Flow State Business

How Neurodivergent Brains Find Flow

• Ruby Lee

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This one’s been on my heart for a while now.


I’ve had so many conversations lately with clients, friends, and my own inner circle about the link between neurodivergence and flow state. ADHD, creative overwhelm, energy highs and lows, masking, overstimulation. How do we find alignment when the textbook advice just doesn’t work for the way our brains move?


In this episode, I’m finally speaking into it.


Not as someone with lived experience, but as someone who’s deeply immersed herself in this space. Coaching neurodivergent entrepreneurs, asking big questions, and building business rhythms that support every kind of brain.
Inside this episode:


  • What neurodivergence really means (beyond just ADHD)
  • Why strict productivity hacks can actually drain your energy
  • The surprising science behind hyperfocus and flow
  • How to use novelty, sensory anchors, and natural rhythms to support your creativity
  • Two practical tools to start creating flow in your own way


And a reminder. Your flow isn’t broken. You’re just wired differently. And that difference might be your biggest gift.


  • Download the FREE Neurodivergence + Flow Research Papers here
  • Get THE FLOW TRACKS BUNDLE here
  • Connect with me on LinkedIn here

 Hello, my loves, welcome to the Flow State Business Podcast. We have such a great topic to discuss today as a community, and it's actually been a topic that has been on my heart, it's been on my mind. I've been speaking a lot about it. Inside of my coaching arenas, my groups, my one-to-ones, and you know, in all honesty, I, I think I've been looking for somebody to be an expert to come onto the podcast to talk about this.

And I just haven't landed on anybody that I'm like, yep, they've got the charisma. They understand the nuance of entrepreneurship, and they are also, you know, a neurodivergence expert. And I just realized literally today as I was swimming in the ocean, I'm telling you, mama Ocean speaks to me always. The clarity that came to me was like, rubes, you are the expert.

Dammit. Like get on the podcast and talk about it. And not to say it's like a trending topic or it's hot right now, but all I can tell you is that I'm getting a lot more questions from. My inside world, my clients and my friends about how flow converges and marries up with Neurodivergence, and I've got a lot to say on it because I've been massively researched on it for the last three years.

I have asked a lot of questions on it. I have mentors and coaches of mine who are experts on it, and I discuss this with them weekly. I have done so much research on it, like really going into the delves of brain science and what researchers all around the world are discovering about A-D-H-D-A-D-D, and flow state.

So lots of great stuff to talk about today, and this conversation really has been sitting on my heart for a while now, but I wanna speak to it very respectfully and gently because. You know, I am not someone who can speak about this from a lived experience, so I do wanna address the elephant in the room.

And I know a lot of you are also gonna feel somewhat empowered by this example. And this goes outside of, you know, the Neurodivergence talk just for one second. But I know some of you really have some great stuff to share, and you are highly knowledgeable and skilled on it and very researched on it. But you are asking yourself, who am I to talk about this topic?

A couple of my clients have asked me before, can I really teach or share on something that I haven't experienced personally? And this is it for me. I totally get it. This is, this is the example. Like I don't have lived experience. I'm technically neurotypical. We're gonna get to what that actually means in a second.

You probably heard it being thrown around, especially if you're in the Neurodivergence TikTok algorithm. But I do have something that I call secondary experience. I've coached a lot of clients who are neurodivergent. I've listened very closely to what their issues are and where they feel challenged and quite honestly, where they're calling bullshit on the productivity guru.

Generic stuff and how it just doesn't work for them. And they have called me up to coach better around flow states and neurodivergent. So I know I've got a lot to share here. I've also been, you know, definitely in rooms and in coaching spaces where I will have individuals come up to me afterwards, tears in their eyes just saying like, rubs, this is the first time I've really felt understood.

Thank you so much for. Helping me throw out the rule books and to not have that textbook answer of how to find flow because my brain just didn't work that way. But it works the way that you are telling me it does, and I get it. So another example real quick, is if you are feeling maybe we can categorize that as imposter syndrome, it's a bit like.

