The Real Reason You Can't Stay Consistent w/Michelle DeNio

Maybe you don’t need more discipline - you just need a better strategy.

In this episode, Business Strategist Michelle DeNio digs into the messy middle of business growth - that stage after startup but before scale, where revenue plateaus and the tactics that worked before stop delivering. 

This is where most entrepreneurs double down on “doing more” and burn out instead of building something sustainable.

And although this conversation centers around ADHD-friendly strategies, it's actually for anyone who has struggled to stay consistent, follow through on plans, or make traditional business strategies actually work in real life.

It's usually not because they lack discipline, but because they’re trying to force strategies that don’t align with how they actually operate.

Michelle shares a more effective approach. 

One that works with your brain instead of against it.

In this episode, we cover:

 • How dopamine, hyperfocus, and demand avoidance impact execution
 • Why traditional 90-day plans often fail (and what to use instead)
 • The role of data when your brain wants to rely on emotion
 • The concept of “visibility seasons” vs. “sales seasons”
 • Simple ways to build momentum without overwhelming yourself

You do not need an ADHD diagnosis for this to resonate.

If you’ve ever struggled to stay consistent, follow through, or make someone else’s strategy work, this episode will show you a smarter way to grow.

Links & References:

Come network with us! CLICK HERE to attend your first PWR Connection Network virtual speed networking event at no cost!

Learn more about Michelle DeNio here: www.michelledenioconsulting.com

Follow Michelle on Threads, Facebook or LinkedIn

Transcript

Cold Open And Networking Wins

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Okay, before we jump into the interview, how do I say your last name correctly? Denial. Denial. Okay, perfect. I've learned to hit record and then ask that question because I will forget in five seconds. Thank you, ADHD. Okay. Good morning, Michelle.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you so much, Melissa. It's been, I love listening to your podcast. So it's an honor to be a guest on your show.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Thank you so much. Yeah, we were talking before we started recording about this is just a great example of the power of networking and getting to know people and having different people in your circle. You have hired people that you've heard on my podcast. You hired my VA, who I recommend all the time. And I love that somebody just posted on my social media yesterday I was looking for guests and somebody tagged you and I was like, oh, already got her. So I love the the uh great examples of how everything that I'm always talking about actually works in real life.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Oh, absolutely. Always, especially in the online space for sure.

Meet A Business Growth Strategist

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Yeah. So before we dive into today's topic, tell everybody a little bit about you and about what you do.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Yeah, so I am a business growth strategist, and I put that word growth in versus just business strategist because I think I really love to focus on the growth stage. I think a lot of people focus in on the startup stage, and then next thing you know, everybody's talking about scaling. And I think there's so much power in the growth stage, and I don't think people sit in it long enough for the most part. So yeah, business growth strategists and I work with service-based business owners, ideally that are in like the three plus, more like five plus year range. And they're at that point where revenue is plateaued, they can't seem to get past where they are currently at. They're strategies that have always worked stopped working and they don't know why. And they just keep feeling like they're coming up against this wall, not from a place of stuck, but just a like, I can't seem to get past this point if in that stage of growth, right? And that's what I mean by growth. Just because they're stuck doesn't necessarily mean they're immediately ready for scale. It just means that like they've they've hit that plateau in that level of growth. So that's what I focus on. I'm very heavily rooted in facts over emotions, data, understanding what's actually working, looking at the information, the trends. Um, my favorite saying is the results that you're looking for are in the data that you're not looking at. So we look at the data, we dive deep, and we build strategy from that.

ADHD And Why Business Advice Fails

SPEAKER_00 2:35

I love that. I love what you said about the in-between space between like starting a business and scaling a business. Cause yeah, you're right. We hear so much about both of those things. And so I think we just automatically think like, okay, I started the business, I got some customers, now it's time to scale. But there definitely is that middle point that is probably like the most important point before you launch into that scaling. So that's awesome. How does what you do relate to ADHD? Because that's one of the things that we're going to talk about today.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Yeah. So I think, you know, I'm not formally diagnosed ADHD, but I don't really feel like I need a formal diagnosis to know that I check every single box on the list. Um, and honestly, where that kind of came in is at it through my business journey in working with different coaches and service providers and different things, I constantly kept finding myself saying, like, I don't understand why these strategies and these things work for everybody else, but not for me. Like, what is going on? What am I doing wrong? And then the more I learned and really educated myself around my own ADHD, my own tendencies, my own habits, it became very obvious that it was not designed to work for the neurodivergent brain. And so I really started going deep into it and creating what I had wished I had had. Um, an un with the understanding that like what I find is that if something is created for a neurodivergent brain, it will work for somebody who is neurotypical, but it's very rarely the other way around. Like things that are designed for neurotypical brains don't usually work for ADHD brains. They will work for a while, and but they will likely come up against a wall or something. And that's just natural. That's just part of it. And so that was really kind of what happened is I just kind of found myself continuing to hit this wall of like, why is this working for everybody else and not me? And then finally realized, like, because it really wasn't designed to work for me.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

