EP. 384: ADHD Women Were Never Meant to Work Like This with Meghan French Dunbar

Summary

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Podcast Summary: ADHD for Smart Ass Women

Episode 384: ADHD Women Were Never Meant to Work Like This with Meghan French Dunbar

Release Date: May 13, 2026
Host: Tracy Otsuka
Guest: Meghan French Dunbar

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Episode Overview

In this energizing and deeply insightful episode, Tracy Otsuka interviews Meghan French Dunbar — entrepreneur, author, and workplace consultant — about the unique ways women with ADHD experience and shape the world of work. Together, they explore why so many high-achieving ADHD women suffer from burnout, how the modern workplace is fundamentally misaligned with neurodivergent brains, and what thriving employers (and individuals) are doing differently. The episode is packed with personal stories, practical advice, and an optimistic vision for making work—finally—work for ADHD women.

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Key Topics & Insights

1. Meghan’s ADHD Diagnosis Journey

Timestamp: 04:21 – 13:33

• Diagnosed as an adult, after years of high achievement and frequent burnout.
• Prompted by a friend (a doctor) after struggling with focus and executive function, especially post-motherhood and career transitions.
• Meghan: “I, like many of the people that you have had on your show, was diagnosed very late. I had gone to grad school and built a company and sold it... and was constantly burning myself out, overwhelmed, feeling like something was broken.” (04:30)
• Diagnosis brought immediate relief and new self-understanding.

2. The Myth of the “Successful” ADHD Woman

Timestamp: 05:40 – 13:33

• Many ADHD women internalize traditional models of achievement—driven to excel, often masking their struggles.
• Meghan recounts pushing herself as a high-performing student and entrepreneur, which led to severe burnout.
• Tracy: “What helped your brain so much was soccer. And you lost that. And that was the dopamine driver.” (18:46)

3. Career, Burnout, and the Workplace Trap

Timestamp: 13:33 – 29:16

• Burnout intensified by undiagnosed ADHD and the challenges of entrepreneurial leadership.
• Meghan’s career path: shifting from traditional achievement, through turmoil, to mission-driven work.
• Post-diagnosis, she restructured her life for fulfillment and balance: “My work is a priority, it’s not the priority.” (31:21)
• Created an 'ideal life statement' to anchor boundaries and time management.

4. What Sets Successful, Thriving Women Leaders Apart

Timestamp: 32:53 – 37:10

• Meghan’s research for her book unveiled commonalities among fulfilled women leaders:
  • Strong boundaries and ability to say no.
  • Non-negotiable self-care (sleep, nourishment, movement).
  • Professional and health support.
  • Joy cultivation: “They unashamedly had joy practices... things that bring us as individuals joy.” (34:25)
  • Mindset shift: from extrinsic (titles, power) to intrinsic motivation—purpose, passion, quality of life.

5. Why the Workplace Fails ADHD Women

Timestamp: 37:10 – 45:13

• Workplaces are designed to create burnout — even for neurotypicals, but especially for ADHD women.
• “80% of people are disengaged at work. The way we have designed the workplace is not working for anyone.” (39:22)
• Women with ADHD are even more vulnerable due to compounded pressures and sensitivity to toxic environments.

6. Signs of Hope & Workplace Innovation

Timestamp: 43:12 – 48:07

• Cites companies like Torani Syrups and Barry-Wehmiller—organizations prioritizing dignity, inclusion, growth, and humanity.
• Their business success is directly tied to how they treat their people—“bringing dignity back to the workplace.”

7. Guilt, RSD, and Societal Expectations

Timestamp: 48:10 – 55:54

• Many ADHD women carry guilt and never feel “good enough”, despite objective accomplishments.
• Driven by societal conditioning, patriarchy, workplace microaggressions, and the “double load” of emotional labor at home and work.
• “We are constantly being fed the narrative that we are not enough, that we need to change.” (50:16)

8. The Power of AI for ADHD Brains

Timestamp: 58:22 – 64:03

• Meghan uses AI (Claude, renamed Nova) as a content organizer, thought partner, and values-aligned editor.
• “It’s the only thing that I have ever found that can keep up with my bonkers brain and how many ideas come out of it.” (60:14)
• Emphasizes the need for guardrails: AI can be a blessing or a curse depending on intentionality.

