How Taki Moore Used His ADHD To Build His Coaching Empire
A coaching founder diagnosed with ADHD at 47 explains how he rebuilt his business around his brain: a smaller team, a pit-crew model, a printed ticket rail, and a content loop with no content calendar.
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7 months ago
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Big Idea
The argument in one line.
An ADHD founder grows faster by engineering the business so they only do the part they are best at, and by moving every other job, reminder and decision into people and physical systems outside their head.
Who This Is For
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
A founder or coach with ADHD, diagnosed or suspected, who keeps drifting into manager work they hate.
A solo creator who knows they work better with someone else in the room and wants a name and a system for that.
A business owner whose team has grown big and slow and who wonders whether a smaller team could grow faster.
A creator who hates content calendars and wants a repeatable way to turn daily life into emails and videos.
Anyone weighing whether to try ADHD medication and worried it will flatten their creativity.
SKIP IF…
You want clinical guidance on diagnosis or medication. This is one person's lived experience, not medical advice.
You want a step-by-step operations playbook. The systems are described in conversation, not documented as templates.
TL;DR
The full version, fast.
Taki Moore was diagnosed with ADHD in his late 40s, and medication made his head go quiet within 45 minutes. The bigger change was structural. He saw he had drifted into CEO and manager work he hated, so he cut the team from 36 to eight and a half and kept only his maker role: making content and teaching clients. Signups grew fivefold. He runs the business like an F1 pit stop, with set-up, make and clean-up jobs handled by others, body doubling for emails, gym and filming, a read-only calendar, and a receipt printer that turns tasks into tickets. His content rule is see something, make something, say something. No calendar.
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The 45-minute medication moment as a teaser, a sponsor read for understood.org, and the guest introduction.
00:59 – 04:21
02 · Getting diagnosed in his late 40s
A friend's Russell Barkley video, a year of putting off the paperwork, the fear of losing his magic, and the day medication made his head go quiet.
04:21 – 07:09
03 · From 36 people to eight and a half
He realized he had slid into CEO and manager work he hated, nearly burned the business down, then rebuilt around his maker role and grew signups fivefold.
07:09 – 09:55
04 · The F1 pit stop model
Set-up, make and clean-up work, six-week theme planning with his right hand, and body doubling for emails and the gym.
09:55 – 11:12
05 · Sponsor break
Host read for Understood's parenting podcast, Everyone Gets a Juice Box.
11:12 – 14:01
06 · Running his own race
His son Ethan's cerebral palsy and autism gave him grace for his own differences; the boathouse office, brown paper roll, no meetings, no typing, no shoes.
14:01 – 17:02
07 · The friction that remains
Time blindness, double-booking three conferences on three continents, nightly texts from his assistant, and a read-only calendar.
17:02 – 20:14
08 · Physical systems: the docket printer
Apple Watch timers, static-cling notes, and a receipt printer that turns email tasks into kitchen-style tickets on a rail, with a QR code that ticks them off.
20:14 – 23:06
09 · His ADHD strengths
Being very present, connecting ideas fast, calm in chaos, reading a room, and getting people excited about things.
23:06 – 28:05
10 · What he refuses to do with content
No outlier copying, no content calendars, no flesh-puppet scripts. His loop: see something, make something, say something. Artist versus business, and why em dashes stay.
28:05 – 31:35
11 · Help across the content pipeline
A muse for ideas, a weekly shooter for filming, editors for clean-up, and branding his content by filming outdoors in places he enjoys.
31:35 – 33:33
12 · How it feels, not how it looks
Twice building someone else's business model, his closing quote, permission as the real product, and where to find him.
Atomic Insights
Lines worth screenshotting.
ADHD medication does not have to be ramped up: the guest knew within 45 minutes, the same day, that it worked for him.
The fear of losing your creative edge is a common reason founders delay ADHD medication, and in this case it did not happen.
Cutting a coaching team from 36 people to eight and a half made the business more profitable and more nimble, and monthly client signups rose fivefold.
The growth did not come from being leaner. It came from the founder moving back into the one role that fit him.
Small businesses rarely need both a founder-maker and a CEO-manager, and a maker stuck in manager work burns out fast.
Every job has set-up, make and clean-up work, and a founder's job is to stay in the make part while others handle the rest.
A brain surgeon does not prep the room or stitch the patient. Building your business that way is an ADHD strategy, not laziness.
Plan themes every six weeks instead of a fixed calendar: decided enough to show up, loose enough to still want to do it.
A standing weekly call with one person to write emails is body doubling, and it beats willpower for an ADHD founder.
If software only works when you remember to log in, it does not work. ADHD systems need to be physical and in sight.
A receipt printer and a kitchen docket rail turn a digital to-do list into something you can see, pull and spike.
Read-only access to your own calendar stops time-blind founders from double-booking conferences on three continents.
Long-term plans are what you thought. Short-term plans are what you think. Content calendars lock you into old thoughts.
Great content comes from letting people into your world and then giving your worldview on it: energy plus opinion.
Copying outlier titles and thumbnails turns creators into cover bands. Being prolific only works if you stay original.
