← ADHD for Smart Ass Women with Tracy Otsuka
ADHD for Smart Ass Women with Tracy Otsuka
EP. 378: Tech is Stealing Your Attention. This Gives It Back with Dr. Nodira Khoussainova
01:05:39
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- [00:00]
A
Before we start, a quick note. If you've been listening to this podcast and thinking, I need more than insight, I need support. This is for you. Your ADHD brain is not broken. It just never came with a map. That is why I created you'd ADHD Brain is a okay academy. It's my patented step by step framework to help you build a life that finally fits how your brain works. Ready to get started? Click the link in the show notes to sign up or book a free discovery call with me now. On with the show. Richard Branson, Michael Phelps, Justin Timberlake, James Carville. Wait a minute. Where are the women? Greta Gerwig, Lisa Ling, Audra McDonald, Simone Biles. That sounds like a list of highly successful titans in a variety of industries. They all have adhd, but you don't hear much about that now, do you? You know what else you don't hear about are the 43% of people with ADHD who are in excellent mental health. Why aren't we talking about them and what they are doing? I'm your host, Tracy Adsuka, and that's exactly what we do here. I'm a lawyer, not a doctor, a lifelong student, and now the author of my new book, ADHD for Smartass Women. I'm also a certified ADHD coach and the creator of youf ADHD Brain is aok, a patented system that helps ADHD women just like you get unstuck and fall in love with their brilliant brains. Here we embrace our too muchness and we focus on our strengths. My guests and I credit our ADHD for some of our greatest gifts. And to those who still think they're too much, too impulsive, too scattered, too disorganized, I say no one ever made a difference by being too little. Hello, hello, hello. I am your host, Tracy Otsuka. Thank you so much for joining me here for another episode of ADHD for Smartass Women. You know that my purpose is is always to show you who you are and then inspire you to be it. In the thousands of ADHD women that I've had the privilege of meeting, I have never met one, not one that wasn't truly brilliant at something. So of course I am just delighted to introduce you to Dr. Nodira Kusainova. Dr. Nodira KusainovA is the CEO and co founder of Focus Space, a body doubling platform that includes a built in community of creatives, business owners, artists and freelancers, many of whom have ADHD. Before Focus Space, Dr. Kusayanova was an early co founder at Streamlit, a widely used AI developer tool and led the experimentation team at Twitter. Dr. Kusyanova holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Washington. Outside of work, she loves hip hop dancing, wandering around aimlessly with her curious two year old, Noor, and reading books like her life and sanity depends on it. Welcome, Dr. Nodira. Did I get all of that right? I'm just going to call you Nodira, if that's okay.
- [03:41]
B
Yes, please do. That's what I go by. Yes, that was. Thank you so much, Tracy, for that intro.
- [03:48]
A
We have literally, this has just been the biggest joke for our regular listeners. I made the brilliant decision to move from six and a half acres in the country to San Francisco, thinking, oh, we're going to do the complete opposite. We were thinking we'd get a building, we'd have a nice view, you know, everybody would be happy. My husband and I would have to do nothing. Well, we got here and the market is hell. And so we're living in temporary housing in the middle of the civic center. And this morning I'm getting ready. This is our first episode that we're recording in this space. I've got two dogs underneath my feet. It's hotter than hell here because I think you're in Oakland, right?
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B
Yeah, it's hot today.
- [04:34]
A
It's all windows. So I'm just in this inferno, trying to do the stuff I normally do this morning. At night we're recording at 10:30, or supposed to. At 10:00', clock, all of a sudden the fire alarms go off. They're testing the fire alarms and it went on for 15 minutes and I thought for sure I was going to have to cancel on you. So it's just been, I can't handle this anymore. But I am so delighted that you're here and I am looking forward to talk all about you and focus space. So I'm just delighted that you're here. Can we talk about your ADHD diagnoses first?
- [05:15]
B
Yeah, for sure. I guess I want to kind of start by telling you where I was at when I first started this company. Right. So when I was first starting focus space, yeah, I was pretty uninformed about adhd. Right. So like many people, my impression of ADHD was the hyperactive type, high energy, disruptive, all of that. And that. Yeah, that did not. I was like, that's not, that's not me. Like, I see it and I don't think that's me. But, you know, I started this company because I was genuinely struggling with focus, with getting things done. And I think a lot of ADHD folks will relate to this. Like, I was always like, if I could just hone in and focus. I loved it. I love working. I love it when I can really get into a flow state. Right. I get so much joy out of it. But it was just getting harder and harder to get into that state. And at that time, at the start, I assumed everyone felt this way. It's like, oh, everyone must feel this way. But, you know, we're a few years in now. I understand that not everyone feels that way. And I've also noticed that a lot of people that get excited about focus, space, and body doubling and everything that we're building are neurodivergent, unsurprisingly. Right. You know, now we're a few years into building it. I've been working with a neurodivergent team. I've been. I've at this point had hundreds of conversations with neurodivergent, mostly ADHD women. A lot are late diagnosed, unsurprisingly. And over these years, I've just been like, hold on a second. Do I have adhd? And I'm still kind of in that space, like, you know, looking at some of my challenges, but also my strengths too, right? Like, I need very specific conditions to get work done. Like, I created a whole company around it. I have a really hard time getting started on tasks that are even, like, a little bit hard. Even if I love it, it's still like, if it's a little bit hard, I try to do something easier. I don't believe in following rules. I built a whole company around this. So I was like, maybe that's not a coincidence. And I'm still kind of hanging out in that space of not quite knowing at this stage.
- [07:36]
A
So you haven't been diagnosed?
- [07:38]
B
I have not been diagnosed. Yeah. Right.