9. Advice for ADHD Women Feeling Lost or Overwhelmed

Timestamp: 64:03 – 66:51

• “Go talk to a professional. Period. And it gets a lot better if you get a diagnosis.” (64:20)
• Healing for Meghan was multi-faceted: therapy, medication, meaningful work, and self-compassion.

10. ADHD Workarounds and Living with Intention

Timestamp: 66:57 – 68:20

• Meghan’s “workaround”: Living by values and an intentional vision; using external reminders, and learning to release guilt and the opinions of others.
• “Intention is probably the foundation of all that I [do].” (68:20)
• Tracy agrees: “I don’t think ADHD is a productivity problem. I think it’s an identity problem.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On diagnosis and identity:
  “As soon as I got the diagnosis, things changed. It has completely changed my life. Explained so much. I wish I had had the diagnosis way earlier, and I’m so glad I finally have it.” — Meghan (05:40)

• On masking and achievement:
  “I masked my neurodivergence with overcompensating with high achievement. And so I, strangely enough, was a rule follower, which actually isn't in my nature.” — Meghan (14:29)

• On boundaries:
  “They said no. They were very intentional about their time management and what they said yes to and only said yes to hell yes opportunities.” — Meghan (33:18)

• On joy:
  “Cultivating their joy... things purely for the fact that they bring us as individuals joy. These women unashamedly had joy practices.” — Meghan (34:15)

• On work and systems:
  “You were never the problem. You just have a different brain, which means you need different systems.” — Tracy (28:21)

• On the workplace:
  “The way that we have designed the workplace is not working for anyone. ADHD specifically... it is just this recipe for disaster of women who are undiagnosed thinking they are the problem working in a broken system.” — Meghan (39:22)

• On AI and organizing an ADHD brain:
  “For the first time ever, my brain can actually make sense of it all.” — Meghan (64:03)

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Segment Timestamps

• Diagnosis Story: 04:21 — 13:33
• Childhood & College Years: 14:16 — 18:46
• Work, Burnout, Reinvention: 19:10 — 32:24
• Thriving Women Leaders & Their Playbook: 32:53 — 37:10
• Workplace Critique for ADHDers: 37:10 — 45:13
• Hopeful Cases in Modern Workplaces: 43:12 — 48:07
• Guilt, RSD, and Gendered Experience: 48:10 — 55:54
• AI as ADHD Support: 58:22 — 64:03
• Advice for ADHD Women: 64:03 — 66:51
• Workarounds & Final Thoughts: 66:57 — 70:03

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Resources & Where to Find Meghan

• Book: “This Isn’t Working” (recommendation: Bookshop.org)
• Podcast: Unbehaved (exploring radical redefinition of work & life)
• Substack: Unbehaved
• AI Tool: Claude, renamed “Nova,” for organization and content synthesis

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Final Thoughts

This episode is a call to arms for ADHD women: to challenge toxic workplaces, find models of real fulfillment, and unapologetically chart their own paths. Both Tracy and Meghan offer a vision founded not on “fixing” yourself, but on celebrating neurodivergence and structuring life deliberately around your strengths. As Tracy emphasizes, “No one ever made a difference by being too little.”

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Transcript

[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.

[B]

This is for you.

[A]

Your ADHD brain is not broken. It just never came with a map. That is why I created your ADHD Brain is a okay Academy. It's my patented step by step framework to help you build a life. And 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.

[B]

Wait a minute.

[A]

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?

[B]

You know what else you don't hear

[A]

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.

[B]

Hello, hello, hello. I am your host, Tracy Aitsuka. Thank you so much for joining me here for another episode of ADHD for Smartass Women. You know that my purpose 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 a one, not one that wasn't truly brilliant at something. So, of course, I am just delighted to introduce you to Megan French Dunbar. Megan French Dunbar has basically made a career out of questioning the way we work, lead, and build businesses in the best possible way. She's a wildly curious entrepreneur, former business journalist, CEO, speaker, and workplace consultant who spent years stirring up what she calls good trouble to make work actually work better for humans. Go figure. As someone with ADHD Megan has built an unconventional career by trusting the way her brain works instead of fighting against it. That perspective has helped her impact more than a million people worldwide through her work on leadership, workplace culture, and organizational health. What I love about Megan is that she doesn't just live in big, visionary ideas. She also understands the reality of what happens day to day inside companies, teams, and people's brains. She helps leaders create workplaces or where people can actually function, contribute, and thrive instead of slowly dying inside during another pointless meeting. And when she's not doing all of that, she's with her family in the foothills of Boulder, chasing her two kids, hiking with her husband, hosting dinner with friends, and remembering that the truest version of success is one that actually feels like living. Welcome, Megan. Did I get all of that right?

