The ADHD Entrepreneur’s Relationship With AI Is... Complicated
Why ChatGPT Has Become My Business Partner, Therapist, and Occasional Accomplice
The other day my wife walked past my office, looked at my computer screen, and asked a question that has become surprisingly common in our house.
“Are you talking to ChatGPT again?”
Without looking up, I answered, “We’re having a strategy meeting.”
She peeked over my shoulder.
“It looks like you’ve been asking it questions for two hours.”
“I know.”
“What have you accomplished?”
I thought about it for a moment.
“I have no idea.”
That wasn’t a joke.
I had opened ChatGPT to write a sales email. Somewhere along the way, I asked it to improve the email, make it funnier, rewrite it for LinkedIn, brainstorm a webinar, generate YouTube ideas, compare two business models, explain why entrepreneurs procrastinate, and tell me whether the title of an article should include the word schmuck.
Ninety minutes later, I had enough content to launch a media company.
I still hadn’t sent the email.
If you’re an entrepreneur with ADHD, you probably just laughed. Not because the story is ridiculous, but because you’ve lived some version of it yourself.
Artificial intelligence feels like it was invented specifically for ADHD brains. For the first time in our lives, we’ve found something that can almost keep up with the speed of our thinking. We don’t have to apologize for jumping from one idea to another. AI happily follows us down every rabbit hole, opens a few new tunnels, and politely asks if we’d like to explore those as well.
It’s glorious.
It’s also a little dangerous.
For years, people have told entrepreneurs to “work smarter, not harder.” AI finally gives us that opportunity. It can write articles, brainstorm marketing campaigns, organize our thoughts, summarize books, create business plans, edit videos, and generate social media content before we’ve finished our first cup of coffee.
Unfortunately, it also enables one of our favorite hobbies: looking productive without actually moving the business forward.
I’ve started calling this Promptcrastination.
It’s procrastination disguised as productivity.
Instead of avoiding work by cleaning the garage or alphabetizing the spice rack, we spend hours asking AI to make something that’s already good just a little better.
“Rewrite this.”
“Now make it funnier.”
“Now make it more persuasive.”
“Now make it sound like Jerry Seinfeld... no, Larry David... no, Shakespeare with ADHD.”
Before long, we’ve created seventeen versions of the same email that still hasn’t been sent.
AI didn’t create the problem.
It simply gave our procrastination Wi-Fi.
The funny thing is that ADHD entrepreneurs don’t usually suffer from an idea shortage. If anything, we have the opposite problem. We wake up with twelve million-dollar ideas before breakfast and another six while brushing our teeth.
AI pours gasoline on that fire.
Need a business idea?
Here are fifty.
Need a course outline?
Done.
Need a podcast?
Done.
Need a book?
Done.
Need a side hustle for left-handed yak farmers in Nebraska?
Oddly enough...
Done.
The problem isn’t generating ideas anymore.
The problem is deciding which one deserves our attention.
I’ve noticed another strange phenomenon among ADHD entrepreneurs. We love building businesses almost as much as we love running them.
Give us ChatGPT and suddenly we’re creating websites, courses, lead magnets, automations, newsletters, logos, YouTube channels, and membership programs.
Everything except customers.
Somewhere along the way, we start confusing building with selling.
Our business begins to resemble a beautiful restaurant with gorgeous menus, incredible décor, and absolutely no diners.
AI can help us build the restaurant.
It can’t convince us to open the front door.
Perhaps the funniest thing AI has become for many of us is a therapist who never gets tired.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve caught myself asking questions like, “Why am I avoiding this project?” or “Do you think I’m overthinking this?”
Somewhere between writing blog posts and marketing plans, ChatGPT quietly became my sounding board.
To be fair, it listens well.
It doesn’t interrupt.
It never says, “Jeff, you’ve already asked me that.”
Although one day it probably will.
Here’s the irony. AI has made me more productive than I’ve ever been. I write faster. I think more clearly. I can create in hours what used to take days.
But it has also taught me something I wasn’t expecting.
Technology doesn’t solve the hardest part of entrepreneurship.
Courage does.
AI can write the sales page.
It can’t make you publish it.
It can draft the proposal.
It can’t make you send it.
It can create the invoice.
It can’t make you click “Send.”
It can build a remarkable business.
It cannot build your willingness to put yourself out there.
That part is still gloriously, frustratingly human.
So has ChatGPT become my business partner?
Absolutely.
Has it become my therapist?
On occasion.
Has it become my accomplice?
Without question.
Because every time I ask it for “just one more revision,” it politely helps me avoid the one thing I should probably be doing instead.
Fortunately, it’s also smart enough to remind me of the truth I’ve been trying to outrun.
The next prompt isn’t going to change my business.
The next action will.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to ask ChatGPT one final question.
“Is this article finished?”
Deep down, I already know what it’s going to tell me.
“Jeff... stop prompting and hit Publish.”
Accelerated, Dynamic, Hyper-Drive: A Short Manifesto for ADHD Entrepreneurs Who Refuse to Play Small.
This isn’t another productivity book written by someone whose greatest risk was color-coding spreadsheets. It’s for ADHD entrepreneurs, creators, and visionaries who are tired of shrinking themselves to fit systems built for smaller thinking.
Because your ADHD is not proof that you’re incapable.
It may be proof that you were built for something bigger.
Download your copy here:
Before your inner critic talks you into playing small for another year.