- [07:41]
A
You know, we have a rule interview women who have been diagnosed with adhd. And I think it's just the shit show that is my life right now that these questions have not been answered. Because typically I just did an interview, and I'm so glad I did it with a woman who basically has rewritten the rules of how to learn, and she has a lot of ADHD in her family, but. And as I'm talking to her, I'm like, you're so adhd and, you know, I can't diagnose you, obviously, but you're so adhd. And we really sat and thought, oh, my God, do I do this interview? Do I not do this interview? And I'm so glad I did the interview, and I broke my rule. And so this is the second time in a row we're just going to do it and we're going to assume. So I am curious, and of course, I can't diagnose you, but I can ask a lot of questions. What you were like as a child.
- [08:38]
B
Yeah, that's. That's a great starting point, Tracy. Let me add, like, one more thing about coming in here and being undiagnosed. Like, I've been listening to your podcast for a while now, and I'm like, there must be other women who are listening that are hanging out in this unknown, right? That are wondering, look, I have these challenges. Is this adhd? So I was like, you know what? I think that would, like, Nadira from a year ago would have appreciated an interview like this where someone is actually talking openly about this process. And I'm so, so grateful to have had the chance to really introspect and to really put some of these pieces together. So thank you for even just. We're just starting the chat, but even the process of getting ready bit has been really powerful.
- [09:28]
A
Okay, so tell me what you were like as a child. And what I will offer to you is if what I have noticed with women, especially women that are traditionally successful, once they start doing the research and they're like, oh, this sounds like me. And this sounds like me. But it's so unexpected because we are led to believe that if you have adhd, you're a disaster, your life is a disaster, you know, emotionally, you know, dysregulated all the time. You can't possibly be building a company and going through all this education and have all these degrees. And doctors, clinicians who specialize in ADHD will tell that will say that to women at times. So I am curious about your childhood.
- [10:11]
B
So I was born in Uzbekistan. We. I grew up there until the age of six, and then we moved to the US and age six to nine, I was here, learned English here, etc. And then I actually grew up mostly in New Zealand. So that's where most of my childhood was. I didn't see any of the ADHD symptoms in childhood. I was like, okay, look, I'm doing fine in school. Again, traditional textbook stuff. I'm doing fine in school. But guess what? There's a lot of structure and support and accountability in school. Right? Things are well defined. The systems are in place.
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A
And I bet your parents also provided a hell of a lot of structure.
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B
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Both parents and school and just the whole community. And then I was thinking about the masking side of things, too. I was like, I've been masking my whole life as an immigrant. You're masking all the time. You're in this new culture, you're trying to fit in. You're trying. You're watching all the, like, social interactions and being like, okay, I got to act this way and act that way. So, like, ADHD was nowhere on my radar because I was so busy masking all the time being an immigrant. Right. Like, trying to adapt to the situation.
- [11:23]
A
And probably you never even thought it could be something else because you're thinking, oh, it's my experience because I'm an immigrant, I'm already different. Right. And.
- [11:32]
B
Exactly, exactly, exactly. And I think, you know, schooling was pretty smooth. College, I. I started college at the age of 14. I maybe slide number one of ADHD, I found. So for a while, I did a few courses at the university, kind of informally, and after a few computer science classes, I was like, you know what? I love this. I want to jump right in. But of course, I didn't. I hadn't finished high school yet. I hadn't. I didn't have a high school diploma. There was no way I could get it. But I read through the rule book, and there was one loophole.
- [12:12]
A
So ADHD, sorry, Madeira at 14. Because you're so bored with school and you know what you're interested in.
- [12:20]
B
Like, you know what? I found this loophole that was designed for older adults that were coming back to get a bachelor's degree, and guess what? They didn't have an age requirement. So I was like, this is the. This is the path. And so I got the support I needed to figure that out. Obviously, I didn't do that on my own either, but. And that's how I started college at 14 and then focused deeply in computer science. In New Zealand, there isn't, like, a breath requirement, so I'm like, very, very specialized, which is so great. It is, yeah. Specialization is great. I, you know, I've been filling in the gaps for the breadth of education, too, but that's coming with time. Finish university and then. No, everything I describe is going to be very. And then I really wanted. I wanted to do my PhD because I was like, this is what I'm interested in. I feel too young to enter the workforce at this point because I'm, like, finishing my degree at 16, 17.
- [13:21]
A
Wait a minute, you started at 14 and you're finishing at 16? 17.
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B
It was very fast. Yeah.
- [13:27]
A
No wonder all the ADHD. No wonder it's missed in that kind of. Because you're, you're doing right. And drivenness is a form of hyperactivity.
- [13:38]
B
Exactly, exactly. And at that point I, I very, I had a very specific research interest which was around large scale data management and making sense of data and all that. So I reached out to a bunch of professors at top universities. Hey, I'm 17 and live in New Zealand. Do you want to work with me? So I ended up coming to the US to do like an internship at Microsoft Research that then turned into, then staying here and doing my PhD at the University of Washington again. One of my advisors was the author of my favorite textbook that I really liked. And then a new professor that was amazing as well. And again there like I managed to like figure out how to enter without. There's a lot of finding loopholes and finding my way in. I applied after the application deadline. I managed. Yeah,
- [14:42]
A
Let's pause here. Have you spent your whole life being told your way is the wrong way? If you try to use systems designed for a neurotypical brain, of course you'll feel like you're failing. But here's the truth. You were never the problem. You just have a different brain, which means you need different systems. That is exactly why I created the AOK Academy. It's my six step patented framework designed to help you reconnect with your intuition and build systems based on your unique strengths. Let me help you reconnect with your intuition, trust yourself again and build a life that actually works for you. You've had the answers all along. I'll help you see them. Look, it's time to stop second guessing and start trusting yourself again. Find the link in the show notes to sign up or book a free discovery call. Now let's get back to it. So, so creative and always figuring out a way if it's something you're really interested in. So what happens when you're not interested? Is there anything you're not good at?
