Truth About Dyslexia podcast
Health, Stress and AI: An Update for Dyslexic Entrepreneurs
I share an honest update on stress, stepping back from drinking, and why I think AI is a change dyslexic and ADHD entrepreneurs should pay attention to.
Listen to this episode
Health, Stress and AI: An Update for Dyslexic Entrepreneurs
What you will take from this episode
- When I am stressed and worn out, I need to simplify things and focus on the immediate priority rather than trying to fix everything at once.
- I have noticed that drinking has a strong impact on my own stress levels and recovery, so I am choosing a period of sobriety again.
- Rapid change can be unsettling, but being able to learn, switch lanes and see connections can be useful in business.
- You do not need to become an AI expert overnight, but avoiding it completely is unlikely to make the change go away.
- Curiosity and small experiments can be more useful than sitting in fear about what might happen next.
When everything feels like a bit much
Have you ever got to the point where your body is basically saying, mate, we are done? Not in a dramatic way necessarily. You are just tired, wired, stressed and unable to find the off switch.
That has been me recently. Life and work have been moving around a lot, and I have had a properly stressful couple of weeks. I am sharing this because I know plenty of adults with dyslexia, ADHD or a similarly fast-moving brain know this feeling well.
We can be brilliant in motion. We can enjoy the ideas, the opportunities and the constant shifting. But that does not mean our bodies have unlimited capacity for it. Sometimes the brain keeps sprinting long after the rest of us has asked for a sit-down with the dog.
This update is really about two things meeting in the middle: looking after myself when stress has crept too high, and trying to make sense of massive changes in business through AI. They might sound separate, but for me they are very connected. If I am exhausted and overwhelmed, it is much harder to think clearly about where I am going next.
My current reset is smaller than my brain wants it to be
Last year, I stopped drinking for a full year. I was proud of that. Then, after Christmas, I gave myself permission to have a couple of drinks. In hindsight, that was not a great plan for me.
I had already learned something similar when I stopped smoking years ago. For me, the idea of having just one cigarette does not really work. I know how quickly I could get pulled back into it. With drinking, I found myself stopping for a week or two, then having another drink, then finding it becoming more frequent.
So I am choosing to stop drinking again for the next few months and see where I am at. I am deliberately not making a grand forever declaration. I do not know the future, and I would rather focus on the next right stretch of time than get caught up in making a perfect promise.
What I have noticed in myself is that when I am tired or stressed, reaching for a drink can feel automatic. It can seem like downtime. But it was not helping me get back to the place I wanted to be.
My priority right now is sobriety and rest. I am not trying to overhaul every part of my health at once. I am giving myself some room, getting back into morning meditation, and paying attention to what actually helps me slow down. That is not a universal formula. It is simply the honest reset I need at the moment.
my episode on creating real-life change through one thing may also help if you are looking at how small, real-world changes can build momentum.
Stress is not always obvious until it catches up with you
One thing I track personally is heart rate variability, or HRV, because I find it a useful way to notice how my stress and recovery are going. Near the end of last year, I felt burnt out from work, life and everything else piling up. More recently, I noticed my own readings dropping as drinking increased, even when other parts of my routine looked reasonably good.
Again, this is my experience, not a diagnosis or a prescription for anyone else. But it has reminded me that stress is not always solved by one good sleep or a better plan. Sometimes your system needs a proper chance to come down.
A few days into stopping drinking again, I felt worn out. That did not surprise me, but it did make the point very clear. There are times when the most productive thing is genuinely to do less for a moment.
I have also been experimenting with meditation and with supplements as part of my own routine. I am not suggesting anyone copy that. When it comes to health, especially supplements, it is worth doing your own research and talking with an appropriate health professional if you need individual advice.
The bigger lesson for me is to notice the earlier signals. When I am running on stress, my thoughts can fly everywhere and I start looking for a quick way to switch off. Catching that pattern before it becomes the whole week is a skill I am still practising.
For more conversations that do not pretend neurodivergent life is always tidy, have a browse through the Truth About Dyslexia podcast library.
AI is changing business, whether we feel ready or not
At the same time as I have been sorting out my own stress, business has felt unusually uncertain. There is plenty going on globally, and AI is changing how people deliver services, buy things and build businesses.
I do not think everyone has fully clocked the scale or speed of it yet. Some changes take longer to show up than the loudest predictions suggest, but that does not mean the direction is wrong. I think of self-service ordering at fast-food restaurants and self-checkouts in supermarkets. A change that once sounded unlikely can become completely normal.