Yeah, I resonate with that so much. I was just talking about that this morning on a panel that I was sitting on. And the question was, what's something that you see in a lot of business communities that gives you the ick? And I said, I wouldn't necessarily say it gives me the ick, but one of the things that makes me crazy is the like one size fits all advice. And I have been there, like I've paid more money than I want to say out loud to be in a mastermind where it was like, do this, this is exactly what works, everybody do this. And then either we go and everybody does it except for me. I'm like, I don't know why I didn't do it, I just didn't. Or we go and I do all of the things that I'm supposed to do and it works for everybody else, but it doesn't work for me. And, you know, I was diagnosed with ADHD very late in life, just like a year or two ago. And it just made so many things make so much sense. And it was so helpful in knowing like it's not just a personality flaw. I'm not just lazy, I'm not just like incapable of doing these things that every other human on the planet can do because I don't know, I suck, you know. So it's it's really it I love that you that's one of the reasons that I wanted to have you on the podcast, is because you talk a lot about like finding the way that works for you. And the way that works for you might not be the way that works for everybody else. And I think that's such an important point in business.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Yeah, especially for the ADHD brain, too, because the ADHD brain really operates off of dopamine, right? And we know that. So the second the dopamine stops, we stop, right? And that's the problem with some of these, a lot of these strategies is that they are not designed to continue to feed the dopamine and or we go really hard and we get super hyper focused, but then we crash, right? And so that's where these programs, that's why I say like neurotypical programs will work for a while because you get in, it's a dopamine hit, it's something new, you can get super hyper-focused on it. And then all of that kind of starts to wear off, and then the shutdown happens, right? The demand avoidance kicks in and all of those other pieces where our brain is just like chasing that next dopamine hit and really wanting, like, okay, I need something new, I need something different, and we can't stick with it. And that's my biggest thing is being able to stick with something consistently because I don't feel like I it's just not, it's just not in me. I'm not going to. I thrive with change, I thrive in those ways. And so I had to create a system and a program that allowed me to maintain focus, right? Because we can't just be switching what we're doing every five seconds in our business. That doesn't work. So it's like, how can we continue to maintain focus while also giving ourselves these like little outs of like, I only have to do this for this many days, and then I'm I get to do something different. And once I figured that out and and found that strategy, then I was like, everything else kind of fell into place and everything else starts to click. And I very rarely now come up against that demand avoidance. I still do, obviously, in just general everyday tasks. Um, but for the most part, I'm able to maintain, and my clients who also have struggled for years and years and years are able to maintain and stay consistent with something for far longer because it is designed to be done in these like short incremental sprints.

Why Traditional Planning Triggers Burnout

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Yeah, that's a perfect segue to my first question because I am, you know, it's one of our favorite ADHD memes of like, oh, well, it's the new year, time to buy 28 planners you're not actually gonna use. And I'd have drawers full of planners, and I have the wall calendar, and I bought the easel with the thing, and then you can make the list and all the things and the sticky notes. And I I feel like I have a pretty good system now that works for me, but it's been a lot of trial and error. So the first thing I wanted to ask you is why do you think that the traditional business planning methods and the traditional like approaches to growth don't necessarily work for entrepreneurs with ADHD and sometimes have the opposite effect?