- [16:05]
B
There's so many things I'm not good at. But the thing I want to say is like I think the PhD was really the starting point where I started, started to struggle because suddenly you lose the structure. You're working on your own. Everything you're working on is incredibly difficult and open ended questions. And that's, that's when the real struggle began. And when I look back on, I'm like oh, like you know, I finished my PhD. I published papers and top conferences. But all of those, all of that work happened in bursts. This is where I'M like, this feels really like there is one weekend where I hyper focused and, you know, wrote out a prototype and built some software. And I was like, this is, this is a third of my thesis. Like, there's just these bursts of work that happens and then the rest of it is just struggling. Right. Just staring at the wall, scrolling the Internet. This is even before social media, like, scrolling whatever I can find. Craigslist, shopping, like, whatever. And I think that's. Yeah, the ADHD really showed up during the PhD process. And I think that's like, when I look at focus space, I'm like, this is what I needed during grad school. Desperately needed.
- [17:26]
A
I think it's Kathleen Nadeau who was talking about PhD programs, and I think it was. She was the one who made the comment that, you know, abd. Is that what it's called? All but dissertation. People who go, you know, I don't know, nine years in, and then they cannot do the dissertation. That she really thinks most of those people have ADHD because literally all the structure falls away and you need to create it.
- [17:53]
B
Exactly, exactly. Because at the beginning of your PhD you might be in classes, so there's a little bit more structure, but the further in you go, like, I'm working out of coffee shops, I'm working from home, I am working alone a lot of the time. So.
- [18:12]
A
Okay, so before we go into focus space, I want to hear a little bit more about your trajectory. And I'm especially fascinated. So just, just a little bit a tidbit. Of course, we don't have parking here in this building. So we're parking two blocks over in the Twitter building. And every time we end up in the Twitter building, you know, to go get our car, we're like, I wonder what this space was like in its heyday, you know, when it was actually a good company and well run.
- [18:42]
B
Yeah, yeah. So I worked. Yeah, whenever I say I worked at Twitter, I was like, during the good period or the better period, you know, where we really thought we were building something good for the world. Yeah. So I worked at Twitter for six years. I started right after my PhD and then I grew to lead the experimentation team at Twitter.
- [19:05]
A
And what do you do when you're in the experimentation team?
- [19:08]
B
Yeah. So this is where it gets interesting. I'm going to just dive into the technical stuff, Tracy, and ask questions along the way. Every new feature or improvement or feature change that happens at most tech companies before, you know, we build them internally and then before we. Are you familiar? Before we ship them, before we Release them to the world. What happens is we run an experiment first. So, for example, maybe you have a new ranking algorithm for the Trends team. I was on the Trends team for a long time. And now you've built it, you want to release it to everybody. Well, you don't release it to everybody first. What you do is you do a little experiment where you release it to, say, 1% of Twitter users, and then you take another 1% control group, basically just like a science experiment. And then you watch these users and you ask the questions like, are they more engaged on Twitter? Are they spending more time on Twitter? Are they? You know, because as a. As an app, the goal is to get people to spend as much time as possible on the app. And at the time, I'm like, oh, this is so cool. It's experimental. We're, like, trying out new things. You know, technically, it's very, very, like, interesting and cool. And we, like, rebuilt the whole experimentation team from scratch, or platform from scratch. And it was a really, really exciting time. And now looking back on it, I'm like, oh, we were spending, like, I spent years of my life trying to get people to stick around and spend more time on Twitter.
- [20:45]
A
Yeah. And your instance now is Focus space.
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B
Exactly. It's the exact opposite. Right. Like my co founder, actually, Justin, he's our chief technology officer, he was my first boss at Twitter. So something he used to say is he was like, oh, yeah, we're kind of just rebuilding our karma. We spent years stealing people's attention, and now we're giving people's attention back.
- [21:11]
A
The key there, though, is you know how to take away their attention. Right. You know how to hook them on stuff that does not serve them. And so you would be even better than doing the opposite.
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B
Exactly. We understand. Yeah, the hook. The hooking mechanisms to keep people scrolling. And I think a lot of tech companies are built this way. Right. And at Focus Space, our main goal is to stop everyone from scrolling, get intentional about what you actually want to do with your time, and then kind of provide the scaffolding and the systems in order to support you in doing that.
- [21:53]
A
I mean, if you think about social media, every single damn one of them, the goal is to keep you on there as long as you they possibly can.
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B
Exactly, exactly. Because they're all free for members. Right. So they're making all their money from paid ads, so they want to keep you scrolling and seeing as many ads as possible.
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A
It's so disgusting. And I think about little kids, and I'm sure you've Read the book Anna Lemke's Dopamine Nation and what actually physically is happening to our brains. And so I want to know what prompted, oh, I'm going to do the Antichrist.
- [22:36]
B
Yeah. I think for me it all started from, you know, my own struggle. I was just like, it was this balance of deeply enjoying the process of creativity and deep thinking and deep work and at the same time struggling to get there. And at the time, the way I would explain focus space was, hey, look, like society has made it harder for us to focus. Which is true. It's true. Like social media keeps us scrolling. Our work culture even is very interruption driven. Slack channels, emails, etc. So it's really, really hard to carve out space. Looking back on it now, I'm like, oh, there's also my own personal struggle too. It's not just, it's not just society. And I desperately wanted a place where you could go where you knew you would get the thing done. Whether that's, you know, the email you've been struggling to send for a couple of weeks or outlining a big project that you're going to work on. Right. And I kind of did the opposite, Tracy, of what most tech advice is, which is to build the minimum viable product. I was like, you know what, what would be the best version of this? I kind of built like the maximum, it doesn't make sense, but the maximum viable product. I was like, the best. Yeah, I was just like the best version of this. And this is someone who's coming from. I've tried hundreds of different productivity hacks. I've tried so many systems, I've tried so many experiments. I'm very experiment driven.