Pair a dreaded habit with something you already enjoy, then drop the reward once the habit sticks.
Measure your business by how it feels to you, not how it looks to anyone else.
Takeaway
Design the business around the brain you have.
WHAT TO LEARN
An ADHD founder wins by staying in the one role that fits, and by moving time, memory and accountability out of their head into people and physical tools.
02Getting diagnosed in his late 40s
ADHD medication works or does not within a day, so fear of losing your creative edge is something you can test rather than guess about.
A late diagnosis can bring relief and grief at once; both are normal reactions to finally understanding how your brain works.
03From 36 people to eight and a half
Check whether you have drifted from making things into managing people; a maker doing manager work drains energy and stalls growth.
A smaller team built around the founder's strongest role can grow faster than a large team, as the jump from 36 people to eight and a half with fivefold signups shows.
04The F1 pit stop model
Split every job into set-up, make and clean-up, keep the make part for yourself, and hand both ends to people who enjoy them.
Plan themes in six-week blocks so work is decided but still fresh, instead of locking in a calendar you will not want to follow.
Book a standing session with a specific person for any task you avoid alone; body doubling outperforms willpower.
06Running his own race
Stop comparing your race to anyone else's; working standing up, barefoot or on a paper roll is fine if it is how your brain works.
07The friction that remains
If you are time blind, let your team own your calendar and send you a daily schedule rather than trusting yourself to track it.
08Physical systems: the docket printer
Use physical, visible tools such as tickets, notes and timers, because software you forget to open does not exist for you.
09His ADHD strengths
Name your actual strengths, like presence, pattern-spotting and calm in chaos, so you can build your role around them.
10What he refuses to do with content
Build content from a see, make, say loop: notice something from your week, connect it to your audience, then tell it with an opinion.
Copying outlier titles and thumbnails makes you a cover band; point your own creativity at the themes your business needs.
11Help across the content pipeline
Pair a dreaded habit with something you already enjoy, like filming in places you like, then let the reward fade once the habit sticks.
12How it feels, not how it looks
Judge your business by how it feels to run, since copying someone else's model can leave you owning a business you hate.
Glossary
Terms worth knowing.
Body doubling
Doing a task alongside another person, in the room or on a video call, so their presence provides the structure and accountability that an ADHD brain struggles to generate alone.
Time blindness
Difficulty sensing time passing or estimating how long tasks take, a common ADHD trait that leads to over-committing, lateness and double-booking.
Hyperfocus
An intense, long absorption in one interesting task, common with ADHD, where hours pass unnoticed and other needs like eating get skipped.
Maker vs manager
Two founder roles: the maker creates the product, content or client results, while the manager runs meetings, people and operations. Many small businesses only need one person doing the maker role well.
Set-up, make, clean-up
A way of splitting any job into preparation, the core skilled work, and the follow-through afterward, so a specialist can stay in the core work while others handle both ends.
Docket rail
The metal rail in a restaurant kitchen where printed order tickets hang until the chef pulls one off to cook it, then spikes it when done.
04:21 – 07:09denseTeam redesign and the maker role
07:09 – 09:55densePit stop support systems and body doubling
11:12 – 14:01steadySelf-acceptance and working your own way
14:01 – 17:02steadyTime blindness and remaining friction
17:02 – 20:14densePhysical productivity tools
20:14 – 23:06steadyADHD strengths
23:06 – 28:05denseContent philosophy
28:05 – 31:35steadyContent production help
31:35 – 33:33steadyClosing philosophy
The Script
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My life changed in 45 minutes. The woman was like, okay, so I suppose you want to try the medication. I was like, well, I don't know.
I'm a bit scared, honestly, because I was worried I'd lose my magic. She said, well, the good thing is you can try it and you'll know same day if it's for you or not, and then you could change or stop or... So I did.
Within about 45 minutes, it got like library quiet in my head for the first time in my entire life. Like just quiet. And I could hear thoughts and I could like steer it.
I felt like waves of relief. Like, okay, this, there's like some hope and like just so much grief about all of the things I've... This episode is brought to you by understood .org the leading nonprofit helping millions with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia.
Today, I'm joined by Taki Moore. Taki is your business coach's favorite business coach, the founder of Million Dollar Coach, a community dedicated to helping business coaches create lifestyle empires they love. Over the past few years, he's helped create more than $1 billion of value for his clients, and he's done it all barefoot and caffeinated.
So welcome to the show, Taki. I'm both right now. I'm glad I'm on brand.
here thanks so much i appreciate you reaching out um coffee is drained and shoes are off and i'm at your service awesome awesome so i want to know a little bit about your adhd first of all because you kind of went from i might have adhd yeah sure to actually getting the diagnosis when did you decide to actually go and see if this was the case for you it's really funny hey i um I kind of joked about it and friends had joked about it, but I never really took it seriously until it started affecting me in kind of detrimental ways.
Like I'd let myself down and others down and just wondered like, why can't I just do like normal people? And a friend of mine watched a little video by a guy called Russell Barclay. And he goes, hey, watch this.
