For self-employed Autistics and AuDHDers:
How to build a sustainable, burnout-resistant business that works WITH your brain—without sacrificing your health, integrity, or profit.
Whether it’s your primary income or something you’re building on the side.
Learn the formula in 7 weeks instead of spending years figuring it out the hard way.
You started your own business to get out of the capitalist rat race. The meaningless meetings, the guess-the-subtext game of Slack comments, working on other people’s timeline, and productivity expectations that feel like an insult to how you actually function.
Working for yourself was supposed to be different. Freedom. Flexibility. Finally being able to work in ways that make sense to you.
But it also came with a lot more pressure and stress. And you’re exhausted all the time.
You traded the inflexibility of a corporate job for the pressure of having it all rest on your shoulders.
If you still have a day job, and are trying to build your business to replace it, the doubts resurface daily. Right about when your soul-sucking workday ends and you’re drained and just want to curl up and binge watch something and go to bed. But your head is pounding, your stomach is screaming, the dog needs to go out, and the dishes are piling up.
How are you ever going to build this thing up enough to replace your salary? And if you quit to work on it full-time, that adds a ton of pressure to make it profitable before your savings runs out.
The real kicker? Learning that you’re Autistic and/or ADHD was supposed to make things better. But now you’ve got one more reason to doubt yourself. That you’re fundamentally not cut out for this. How could a brain like yours manage all of this? Are you just deluding yourself?
Because if you start your own business without an explicit, alternate strategy for how to build a brain-friendly business, you end up replicating the very thing you’re fleeing, stuck in the same cycles of collapse and suffering as before, and you’re not going to make the money you absolutely could.
That’s not your fault.
Because the best advice you’ve found tells you to:
And since you weren't cut out for “normal” jobs either, does that mean you're just screwed?
But let me translate that list for you.
Here’s what those standard business messages really mean for neurodivergents:
Now let me ask you, is anyone in this state going to be successful?
And that was by design.
Because the people who gained money, status, and power from the capitalist system are, behind all their posturing and bluster, scared of people who are “different” succeeding.
That’s why every piece of standard business advice assumes infinite capacity, a neurotypical brain, and no trauma.
Because that filters out a majority of the people “They” don’t want to succeed.
And when that advice (predictably) burns you out? They want you to believe: “you’re not trying hard enough, not disciplined enough, didn’t do it right. It’s all your fault.”
This is straight up cultural gaslighting. So that you blame yourself, and give up, and go back to making them money, instead of questioning if there’s another way. And maybe even succeeding.
It’s not that standard advice can’t work. But it’s only one very narrow path. And it’s wrong for your brain.
Most business advice treats sustainability as a long-off reward for pushing hard enough, for long enough, to grow and scale. When you have a whole team, or passive income stream, working for you.
And even ethical business advice implicitly relies on you having the willpower to avoid pushy sales tactics, or say no when a client asks for too much, when you’re desperate for money.
That’s backwards.
That's not your personal failing. Because you were never taught how to do it differently. Or that a different way was even possible.
When you structure your business with these 7 elements—in this specific order—each one supports and leads to the next. They build on each other so that burnout becomes nearly impossible—because the system itself prevents you from getting to that point, and self-corrects.
The 7 key elements:
→ When you intentionally plan how your business operates, what you’re offering, and how, to account for your real needs and capacity, it will bring about the outcomes you actually want.
→ When you know what you’re aiming for, you can design executive function supports that fit your real goals, and take the load off your brain.
→ When your brain is freed up, you can think better about (everything, including) what in your environment is draining your energy, and come up with options for improvements.
→ When you feel good in your workspace, you will be in a clearer place to be realistic (neither negative nor overly-optimistic) about how much you can, and want to, actually work, and schedule your work time to include rest and life.
→ When you know how much you can realistically expect to work, you can price based on what you actually need to bring in, to maintain your chosen business model.
→ When your pricing is solid, you won’t apologize for offering your services, and can market authentically.
→ When your marketing is authentic, it attracts the people who will love what you have to offer, and builds trust, and client communication gets easier.
→ When you have better relationships with your clients, it’s clearer what parts of your business energize you, and you refine your business model.→
→ → →
And when all of that is in place, you don’t actually need to push past your limits. And sales come in so you don’t get desperate for money.
And when a shiny new project idea comes along, you’ll check it against your business model, and this time your capacity planning will stick.
This is the alchemy—each element supports the next. This → supports this → supports this → supports this.