- [24:13]
A
Well, and there are, there are body doubling platforms. I mean, we've used them, we actually have a room in one of them for adhd, for smart ass women. Until guys would show up and expose themselves and like there were just all kinds of weird stuff and we were just like, I don't know about this.
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B
So.
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A
But it was literally just you show up, you work with someone else. So tell us how focus made is different. Focus space, not focus.
- [24:44]
B
I was like, oh, I can tell you how focus mate is different from us too. We can get there too. But I think like the heart of what we built started from this experiment where I was like, what's the best version of this? And the best version was one on one. You meet with one person and you talk through, hey, here's kind of what I want to accomplish. It was in person, it made zero business Sense. But I really wanted to create the best version of the experience. So we kind of had our golden standard that we were aiming for, right? We actually had two locations, one very close to where you are now. One was in San Francisco and one was in Oakland. We started in person. Yeah, we started in person. People would come meet with one one of us and just set goals, do a three breath meditation and start and then be entered into the focus room where they would work and we would come in physically and check in on them.
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A
So how could you afford to do that?
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B
You can't, you can't. You can do it for a short period of time and then you stop. And ultimately, you know, we went online. It started really as a passion project. We went online and I was like, you know what? One, we're doing more than just helping people be more productive. They're, you know, they're getting their dream jobs, they're quitting jobs that aren't serving them, they're publishing books, et cetera. And at that point I was like, I want to bring on some co founders. So this is where I reached out to Alexis Hope, who's now my co founder, and Justin, who's a co founder as well. And I was like, do you want to take this and build it out for real? Like build out the best possible version of this. And I think there are a few things we do differently from what you were saying earlier. The first one is it's completely human centered. So there is an expert host in every room where you come to body double that's actually facilitating the session. So they're saying, hey, welcome into this space in the chat. Like share what you're working on. They'll do, you know, they'll do some icebreakers at the beginning too. Like how's everybody feeling today? Or like the other day there was like a grid of nine different like sloth faces and they were like, tag yourself. Just like fun and games and making it playful and helping people engage. So that's number one is just this facilitation and I think that's so, so important. And two, the body doubling is paired with goal setting tools. So we're like, okay, what are your goals for the day? Like, what are your top three to five goals? We have a hard limit on five. What are your. When do you think you want to tackle these goals? Like, does it actually fit into your schedule? Let's estimate how long this will take. So it's really this magic of pairing these live facilitated sessions with actual goals that you want to accomplish for the day. And I think that hand in hand creates kind of the magic and the power of what we're building.
- [27:45]
A
Yeah. So it sounds like the difference is that it's not you just going into a room with one individual person and deciding what you're gonna do. And then after the 50 minutes is up, you come back and you say, okay, I did this. And then you move on this sound. And that's why you don't have the problems that I think.
- [28:05]
B
Exactly. It's a facilitated safe space. And I think that's really, really important. Yeah, I mean, we get people coming from Focus Mate, for example, doing the one on one stuff, and they're like, look, it was good 90% of the time, but like 10% of the time I got someone that I didn't feel safe with, that I didn't feel comfortable with. And I think you need to feel safe in a space where you want to be fully creative and.
- [28:29]
A
Well, and isn't that the whole deal that we, especially with an ADHD brain, if we try to do anything we don't want to do, it's all emotion.
- [28:38]
B
Right.
- [28:38]
A
It's not that we can't do it. We know what we're supposed to do. So the key really is what you're saying, making it fun, making it, you know, so that it's just less painful and so you feel more positive emotion. And then your prefrontal cortex comes back online. Right. And you can do the things.
- [28:58]
B
Exactly. And. Exactly. And the fun aspect is like, I think about this. The fun aspect was really brought in by Alexis Hope, who's my co founder. Because, you know, I came into it from, like, I have a PhD in computer science. I came into it from a very systems approach. Right. I was like, okay, what are the conditions people need to be productive? Like, how do we set up that environment so that people can protect space for deep work? So I was really trying to remove distractions and create this container. And then Alexis came in and she was like, it's missing a piece, it's missing joy. It's missing joy. We're not just removing distractions. We're creating a space where people feel joy and not in the like, you know, be happy all the time, be positive way, but not, not in a passive way, but in this active way where, you know, joy is like, it's the capacity to act. It's the capacity to actually live fully in the moment, experience and feel the struggle too, but actually feel engaged and energized enough to, to move along. And I Think that's such a key part of what we're building is joy and play. It's so important. And that's like, you know, in our sessions, but also in our team culture, we now have a team of, I think, 20 folks. So that's a core piece of our team culture as well. Just play and joy in these spaces. I think that was, like, a big lesson learned.
- [30:31]
A
Yeah, absolutely. Do you know Dr. Christine Lee? She's a procrastination coach. She's a psychologist, a really good friend of mine. And what she has always said is, in order to do well, you need to feel good. Which is exactly what you're talking about. Right. All this negative resistance. Well, resistance is always negative. But all this negative energy and negative emotion, no wonder it's so hard to start.
- [31:00]
B
Exactly, exactly. Like, joy is not the reward we get at the end of finishing a task. Right. It's kind of the fuel you need to get started and get going, to
- [31:10]
A
just start taking action. Because we work backwards. Right. We are. We're not motivated. We need to get into action and then we get motivated.
- [31:19]
B
Yeah, exactly. We can't just, like, push our way through it, you know? Yeah.
- [31:23]
A
Okay, so I have a big question for you that I've been dying to ask. So when I did my first podcast episode, this was, oh, I don't know, seven years ago, more than seven years ago, I think, on body doubling. I remember doing the research and trying to figure out the science behind why does it work. And I kept reading that, yeah, it totally works, but we don't really know why. Is there more research around this or maybe some actual research that tells us why this works?