I understand myself now. And I watched it was like, oh, that feels pretty accurate. Uh, and so then, um, the process of getting a diagnosis is the least ADHD friendly thing in the whole wide world.
It's like, it's a punish. And so I just, like I Googled and it was like these five steps or whatever it was. And I just put it off for like, oh yeah, that sounds like a good idea.
I'll get to it. And I didn't for like a year. This is like, I'm 49 now.
So it's probably two years ago, maybe two and a half. And then eventually I, you know, I answered the 58 sets of questions, asking the same thing, nine different ways. And then I had the thing and she's like, yes.
I'm like, okay, cool. So what's next? And then you get a referral to a psych and that was like a sticking point for me.
Eventually I did. And I get to the end of the thing. And obviously I've been super aware of the strengths, right?
Like it's an advantage in a million different ways. And it comes with some downsides. At the end of the psychiatrist appointment, the woman was like, okay, so I suppose you want to try the medication.
I was like, well. I don't know. I'm a bit scared, honestly, because I was worried I'd lose my magic.
She said, well, the good thing is you can try it and you'll know same day if it's for you or not. And then you could change or stop or I'm like, okay, that's like that. You didn't have to like ramp up.
So I did. And my life changed in 45 minutes is outrageous. Within about 45 minutes, it got like library quiet in my head for the first time in my entire life, like just quiet.
And I could hear thoughts and I could like steer it. I felt like waves of relief, like, okay, this there's like some hope and like, just. so much grief about all of the things i've done anyway that's the story yeah yeah no it's it's a it's a really interesting story and as a note i think i remember because i was following you at the time and i remember you were on facebook and you said like how do i get into a call about adhd diagnosis or something because the process is so confusing it's such a punish and i so i got on the call And I was there on time because it's a doctor's appointment and you should be.
And they kept me waiting for something like 57 minutes in the waiting room. I played music and I was waiting so long that the music stopped. And I was like, I wonder if this is part of the test.
Like if I can stay and I don't have ADHD, like what do I do here?
I understand. When I was getting my test, they asked me to like come back in 10 minutes, but I didn't give me any clocks or anything. So I was sweating like, is this part of the test?
Do I need to know how long 10 minutes is? Right. All of the stupid stuff we do to ourselves.
It's crazy. Before the diagnosis, we already had a great business and I'd done some pretty cool things. And there'd been some like, was it every silver lining has a cloud and vice versa.
So I'd driven most of the people around me pretty mental for a while and kind of figured out how to work in a way that worked for me. And this is just like, I think I'm less reactive on the medication than I was before. And I feel like I'm more calm.
I'm less reactive. And I feel like I can sustain longer. I used to like, yeah, like go very hard and like crash in a heap two hours later.
Yeah. And now I can go for a bit longer. So what changes, you know, because you've made a lot of changes to your business.
Were any of the changes. a part of understanding yourself with ADHD? Probably.
Like I'd say indirectly, yes. I don't think I connected the dots at the time, but I've always had a very low tolerance for things I don't like. I used to get in trouble for like leaving crap all over my bedroom floor.
It's called a floor drobe. And my stepdad would like, why are your clothes on the floor? I'm like, because they don't stick to the ceiling.
And I was always a bit of a smart ass. And I don't tolerate things well, but because I didn't have the, felt like the like, the wires that like the wire between have an idea about something to do and being able to actually do it had been like cut because i didn't have that wire there's a lot of things i felt like that i just tolerated because i that's all a bit hard i don't know how to do it it's a bit scary and so i just like put up with stuff in my business that yeah that was draining me of energy i think like if you run your own business there's kind of two big roles that people talk about um you know there's a founder and there's a ceo and the founder's like the the usually the person who started the business and it's hard to replace And the CEO is the one who often keeps it going.
Small businesses don't really need both to be like, we don't really need both. But I found myself like, it's really the maker and the manager. And I found myself doing as the business crew, like down here in CEO slash manager territory and hating my life.
Like I replaced creating cool content and helping my clients with meetings. Yeah, that was great. Yeah, that's not, that is not fun.
It was not even a little bit fun. And I just like, I wanted to burn the whole thing down and just like, you know what, I'm going to keep ordering my highest level group, a good group of people that I'd known for years. and like kill the clients program and kill black belt and just like get rid of the team and me an assistant i'm really glad i didn't i just figured out what my sweet spot role is and now i've like just engineered the business so i can do you know either bits that i'm really good at and that add value but like frankly the fun bits as well yeah and it's always fun realizing that the non -fun bits that for you are other people's fun bits yes thank god for that hey thank god for that so the team's gone from like 36 to eight and a half.
So we've streamlined a bunch of stuff. And my wife loved it because it's way more profitable. I loved it because it was way more nimble.
But what I didn't expect was not only would it be leaner and more profitable and more nimble, but where the growth rate, like literally every month we'll sign five times more clients each month than we did a year and a bit ago. And it's because I'm in my, not because it's leaner, but it's because, you know, I'm in a role that fits me like a glove, you know, making content.
It's good. Let's talk about that role because you described your role in the business as kind of like an F1 pit stop where you're coming in from the track as the driver and you're getting everything you need to get back out there. I wanted to know from you, like, what is it that you need to get back out there?