SPEAKER_01 8:51

I think a lot of it is because they're designed for like monotonous, like in a lot of ways. It's like do this, say, you know, show up here, do this, and it's like too long of a time, even if it's 90 days or quarterly increments, or we're doing it for the half year, or everything is just it's too long. There's no real stop and pause, and it's just not going to work. Like that level of longevity and having to maintain consistency for that, for even like I said, a quarterly 90 days, a lot of times something's gonna happen. We're gonna have a down day. Um, the other thing I think that the traditional advice follows is again, is doing things repetitiously and it doesn't flow in cycles. Like I said, like with ADHD, a lot of times we get that hyper focus and then we need it downtime. Then we get hyper focused and we need downtime. And a lot of traditional business planning and growth strategies don't factor in that downtime. So I'm working with like a client right now, and she she's doing these launches, which works for her because she can get super hyper focused, but then she crashes hard. And for a long time, she kept pushing through and pushing through and pushing, and she ended up in a state of burnout so bad. And so now, you know, what we do is we build these cohorts to where she's doing these launches, and then we schedule in like two weeks of downtime where she's not doing anything new, she's not creating, she's not just completely taking everything off her schedule to allow for the crash because the crash is inevitable. It's going to happen because it's on the flip side of the hype, the hyper focus. And so just being able to shift and like create those spaces where most traditional advice would be like launch, then get right into your launch and then start moving, and then you're thinking about your next launch, and then you're doing this, and where are you going here? And okay, you've got this cohort going now. What? And it's all this like constant state of doing and creating, and it just doesn't allow for any of that downtime, that reset, that refocus that so many people with ADHD need.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Yeah, yeah. And I think even people who don't have ADHD, we are always as business owners, we are always looking at like what's the next thing, right? Like, we don't stop to celebrate, we don't stop to rest, we don't stop for anything. We're like, did that, now what's the next thing? Did that, now what's the next thing? What's the next thing? And that's something I've had to get so much better at is giving myself that time to like, it's okay that you're taking a nap when there's 25,000 things that need to be done, right? It's okay that you are sitting in the hot tub when your house is a mess and your dogs need to be walked. Like getting better at giving yourself that space to take those breaks and understanding that, like the more you do that, you see how it pays off in the long run. It doesn't pay off to keep doing the next thing, the next thing, the next thing. Cause like you said, then you completely burn out and it is the opposite of helpful. So what else you touched on it a little bit, but when it comes to like an ADHD-friendly approach to business growth and business planning, what does that actually look like?

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Well, with the framework that I developed, so I developed a framework called the Focus Visionary, because again, that was I named it that because it's exactly what I my ideal client, right? They're visionaries and they lack focus, right? That's what most ADHD business owners, or just in general, business owners are. So inside of that framework, really the precipice of it is focused in on one, having like a North Star, which to me is different than setting goals. It's not necessarily saying about like, I'm gonna hit six figures in revenue in two months, or you know, it's not these like really hard set goals, but they're just more of a North Star, like a guiding light that is like, this is what I'm working towards, but there's no how behind it, right? It's just a vision of which right in itself creates the space and the creativity for the ADHD brain of like, I know I'm focused towards this, but I have all of this creative freedom and how that is achieved. So that's number one is just making sure that we look at goal setting and vision planning differently, and it's not concrete for the most part, depending on how people approach it. But anyways, just having that like North Star. And then from that, what I have found works the best and what I created is we do all of our business planning in 60-day increments versus quarterly or 90 days or anything of that sort, because 60 days to me is like that sweet spot of 30 days is not a long enough time to collect any real data to say whether or not something is working or to know whether or not our strategy is actually executing well. But 90 days can feel like an eternity. So 60 days is kind of that sweet spot of really looking at it and saying, okay, we've only got to do this one thing for 60 days. And I also kind of teach people to break it into seasons. So, like, are we in a sales season? Are we in a visibility season? Are we in an operations season? So again, the brain is not overloaded. We know exactly what we're working on. It's like, okay, I'm in a visibility season. My goal is to increase my email list, right? Like the intention, it's very it's intentional, not so much again, set with hard set milestones. And then, but it's only for 60 days, right? Because people get sick of it. And so then it's like at the end of 60 days, we have that space, that time to evaluate, look at it, and really like see what worked, what really went well during that 60 days, what didn't, and do I get to move into a different season now? Right. So if you don't love selling, then you can come back into visibility season. If people love to be in a selling season, but yet their pipeline is dry, it's like, okay, let's move into visibility season. And what does that look like? So it really is like that freedom and flexibility of like, you only have to do it for 60 days. I remember when I did, I was doing like one of these beach body workouts a long time ago, P90X. And I just remember one of them, he was like, you can do anything for two minutes. And I was like, Yeah, right. You know, it's like a wall set for two minutes or something like that. And that's kind of the way I say it to my clients now, is like, you can do anything for 60 days, because that the reality of it is most business owners are not working full time, they're working 20, 30 hours a week. So, and maybe four days a week, some are working a full five days, but even at that, five days times, you know, out of a 60-day period is really only what 40 days for the most part, it's 30 days, right? So it's not that long of a period of time. We can convince our brains to do that.