Think about any elite sports coach. Most Olympic coaches, for example, have never won a gold medal themselves. They haven't stood on the podium, but they've trained people who have, they understand the psychology, the patterns, the environment, the tools to help people get there on the podium. I wanna help you get on the business podium.

So these coaches, they understand that expertise isn't based on. I've done it and I've done it exactly like you. Instead, it's based on a deep presence observation, knowing how to bring the best out in someone, and this is how I'm gonna approach this too. I'm looking at individuals. I'm literally, I've got certain names and beautiful faces in my minds eye as I'm explaining some of this.

And. At the same time, I'm definitely not an expert on neurodivergence. I'm not claiming to fully understand what it's like to experience it from the inside out, but I do care deeply about creating spaces where people can feel seen, and I'm just gonna share what I do know, especially if it helps somebody out there, like if it helps you today to feel a little less alone or a lot more empowered, then let's fucking go.

Let's do it. Okay. So we're gonna be talking about a couple of things. How flow looks different for neurodivergent minds, the latest brain science behind A DHD, attention deficit and creativity, and how it all ties back into flow state. And then I'm gonna leave you with two very practical shifts if you are wanting to apply some of this and how you can find your own rhythm and get things done without burnout.

And a big perspective shift on how it can move you into more focus, especially if you've just got. So many distractors out there right now, and you're not really quite sure how to manage that. Okay, so let's go. Oh my gosh, I'm gonna start with the fact that actually two of my closest friends were recently formally diagnosed with A DHD.

I'm not sure if it's the same where you live, but in Australia, getting that kind of clarity isn't simple. You have to start with your gp, then you have to get referred to a psychiatrist. You have to go through a lot of formal assessments, and sometimes the wait is months and months just to begin the process.

So if you're going through that. Oh my gosh. I am, I'm excited for you and I'm proud of you for just waiting it out because my friends have texted me both separately. They don't know each other, but they've texted me separately and they've said in their own words, it just feels like a massive sense of relief.

Like they're not trying to fix themselves, but finally they know how to work with their brains. Then we have these epic conversations about flow state and how now they can enter actually into more flow because they've been given so much permission to just be themselves. So I was texting one of my girlfriends, and she now calls, this is her terminology, not mine.

Okay. She now calls her brain a sparkle brain, which is honestly, I feel a very joyful and very accurate term. That I've heard like in a long time. But we were laughing about how she like literally wants a bumper sticker saying like. I've got no executive function, just sparkle brain. She's just like, I just want people to know that.

But honestly, like under all of that humor, there was something very real about what she shared with me, and she said how it just felt so validating to finally have language for the way her mind works. All of those years that she was told she was being lazy or scattered or not present, not living up to her potential like at school, even at home.

And her parents, like they loved her so much, they did their best, but these were just the only words that they could describe around her. And mind you, she's so freaking smart. But the way that it showed up was, you know, in this like scattered sort of energy. Her and I have had tears together over this.

Like I'm just so happy that she's so happy. You know? And she also really talked about how like especially to do with her creativity, her ability to problem solve. Because if you can't problem solve, your creativity is massively stunted. I. She's found that her ability to now problem solve, to ideate, she's in a very creative role for her job and like bringing fresh ideas, innovative ideas into a space like this to her is the most valuable asset as her sparkle brain continues to sparkle, and it made me think about how many of my clients, especially those of you who are neurodivergent, and you may just have a feeling you are, maybe you're not formally diagnosed, but you just kind of have a sense.

Why you are so wildly entrepreneurial and also deeply empathetic, deeply innovative, and you are just making so many people think outside the box because you just think that way. You are that way, and I love that like there's so much incredible power behind how your brain is functioning, and I never ever want you to think about it as something that.

Isn't working or it's embarrassing to talk about like it is a superpower of yours. I wanna just quickly identify what Neurodivergence means because it is such like a wide cast net that I just wanna call out some of the main areas that I'm talking to specifically. 'cause I just, yeah, I definitely don't want it just to be this blanket statement.

So Neurodivergence isn't just a DHD and it's not autism. It includes. Other factors, dyslexia, OCD, Tourette, I'm thinking off the top of my mind now. Uh, sensory processing, that's definitely a big one. Anxiety related cognition where it just takes over your whole mind and you just feel massively anxious about lots of things and you can't quite pinpoint why.