[C]

I kind of want to keep you in my pocket as my professional hype woman. You nailed that. That was fab.

[B]

Wonderful. So what we always do here is we talk about our ADHD diagnosis story first. Would you mind sharing yours?

[C]

Of course not. I, like many of the people that you have had on your show, was diagnosed very late. And I am talking four years ago late. And that was after I had gone to grad school and built a company and sold it and done all of these things and really been able to effectively be an entrepreneur and do well in academics and do all the things. And was constantly burning myself out, overwhelmed, feeling like something was broken. And it wasn't until 2022 I had had a friend with who had just been diagnosed with adhd, and she's a doctor. And we were having dinner and she just said, megan, based on what the psychiatrist said about adhd, I think you might want to talk to him too? And I. I mean, she was a doctor, so I was, of course, trusted her right away. Got on the phone with the psychiatrist, and in the first meeting, he was, yep, textbook adhd. And it has completely changed my life. Explained so much. I wish I had had the diagnosis way earlier, and I'm so glad that I finally have it.

[B]

So did this come totally out of left field? And when she said, I think you have this too, were you like, totally believing or were you thinking, I don't think she knows what she's talking about because ADHD doesn't look like, you know what, it doesn't look like what is going on in my life? And then, okay, I'm going to ask another question. This is so adhd, because I should be asking one question at a time. But were. Had you been telling her about things you were struggling with. So she knew more than, you know, how we can put on the mask. She knew more than what she kind of people would see from the outside.

[C]

Yeah, I'll start with the first one. I, I think again, like many of us had the idea that ADHD was a little boy running around so hyper that he couldn't even sit down in a chair. And that did not match my experience at all. I was an uber high achiever as a kid. You know, try almost like Cap. Captain of the soccer team, captain of the basketball team, like just doing all of the things, got fabulous grades. So it never occurred to me that this might be something I have. And the thing that just blows my mind about this is my mom is a pediatric occupational therapist and she works with children with learning disabilities and special needs. And it never occurred to her to have me tested for adhd. And now with, because of shows like yours, where we're actually showing that this shows up for people in a lot different ways than we've been traditionally taught, and especially with women and especially adult women, it. Now that I look at the symptoms and all the things, it makes perfect sense. I did not believe. So my friend Tutti is her name. When she said you might have it, I was like, had she not been a doctor, I don't know if I would have gone. Yeah, like, I was like. And we had that dinner, Ben talking about some of the issues that I was having with staying on task and focusing. And I was. Had this book project that I was working on and I couldn't even get the proposal done because I was just kept getting so curious and all the new things I was learning about. So she was listening to me struggling with it, and I think very compassionately offered her perspective that I should go get diagnosed.

[B]

Were your struggles getting worse and was it because you were taking on so much or was there something actually cognitively going on for you?

[C]

Well, that year, 2022, I. I mean, I think when I got diagnosed, I had a six month old and a two and a half year old. So it was children on top of trying to. I had left my first company that I had sold and I was trying to reinvent myself and launch a new care. And so it was doing something for the first time with kids for the first time. And it was all snowballing and compounding. So they were issues that I had contended with before I had had kids. But then putting the kids into the mix, I just was completely. I was so overwhelmed that I felt like every single day I was getting to the end of the day, just saying to my husband, I feel so untethered. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm so. I can't even describe to you how lost I feel. And it was very paralyzing. And also, as soon as I got the diagnosis, things changed.

[B]

Okay, so you were coping just fine and actually doing quite well. But it was stacking the kid responsibilities, all of that executive function ability that is required with kids, all the admin. Right. Stacking that on it. And then the wheels fell off the bus.