- [31:54]
B
Right, right. There is, you know, there's a few different elements of why it works. One, the one I care about the most. No, there's so many. One is that it helps with task initiation. Right. So basically, one of the biggest challenges that we have is the ability to just get started. And by body doubling, what we're doing is basically. I mean, you're familiar with it, but we're basically. When you're surrounded by people that are focused and in the zone, it's much easier to get started because of something called mirroring. Basically, as human beings, we tend to mirror the behavior of those around us. So guess what? You're in a room full of people that are, like, focused and working. It's going to be much, much easier to get started. So I think that's one big aspect. I think there's still, like. What was I gonna say? There's Still a lot of research that can and should get done in this space too, especially for virtual body doubling, I think is fairly not super well studied at this point. And I would love to see more of that. And hopefully we can, you know, we have, I'm like, we have PhDs, we can do research. Hopefully we have capacity to do some of that research, maybe collaborating with a university. So if anyone's listening in an academic and wants to, to do this, please reach out. The other aspect is just the accountability. Right. So there's a human being in the room. You're much more likely to actually show up and you're much more likely to actually put aside kind of the distractions and do the work that you intended to do. And I think that's. And I think there's some research around, like accountability appointments. So if you know. Yeah, if you know what you need to do and you have a time and a place that you're going to do it, you're that much more likely to accomplish the goal versus if you didn't. And I think that number was like 90% more likely to actually accomplish.
- [33:54]
A
If it's because you're shutting down the emotion, you're much more likely to just shut it down. You're not ruminating or making it worse right. Around how you don't want to do this thing. And it is a little bit like that. Okay, I'm just going to get into action. I'm just going to get out of my head and get into my body. Right. And do.
- [34:14]
B
Right, right, right. And I think there's a lot of power in just actually deciding what you're going to work on too, especially as an entrepreneur. This is something I struggle with. There's like 10 different things I can do today that will actually move the needle for the company. Right. And sometimes you can get into a state of like, not actually deciding and then committing to that decision for the day. So I think when you join a body doubling session or you body double with someone explicitly stating, first deciding and then stating what you're going to do is incredibly powerful too.
- [34:51]
A
Okay, so that's a perfect segue for. I want you to talk about this idea that neurotypicals teach us that you're supposed to have a to do list with 100 things on it. And then if you only finish eight of them in a day, which I think eight. Finishing eight things is usually a pretty darn good day that you're a failure. Right. And that is not how our system works.
- [35:13]
B
Yeah, yeah. The, the first, the first Thing we tell you to do is to throw out your to do list. Don't throw it out, just put it aside. Because I think just looking at your to do list is a source of overwhelm and stress and just like, it's a big cognitive load, I guess, a little bit more context. In addition to like the more traditional body doubling sessions we have where you come in and work alongside other people, the other big thing we have that's incredibly popular within our community are these 15 minute morning planning calls. Basically you come in, you set goals for the day, you make a game plan for those goals, you do a short three breath meditation, very approachable. Not, we're not doing a ten minute meditation here. And then you get started in your day. And that process of actually deciding, here are my top three to five goals for the day is so, so powerful because it removes, you know, the cognitive load of having to decide later. You're kind of just setting yourself up for an easier day by making those decisions in advance. And there's definitely been pushback, you know, from our members that are like, can I add, I have 10 things on my to do list. Can I add these? Why won't this let me add more than five goals? But that rule is very strict and that's of course backed by neuroscience research too. Like, you're going to be much more likely to accomplish your goals if you get clear on what they are and define and an achievable success.
- [36:54]
A
Because then you will actually feel successful. Instead of like, if you only said five and you accomplish all five, it's like, whoa, I'm fantastic. Versus if I have 100 and I did five, I'm a total loser.
- [37:07]
B
Exactly, exactly. And I actually want to tell you a story of how we got there. We used to, you know, very early on we were like, okay, there's a lot of entrepreneurs in our community. So I got on a call with like 20 or 30 folks and I talk through their day. What are your biggest challenges, blah, blah, blah. And the most common problem I heard was about that feeling at the end of the day, I feel like I can't finish at the end of the day, there's always more to do. I don't feel a sense of accomplishment or relief. I don't know how to stop and like, close down, you know, my computer and move on with my day. And for like a month or two, we're like, okay, this is the biggest problem. We have to solve this end of day feeling. And we started with the end of the day. So I would ask them, hey, what time do you want to finish work? 6:00pm okay, cool. I would personally be texting with these entrepreneurs saying, hey, you were planning to finish at 6pm how's it going? It wasn't going well. It was never going well. Exactly, exactly. And then I was like, okay, they said, 6pm I'll check in at 4pm hey, we're reaching the end of the day. Like, how's it going? That was still not early enough. And then I realized, hold on. Everyone feels horrible at the end of the day because they did not have clarity at the beginning of the day of what success looks like. And I think that's. That was our key insight. And that's when those morning, like, planning calls were born for that specific need.
- [38:35]
A
Especially with an ADHD brain, we have this really unrealistic idea of what success actually does look like. And I think it's because we're so inconsistent. Right? We can have one day where we get more done than most people get done in a week. And so. But then we may have the next two days where we're just not getting as much done, but we're beating ourselves up because we didn't get as much done. And I always say, look at your week or look at your month. Don't look at your individual day. And so I'm curious how, for those entrepreneurs, how did you get them to the point where they did start feel feeling successful at the end of the
- [39:20]
B
day by forcing them to make those decisions at the beginning of the day by saying, hey, I know there's 20 things on your to do list, but what's going to move the needle? What do you have capacity to do today? Like, look at your calendar. Look at how you're feeling. Take a moment to make those decisions at the top of the day so that you can actually have a sense of accomplishment at the end. And the nice thing, one thing that we realized there, too, was, you know, as an entrepreneur, there are always a bunch of fires that you have to handle throughout the day. Right? Cool. I'm gonna work on these three amazing tasks. They're gonna move the needle. Oh, it's, you know, 3pm and all I've done is deal with fires. But the really nice thing is when you have set out your day with goals in mind, you know that you're making that decision, and it's an intentional decision. Hey, this is what I set out to do. These fires happened. That's okay because I know, like, you have more awareness of the. Of the pros and Cons of fighting this fire versus working on that goal. And you made an explicit decision. And even then it feels good because does that make sense? You have like an understanding of why you made that decision? Yeah.