There are so many others, so I want you to know that as I'm referencing neurodivergence, it's beyond, um, just the typical way of talking about it. I totally get that. There's so many other nuances behind this, and sometimes it's invisible, like the quiet, how it might show up for you. Is this like quiet overthinking the masking, like I'd say for the most part.

The masking is probably the one that feels most real. If you're going through something like this, it's like you may be on your Zoom calls, even with your coaches or with your clients, and you're smiling and you're nodding, but deep down, you know, like, oh my God, I just did not concentrate through that whole thing and I did not experience any flow, and my mind was like in a thousand different places at that one time.

And you might even feel like you are burning out, but from the outside looking in, I wouldn't be able to tell that you are burning out. No one sees that. So there's this sort of like way that you are able to completely just, I. Basically like block that from anybody else, from the outside looking in. And sometimes it's external.

So this is like, um, speech rhythms or you literally can't sit down properly. You are stimming. There's just different ways that you are engaging with the world. You are up and down constantly. You are tapping your feet, you know you're shaking your pen. Whatever it is, it all deserves support and it all deserves you loving.

Your brain and your body for it. Okay. There is so much that comes from a place of like, I love this about myself and this is who I am and I claim who I am and I'm unapologetic about who I am and I own that. And that is part of who I know that I'm meant to be like shining from that place. So I think that is something so beautiful.

And whilst like personally, by the way, I've never formally been diagnosed myself. I've had plenty of moments wondering. As many of us you know in this generation have I, I do think I'm neurotypical, but whatever that means, there's this collective unlearning happening right now. Like so many people are finally realizing that they were never so-called bad at life.

They were just wired differently. Now that they're leaning back to work with themselves, everything's starting to shift. So I think that this is such a powerful conversation as a whole. Like we'll take this conversation outside of the podcast and you'll probably speak to your besties about it, and then off it goes, you know, there's this real wonderful awareness with how we all get to work so differently, and that manifests in different ways, like human design.

Or astrology, like, you know, we are all just becoming so much more conscious of the fact that there's just not this like one size fits all way at productivity and flow and therefore running a business and therefore being all of you. So let's talk about, one of the biggest myths I hear is that. You need to have a very strict structure and a super quiet environment and long stretches of focused time.

I'm talking hours and hours to get in the flow. Now, if you have neurodivergence in some form, everything I've just listed there is probably gonna sound like worse, nightmare situation, and it might not be true for everybody. But there's a lot of research showing the opposite and why you should be doing the opposite if you are neurodivergent or you may have a very strong sense that you are, there's actually this study, it's really interesting, it's called the Adult Hyper-Focused Questionnaire.

So, ah, hq, and a lot of people who've A DHD in particular have been tested. The A DHD traits consistently come back that more frequent and immersive flow like states, especially in areas of interest of personal meaning, actually doesn't require a long period of time to drop in. So what this means is you can get a lot done.

In a very short amount of time because when something clicks, it locks in. So this is that hyper focus and it can be so incredibly powerful, like a portal into flow, and you can jump in there. Let's say you are super interested in the, I don't know. Creating an Instagram reel, let's just go quite general and you're super interested in that.

You're interested in the way that you edit, that you cut the music, like you might even be able to see if you overlay the music over the video, for example, and you can see the bars of the music, or at least like the rhythm, and you can cut text into the rhythm, and you can do that so much faster than anyone else because you enjoy it.

That's hyper focus. Like you're so locked in that you could literally create like 35 reels in three hours. I don't know. That seems, that seems really high, but you know what I mean. Where you have been even observed or people have told you like, how did you do that so fast? How did you do that so quickly?

Like there is a trait there. So whatever that is in your life and in your business, that is evidence that you can drop into flow state. Okay, so I really just want you to stop and observe. I want you to think about what, what have been the times that this has happened for you and in context to business is at writing.

Some of my clients who are a DD, and they say the only time they can actually drop into hyper focus is when they're writing, but as soon as they start doing other things in their business, that's when scatterbrain happens, or they open all the tabs in their mind. But when they're writing, they just go into this portal and it's like this, like this.