That does not mean every job disappears in one clean sweep, or that every new tool is automatically good. Businesses have real decisions to make about clients, teams, timing and what value they provide. Those decisions can carry a lot of weight.
But I would not advise sitting back and assuming AI will not affect you because your customers would never want it. The impact may come through the wider market, competitors, costs, expectations or the way a service is delivered, rather than through one obvious moment.
I am using tools such as Claude in my own work and continuing to teach myself. The more I play with the tools, the more possibilities I see. You do not have to understand every detail to begin. You just need enough curiosity to look at what is happening.
Why neurodivergent minds may have something useful here
I am cautious about sweeping statements. Not every dyslexic person or person with ADHD will love change, business or technology. Change can be exhausting, especially when life is already full.
But I do think many of us have strengths that are useful when the rules are moving. We can be good at seeing the bigger picture, joining unexpected dots, learning by doing and switching lanes when we need to. That ability to adapt can matter a lot right now.
The other side is that we may need people and systems around us that create some stability. A fast, idea-driven mind can spot opportunity, but it can also run too far ahead, get stressed or chase every shiny thing in sight. I know that one well.
If you are an adult with dyslexia and you are wondering why traditional business advice has never quite fitted, this practical guide for dyslexic entrepreneurs is a useful place to start.
And if you are still trying to make sense of your own patterns, the free adult dyslexia quiz is a simple educational next step.
Do not let fear make the decision for you
My main message is not that you need to become an AI expert by Friday. Please do not turn this into another impossible item on the to-do list.
What I am saying is: do not sleep on it. Find someone whose way of explaining AI makes sense to you. Watch a few videos. Test a tool on a real task. Ask it to help you think, organise, draft or explore an idea. Learn a little, then learn a little more.
For an ADHD brain, hyperfocus can be incredibly useful when it is aimed at something practical. If AI sparks your curiosity, give yourself permission to play with it. You may find that the tools support the way you naturally think, rather than demand that you think in a more conventional way.
At the same time, keep an eye on your capacity. Big opportunity does not require you to sacrifice your health to chase it. I am having to remind myself of that as much as anyone.
For more honest episodes around adult dyslexia, ADHD and everyday life, the adult dyslexia podcast is there when you need it.
A steadier next step
Right now, I am focusing on getting properly rested, staying sober for the next few months and giving myself space to settle. Alongside that, I am keeping curious about AI and where it is taking business.
If you are feeling behind, stressed or unsure what this all means for your work, start smaller than your brain says you should. Pick one part of your health to support. Pick one AI tool or one person to learn from. Then pay attention to what changes.
Read the full episode transcript
Welcome to the Dyslexic entrepreneur. In today's episode, I'm going to do a bit of an update cast on where my business is going, what I'm learning, a little bit about my health, my mental health, and some of the things that are going well and some of the things that haven't been. I just want to share a few thoughts. Let's dive into today's episode. OK, so I do love to do these probably monthly, sometimes even fortnightly at the moment. A lot of things keep changing in my life and altering, and like many people, I go back and forth from good to bad to somewhere in the middle.
And in the last week or two I've had a really stressful time. You know, if you've listened to the podcast for a while, you'll know. I gave up drinking last year for a whole year, and I was really proud of myself. It worked really, really well. I was committed. I was unbreakable, which was amazing.
But then then as that finished after Christmas, I gave myself a bit of a pass and said, hey, you can have a couple of drinks. That's never a good idea. I gave up smoking maybe five years ago now. And I know for a fact I cannot have one cigarette. It just would never happen. I couldn't have a vape it just I would, I would get addicted again so quickly because it's such a dopamine, you know, high.
It's like there's so many neurodivergent people. We just seem to be a little bit more likely to get addicted to something. And so I made the foolish idea that, hey, you've done so well at not drinking, you should reward yourself with a drink. What a smart idea, right? Or, or the idea that I could just have a couple and then I could stop again, or I'll have a better relationship with it. I think what I've reminded myself of this year is I can't do that.
I really can't do that because I started having a drink and then I'd stop for a week or two, then I'd have another drink. And then it started to get more frequent. And what happens is you start to get, as anyone would know, you start to get on kind of like on his own where you're like, oh, I'll just have a quick drink tonight. And I just, it just wasn't working. So I've decided again to stop at least for three or four months and then see where I'm at. Hopefully.