- [40:37]
A
And it's like sometimes I don't know if you feel like this. There is so much to do and it's the decision making that is the biggest problem. And so the minute you get it all out on paper, A brain dump. You get it all out on paper and then you stop long enough to make the decision of wait a minute, what are the most important items for today? Because we're always running out. We never feel like we're doing enough. I always feel like there's more. And it's this weird thing where we love to work. Right. And especially if we're in an area of interest. But it's really not fun to always be working when you always feel like you're behind.
- [41:24]
B
Right, right. That feeling. Yeah. Yeah. And what you were saying earlier, Tracy, about that, like, you know, we have some days where we produce so much and do so much and then you have your. The rest of the days. I feel like that's something I've really been internalizing just as a person the last couple of years and really learning because I'm a new mom. I have like a two year old. There is so. It's so fun. It's so fun. But yeah, better. It's. Oh my God, it's. There's just so much play and curiosity and it's wonderful. But what it means is, you know, before I used to have some control of my capacity to some extent. Right. But now I'm like, cool, I just slept two hours and somehow I have to operate today and really coming to terms with that and learning to kind of plan for a high capacity day versus a low capacity day and recognizing very quickly in the morning, hey, today is not it. Like what's the bare minimum? Let's try to get that done. And we'll have to the higher impact that bigger project. They have to wait for tomorrow, hopefully.
- [42:38]
A
I'm curious because I mean you're someone who went to college, did you say at 14 and then graduated at 16 or 17 and then started PhD. Obviously you are really driven. It seems like everything you've done, you've also really enjoyed. So work is. You're not only good at it, but it's fun for you. How did having noor really change what you valued and now think is important?
- [43:10]
B
That's such a good question. I actually think that at the Very beginning when he was first born, I think for a while I was like, he. For a while I was like, this is the most important thing. I don't know what I was thinking about my career first, like six months, right. This is, you know, this is what I want to do with my time. This is so much fun, it's heart filling, etc. And then as I slept more and started kind of rediscovering myself as a full human being, I reconnected kind of with the purpose of our work. And I think that's. That's the thing that's changed, is that I now feel more connected to the impact we're having on the world than ever before. Because I want to create a future that supports human beings and human creativity and, you know, that feels. Yeah, sometimes I feel like we're, you know, one of the last supportive, inspiring communities on the Internet. Right. Like, I think it's the importance and the heart of what we're doing feels so much stronger for me than ever before. And that was definitely a transition.
- [44:32]
A
Do you find that among your colleagues, like, you know, people you've worked with at all these tech companies, is there really a push for more value centered business entrepreneurship? Or is most of it just this private equity leave with a billion dollars work these ungodly hours? We were in north beach the other day. It was a Sunday. I walked into this coffee shop. I actually took a picture. I was so aghast. It was Sunday morning, and I walked into this coffee shop and it was wall to wall young people on their computers working, and nobody was talking to anybody. They were all working. And I was actually surprised that the coffee shop allowed that because, you know, I just, I mean, I'm a workaholic. I love to work, but I could not believe that, you know, they were so young and that is their entire life.
- [45:37]
B
So. Yeah.
- [45:38]
A
Are you rare?
- [45:40]
B
I think we are rare. But there are communities of people like us that are values driven that are, you know, looking at the impact that our work is actually having on society and on people beyond. Just, let's get people to spend more money on or let's get. Let's get people to spend more time on the app too. Right. Like, we're. We actually want to solve a real problem and we want to help people live more fulfilling, intentional, creative lives. Tracy, this actually reminds me of, like, one of the reasons I reached out to you was that basically as a company, we've done. We were doing some things kind of traditionally in terms of growth and marketing, so we were like, okay, we're writing blog posts, we're posting to social media. We're running paid ads on Meta and Google. Meta being Facebook and Instagram, all of that. And late last year, I was like, this feels wrong. Like, in terms of our values, I don't want to be spending money on these platforms. I understand we have to exist on them so that people can find us, but I do not want us to be spending money on these platforms. Like, yes, for, like, whatever their political values and the mismatches there, but also just purely in terms of, like, hey, we're a company that's trying to give people their attention back. These are companies that are not. They're trying to steal it. Like, even purely from that standpoint, we did. It just felt wrong. And at that point, I talked with the team and I said, hey, let's figure out a different way. What if we reached out to our community and we said, hey, what we really want to do is we want to work with people that you trust and are learning from and respect and love, whether that's on social media or podcasts or book authors, like, tell us who they are. It ended up being an amazing business decision, too. But at the time, it was a scary decision because I was just like, let's turn off. We're going to turn off the. Our ad spend by 90% and just completely pivot. It's. It's a little scary, but it felt like the right move. Our community came back with so much love. People were filling out this survey and spending, like, 30 minutes each on this survey. I'm like, you guys, thank you. And then your name came up several times. So I was like, okay, I need to reach out to Tracy. I need to talk to her. But it ended up being such a beautiful move because now what we're doing is we're working with. We're building relationships and working with individuals, small businesses, people who have values that are aligned with ours. And the consequences have just been, like, on the business side, even the consequences have been amazing. Like, I'm a metrics girl, so let me tell you some metrics. Like, even so, for example, for focus space, we have. We have like, a trial period, and then it becomes, like, a paid product after the fact. Our conversion from trial members to paid members basically, like, doubled our conversion rate, which is wild. People that join us because people are coming in from a place of trust. People are. We're finding the right people that are committed, Right? We're working with a lot of ADHD coaches, educators, experts, like it's coming from a place of trust and people who are already investing in themselves. And I think that's really important. Our churn has basically halved, like, so people stick around with us for longer. It's values. Do the things that match your values. Yeah, well.