That's my sound effect for going into a portal. And you're there. And do you know what recent neuroscience actually really backs this? There is this FMRI study that shows that the A DHD brain has less stable regulation in the default mode network, which means that you are more about involuntary mind wandering.

There's a twist to that because when a task is interesting or novel, which is one of the 12 flow states, or emotionally relevant, like you have an emotional tie to something, what happens is a lot of dopamine gets released. Now when dopamine gets released, that is where focus happens, and this is where you are perfectly built for Flow.

Flow isn't about suppression, it's about alignment. So when these studies came back of all these brains and the FMRI showing like the A DHD brain lighting up because they were so interested in something, again, it was interesting, emotionally relevant. There was lots of dopamine that flowed around that they got into alignment and they were able to get a massive flow state.

They were able to do so much more, get mega focused. By the way, like I know maybe some of this is a bit like detailed it, it is a bit detailed. I'm trying to simplify it, but if you are somebody who just loves reading the research and you want to get behind the studies, you want to reference some stuff, I've actually collated so much information and like a lot of articles on the science behind everything that I've just shared.

So I pulled together a little vault of research articles that I have put together on Flow Brain Science neurodivergence. Now, they're definitely on the academic side. Meaning they can be very dry and highly referenced. So even within these research articles, there's more research articles, but you can go down a very, very good pathway of learning how the scientists and the researchers are really pulling together a big effort on understanding flow and neurodivergence very informative.

So, um, and I'm also gonna keep adding to the vault as new research comes out. So I'm gonna leave that link in the show notes below if you want to download that and just get access to that vault. Just head to the show notes below and you can see that link there. Okay. So enough of the research, 'cause I know it can kind of be a bit like, what did you just talk about on the practical side, when you are running a business or a creative project as a neurodivergent entrepreneur, the typical productivity advice often misses the mark.

Can I get like a mm-hmm. Yep. Amen to that. So what this means is, let's say a typical productivity guru will say, you've gotta plan every hour of your day from the 5:00 AM wake up to the nightly wind down routine, or you've got to use the Pomodoro technique, which I don't agree with by the way. Or forcing any sort of like early morning deep work blocks and I don't know, whatever stuff that can feel like a lot of heavy friction to you.

And if you've tried doing that and you forced yourself to do that, or maybe even just like the workplace that you are in, there's no other way you have to do it that way. You've just, you feel defeated by the end of the day. I want you to know that there is another way of doing it. Okay? So I wanna give you two tips out of a huge list of tips that I give my clients who are neurodivergent.

These two are just gonna get you started. So the first one is, I want you to ditch very strict time blocking straightaway. Like the, oh my gosh. Sorry. My mind. My mind just went to this term. Which was brought to my attention from a place that I studied, uh, flow State basically. And they called it calendar worshiping.

Like, does that not just send shivers down your spinach? It sent shivers down my spinach. Okay. When I saw that it calendar worship, basically worship your calendar. Like your life and flow depends on it, and everything about that module just shipped me like I could not believe what I was reading anyway.

Just forget trying to lock into flow from 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM because someone said it's your most productive window. Like how would they know? It changes every day. You know, neurodivergence is about literally. Understanding your consciousness, what does it want it to do? You can't force it to sit down during a time period where you are just not feeling it.

And does that not take you back to school days? And you, that's probably why you got into trouble. 'cause you couldn't sit down for six hours. Right? Like one of Teddy's really good mates. Um, he's been diagnosed, he's nine, he's diagnosed by a pediatrician. Um, this is so funny. There's all these categories when you get diagnosed and the one that Teddy's friend got was.

Disheveled and he's so gorgeous. But he, he does, he does have this disheveled energy about him. Anyhow, Teddy said he got called over the school speaker system, the PA system, because he was wandering around on his own, on the school oval, just walking rounds, just doing rounds around and around and around.

He'd excused himself to go to the bathroom, and then he just said, I just didn't wanna come back to the classroom. I can't sit down anymore. I just needed to go on a walk. Isn't that so interesting? Like a 9-year-old who's so conscious of that? Like I, I don't think there's, you know, it's so interesting how the school system deals with it, but if you're a full grown adult that's.

