind of I it was like one dungeon master, and I have this path to follow. So story-wise, that worked. And then years later, a friend of me tells me, Hey man, you should try this game called The Witcher, right? The Witcher 3. Like, and I tried it like multiple times because they're like hyped about it. But I was like, Okay, how do I pull out the how do I do this? Oh my god, this is so much work, and now I have to click on this and that. I'm like, oh my god, I cannot handle this. You know, and when you mentioned the sword, I was like, that's why I don't like it. This is hilarious.

Phil Drinkwater 31:18

Yeah. And games that can get like five stars, same with films, actually. Films uh are the same thing. You know, if it doesn't attach to something that we enjoy, and if it's a very confused plot or something like that, our brains won't handle that. It's literally a working memory limitation. Um, it's just how we are compared to neurotypical people. Just one thing to work around in your uh in your life and in your business. There's none of this that can't be solved, is the point. What we can't do is take your brain out and put another one in. So we just have to work with business in a different way. But so many people come to me thinking that they really need a new, like a new brain effectively. It's like, how do I manage to focus on all of these things? That's the wrong question. The question is, why are you even trying to? You know, if you're still doing this thing, the question is, why are you still doing it? So yeah, we we work in a different way.

Pedro Stein 32:11

I think part of it, at least in my end, it was like I felt a little bit of guilt because it like there were people that could manage like multiple conversations, multiple tasks, and they're like stereo and I'm a mono, you know. I I I couldn't navigate that, and I always felt like I should try harder, I should, you know, put put more effort, but that's just like a limitation, and having to accept that I just can't handle it, you know, it's just overwhelming for me, at least. I'm not sure if that makes sense with what you said, but I I I feel like it, you know.

Phil Drinkwater 32:42

Yeah, and you know, the the should word. So should is a word that I always pay attention to as a coach because should is an external expectation. So it's not something you want, it's something that you ex you that you believe is expected of you. And and should doesn't do anything for us at all. It's like it doesn't give you anything. I hear a lot of people, you know, they'll they'll come to me and they'll say, Oh, I need to become more consistent or I need to become, you know, better at this or whatever it is. And I say to them, Well, need to, that's a desire without a plan. Where's the plan? What are we going to do with that phrase? It's like it's just there's no plan attached to it. So the plan is actually to let go of those things, particularly when you're, you know, at the six to you know, seven figure range and you're building and you're starting to, you know, you've got some income so you can actually start to afford, you know, this kind of stuff. Because people don't give themselves the support they need, they give the su business support it needs and expect them and they expect themselves to just continue to work with personal heroics. Well, it doesn't work. You'll you become the ceiling and the bottleneck to the business simply because you won't give yourself the support that you need. Um, financially, that might be one of the things that hold you back. But often it's more this embarrassment and shame of like, well, I should be able to do better here. It's like, no, that's not gonna get you anywhere, that won't fix your business. Right.

Pedro Stein 34:03

I love that, man. Now, if someone listening wants to connect with you, Phil, or follow your work, and we're gonna we're gonna have all the links in the description, but what's the best way to find you and connect with you?

Phil Drinkwater 34:12

Yeah, I mean, phildrinkwatch.com. I may end up at some point doing a um a podcast of my own. Uh I'm not sure yet. It's in discussion. And because I think, you know, there's so much of this stuff that people never really talk about or think about. And that'll be on probably YouTube and on all the kind of major platforms. Uh, LinkedIn is the most obvious one to kind of keep an eye on, you know, where I'm up to. You know, just connect up on LinkedIn and it'll be good to have conversations on that.

Pedro Stein 34:37

Okay. You know, I feel the need to highlight parts of this chat today. Okay. Um, so bear with me. First of all, the origin story, how you were mentioning what we can get to people's brains, right? And how that was fascinating to you. And eventually you got a hybrid approach with the psychotherapy aligned with the business side. That is pretty cool to watch. And I completely get that. I need things to be not at just challenging, but I do they have to be fun, but also challenging. So that's one of the reasons I really like to work whenever I like to be at a certain place or doing certain certain things, right? It's even hard to hold myself back because I really enjoy, you know. So there's that. Yeah, the other part when you mentioned niching, and not just because you did it, but because you kind of went through a part which is like counterintelligence. People are not searching for a DHD coaches, right? And it just so happens you can help them with that. So it's not just wishful thinking, it has some process behind it, right? You you did some research, you did you did your homework, so kudos to you on that too. Pretty cool to watch. And last but not least, I would say when you mention even even if they can't pay the one-on-one, it doesn't mean you cannot help them, right? And that really hits home too, because like I'm a career coach here in Brazil, and sometimes people that are laid off, they have a hard time with the budget side, you know. So nine out of ten calls, they don't have the budget, but it doesn't mean I cannot help them, right? There are certain ways, isn't even if it's our if we're talking about resources, if we're talking a different plan, like not just rejecting people because they don't have the money, you know, because I think that's part of the mission, at least for me, but it sounds like for you too, right? So, Phil, this is just my long-winded way of saying that I appreciate what you do and I appreciate you being here and sharing so openly today, okay? It was great having you on.

Phil Drinkwater 36:28

Yeah, thank you. It was really good to get a chance to talk about something that you know I am exceptionally passionate about. Yeah.

Davis Nguyen 36:34

That's it for this episode. This episode, as well as this podcast, was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help business owners elevate their business through six, seven, and eight figured years, all without burning out. If you're looking to grow your business as well as get the time freedom that you are looking for, visit us at join purplecircle.com and see what we can do to help you and your business.