We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Trá R. Harriott a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Trá, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?
The story behind my mission is simple; representation matters! As an entrepreneur, I’ve had my share of trials and tribulations, failures and successes. One of those challenges being operating a business with ADHD. When I would research and review different business coaches and entrepreneur sessions, they would consistently speak on how you must stay motivated, stay focus, stay disciplined, and other attention-tedious tasks. That is literally difficult to do as someone with executive dysfunction that ONLY relaxes when I’m interested or have enough dopamine for competence. It is difficult to stay on task and stay motivated, when the littlest inconvenience or mistake can send me spiraling in a never-ending shame spiral, which leads to depressive episodes, and then I’ll walk away from or become disinterested in that entire project. So in my research, I found that many entrepreneurs with ADHD struggle with their business because of distractions, inconsistent interest, difficulty initiating tasks, time blindness, and rejection sensitivity.
Therefore, my company, Grow & Glow Coaching Services, LLC. was created to assist entrepreneurs with ADHD start and maintain their business ventures by developing a working business management system specifically for a neurodivergent individual. Additionally offering the following services: mentorship, accountability partnership, customized vendor sourcing, and body doubling. My mission is to show that it is possible to have ADHD and still run a successful business. I’ve found my process, so I’m helping people find theirs.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I am Trá! A little bit about me; I’m originally from New York, but I’ve lived in Georgia for over twenty years now. I’m a life and business coach, as well as, an entrepreneur owning several businesses. I’m married to my high school sweetheart and we have one son and two cats.
I’ve been in entrepreneurship for 5 years now and I’ve decided to take the next step and add “coach” to my list of titles! My coaching journey begins in 2020 when I noticed that the way my brain was functioning was not my normal. Every day tasks were hard to initiate let alone complete. It would take me days to do something that would normally take minutes; hours at the max. There were periods I would space out at random, couldn’t stay focused or organized, and many projects I started I ended up abandoning, I could have a conversation with someone and completely forget what the person just said even though I was listening, becoming clumsy and randomly bumping into inanimate objects, etc. It was completely wild.
When it came to my businesses, I began to struggle doing things that weren’t giving me trouble before. I took a step back from my businesses and school to take a break and find some new inspiration and refresh my ideas. In that time, I came across a diagram on social media illustrating what people think ADHD is, versus what it actually is. At that moment, a light bulb went off because every symptom it listed was accurate for me. I immediately asked my therapist for an ADHD assessment and once it was determined that I did in fact have it, I decided to get a specialist to specifically help me manage the ADHD.
Then I realized that no matter the advice that business coaches and other entrepreneurs gave, it wouldn’t work for me. The biggest obstacle about ADHD for me is the executive dysfunction. There wasn’t any business coaches that could give management or operation advice that was compatible with a neurodivergent mind. To do lists, journals, notepads, etc. are practically obsolete. So I decided to become a life & business coach and in early 2022, I became a Certified Professional Life and Certified Business & Entrepreneurship Coach. Since then, I have started my company, Grow & Glow Coaching Services to assist other ADHD entrepreneurs in starting and maintaining their businesses. Giving them resources and tools that can actually work for them and their business. Also, to better understand ADHD, how it affects entrepreneurship, and offer solutions to presented difficulties. It’s the most personal project I’ve done and I’m really excited about what’s to come.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
A lesson I had to unlearn was thinking I had to be hands-on with EVERYTHING pertaining to my business. No I don’t. Because I have a neurodivergent mind, I had to learn how to run my business in accordance to what was best for me and my condition. Being involved to that capacity was overwhelming, tedious, and occasionally I would lose interest or have huge time lapses in completing tasks because I was so overwhelmed with having to do everything. As a Black entrepreneur, you may not have the luxury of being just the owner. You might find yourself being the owner, chief executive officer, customer service representative, inventory manager, social media manager, marketer, etc. It is absolutely a lot to handle and quick to get entrepreneur burn-out.
The best thing I did for my businesses was fire myself. I choose what tasks I handle myself and others I delegate or outsource. I learned to start outsourcing wherever I could. There are so many ways to outsource talent now. You can hire a virtual assistant, a brand manager, a marketing team, etc. And you don’t have to break the bank to do that. Since releasing myself, I’ve been lighter, less overwhelmed, and I have more free time to spend with my family.
If you have multiple revenue streams in your business, would you mind opening up about what those streams are and how they fit together?
One of my businesses, Boss T’s Apparel, sells apparel and just started selling e-books. Having your business be able to generate more than one source of income is brilliant and sometimes necessary because it creates flow options; even if funds aren’t coming from your main product or service. There’s a notion now to have multiple streams of income in your personal life. The same notion can be applied to your business. Multiple streams of revenue also helps with brand expansion and reaching wider audiences. I think creating more than one source of revenue for a business is one of the most creative things you can do for your business.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.growandglowcoachingservices.com
- Instagram: @growandglowcoaching