You just, I don't wanna sit down on my laptop between nine to three. I just wanna go on a big walk. Isn't that so interesting? Anyway, so back to it. Ditch the calendar worship, and the strict time blocking. Instead, I want you to rate your tasks by how much they energize you. Okay? So in your business, I want you to write down your main tasks if you run a business.

Main task number one is selling. Like nothing else comes before that. Okay, so does selling energize you And out of 10, 10 is energized, one is deflated af. Okay, so write that down. Secondly, very highly related to selling is marketing, so this is your getting yourself out there, social media. Third is networking.

How? How would you rate yourself Networking. I find a lot of my. A DD and a DHD clients actually, generally, I know I'm generalizing, but just from the faces and names that are coming to mind. Love networking. Love it. Just like, let's get talking, let's get meeting, let's get people into the room. Oh my gosh, so much stimuli.

This is exciting. So anyhow, rate how you energize yourself and just name all the other main tasks. Okay? Because what I want you to do is recognize, yeah, basically where things are feeling really lit for you right now. Flow comes more easily when you are working with your natural rhythm. Always flow is the study of highest consciousness.

So in order to understand flow, you have to understand your natural rhythm, not forcing your way through your business or through somebody else's version of structure. Some of my clients flow best at night, so do I by the way. Like we're heading into the evening now. I love an evening flow session. Some do four tasks all at once with music blasting and the TV on at the same time, and they get the best work done in that environment.

I want you to know that that's not wrong. I. It's resonance. Okay, there's, I could keep going on a whole thing about resonance, but basically resonance is frequency and energy matching to one another. So if you are someone who's frequency and energy, we all give off emit brainwaves and all kinds of energy.

That's just who you know. That's our human system. If your brain brainwaves sit at a resonance level where it likes and enjoys a lot of stimulation. I tell you, you have to sit in complete silence in order to get focused. That's untrue for you. Does that make sense? So maybe, again, going back to maybe university days, that's what I think of anyway.

You can't say anything in the library. Complete silence. This is why I freaking hated working in the library 'cause it was too quiet. I opted to sit at a cafe. I really enjoyed that and I know some of you're gonna resonate with that as well. So resonance, look for that. Okay? Ditch the time block. I want you to rate your tasks as how much they energize you, and then I want you to really look at your natural rhythms and do.

Honor that fully. Okay? Now, if you are saying to me, none of it energizes me and I don't know where to start with my natural rhythms, then we probably need to have a one-to-one so that I can really, really get behind the business and see where your energy's at and all those good things, but it's a good place to start.

The second thing I want you to do, which is similar related, it's a cousin piece of advice to ditch the time blocking and the calendar worship. I want you to swap out your rigid routines and look for the portals. Okay? So rather than following that robotic morning routine that every successful person on TikTok is saying that they do, when they don't really, they're probably just setting up the camera with 16 different angles and just filming it because it's trending.

I want you to ditch all of that, and I want you to create your ritual from your soul space. Okay, so what does that look like for you? How do you want to set up your rituals and your routine? That will put you into what I call this portal of focus, and you'll know what that is. So I. Some way to signal to your brain that it is time to enter creativity or a time of focused state.

Now, this might be a candle. This might be a flow playlist. This might be a grounding movement. These small sensory cues become your doorway to flow. Especially for neurodivergent minds that thrive with multisensory inputs and symbolic anchors. This is going to work beautifully for you. Just notice, like I was speaking to my inner circle the other day and I was talking about the fact that I have this like light in my office and I can change the colors of the light, and I respond really well to purple light.

It's a sensory anchor for my brain to enter into flow state. I have another client of mine and she says to me, she's A DHD, and she said to me that she has like this, like stress ball, like you know, the things that you squish, but it has spikes on it. So she really loves that like feeling of like, ooh, it's like kind of squishy, but there's like these rubbery spikes on it.

She's describes it sort of like, it looks like a dog toy of some kind. And she squeezes that whenever she's moving into creativity. And she's like literally going through every chamber of her mind just going like, Ooh, what colors and what pictures? And she's squeezing it and she's thinking about that.