What are the things that are being done in that pit stop moment? Let's just see if I could find a top -down photo. Here we go.
Let me show you this picture. This is a Formula One pit stop taken from above. And there's lots of people doing lots of jobs and obviously they're all trained and whatnot.
But I want you to notice what the driver's doing, kind of not very much. And because the driver's job is to drive and then there's like in every job, there's like setup work and then there's makeup work and there's cleanup. Like a brain surgeon doesn't anesthetize the patient or prep the OR, you know, that all gets done.
And then the brain surgeon, you know, she puts on her gloves and she does the surgery and then she comes out and somebody takes the gloves off and then they stitch up the patient and move them to recovery. And so I think about a lot of my business in like setup and makeup and cleanup. It's an idea I got from my friend, Matt Church.
And my job is the makeup guy. And so in terms of pit stops, it's kind of crazy, but my brain doesn't really care what its job is as long as it's got a job and it doesn't like not knowing. So I've built this amazing freedom business, which is cool.
But the downside is, you know, left to my own devices. I'll just go do something stupid or watch YouTube. And so having a boss has been like, frankly, pretty helpful.
Like a little bit of adult supervision. And so there's a bunch of different pit stops in my, months and in my weeks, not so much in my days.
But for example, every six weeks, I sit down with Tony, who's my kind of right hand, and we plan out what are the themes for the next six weeks in terms of content and offers. So we know we're going to do a workshop on week three. What could the workshop be about?
Blah, blah, blah. Great. That gets locked in.
We're going to promote Black Belt, our coaching program, and we're going to use this. It's going to be about that topic. So like that level of regular enough check -in that it's Like it's in the calendar and it's decided, but it's loose enough that when I get there, I don't feel like, oh, I don't want to do that anymore.
It's like it's blank canvas, but in a frame, if that makes sense. So I can like freestyle within this little framework. I find that very helpful.
So I write an email each day and I shoot video every couple of weeks. And so one of the hacks for me has been what I call a date with a dude, which is, you know, on Fridays, I jump on a Zoom with a guy called Ross and we've got a process we go through to figure out like, what are we going to write about? what are the emails for next week?
And then I'll get some of them started. I'm really good with someone. I'm not so good by myself.
And so part of the pit crew is almost like, you know, someone to do it with me feels way more, what are they, body doubling or whatever. Like someone to do it with me. Yeah.
Yeah. Body doubling. Yeah.
It's like the gym. I know I should go to the gym every day and left to my own devices. I wouldn't, but I've got a date with a dude, a guy called Andreas who jumps on Zoom.
And, you know, because it's an appointment, I don't want to let him down. I'll go do the workout and it's way better. In the ADHD Skills Lab, we focus on building systems that help your business thrive.
But when you're parenting a neurodivergent child... That adds a new layer of complexity that no spreadsheet can fix. Many of you have told me that you feel overwhelmed and frustrated when home is feeling more chaotic than work and you just don't know what to do about it.
That's why I'm recommending Understood's podcast, Everyone Gets a Juice Box for the Parents of Neurodivergent Kids. It's honest, it's validating, and it moves away from this idea of perfect parenting. I've been listening to the episode on mum rage where Michelle talks about getting the kids into the car seats can definitely relate to the frustration of this and how the idea that that frustration is, it's a canary in a coal mine of burnout that might be under the surface and hearing them talk about these limits and how we need to be honest about our nervous system rather than just continuing to push through.
was so amazing to hear. To listen, search for Everyone Gets a Juice Box for parents of neurodivergent kids in your podcast app. That's Everyone Gets a Juice Box.
How do you feel about, because you're so confident about the way you do things, like you're so confident about being somebody who's comfortable in the role that you're in. How did you manage to get to that place? I've got six kids and six grandkids.
youngest he's Ethan he's 25 now when he was when Kerry Marie was pregnant with him we knew in the you know the last few months that something was terribly wrong but we didn't know what and so uh we thought he was going to be born either dead like stillborn or or a vegetable and thank god he he wasn't but about a year and a half in we we realized that there was some physical um you know things that he couldn't do he's got cerebral palsy and autism a bunch of things um but what I kind of loved about Ethan was When you look at him and the way he moves through space or opens a thing, you can see the physical limitation and you go, cool, Ethan's running his own race.
I'm never going to compare his race to mine because it's obvious that he's different. I think most of us have got something a little bit weird about us. Particularly, I don't know what the rate of ADHD is in the world, but the rate with business people is entrepreneurs is like 10 times that.
Okay, there you go. That's why I attract such great. or interesting clients.
And so seeing Ethan gave me a lot of grace for me. It's like, okay, mine doesn't look like it on the outside, but if you hang out with me for long enough, there's definitely some weird going on. I had a friend come stay with us maybe 10 years ago.
He'd been in a business partnership and left and came to Australia to kind of have a bit of space and figure out what his next move was. And we lived at a house at the time that was, oh, here's Ethan now. Hey dude, we live in a house.
on Church Point in Sydney with a boathouse as my office, like literally a little cottage with a jetty and you could jump on. It was amazing. And I had this desk.