Momentum Tricks For Last Minute Work

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Yeah. Yeah. I think breaking down things into those smaller chunks has been hugely helpful for me because I've always been somebody who wanted to set goals. Like it always seems like a good idea to have annual goals and then quarterly goals. And like that always seems like a good idea. But even when I set goals, then you ask me in February, like, what are your goals for the year? I'm like, I don't know. But I'm sure they were really good, whatever they were. So yeah, I breaking those down into like now, I break it into quarterly goals, and then I look at the quarterly goals and I see, like, okay, so if this is my goal for the end of the three months, what do I need to do in January, February, and March? And then I'm able to break it down into like weeks and days and that kind of stuff. And that has been hugely helpful for me. So I love that. That's really good advice. How do we? I feel like one of the things that I really struggle with is momentum. And part of that is because like I love to procrastinate. And part of the reason I love to procrastinate is I get so much done at the last minute. Like when I was in high school, my dad would joke, like, if it wasn't for the last minute, you'd never get anything done. Ha ha ha. But that's like actually true. Like I have a week this week where I know like next week is gonna be crazy, crazy. Like my calendar is packed. And so this week I'm like, I should really do all of the things. I'm telling you right now, I won't do anything this week. And I will do so many things next week, which makes zero sense. So, how do we kind of balance? Do we just give in to this like start and stop and start and stop that our brain wants to do? Or is there something we can do to create more consistent momentum?

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Yeah, so I'm very similar in the procrastination. Like I am a last minute Linda, 100% 90. I mean, I send a Sunday morning brew newsletter email every single Sunday, and I've done it for two years, and 90% of the time I write it Saturday at five o'clock at night. Like it in literally, or I'll write it because we have planned Saturday night, and I'm like, oh shit, I didn't write my newsletter, right? And so it's always, but it always works. And it, and I actually just stopped forcing myself to try to feel like I needed to get it done sooner, unless for some reason, like I'm not gonna be available. So, yes, to an extent, I do think like if that is how you work the best, then absolutely I think again, we have to do what works best for us, and trying to change that is not necessarily going to be any more productive because now our brain has to process this information and like really think about it, where when we know if we just wait to the last minute, like we can get that hyper focus. That's where that ADHD, like hyper focus specificity comes in. But what I do try to do for myself is again looking at my overarching 60-day plan and simplifying it. So it's like I'm not focused on all the things. I'm if I'm focused on visibility, like that is my primary goal. And I'm not trying to add all these 8,000 other things into the mix, that in itself helps with momentum to really just simplify the focus of what are we actually doing right now. Um, but then what I try to do is set like I'll look at my week and go, okay, what is actually realistic that I'm going to get done this week? And I don't overload it. So if that means that my goal is to show up on threads for 30 minutes every single day, that's the extent of like what I do. And I don't add more to my list because that's just gonna add more friction. It's gonna create more demand avoidance, it's gonna create more like all of this. Just I don't want to do this. And so it doesn't get done anyways. Where when you give yourself the permission of like, well, all you've got to really get done today is to show up and engage on threads for 30 minutes, then that becomes it's just enough to start the momentum of like, oh, I did that, that's done. I'm I can do this. What else can I get done? What else can I get done? Right. To me, it starts that like momentum cycle of, oh, well, I'm here, I might as well get this done. Oh, I'm here, I might as well get this done. So it's like tricking your brain into saying, like, you only have to do this, this one thing. And then once you're there, it's like, oh, it's okay. I remember um I was listening to a podcast episode a while back by Jenna Kutcher, and she was talking about working out. And the way she tricked her brain into it was like, I she gave herself permission that after 10 minutes, if she was bored or hated it, she could walk away. Right. That's exactly what I was gonna say. She never, yeah, like she never walked away from it because by that point, 10 minutes in, she was she was into it and she didn't want to walk away. And I kind of treat when I heard that, I was like, well, that's exactly how I treat my business task too, of like, you only have to do this one thing. So I have like a calendar that I'll pull up and I just put like one thing per day on it. And then I usually like it's I can bang things out because I'm here, I'm sitting at my desk. The getting to the desk and getting started is the hardest part.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