When combined in the right order, they transform struggle into sustainability.
Then you’re not relying on good intentions to rest, values to avoid desperation-sales, self-flagellation to promote your offers, or foggy memory to avoid bad decisions.
It’s built so you don’t get to the point where push comes to shove.
This is the kind of business I want for you.
Whether you learn from me or figure it out another way, I believe you can build a business that works for you. I’ve got a particular take on it, and if my style resonates with you, great. But either way, I wish the best for you and your business.
This is about doing what actually works, rather than blaming yourself for not getting the promised results when it wasn’t ever going to work in the first place.
(Even if you couldn’t put words to it?)
I’m known for helping Autistics recover from burnout and build autism-positive lives.
So why am I teaching business?
Here’s what keeps happening: Many of my coaching clients have either left traditional employment or are trying to—they’re working for themselves, but are stressed and struggling.
And a huge part of creating a sustainable, autism-positive life when you’re self-employed? Making your business actually work without destroying you.
I’ve been steeped in it since I was eight years old, when my parents started their own business and involved me from day one.
My dad—undiagnosed Autistic—preached self-employment like it was his calling. He taught me business methodology the way other parents teach manners. How to calculate costs of goods sold. How to price out a job. How to answer objections in sales. How to treat customers ethically and respectfully.
My dad preached self-employment like it was his calling. He taught me business methodology the way other parents teach manners.
He encouraged my many entrepreneurial ventures. Selling address labels and Girl Scout Cookies. Treating babysitting as a business. Pitching him my services stuffing envelopes for their direct mail campaigns.
My mom—undiagnosed ADHD and highly sensitive—taught me the operations side, answering phones and talking to customers, bookkeeping, supporting our employees, keeping everything and everyone together.
I worked in every part of the business as I got older. It was a quarter-million-dollar-a-year operation that lasted for 14 years. They knew what they were doing.
When he died from cancer and we sold the business, I was in my twenties. Two years later, I started my first official business—a small publishing company.
It helped me make sense of his death. I wanted to make him proud of me and to honor what he’d taught me, by proving I could do it too.
I remembered all his lessons about the practicalities of business. But I ignored the more subtle things they modeled about how to stay healthy, rest, and structure the business to support life, not consume it.
Instead, I listened to standard business advice. Hustle. Goals. Productivity.
I dove into traditional business education—accounting classes, sales seminars, direct marketing gurus like Jay Abraham, and hundreds (literally) of business books.
I pushed myself to work late countless nights, lying on my living room floor, exhausted, red eyes burning, staring at my laptop.
A completely life-collapsing, major burnout. The worst I’ve ever had, before or since.
That first one is the only one that put me in burnout—I’ve been burnout-free since 2015!
I learned from each iteration.
As I went deeper, I began to notice something.
Standard business advice can work. Technically. Some people make money following it.
But it was destroying people like me.
After my last burnout, when I figured out I’m Autistic (and later ADHD), I knew with absolute certainty that I only ever wanted to work for myself again.
I paid close attention to what felt good and what worked better for my brain and body. I questioned everything, deconstructing the messages about “the way business works”
I sought out mentors with non-standard perspectives who were decolonizing business. I’ve invested over $35,000 in courses, programs, and mentorship on sustainable business, trauma-informed approaches, and neurodivergent-friendly practices.
I was learning how to work WITH my Autistic and ADHD brain instead of against it.
I grew the business (and my working hours) slowly.
Teaching my nervous system at every stage that it was safe for me to work.
That I could stop before pushing too hard. That I could find solutions that reduced my workload. That taking longer was okay.
Let me tell you, I struggled with some intense trust issues around that.
But here’s what happened.
It’s not perfect—I’m still tweaking things—but it genuinely supports my life and feels good 90% of the time.
I've been self-employed in this business for 6 years without burning out at all—twice as long as any previous attempt. And I have MORE energy now than when I started. And it fully supports both me and my mom.
Every time I needed to do something in my business, I started with practical business foundations—pricing, sales, marketing, operations—then questioned how it’s “supposed” to be done. I kept what was useful and reinvented the rest.
It’s not magic—it’s alchemy. The right elements, in the right order, transform your business into:
→ One that builds sustainability into the foundation instead of treating it as a luxury you can afford once you’re “successful enough.”
→ One that explicitly designs for neurodivergent brains from day one.
→ One that acknowledges other things matter, too—so when big world events happen or your life erupts, the structures already in place let you tend to your soul and the people you care about.