- [49:35]
A
And you're probably, you're getting to the people who like you were struggling with the same thing. So they're actually your people.
- [49:44]
B
Exactly, exactly. That are actually. Exactly.
- [49:48]
A
So I'm curious, what did you have to unlearn from working in tech in order to build something like focus space that protects people's attention instead of exploiting it? I mean, did you start out kind of like most of these companies? You know what you learn there and have to really pivot, or was it not that big of a deal?
- [50:09]
B
I think the biggest lesson learned over the years that was kind of an unlearning is the power of compassion and self compassion. And I think in the tech space, especially as a software engineer where I'm surrounded Most, it's like 10% women, 90% men. I came from this world where again, a case of masking. Right. I came from this world where I was like, I got this, I'm tough. Like, this is what leadership looks like. It's being confident and tough and being really intense and that hustle culture of
- [50:49]
A
it all within work with your colleagues. Was it a pretty even split as far as men and women or. No. So what would that percentage look like?
- [51:00]
B
10%? 90%. 10% woman, 90%.
- [51:04]
A
Oh, my heavens. Okay.
- [51:06]
B
And this is like, this is early in my career too. The numbers get worse as you go. Sure. Higher up. Right? That's. Yeah, that's like PhD, PhD program was like 30%, which is, you know, at the time I was like, wow, this is so bad. But then going into the industry, I'm like, oh, actually these numbers are good.
- [51:29]
A
That's insane. I mean, this is exactly why need more women in positions of power. Building businesses, leading corporations at the top, you know, echelons of government. I'm sorry. Men have had the reins long enough and they by and large have proven they don't know what they're doing. And they're killing our world and our country and our.
- [51:49]
B
So, yeah, I know.
- [51:51]
A
And so the entrepreneurs that you know that are female, are they when they're going out there and starting companies, are they typically values driven companies?
- [52:03]
B
That's a great question. I think, I think the people I found that are values driven, it's not cleanly split across gender. I think some people are Just more values driven and others are out to make a buck, grow and scale and make a buck.
- [52:18]
A
Which there's nothing wrong with making a buck. There's nothing wrong. You should make a buck and then some.
- [52:24]
B
Absolutely, absolutely. Wait, Tracy, let me share a more horrific number with you, which is so. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So we're a tech company and as a, you know, we have gone and raised money, venture capital money as well. Of all the venture capital that goes to woman founded companies. 2%. 2. It's 2%. And if you're a black founder, it's like 0.4%. These numbers are horrific. And they haven't changed. The sad thing is they haven't changed over the last 10 years.
- [53:11]
A
Dei.
- [53:13]
B
Who needs dei? Oh my gosh. And you know, we haven't touched on the topic of AI yet, but it is something I think about a lot. I spoke on a panel on it in San Francisco earlier this week. It makes me nervous in a lot of ways, and we can talk about that. But one aspect of AI that is exciting to me is that basically founders are requiring less capital. And this is very tech founder focused. But tech founders are requiring a lot less capital to build out the teams and the products they need because of AI. Right. So they no longer need as much capital from venture capitalists and investors, which I actually think might be an amazing way to kind of level the playing field. Because if suddenly you need less capital, if women are only getting 2%, suddenly you're kind of removing the gatekeepers and the biases from this process. And this is a very optimistic viewpoint, but I'm very, very excited about it. This is something I think I. There was a. There's a woman called Leslie Feinsig. She's an investor in Seattle, one of the good ones, and she's been talking about this for a while. But I truly believe that that's like, that's one of the most exciting angles. In addition to basically also democratizing access to building technology too. I think if more people can build technology, that means we're going to create products, hopefully by people who understand their population that understand the problems they're trying to solve versus this removed population of tech people that can solve problems. Suddenly we give the problem, we give the power to more folks to be able to build these solutions. So I'm very. Yeah. Excited about that angle.
- [55:18]
A
Are you as worried? Well, that's hopeful. So I love hearing that. Are you as worried about AI and human civilization as, you know, I mean, I remember when the World Wide Web was first Coming up and everybody was. And I'm thinking of real estate in general. You're not going to need a realtor. You're just going to be able to go in there and just do it all yourself online. Well, that proved to be a big goose egg. Right. And so I am wondering if a lot of this doom and gloom around AI isn't really true. I mean, I tend to be an optimist. Right. I'm always looking for the best in people and certainly companies. Although I don't know about that one.
- [56:01]
B
Yeah, I am worried. I'm sorry, I kind of.
- [56:08]
A
And you have a two year old.
- [56:10]
B
I know, I'm worried. I, you know, there are optimistic sides of it. I'm worried about, you know, the redefinition of jobs. I'm worried and job loss. I'm worried about our ability to truly think and make sense of the world. And this isn't even something to be worried about because it's already happening. I am angry that, you know, these AI companies are stealing work from artists and then regenerating it and selling it effectively right through subscriptions to these products. There are a lot of aspects that I'm worried about. At the same time I'm also excited about some of the potential, you know, the democratization of access to being able to build things. I'm excited about like even personally, like it helps me get past being stuck just on a day to day. Right. It's actually an amazing tool as well. And we hear that a lot in our community as well. Like hey, here are the ways that it's, you know, I've been stuck on this project for a while. I worked with my LLM and I got unstuck. Right. So there's this balance between, it unlocks some things. It, I think it is going to get in the way of creativity too. But if you are more intentional about how you use it, it can also fuel it. So I'm confused and worried and excited all at the same time. And I think I'm coming from a place where like, you know, I kind of live in two circles. One is the tech world. And I, as you're saying, like, I think there's a lot of excitement there. Look at what we can build. We can build this for so much cheaper. Look at all these companies that have like 20 employees and are making a hundred mil. In AR, like, you know, in AR there's that side and then the other circle I live in is like creatives and artists and people that are angry about what's being built and it feels really, really separate. And slowly I'm starting to realize that, like, hey, I live in both these circles. I need to help people connect the dots. But just more generally, everybody needs to connect the dots. These conversations need to happen across these two different groups. If you're an entrepreneur, I think it is your responsibility to understand the impact of the work that you're having both on society but also the environment. Let's not like, like energy. Exactly. Like let's. I think there needs to be more awareness, there needs to be more conversations than just a whole lot more listening too. I don't know if that makes you feel better or worse. Yeah, exactly. A little bit of both.