I've still got it. I don't know if it's in the shot, this thing here. So it's like an architect's desk that's hydraulic.
And I just went to the office supply store and put a shower curtain rod and a roll of brown paper. And so he comes over and he's like, he's watching me like. draw stuff and then take a photo and send it off to somebody.
And then I'd slide the paper. This is a workshop I'm running tomorrow. I slide the paper and I draw some more stuff and I take a photo and send it off.
And he's like, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm working. He goes, but where's the meetings and the typing?
I'm like, oh, I don't like meetings and I don't do typing. And so I think I've just figured out ways that work for me. And then people look at you and they're like, that's kind of cool.
I just like, I was just doing it because it felt good. And the reason I've got no shoes on is because I don't like. shoes and the reason I stand up is because my brain doesn't seem to work unless my body's moving I think we all figure out our hacks yeah yeah and I think not liking shoes as well is a very Aussie New Zealand thing yeah yeah I got that from my mum we spent a ton of time barefoot as kids and I just kind of kept it going because I've only had to wear a tie like a couple of times and I didn't like it felt like being choked by a really weak guy all day long but shoes feel a bit like that to like for prison it's nice to be living in a place where that's okay I know.
I know. It's great. It's great.
Okay. Interesting. So I want to know, is there anything in your life that still feels like friction or do you feel like you've kind of defrictioned most of what you do at this point?
No, there's definitely still frictions. If I say I'm going to do something, the options are basically either we do it together right now, or we put an appointment in the calendar to do it together, or I'll delegate it to somebody else, or it kind of just doesn't happen. So I don't have like no sense of time.
And so every... evening i get a text from my assistant saying hey here's what's on tomorrow this time this time this time i mean it's in my phone it's in my calendar but like that really helps there's definitely still frictions i find um i find time very hard to like see and so i've got no sense of how long something's going to take and i i very often like over commit or double book or blah blah blah and so the team's job really is to to play i joke about it but it's like it's true like adult chaperone sometimes because like if they can wind me up and point me in the right direction I'm very happy.
I'll do great work. Just don't ask me to remember anything. Yeah.
And that time blindness, like we see that in all the research, the way that we interact with time, we just don't sense it passing, which is so crazy. I didn't know that until I got diagnosed. Do you ever like forget to eat like at 1 .30, 1 .20 in the afternoon here?
In about an hour, like I just thought, oh crap, I haven't had breakfast yet. That's pretty normal. I just get like into stuff.
Yeah, 100%. Forget to eat or back in the day, if I had to work a job, super bored, eating was all I thought about. Those are the two modes.
Yeah, 100%. Yeah, it's funny, isn't it? So I think like if you, certainly for me, like I haven't, I've definitely felt like a lot of like, I don't know if it's okay to swear.
If it's not, you can bleep this out. downside. And I think most people see the upside publicly because I'm in a role which gets the best parts of me to shine.
I can be difficult to live with. Making travel plans is really hard. I've showed up to the airport on the wrong day multiple times.
I've booked myself to speak at three different conferences on the same day on three different continents once. That wasn't particularly great. Yeah.
So now I've got read -only access to my calendar. I don't put stuff in. They do.
We just learn tricks. Yeah, definitely.
You know, because initially when you said when you were diagnosed, you had that grief of, you know, oh, my God, imagine what I could have done if my brain had worked properly. And there's still that friction and there's still those systems. But how do you feel about it now?
I feel kind of great about it, to be honest. Like when I got the diagnosis, like it confirmed a bunch of stuff. And the idea that if there's someone who's paraplegic or can't use their legs, you're never going to be angry at that person because they can't run.
You just go, okay, well, this guy needs a carry or a wheelbarrow or a whatever. Then I just realized I didn't have legs. What's going on up here?
But like the connection between this and like doing the thing was very difficult. But the moment I learned that, yeah, there was a big sense of, ah, okay. Not only does that explain some stuff, it doesn't absolve me.
But now that puts me in a place where I've got to externalize a bunch of things around me. So, you know, little timers to do the thing. Love the timers.
I read this thing is like have clocks everywhere. I'm like, that feels a bit ridiculous. I'll just get an Apple watch and it's just got my calendar on it and a couple of timers and the tide guide because we crossed the river here at home.
But like watches have been really helpful. And then like getting things out of my head and into some kind of system. I think the thing where I'm not great yet is there's a lot of online softwares for like managing your time or your projects or your whatevers and your to -dos.
I think they're great, except that. If I'm not logged into them, I forget they even exist. And so I need physical things around me to make it work.
So I love, I don't know if you've seen these. These are like a godsend, these magnetic notes. Do you know these?
No, I haven't. Oh, these are the greatest thing ever. Okay.
So it's just a post -it note, right? But they don't, they stick with static electricity, but you can move them. Oh, amazing.
And so they stick on windows and walls and desks and all this stuff. Like I've got those in a lot of places. There's something super random that, can I show you my?
weirdest gadget? Yes. Oh my gosh.
Yes, please. It's pretty weird though. I got really inspired.