Really interesting symbolic anchor because she's literally massaging the creativity out of her. I love it. Also, speaking of flow playlists, if you haven't already checked out my flow tracks, they were actually created specifically for this. They were created. To feel like you are entering into a portal.

There's this, uh, deep work version, which is 90 minutes long and also has breaks so that you're not just sitting your butt down for 90 minutes. And I also have a shallow work version, 25 minutes, and, um, very, very different from the Pomodoro technique. I much prefer the 25 minute version, and my clients with a DD and A DHD have literally, they swear by them.

And it helps them access this magic portal state. And even if like, you know, you just need more focus in your life and in your business, go ahead and grab the flow tracks. I bundled them together. So you get both at once and you'll be able to find the links in the show notes below, so the next time you sit down to work.

Chuck them on, give them a try and just do it consistently for every time you sit down, just have it on in the background. There's also subliminals, there's affirmations in the track. It's so beautiful. It's all about just helping you expand your time and quantum leap and calling the money you want, like it is magic.

You'll love it. So I hope that this conversation's just given you a little bit of a pep in your step. If you are in this boat right now, maybe you are newly diagnosed questioning, just feeling like this is the first time somebody's actually described you. Please know that you're not alone. I don't want you to go through this alone.

I want you to start talking to someone that you trust. If it feels good, open up on your socials. I, there's a lot of amazing people on social media. I want you to know that like. It's easy to kind of dis social media and be like, oh my gosh, it's the bane of human life. But I know for a fact that whenever I've opened up.

People are so helpful and so wonderful, and they wanna be there for you. Okay? If you don't have a massive network on socials, maybe go searching for a community group, a Facebook group, a Reddit thread for neurodivergent entrepreneurs and creatives, and thinkers, and innovators. But there are so many beautiful minds out there just like yours.

They're literally just, you know, waiting for someone to say like, Hey, I need some help. Or, I think I'm, I think I belong in this group. What did you do? What's working for you in terms of flow? What's working for you in terms of running a business? Get into those circles so that you can better understand your way of working your natural rhythms.

Okay, your flow is not broken. I have a very close client of mine who's in in a circle. Before this, she was in Amplify, and she said to me once I think I'm broken, I'm like, you are. Definitely not broken. And she's neurodivergent, but she's like, no, no. I feel every time I try and enter flow I just can't. And we've been working on it and she's literally just messaged me like last week saying, I've got it.

I, I know how to enter into flow state rubes. Like it's taken me nine months to work it out, but I think I've got it now and I'm so excited for her. So I just want you to know that your flow is not broken. It's not missing. You don't need to work harder and force yourself to sit at the chair for six hours hoping that.

You know, you'll get it done. If you need to take a break, take a break. If you need to walk away from your computer for a bit, do that. Okay? You have to honor your own rhythm because that's the way that you are. Only you are gonna be Find your best productivity. And anyone who tries to judge you on that, like they can get stuffed seriously.

You know you the best. And if you don't know you the best, then it's time to really assess and get into that space of highest consciousness. Ask yourself what energizes you? Ask yourself, how can I make this easier? Ask yourself, do I need more support in however that is supposed to show up for you? And also, can I just leave you with this?

Finally, just give yourself permission. To just feel on your own terms and amplify the magic that is your sparkle brain. I love that so much. I just hope that you realize that the flow is always around you and you just have a very, very special portal to get to that flow, and it's not meant to be done the generic way.

Okay, with so much love guys, can you please let me know if you liked this episode? And also don't forget the flow resources, the flow tracks in the show notes, some goodies there waiting for you. And yeah, come on over to Instagram and DM me with what's come up the most. And if you would like me to go deeper on any topics to do with Neurodivergence and Flow, I'm just so happy this one's sitting now.

On the podcast here, I'm gonna reference it so much for any of you who are coming in, uh, into this world of flow state, this is the one episode that I'd love for you to forward onto others as well, who've been discussing this with you. And yeah, sending you so much love, big kisses, follow the flow of what feels good and I will catch you next week.

Bye guys.