- [59:00]
A
Well, and I mean, we have so much privilege, right. In that we have time to read and find out. And you know, you're in the industry so, you know, you're around it 24 7. I just, I worry about people who, they're just trying to make ends meet. You know, single moms, you know, a bunch of, you know, they're working a couple jobs just to make ends meet and when are they going to have time to get the benefits of any of this?
- [59:30]
B
Right, that's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been hearing they're like, oh, you need to, you just need to be a full time person in order to keep up with what's happening in this space. To like. Because it's moving so fast. Exactly. Absolutely. Right. Yeah. Okay.
- [59:44]
A
So going back to kind of more what you do.
- [59:47]
B
Yeah.
- [59:48]
A
I'd like to end it with this. If someone has spent years thinking I just need more discipline, what would you want them to understand instead?
- [59:59]
B
I love that because that's where I was kind of coming from. Right. I think I've always, yeah. I've always been someone that thought discipline could solve so many problems. But through the journey of creating focus space, one thing I've realized is that it's a. All about the environment you set up for yourself. Right. So make it easier to do the thing that you want to do. Surround yourself with people that are inspiring and supportive so that it's easier to do what you want to do. And that doesn't necessarily mean body doubling up. Right. So for some people that's like, hey, work with a coach. Hey, like maybe go find other entrepreneurs that live in your area and start working together with them or at least working in the same space space. So I think that's kind of the key thing is to, and self discipline is kind of hard to tap into day to day to make it as Easy for yourself as possible by basically surrounding yourselves with the right people and the right tools. I think that's kind of the key takeaway for me. Yeah.
- [61:07]
A
As much as we balk around systems, they are so important for our brain.
- [61:13]
B
Right.
- [61:13]
A
We just want. I'm free. Freedom. I get to whatever I want to do when I do it, and then nothing.
- [61:19]
B
Yeah. And make it fun. Maybe that's the key thing. Make it fun. Make it as fun as possible. Yeah.
- [61:27]
A
If it's fun, you're moving in the right direction.
- [61:30]
B
Exactly. Exactly.
- [61:31]
A
I know you haven't been diagnosed, but what is your number one ADHD workaround besides focused space?
- [61:38]
B
Sorry. The first thing that comes to mind is not my workaround, but my co founder, Alexis is at st. So funny. So I have to share this one. She will put. When there's something hard she has to do on her computer. She will set up a foot bath for herself and have a foot bath. So she's working. So she's stuck to her chair getting the thing done. It's enjoyable. I love that. So I'm going to share that one with you. Thank you, Alexis.
- [62:08]
A
That is the best one I've ever heard because you are literally stuck sitting in that chair. Chair. Does Alexis have adhd?
- [62:16]
B
We're. We're both like. We're like. We're both neurodivergent in some way. Like, let's. Yeah, we don't know.
- [62:24]
A
Well, she's very creative.
- [62:25]
B
She's incredibly creative. Yeah.
- [62:27]
A
Nadira, where can people find you if they want to know more about you? They want to know more about focus space.
- [62:35]
B
Yeah. Our website is probably the best place to start. So that's www.focused fo c u s e d dot space. Focus space. And then we're also on Instagram too. So if you want to look up focus space on Instagram, you can find us there. Tracy, I did make a discount code for your community. It's smart ass. One word and that. So if people do want to sign up, you'll get the 14 day free trial and then also 20% off your subscription forever. Just a nice thing for the listeners. Yeah.
- [63:12]
A
Well, that's lovely. Okay, so they would go to focused dot space.
- [63:17]
B
Yep.
- [63:18]
A
And then they would use the code Smartass.
- [63:21]
B
Yeah. One word.
- [63:23]
A
Thank you. Anyway, so much for spending time with us here today. It was really a pleasure to get to know you.
- [63:29]
B
This was so fun. Thanks for having me.
- [63:32]
A
Absolutely.
- [63:32]
B
Thank you.
- [63:34]
A
So that's what I have for you for this week. If you like this episode with Dr. Notira, please let us know by leaving a review. Our goal is to change the conversation around adhd, helping as many women as we possibly can learn how their ADHD brains work so that they too may discover their amazing strengths. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you here next week. Foreign. You've been listening to the ADHD for Smartass Women podcast. I'm your host, Tracy Outsuka. Join us at adhd for smart women.com where you can find more information on my new book, ADHD for Smartass Women and my patented you'd ADHD Brain is A OK System. Help you get unstuck and fall in love with your brilliant brain. Let's pause here. Have you spent your whole life being told your way is the wrong way? If you try to use systems designed for a neurotypical brain, of course you'll feel like you're failing. But here's the truth. You were never the problem. You just have a different brain. Which means you need different systems. That is exactly why I created the A OK Academy. It's my six step patented framework designed to help you reconnect with your intuition and build systems based on your unique strengths. Let me help you reconnect with your intuition, trust yourself again, and build a life that actually works for you. You've had the answers all along. I'll help you see them. Look, it's time to stop second guessing and start trusting yourself again. Find the link in the show notes to sign up or book a free discovery call. Now let's get back to it.