I probably think this time it could be a lot longer. I'm just always very questioning of myself of I don't like saying something. I'm never going to do it again. You just, you never know what's going to happen, right? And so I, I've not quite got to that point yet. I haven't quite built that confidence.
So I'm just going to kind of focus on it for the next two or three months. I know it's such a big part of my health. One of my goals at the beginning of the year was to improve my HIV, so my heart rate variability, because that's a great, great indicator of how your stress is going. And one of my challenges last year was that my stress got really bad near the end of the year. I got really stressed out. I got a bit burnt out with work and life and just everything.
And what I noticed as I started to drink more, my HIV was plummeting. Even if I went to bed at the right time, I did all this other stuff correctly. It just completely knocked me out. And, and that's not what I want to be. That's not my happy place. But it's, you know, what I've been reminded of is how hard it is to that there's couple of weeks sobering up.
You just naturally have this automatic reaction to go grab a drink when you feel tired or stressed. You're like, oh, this will reduce my stress deep down. It won't. So it's been a really good reminder. And so I've kind of let myself, you know, in in exchange for that, I'm, I'm not going to worry too much about food for a week or two. It's just about sobriety.
And I'm going to look at different tools to also give me that downtime because because when I, when you see a bit, you saw this stuff about going, you shouldn't replace these addictions with negative actions. And I'm like, yeah, 100% get that. But I still need some mental time to relax and chill out. So I'm trying to get back into my meditations in the morning. Those I've let those I've had to let those go for the last month or two. And I'm also going to I've also been testing out using a high dose Alpheanine.
I'm not sure if you've heard of it. It is fantastic and I've used it. I'm using it in my sleep supplement. It'll come out in a few months called added sleep. The God that's taking a lot longer than I ever imagined, but it will come out. I'm using high dose, A reasonably high dose and that to help people fall asleep, but I've been using an even higher dose just in the afternoons just to see if I can get it to give me like a real chill buzz, a real calming, a real drop of my stress hormones.
And it seems to be working. I'm testing out about 600 milligrams of it in a drink, which has been pretty good. And from, from all my researches, you can have it a couple of times a day and it doesn't have any long term negative impact, which is always nice to know. So I've been testing that out. It seems to be helping. I have it with some inisitol which helps with blood sugar regulation and a few other things and a little bit of taurine.
I'm a real chemist when I'm when I'm working on the stuff and it's really been helping a bit. But I, but I guess the other thing I'm noticing as well is 4 days in, I'm just worn out. I'm just realizing how worn out and stressed out my body's been the last couple of weeks. Like I'm recording this while I'm having a sit down upstairs in my bedroom with the dog because like I need to chill. I'm just, I'm just stressed. Like I'm not sure if you've got that feeling where your body just gets it's just over it.
It's just kind of needs to do nothing. And my heads where I'm in the wrong zone can just go all over the place. And so that's kind of where I'm I'm, I'm, I'm at from a health point of view, that's got to be my next big focus is the next couple of weeks sober up. I know the minute I sober up, everything else kind of comes back to life and I feel better in general in regards to work. It's a really strange time at the moment globally. I'm like, I don't have to tell you, I'm sure that there is heaps of change happening with the war in Iran, gas and petrol prices, diesel prices going up, you know, in our country there's election this year.
So that always changes stuff. And with AII still don't think a lot of people are completely across how big the changes with AI that's that's going on in the world. And so there's a lot of a lot of change. And I, I kind of am quite happy in the world of change when everything's altering and moving around. It's kind of my happy zone. But at the moment it's even crazy for me, like the amount of shifting elements is quite impactful.
Like it's really just trying to stay on top of it all, trying to stay on top of it for my clients, trying to look at my team, you know, because again, what are the challenges with AI and, and team members is that you've to stay ahead of the game. Like we're potentially going to maybe have to make someone redundant at some point. You don't know what's going to happen. It's, it's, there's a lot of big decisions and you also try to make the decisions at the right time. You don't want to rush into things, but you also don't want to leave it too late. You know, there's so many stories of companies just missing the boat and also making sure you're doing the right thing.
Value propositions change. You know, there's a, there's a great belief that in business when something like AI happens, what actually happens is the demand goes through the roof because it's so much more accessible. More people want it, even if it's cheaper, you actually get so many more sales of something that it becomes still viable. It's going to be interesting to see if that happens. I'm really, I am concerned for a lot of people who who aren't near diverse. I do think the dyslexic ADHD mindset is going to really help.