[C]

Well, it's funny that you say that, because I'm like, no, no, Tracy, that's actually not the story. Because my first company, I launch in 2015, and I stayed there until February of 2020 when I resigned from my own organization because I was so burnt out and that I had, I did have a six month old. So it was the first time I came back from maternity leave. But by 2017, I had my first panic attack. The pressure of running an organization. I had. We'd done this big investor round. I'd brought in all the investors, and then as we were scaling and building, I was looking at the financials and we had, you know, maybe six months of Runway left and I was looking, oh my gosh, I'm either going to go have to fundraise again or we need to sell the business or we're going to go bankrupt. And that my emotional dysregulation spiraled. I mean, I was panic attacked. I was so overwhelmed. I didn't know how to contend and hold all this pressure of having employees and having investors and trying to just keep track of everything. My mental health between 2017 and 2020 was in as low as it probably could go. And also because I was so hyper focused on my business, I put off having kids. I didn't see my friends and family. I. I was, I just had horse blinders on. And so I wasn't nurturing and paying attention to the things that we actually need to keep us fulfilled and healthy and thriving. So, no, I wasn't doing particularly well. But then I added kids.

[B]

However, let me play devil's advocate here. I'm hearing your story and I'm thinking, wouldn't anybody be so emotionally dysregulated and overwhelmed by all of that?

[C]

Yeah, I mean, that's what I never like things that I'm like, I don't know, I feel like it's a normal human emotion to be completely freaking out that you have 10 people's livelihoods and insurance in your hands and in all of that pressure on yourself, like that's a lot of pressure to put on one person. And I can't imagine that being undiagnosed at the time helped.

[B]

So I'm sure you just thought, well, this is all completely normal. I should feel this way given what I'm going through. And in part, maybe, right, because don't you believe that your ADHD is actually what got you to that level?

[C]

100%. It's like chicken or the egg. I don't know. I will never forget taking an exam in graduate school and it was looking at all of our different work styles and it had four different categories. When you look at a problem, you examine it, you get excited about it, you explore it, and you execute it. And my ability to be excited about something and execute it were off the charts. But I don't examine or explore things. And my. My friend has lovingly dubbed this my ability to ready, shoot, aim. And so I get so much done. I am impulsive. I will just ju. Jump off. Like, I was able to launch a print magazine when I was 29 years old that got picked up by every Whole Foods in the world. With our first issue, with five months of publishing experience, something that everyone's like, you are. That is crazy. And I am like, yeah, I never would have done that if I'm not. If I wasn't neurodivergent. And it seemed totally logical to me that I would crowdfund this magazine. And of course this is gonna succeed and I'm gonna make it work and I'm gonna beg, borrow, and steal and hold it together a D and glue our first year and then get investors and grow an entire company. That seemed totally rational.

[B]

I can so relate to this ability to have no experience and just jump. And somehow we figure it out. And it happens so damn fast because we're so hyper focused and we have this optimism. Why not me, you know?

[C]

Yes, yes, my, my four year old daughter Adaliah. This morning, my son and my daughter had created little mother's day cards for their grandma. And my husband was showing them how to address an envelope to send their cards in the mail. And my 6 year old is doing it with my husband. And then Scott, my husband goes to Addie and he's like, do you. I'm going to show you how to do. Address the envelope. And she just goes, I know how to do it. She's never done this in her entire life. And she just says, I know how to do it. And I'M like, of course. And her preschool teacher has already told me we should probably get her tested for adhd. And I was like, yeah, of course. She just believes she can do it without ever having done it before. Like, she already has that in her at 4 years old. Yep, she's my kid.

[B]

We can, if we're allowed to do it our way, ourself without someone telling us, no, no, no, no. This is the way you know to do it. So I am so curious, Megan, what were you like as a child?

[C]

Oh, I mean, I was my daughter, but in a very rigid household with very strict parents, very high expectations. And so I masked my neurodivergence with overcompensating with high achievement. And so I, strangely enough, was a rule follower, which actually isn't in my nature. It was very. It was just conditioned into me over and over and over again. I'm actually very anti authority. Like, if you tell me one thing, I will push back immediately. I've built an entire damn career on it. Unbehaved? Yeah, yeah. Like you're gonna tell me about how to work in the workplace. I'm gonna write a book called this Isn't Working. Like, I am very anti establishment, but as a child, I was very conditioned. Rule following or you get in trouble. I had a curfew at 11pm when I was 18 years old. I mean, it was consequences and you needed to get straight A's and all the things. So I was a people pleaser. I was a high achiever. I did very well at anything I wanted to do. And it went completely off the rails when I went to college because I didn't have the structure around me to keep me in line. And I've seen that happen to a lot of people that I know who have adhd. And so. But as a child, very typical to most of your guest, just the high achieving people pleaser.