I went to a restaurant and you know, when you, we sit down and the waiter or waitress like takes your order and they punch it into the little iPad thing. And then somewhere out the back in the kitchen, it like spits out a little docket. And then the, you know, the chef grabs it and they stick it on those rails and then it's up there.
And then when it's time, they just pull it off and they make the thing. And when they're done, they spike it on a spike. I thought that would be dope.
This is the app that I write my emails in. And if I click here, print it spits out let me show you there you go this just this just spout out of my little docket thing yeah uh so it's got my job when i scan the qr code it goes to my to -do list app that ticks it off it's done and it's just out of shot it's just here there's one there's that docket rail thing that the restaurants use so it just sits there and then when it's time to do the job i just pull it off and when it's done the best part is you get to go bam and it's finished Do you use this a lot?
Do you use this during the week? I use it every day. That's very cool.
Then the team can give me, like if there's things to do, they can do it, but it spits out a ticket because now I don't have to look in the computer system. It spits out a ticket and I just stick it up there. And when I'm done, there's something very satisfying about like sacrificing it to do on the alternative.
Yeah, I'm not going to lie. I'm going to look that up. I'm going to look that up.
That's amazing. What's that thing that ADHD people do where they get like very, very fixated on something and they can't stop until that's done? Hyperfocus.
When they don't know. Whatever that is. It took me 16 hours to get the bits to work.
I set ChatGPT a challenge like, let's get this done in an hour. If we do, we'll both get this reward. We dreamed up a reward that my computer wanted.
And then it took 16 hours to do. It wasn't very fun, but it's done now and it's great. Amazing.
Also, side note, working in those kinds of, you know, back kitchen spaces, very high ADHD as well. Hairdresses. Is that right?
Working in kitchens. So it's not surprising that that was something that you were drawn to. I just love the physicality of it.
it's so fun that's so funny i love that that's amazing i know i don't often get shown something i've never seen before i've never seen that before i don't recommend it was very freaking hard to do but now i got we've got two houses one here and one in sydney and i've got one in each setup dude it's my happy i just love it and the scan the qr code it's just the best so okay so like Let's talk a little bit about the strengths of ADHD.
And then I want to talk about the things that you don't do. Yeah, there's a lot. You mentioned you knew the strengths of ADHD going in.
What would you sort of define them as for you? Yeah, I don't know if they're the strengths for everybody. I definitely don't know that.
For me, the strengths are, I can be very, very present. The downside is if I'm not there, I'm just not there. I went to...
India when I was a kid for seven weeks and I got back and mom's like oh so good to see you did you miss me I'm like oh I forgot to think about you but now that you're here it's great it's like very present wherever I am I think I can see connections between stuff very quickly I don't know if that's common but like I definitely research backs it up okay yeah I could like someone's saying something and I've already like connected it to two or three ideas and I can see a pattern or a stupid story you know tangents um I think there's a level of risk tolerance or excitement for adventures and side quests that like what most people find frustrating.
I find quite fun. My daughter's got ADHD. I'm sorry.
My daughter's got OCD. It's really, she's doing an incredible job. It got very, very difficult to the point where, you know, if something touched, if anyone in the family touched something or even touched the dog and the dog ran past her bed, then the bedsheets were dirty for life.
And like, and so I got very, very good at coming up with plan. B, C, D, E, L, something like that stuff. I think I'm at my most calm when there's a little bit of chaos.
So kind of calm and chaos. Pretty good at noticing the feelings of others. Not always great at responding to the feelings of others, but I can see, and I don't know if this is the ADHD thing or it's just, you know, practice.
Sort of considered to be a bit of a by -product. It's like chicken or egg, the fact that we care about other people's. Yeah.
And so like if I'm on a Zoom with 100 clients and you can see a little like little Brady Bunch windows or I'm in a room, I can see all the things which are going on. And so I can check in on people and I like I've got a good sense of a room. Again, that could just be practice of my job.
I don't know. Ideas and the ability to optimistically, dramatically underestimate how much work is involved and how long it's going to take and think we should all do it right now. Again, I don't know if this is an ADHD thing, but the other skill I think is I'm.
good at getting people excited about stuff because I love excitement and dopamine. And again, I don't know if that's a common thing, but it's certainly been a useful skill for me. Yeah.
It can be pretty common. I think, you know, there's something about being present and excited and, you know, being like, it's fine, guys, we're going to do it. It's going to be great.
Yeah. Everyone else is freaking out and just like, um, you know, cool as a cucumber. I'm like, no, no, we got this.
It's going to be great. So they're probably some of the upsides. There's, I'm sure there are others, but off the top of my head, that feels like a bit of a list.
Yeah. That's a great list. That's an amazing list.
My other thing I really wanted to know, and you've talked about this a little bit, but I wanted to talk about it with ADHD in context is there are things other people have done with content and you've said, not for me. What are those things? There are a lot.
I've got friends who are like, have seen very big personal brands, like tens of millions of followers and tens of millions, like big businesses. And a lot of what they want, I just. I don't hate it for them.
