Do you think that people are crazy about money when they don't have enough of it? People will often tell you, "Listen, before you worry about making more money, you need to worry about getting your money in order."
People just can't think like that when they need money really, really, really badly. Maybe some people with ADD have done it, and if you can do it, good for you, that's awesome. But when people with ADD or even people who don't have ADD really start looking for money advice, they usually aren't doing so well.
One of the most important things here is to never talk about money with someone who isn't better off than you are. If you're reading this, you probably already know that both of us have done well in our work with ADD and in other things that don't have to do with ADD.
Our philosophy is to tell people with ADD, "Look, you need to get stable." This is very important. If you're always worried about money, you won't be able to get to where you want to go.
The first step is to do a real evaluation. Right now, where are you? What's going on with your job, your business, and your life? What is really going on, and is there any stability? There might be for some of you, and there might not be for others.
The first step is to make more money, and a lot of people are trying to do that online.
We tell people to get a job while they're building a business, especially in this entrepreneurial society that we're moving into and have been moving into for a while. This is because running a business, whether it's online or off, requires entrepreneurial skills that most people don't have. Entrepreneurship takes time to learn, so it's very important to be financially stable so you can use your creative ADD mind and be strategic.
But it's not okay to just say, "I need to make more money." You have to be much more clear than that. You need to look at where you are with your money right now. How much money is spent each month? How much money comes in each month?
The thing you are looking at there is called "the gap." If your bills are $2,500 and your income is only $2,000, you have a $500 gap.
Here's a rule of thumb: break down how much you're making per hour right now, even if you own your own business. Do a rough estimate.
People with ADD are often less organised with their money than other people. If you want to make the most of your ADD traits and tendencies, you can do the following:
Take your current income, whether it's per year, per month, per week, per hour, or per day, and double it. Now, work out how much that is per hour. Then you should say to yourself, "Okay, I need to go find a job that pays this new amount per hour." All done.
Right now, there are people all over the world who make that much or more per hour. It's up to you to figure out how to get a job that pays that much. As a smart person with ADD who is good at solving problems, your job is to say, "Okay, how can I solve this problem? Here's the deal: I'm going to do one thing this year that will double my income, and I'm not going to work any more hours. Because we have ADD, this is a great problem for us to solve. ADD people are good at finding solutions.
So, tell yourself, "I'm going to get a job that pays me twice as much." The best thing about this is that you are in a great place right now. The world has never been so open to you before. There are more jobs that can be done from home than ever before. When I say "virtual jobs," I mean jobs that you can do from afar, like from your home, your computer, or your phone, as long as you keep your mind on the task at hand.
I'm not saying that working from home is the best choice for everyone. If you have ADD and can't hyperfocus, it might not be the best choice for you either. Many people, especially those with ADD, find it hard to get themselves to work from home when nobody is watching them or breathing down their necks.
Here's the key, though: The first step is to start seeing yourself as twice as valuable. Then, use your ADD brain to figure out how to get all of that money.
In future articles, we'll talk more about this and give you some tips on how to deal with ADD.