[B]

Okay, the people pleaser part. So it was really about you just wanting to be seen and that your parents would be really proud of you. I can so relate to that. Okay, so what happened in college?

[C]

I mean, I feel like I had some pretty sincere rsd, like middle school, high school, and had a lot of experiences with being rejected from the cool crowd. And I also had my entire identity was around sports and achievement and soccer specifically. I thought I was going to get a college scholarship to go play soccer somewhere. And I blew out my knee my senior year. I mean, first practice of my first season, senior year, knee surgery at 17 and to the point where my soccer career was pretty much done. And it went from I'm about to go be the shiny star, you know, the big fish in the small pond at some college, to I'm going to be going to the same college that all of my peers are going to who haven't been the high achievers. And I, because I didn't have anything to tie my sense of self worth to and because I didn't have the guardrails, I felt like the incredibly rigid and strict environment that I grew up in made it so I didn't really develop my prefrontal cortex as much as we should by the time we're 18 and leaving home. I just went the full other end of the spectrum. Super impulsive, lots of drinking. I mean, I went to the number one party school in the nation, University of Colorado Boulder. At the time, I like, I barely paying attention to my studies. I got like a 2.4 GPA my first semester and was like, I mean, I almost got kicked out of the dorms for drinking under. I mean, I was a wreck. And I was able to pull it together for. I think one of the things that actually really helped me was after my freshman year I was cut off financially. My parents just didn't have the money to be able to keep supporting me in any way. And so I worked full time as a waitress and bused tables in downtown Boulder on Pearl Street. And I think the fact that I only had a certain amount of time and I actually had some structure and I was the only one of my roommates who had a full time job and was working every single night of the week. And so I only had certain amount of time to get my work, my homework done. It was the thing that ended up ultimately saving me was that I just had every hour of my day scheduled for me and stuff that I had to do. And so I graduated with two degrees in four and a half years. I like I on the dean's list, I, I pulled it out, but it was touch and go there for a while.

[B]

So commendable though. And for me, the big glaring, like, I don't know what, like the sign that's blinking was. What helped your brain so much was soccer. And you lost that. And that was the dopamine driver. Right. I can totally see how this could happen. And I hear this story a lot with athletes.

[C]

Yeah, it's your entire identity, but it's also the primary thing that's holding your physical and mental health together. And so even just finding ways to exercise with a bum knee, which was something That I was a highly competitive soccer and basketball player and snowboarder, and all of that was gone. And so it was like, I'm on the elliptical and I hate this. It went from joyful exercise to obligatory exercise. And so, yeah, all of the mechanisms that I had to really regulate my nervous system and get me some dopamine and help me de stress and go through the stress cycles, I lost all of it.

[B]

Wow. So what happened after college? Did you just go into a typical kind of a 9 to 5 or 9 to 7 kind of job?

[C]

Fortunately, this is, I think, Another superpower of ADHDers is we can get real passionate about things. And I don't know what happened, but when I left college, I just left the give a shit gene behind of what people thought about me and what I should be doing in the practical route. And I just started following what interested me and what lit me up and what I was passionate about. I moved to Costa Rica for a year and was a teacher down there. And like, my parents are begging me not to go because I was just like throwing caution to the wind and moving down there by myself. I came back and I knew that I really wanted to work in something that. That felt meaningful and impactful. So I started working at the Environmental Defense Fund here in Boulder. And that is where this little It's. I interviewed Jane Warwan. She's the founder of Dermalogica Skincare. And she calls it the dot to dot puzzle of your career, where if you follow your passion, it will. It's. You can't see what the picture is, but you have to connect the dots. And so mine went pretty linearly, kind of, but I got. Environmental Defense Fund has a corporate partnerships program. It's one of their four main pillars. And it looks at how do you find market mechanisms and incentivize business to care about sustainability. They're the people that got McDonald's to get rid of Styrofoam and they work with KKR and they just did all this stuff. And I was like, you can work in business and do good things. That hadn't even occurred to me. I always thought I'd be in the nonprofit world. So I got so interested in corporate partnerships to the point where I went to grad school and did my MBA with a focus on sustainability. My brother to Oxford. My. You know, it's. I have a lot of prestigious schools in my family. I went to a school that no human has ever heard of in San Francisco, Presidio Graduate School. It's the only graduate school in the nation at the time that had a fully sustainable business degree and it was sustainable MBA interwoven together. And I remember talking to my brother and his wife who he met at Oxford, who went to Oxford, and my parents, and they were all like, you have to go to a big name school. Like, that's where you get doors to open for you. And I was like, nope, I do not care. I am going to the place that I want to go.