I do feel like they lost aura a little bit. I'm not going to lie. So if I had to like a couple of them, I'd say people who do well traditionally at content typically are like looking for what the algorithm loves, what's working right now.
What are the outliers? Like if you're on YouTube, like what are some other videos in the space that have about this topic that have done really well? How can I copy the thumbnail and the title and the data?
And so you see all these people who are basically recreating the same video, at least the, at least the opening 30 seconds and the, the. you know, title in the thumbnail. I just think it's just created a bunch of cover bands.
I want to be an original. A lot of them have big, big production teams or people like following them around with a video camera all the time. I've got a couple of friends who have that.
No, thanks. That sounds awful. What else?
Content calendars. I think there's a big difference between, I think it's the same. I hate content calendars for the same reason.
I don't like long -term plans. I think long -term planning is what you thought. Short -term planning is what you think.
Content calendars is what you thought, but usually like. By the time it's time to shoot that video three weeks later, I don't care about it anymore. And so my content philosophy has always been, I don't know about always been, but like maybe always, always been.
I think about it like this. So if there was a little loop, it goes, see something. So you notice something that happened in your day, in your week, in your whatever.
Then make something like connect the dots. How does that relate to you or your clients? And then say something.
And so most of my emails, half of my emails are like, I noticed like something happened and I'm going to tell you the story. I'm going to find a way to tie it into a business lesson rather than the seven things you should know about blank. Because I think that the thing that people really, I think a lot of, I think an awful lot about this stuff.
I think as a creator, there's two sides to us. There's the artist in most of us and the artist is driven by creative expression. We want to like make something and share it.
And then there's the business and the business has really different goals. Like the business wants you to be consistent. and produce more content on a schedule.
So if this is like creative expression and that's commercial production, if you let either side win, I think you lose. So artist to the extreme becomes a starving artist because you're just making what you care about and maybe nobody cares. But if you go down the other end of the spectrum and you're all business, you're just like a cog in some content machine.
I've got some friends who... I love them. I admire the hell out of them.
And I look at their content and I feel like they're just a human GPT rapper. They're just saying the words that somebody else gave them or that AI has written. And they're just being the flesh puppet who's saying the words.
I just think that's just, by the way, flesh puppet, that's a great word. I'm going to steal that. And so commercial production means you can't be matched like the hormones of the world, like the 450 pieces of content a day or a week, whatever.
That's cool. The artist can't be copied. And when you can like.
get dangerous like an artist and then get prolific like a business then kind of magic happens and so i've been like what are the topics or the themes that the business needs me to talk about or wants me to talk about and then how do i just point my creativity at that stuff so hopefully my content feels fresh and it's because i'm bringing i think two things to the table that most people forgot that they could you know really what we want from people is like a point of view which is just like let me into your world and then tell me your worldview this is cool because like If you let someone into your world, it's unique to you.
Like you've done stuff this morning that nobody else did this morning. And because it happened to you, you've got some energy about it. And like one of the keys to great content is energy.
And then because you go, well, that's my world. And then here's what I think about it. You've got an opinion.
And I think what the world needs more than anything right now in the content world is like people who have got, they're talking about stuff they've got to get some energy about and have an opinion. And that will win every time. And it'll beat all the, you know, the AI clankers and all the, you know what I mean?
I do. I remember when you talked about not using AI for writing and I was like, yep, that is real. AI is, if anybody says something is quietly killing your business, I know that they're using AI.
The one thing I don't like about the, I hate the way that em dashes are bad now. The em dash, you know, the long hyphen, that's my favorite piece of punctuation. I've been using it for a decade.
I don't want the robots to ruin. my favorite. So I'm just going to continue to use them.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Like, and that's just right again. I'm curious then, because obviously you spoke to Caleb about content and what to build. And, you know, I think the conversation was around, like, you need somebody to help you and sit with you.
And at the time it felt like maybe you were going to go with that, but now it feels like that's not the case. Like, how are you? Cause you, at the end of the day, you do need somebody.
to hold the camera is that going to be it as far as content for you no i think there's um again i guess if you think about that like setup makeup and cleanup idea from before yeah let's draw that so you know every job's got like setup and makeup and and cleanup and content's no different like here is ideas and maybe the hooks and the you know the title and the thumbnail if it's a long form thing or just the hook and like how we're going to shoot it i think that's a job Then there's the filming itself.
And then there's the makeup, which is, there's the cleanup rather, which is like edit, post, hopefully like learn something. So the next one's even better. I have help in all of those areas.
So I don't edit because I don't enjoy it and I don't know how, and it gives me no energy. When I shoot my vids, I have a guy called Sean who comes over to my place once a week and we shoot vids. So I've definitely got help on the makeup.
The setup, I'm really good with a muse. Like the idea of like, okay, Taki, think about what the next. video could be about i get all in my head and so just having someone who can um yeah think about you know topics or stuff that's going on right now that's been really good or things that they think will do really well we definitely like uh tony on my team is that person uh my friend dan often plays that role as well and so i definitely have help with it i was chatting with some clients the other day and they have like this is a yeah these are guys with like 16 subscribers on youtube like big business big brands and they have like a person who's a contractor whose job is to go I've done the research.