Yeah, absolutely. I think I've heard that said about like just start exercising. You only have to do 10 minutes at the end of 10 minutes. If you want to stop, then stop. Sometimes for me, it's like all you have to do is get dressed. Like, all you have to do is put on the sports bra and the tennis shoes and like just get dressed. And like that's with exercise. But even with like work and stuff, I am gonna have such a different outcome. Like I've started putting my shoes on, which sounds so silly, but like I'm gonna have such a different outcome. Even if I have nothing, like no Zooms, I'm not leaving the house, nothing's happening. If I get dressed and put my shoes on, I'm gonna be so much more productive than if I just like wobble down here in my pajamas and my slippers and like try to work that day. So I think any kind of hacks like that that you can find that just like get you going, that's that's usually the thing, right? It's like we just need to get going, then we're fine.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Yeah, absolutely. And it's so funny because I'm the polar opposite. And this is why I say like everybody has to do what works for them. Like if I have a day where I need to like be in my admin, like behind the scenes, like just get work done. I am far better if I just literally roll out of bed and just get to my desk and like, don't worry about doing my hair, don't worry about doing because to me, those are all things that just trigger my ADHD of like, oh, I'm standing here in the bathroom. Wait, oh, I should have done laundry. Why don't I go through this load of laundry? And then, you know, it just triggers all of these like a million other steps. Where if it's just like, just go sit down and you're still in your pajamas, then I get so much more done. But again, like That's what I mean by like everybody has to find their own strategy. And I always say every single strategy works, but they're not all going to work for you. And that is what is most important to me, whether you are neurotypical or neurodivergent, it doesn't matter. Is that you have got to find the strategy for growth that works for you.

Build Marketing That Fits You

SPEAKER_00 22:23

Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree. That's so good. That's a great place to end things too. Cause that is, I mean, it's what I'm saying all the time when it comes to networking. And I think it happens so many other places, right? Where it comes to like social media or how we're marketing or whatever it is, it's like so much of the burnout and the resistance comes from trying to do it a way that we don't want to do it. Like, I there have been so many times that people have come to the powerful women rising business growth mastermind calls and they say, like, I know I need to be on LinkedIn. And so I just want to know like, what are your best strategies for LinkedIn? And instead of giving them the best strategies for LinkedIn, the women in the community are like, Why do you think you need to be on LinkedIn? You don't want to be on LinkedIn. You always talk about how much you hate LinkedIn. Like by the end of the call, there's no best strategies for LinkedIn. It's you realizing, like, I actually don't need to be on LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Exactly. Exactly. I have that conversation with my master, my mastermind clients all the time too. They'll say, like, I think I need to start this, or I think I want to create a membership. And I'm like, but wait a second. Like, do you want to be on all the time? Do you want to be creating content all the time? Do you want to be on this hand? Like, it sounds good in theory, but here's what I know about you and where you're trying to go. And this is why this isn't gonna align with that. You still want to do that? Oh, yeah, no. Yeah.

Where To Connect With Michelle

SPEAKER_00 23:41

Yeah. If you start thinking about it and you start talking about it, and the more you think about it and talk about it, the more excited you get, that's a good sign. If you start thinking and talking about it, and the more you start thinking and talking about it, the more you're like, oh my God, this sounds terrible. But so and so said I should do it. So I guess I should do it. That's your sign that you are on someone else's path, not your own. Yeah, absolutely. If people want to learn more about you, they want to know more about what you do, about how to work with you, what is the best way for them to connect with you?

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Um, well, I have a podcast. It's called The Real Truth About Business. So I have like 300 and something episodes there. That is definitely my best content. If you really want to learn more about me and the way my brain thinks, go listen to that. That's 100% the way to do it. Um, but also you can visit my website, Michelle Denial Consulting.com, or connect with me on social. I am a threads girl. I love it over there on Threads. Um, I'm on all of the social platforms, but the one I hang out on and engage with the most is definitely Threads. And then, like I mentioned a little bit earlier in the episode, I do have a Sunday morning brew email newsletter that I send out every Sunday. Um, and I just love that. Like that is to me the place where I really truly connect with my audience more on a personal level, um, always tied into business, but I think there's human to human connection there. And I I just love that.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

So that's awesome. I will put the links for all of those in the show notes so people can sign up for your newsletter, check out your podcast, and find you on Threads. Threads is my my um ADHD friend. I get really into threads for like weeks and weeks and weeks, and then I disappear from threads for weeks and weeks and weeks. I'm currently in a disappear, but I'll be back.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

Yeah, it's fun. Threads definitely uh punishes the disappearance, no doubt about that. But you know what? It's it to me, it's the easiest low lift, and I think that's why I love it so much.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

Yeah, me too. Me too. I love it. Okay, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. This has been really, really helpful. I love your outlook on things. I love what you're doing. I can see how what you do with clients could be so, so helpful in getting things going and getting things moving, especially when you're at that point where you're like, okay, I have a general idea of what's going on. I'm just not really sure like where to go from here. So I hope our listeners will reach out to you and thank you again. Awesome. Thank you so much.