To have it feel good in your life. To build up your energy reserves. To feel confident you can keep this up for as long as you choose.
That won’t happen by accident. It happens by building the right structures.
My hope is that this course will save you hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars of trying to figure this out on your own. That this will pay off exponentially—in money, energy, capacity, and actually enjoying your work, for as long as you choose to continue.
Not in spite of what you went through, but precisely because the crap you went through in life has given you insider information about exactly what is wrong, and in what way.
And I’ll bet you can cut through the crap to identify what’s really going on and solve it—not the pandering solution that sounds good but basically leaves you hanging. The actual thing that works.
And that solution, and your unique perspective, are gold. And there are people who will pay you for that when it fixes problems in their lives.
Even if your business doesn’t feel world-changing, I’ll bet you do a good job with the thing that you’ve promised people you would do. And that you’re doing it in a way that treats people well. Because you know what it’s like when those don’t happen.
Deep down, that’s all my dad wanted for me—to do good in the world, and to be happy. And he saw self-employment as the best way to do both. It doesn’t have to be huge to matter. My small coaching practice is making a real difference in real people’s lives.
I know he’d be proud of that.
Sign up now to join AuDHD Alchemy
I’m the kind of person who needs to understand how something works.
So here’s my four-part formula: the exact ingredients that will transform your business from burnout to gold.
Recognize the capitalist, colonized, neurotypical, ableist business messaging you’ve internalized. Get clear on what you thought was “just how business works” that actually… isn’t.
Like, “you have to be on social media.” Or, “price what you’re worth.” Or you have to mask your communications or you’ll drive people away.
None of that is actually true. But it’s so pervasive that it’s hard to see it as optional. But that’s a story designed by people in power to keep you down.
Learn how to deal with the defenses that arise when you try to do something different. Or even think about it.
This is where good intentions get stuck—the overwhelm, fear, shutdown, procrastination, perfectionism, the need for certainty. These are all defense mechanisms protecting you from things that haven’t been resolved yet.
Like the fear that taking time off means everything will fall apart. Or panic around setting boundaries with a client. Or shame about not being “consistent.”
We’re not doing therapy here, but we are going just deep enough to see and name certain predictable patterns, so it’s not so amorphous or personal, and that itself can make a big difference.
Here’s where we get into practical alternatives to the standard advice.
Not vague “do self-care” platitudes. Real, specific strategies for executive function, sensory accommodation, pricing, marketing, boundaries, and scheduling.
I’ll present multiple options for each area, so you get to choose and modify what fits you. After all, what works for one AuDHDer doesn’t work for all of us, so consider these inspiration.
This is the part where we get really practical and put the new strategies into action in your actual business. Where you apply the theory to your specific situation.
And this time trying something new will likely work, without all the gunk from parts one and two getting in the way.
We’ll apply that 4-part formula to each of the seven elements it takes to build a burnout-resistant business.
Unlearn: There’s one “right” way to do business, and if you can’t make it work, the problem is you.
Reality: Different business models serve different brains, energy patterns, capacity levels, and goals. What works for others might be actively burning you out.
What we’ll do instead:
Unlearn: “Just be consistent!” is the gold standard for business success.
Reality: No living thing is absolutely consistent day in and day out. There are variable cycles of energy from day to day, across seasons and years and times of life. And neurodivergent brains need even more freedom to work their best.
What we’ll do instead:
Unlearn: “Professional” means ignoring your body’s needs, powering through, and looking a certain way.
Reality: Your sensory environment directly impacts your capacity to work. Ignoring sensory distractors and/or overwhelm costs energy and leads to burnout.
What we’ll do instead:
Unlearn: “Work harder.” “Work longer.” “Push through.” “You can rest when you’re dead.”
Reality: Pushing past your capacity doesn’t make you more productive. It makes you burned out. And then you can’t work at all.
What we’ll do instead:
Unlearn: “Charge what you’re worth.” (That’s B.S. Your worth is infinite.) And the double-whammy of being shamed by your own marginalized group for charging anything.
Reality: Pricing has nothing to do with your worth as a human. It’s a straightforward business calculation.
What we’ll do instead:
Unlearn: “Put yourself out there!” ”Build your personal brand!” “Be visible!” And “you need to push through your qualms about selling” to do things that make you cringe.
Reality: What needs to be visible is the thing you’re offering, not you. And the best marketing feels good to both you and your potential clients, builds trust, and forms positive relationships that last long-term.