Here's 10 videos that would kill for you, you know, from one to 10. All right. That idea I find irrationally repugnant.
Like I know it makes sense to have it. I just don't like the idea of making a video. Like somebody tells me to make that, but like jamming with them to create things.
That's exciting for me. I think this is easy to outsource. Both of the two guys I was interviewing, they don't have someone come and shoot.
Like they run Zooms and workshops all the time. And so like they do their equivalent of Taki stands here and teaches stuff to his clients. or over there at the desk.
I could do that, but I just won't shoot it if there's nobody there. And so a date with a dude. Yeah, I need like part of its audience and part of it is babysitting.
That body doubling again. Yeah, like I will go to the gym. Like I will write emails because I've got a call with Ross.
I will go to the gym because Andres is going to be there. I will shoot videos because Sean's showing up. Do I have the physical, like if I'm here at my desk, I can talk like I run this thing solo when I'm.
you know workshopping with clients all the time the one thing that caleb told me that i think was really cool is he called it branding your content he talked about when he wanted to get healthy again he decided that like a daily walk would be really good for him but he doesn't didn't like walking and so he's like okay but what do i like well i like sugary drinks from starbucks and i like podcasts so he's like okay i'm gonna put my airpods in go for a walk listen to a podcast to starbucks and get a sugar drink and that was like enough to like connect the thing he wanted to do to something he already enjoys and then after a few weeks of this he's like you know what the sugar drinks probably not that great i'll go to a long black americano for my american friends and then to a glass of water and now he just enjoys walking and so for me video felt like a chore because like most clients will see me here but most of my day is out there in the world having a good time and so i just felt like very trapped in my little it's a beautiful prison but it felt like a in my head it felt like i don't want to be here so caleb was like i think you should go outside and so in the land rover at a coffee shop
at the beach, that stuff makes it fun. And because I don't have any camera skills, then Sean becomes even more useful. Yeah.
And I think your Land Rover videos have been very, very cool. I love that little truck. Yeah.
I love that little truck. Awesome. Well, I just have one last question, which is, is there a quote or something that you like to use or say that kind of brings together what you've been talking about today or what you do?
I've co -opted it as mine, but I think it started as a Pinterest. inspirational quote which is hilarious to me so i think in our world there's a real temptation particularly because of social media everyone like everyone's posting their highlight reel and you look at what everyone else is doing you're like oh crap that looks amazing i don't know about you but i've i've built somebody else's business model before because i thought that's what you're supposed to do and i you know found myself i've done it twice actually Found myself the proud owner of a business that I've grown to hate.
And so the quote is, I'm much more interested in how my business feels to me than how it looks to anyone else. The great news is like, there are so many ways to do well. You just feel embarrassed that the work that we do with clients isn't like, this is the one system and everyone follows it because it's very easy to market and sell that.
Like everything else is dead. You do this, you'll be fine. I just don't believe that anymore.
I think the most important thing, there's like hundreds of ways to grow and scale a coaching business. And our job is to help people find theirs. It's very liberating.
And I think more than anything else. Like clients get a ton of, you know, tactics and strategies and tools and all of the goodness from us. But what they really get that they didn't know they were going to get is a bunch of permission.
It's like snorting a line of permission every time we work together. I've never done that in my life, but that's what, you know, except for ADHD meds, which I'm a big fan of. But I think permission is a pretty marvelous thing to do it your way.
Yeah, I think that's amazing. Well, tell everybody where they can find you, Taki. Just Google me.
Instagram and YouTube are the two main places. A year into YouTube, I'm having so much fun. It's been ridiculously good.
So just TakiMore on Instagram or YouTube and you'll follow the breadcrumbs and you'll find as much or as little as you want. Yeah. And if you haven't done a TakiMore workshop, then you're really missing out.
They're very fun and they're super useful. And that's my goal with all of the things. Like I want to have fun.
I want to be useful. My content's the same. Workshops are the same.
It's good. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the ADHD Skills Lab. If you liked it, leave us a five -star review.
It helps other people learn more about us. And thank you so much to our wonderful team for making us sound good, look good. We couldn't do it without you.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
The cold open is the guest describing the first 45 minutes on ADHD medication: his head went library quiet for the first time in his life, followed by relief and grief at once. The rest of the episode is about what he built once he understood his brain, a coaching business cut to a fraction of its size that grew faster than before.
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A coaching founder fired six of his nine salespeople, locked the other three out of the inbox for 90 days, and found that a written offer doc outsold the whole team.
A 23-year-old personal brand coach and an agency founder compare notes on viral hook formats, when to start selling, and why your content needs a whole department.
A 49-minute, single-camera, zero-edit argument against both the teleprompter and the off-the-cuff ramble, built around a five-bullet outline he calls the guardrail method.
A coach who says he clears $1.5M a month on Instagram walks through seven fixes that turn views into booked sales calls, with the exact DM scripts, ratios and follow-up cadence.
A coach's first-ever YouTube live: the packaging, binge, and speed model behind his channel, then a new idea he calls audience keys, then 45 minutes of student questions.
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