The ability to switch lanes to learn quickly and to like grab onto things can be really valuable. And if you can, if you can work with the right people that can keep you stabilized. I just think that the world is your oyster. You know, the stuff we're doing with tools like Claude is amazing. And I'm starting to share more and more of that on LinkedIn. I really want to triple down on talking about innovation because some of these changes, if you're not across them, you don't even have to know how they affect you directly, but they impact the whole market And just being aware of how quickly everything is moving you just you just can't actually fathom how quickly the world is going to change.
And So what I would say to anybody out there is don't sleep on AI. Don't think, oh, it won't impact me or no, my customers don't want, don't want AI. You know, people keep saying that and then I always talk to them about, I'm not sure if in your country you have this, but all of our McDonald's, our Burger Kings, have replaced serving staff with robots that take your order. So you still have humans cooking the food at this point, but the ordering systems are all done via either your phone or a touch screen. Now that started coming out 5-6 years ago, maybe earlier, I can't remember exactly, but it was a while back now that seemed to take a while to happen, but that just took a whole group of jobs away in one hit. Same with our supermarkets.
Self checkouts are huge over here. They took away half of the checkout staff. Now it's now there are a lot more deliveries. So that kind of increased staff in different areas doing different things to a point. But but this change was massive. If you just said, oh, you're no longer going to be served by someone at McDonald's, people would have gone.
What are you talking about? That doesn't make sense. No one will want that. Now everyone just does it like it's it's automatic. So just be aware that things might not happen as quickly as some people say. Like I, I listen to Elon Musk and he's, I don't think he's quite right with his timelines, but I don't think he's wrong with his direction of travel.
You know, the world is going to shift massively. And so if you can be on the cusp, you can do really well. Like somebody said to me the other night, America is a world, a land of middle men. You know, there are a lot of middle men making a lot of money and, and they can be middle women as well, of course. But somebody who sits in the middle of, of a, of like something that they sell a service or a product and the outcome, like if you can sit in the middle, you can make a lot of money. And, and you're starting to hear stories of that people using AI to support it.
There's a guy in the states who started selling Wigovi online and built a business, just a one man business that did $400 million in revenue in a year. And it was him and a bunch of AI that did it. I'm sure he worked pretty hard for that and he's recently hired his brother now that they're on task for a billion dollar a year revenue rate. Well, you know, you got to help your family out, right? But that was done with the power of AI helping him and technology. Now he seems pretty switched on, pretty motivated.
But it just, you know, and all he was doing was really sitting between the consumer and the product. Really. He didn't invent Wagavi. He wasn't the Doctor Who even subscribed it. He just sat in between. So very switched on, very switched on person.
So this is where the world is going, trying to think differently is where it's going to be. And the people that act quickly is this is the, this is the Wild West time where fortunes will be made, lives will be changed. So all I would say is don't just sit and fear about the stuff. Start learning. Like go, go find someone you like who teaches you about AI and follow the videos, watch them, learn it, learn about it. This will change your life.
Just Remember Me if you, if you, if you got it from this podcast when you're rich and famous, of course, but you know, just just kidding. But it's kind of like don't sit back and just worry, you know, go go hyper focus on that. Use the ADHD hyper focus to become an AI expert. Honestly, it's so amazing and you get smarter at it every day. I come self teaching myself and I love it. It's just, if you're a thinker like myself, it's so enjoyable just to play with the stuff and it's it helps you along the way.
It's it's crazy. So yeah, that's what I want to share today, guys. A bit about my personal health, a bit about my personal business journey and where I'm seeing the world going. There's only a few more podcasts like this. I'm going to try and go a bit deeper into certain topics. If there's something you'd like me to cover around innovation and AI, yell out or try and get the right person on the pod.
Yeah, and that's Stephen from The Dyslexic Entrepreneur. Have an epic rest of your day. Thank you for listening to today's podcast on the truth about dyslexia. If you're looking for a group of awesome humans to help you with ADHD, dyslexia and the neurodivergent brain, maybe the right brain reset as this for you. You can find us@rightbrainresetters. com and for just $7.
00 a month you can join our amazing group where you'll get Q&A's. You're going to get little mini courses and heaps of stuff. It's way more value than you will invest in joining, so make sure you head to rightbrainresetters. com and we'll put the link in the show notes.
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