What we’ll do instead:
Unlearn: “The customer is always right.” “Be available whenever they need you.” And, “never say no or you’ll lose clients.”
Reality: Healthy boundaries make you a better service provider. Clients who can’t respect reasonable boundaries will push you towards burnout. And there are plenty of clients who can!
What we’ll do instead:
7 Live teaching & workshop sessions
You’ll get
Implementation Support
Time estimate:
If you’re wondering how much time it will take, set aside two hours for the live session, and 1-3 hours of reflection/implementation scattered throughout your week.
That being said, it’s totally flexible—attendance is optional (all meetings will be recorded), so you can do it when your brain works, not on someone else’s schedule.
Camera off is okay.
Did you know that more than half of all course signups are in the last few days? This leads to extra stress for the organizer (Does no one like it? What’s wrong?) and makes it harder to plan logistics.
So, as a little incentive to sign up early, for those who can and want to, I’m offering a special deal.
If you enroll before April 1st:
You’ll also get a bonus 90-minute live Q&A session where you can bring your actual business questions and we’ll apply the course concepts to your real situations.
Bring your pricing dilemmas. Your client situations. Your “but what about…” questions. Your “this sounds great but how do I actually do it in my business” confusion.
Get answers, and get coached, or follow along (which often offers insight into your own situations). Camera off is okay.
The bonus session will be on June 20th at 2pm ET | 7pm BST.
Recorded and transcribed.
Join by the end of Wednesday, April 1st to get this.
Sign up now to join AuDHD Alchemy
This is for you if you want ongoing support actually implementing what you learned—to your real business—not just knowing it intellectually.
Because here’s the thing.
Learning new frameworks is one thing. Actually putting them into practice when you’re tired, when money is desperate, when a client is pushing back, when anxiety is more persuasive than hope, when your AuDHD brain is screaming at you to just do it the old way because it’s familiar—that’s where it gets hard.
In all my years of working with later identified Autistics and AuDHDers, I’ve seen the same pattern again and again.
They research, learn why things haven’t worked before, and even get great tips for making things better.
But it isn’t making things better.
Because all of this can make sense, but they still have years of habitual reactions getting in the way.
And no amount of “it makes sense” will compensate for that.
Bridging that gap, from knowledge to implementation, is my wheelhouse. This is why my coaching clients keep coming back. Because I’m great at getting people unstuck, and out of overwhelm and anxiety, and into feel-good action.
If you want some of that without investing in 1:1 support, that’s where the incubator helps.
The course gives you the frameworks, strategies, and tools. It’s the knowledge. It’s learning what to do differently.
The incubator gives you implementation support. It’s ongoing help applying those tools to your specific business as real situations come up. It’s the “how do I actually do this when shit gets real.”
You can absolutely succeed with just the course. If you’re the kind of person who will learn something that clicks and go “Yes! That makes sense!” And run with it, and do it, and figure out the kinks in adapting it to your situation on your own, great.
The incubator is if you want continued support and regular touch-ins as you build these new systems.
Meetings will be recorded with auto-generated transcripts.
7 Saturdays, May 2nd – June 13th, at 2pm ET | 7pm BST
Early-bird bonus session, Saturday June 20th at 2pm ET | 7pm BST
Enroll by April 1st
Can’t attend live?
Submit questions asynchronously and get personalized answers.
2nd Tuesday of each month, May-Dec, at 2pm ET | 7pm BST
8 Months of support
$1500 USD
Pay in full or in 4 monthly payments of $375.
(No surcharge for the payment plan. Yay!)
$3000 USD
Pay in full or in 8 monthly payments of $375.
(No surcharge for the payment plan. Yay!)
Sign up now to join AuDHD Alchemy
My goal is for this to help you build your business so it works with your real life and goals, and avoids burnout.
It’ll take time and input on your part to make the structural changes we will be talking about, a little at a time, and to course correct as necessary, but I truly believe that this will help.
But if it doesn’t, I don’t want you to be out the money.
So here’s my promise to you:
Basically, if you sign up and don’t use the course, that’s on you. But if you give it a fair shot and it doesn’t actually help you, that’s on me. Is that fair?
To make the structural changes that will really be needed to make your business burnout-resistant, it’s going to take longer than seven weeks.
But I expect that you’ll be able to tell within that time whether you’re on the right track, and feel tangible improvements.
Sign up now to join AuDHD Alchemy