[B]

I live in San Francisco. I've never heard of the school. Where, what neighborhood was it?

[C]

It started in the Presidio itself and then it, when, when I went, it was like right off the Embarcadero, kind of like in one of the mall areas over there, just like in a little place. And I think it's since merged with another school, but it was just this niche little school started by a bunch of sustainable business people. And it was fabulous. And I loved my education. I got to meet a whole bunch of dorks who also wanted to learn about sustainable business. And most of them right now are leading CSR and ESG at some of the largest companies in the world. And all of us, we are very much at the forefront of this burgeoning venture and all this cool stuff that was happening. And so I had to go to an alternative school. And then I went to Impact Investing for a little bit. And then I met a woman at a conference who worked at a magazine and that day offered me the job to come be managing editor of her two magazines here in Boulder. And I was like, I actually am miserable at this other place. I'm gonna just go do that because it sounds interesting. I did do my undergraduate degrees in journalism and English and always wanted to work in a magazine. And so I just followed that like, sure, why not? I'll just completely change my career. I got fired after five months. Months because I didn't answer my cell phone on a Friday night after 5 o'. Clock. I had turned it off at dinner with a friend and I had 67 missed text messages from my boss, who then fired me via email that night. Oh, it was. It's a whole other story. But that night I had been having dinner with a friend and she asked me, you work in the print magazines. Why doesn't a magazine exist about sustainable business? And three hours later I got fired via email. And I got that when I woke up in the morning on Saturday and I looked at my husband wholly ADHD and went, I think this is the universe telling me I'm supposed to launch a print Magazine about sustainable business. And he's just like, oh my, like here she goes again, like something new. And we crowdfunded the first issue. It got picked up by every Whole Foods in the country. And that was January 1, 2015. And so then all of a sudden I was the CEO of a print media company. We did print magazines, online events and membership podcasts, in person events. It was this whole thing, we sold it end of 2017. I stayed until 2020, left on February 1st of 2020. My last day was March 13th, 2020 for any of you who are thinking about the math here of the dates. And I was about to launch an in person events company for women and instead I was in lockdown with a nine month old son and now a full time mom with ADHD and undiagnosed and undiagnosed depression. And so I'm dealing with postpartum depression. I have adhd, I have nothing, I have no outlet. And we're socially isolated and I had gone from traveling at least 60% of the time, keynote speaking, conferences, all the things, very ego driven, you know, getting standing ovations and my, like, I just felt so fabulous about myself. Two, I am stuck in my house as a full time mom and I have seen three other human souls in the last eight months of my life talk about a transformational period of growth. I finally got professional help, went to a therapist. One of the most transformational things I've ever done. She diagnosed me with having depression, got medicated, total game changer. And then the ADHD diagnosis came in 2020, 2022. And that was right at this moment. I had had this idea for a book which was is it possible to come back to work and build a, what I would consider to be a meaningful career without destroying myself? Because every woman who I had met who had done built their own business was an author, thought leader like who had gone out there and really gone for it behind the scenes. I would say nine out of ten were really struggling. Chronic stress, depression, undiagnosed medical issues. I mean it was just story after story after story. And so I knew that I had met some, some people because I had interviewed over a thousand leaders with the magazine and the podcast and the events and all the things. I had met the occasional leader who was very grounded and fulfilled and happy and thriving and also running a gigantic business like. And so I went, went to all of these women and there's almost 100 of them and learned their playbook and they were all doing very, they were, had a totally different way of the way they thought about leadership, the way they built their workplaces and their mindsets around success. And that became this book which I had just been diagnosed. So I was finally medicated and it was. Most people hate writing books. It was one of the most enjoyable experiences of my entire life. I loved writing my book. Hundreds and hundreds of hours of interviews. Talk about pattern recognition, hyper focus, all of these superpowers that I didn't even realize that I had. I spent hours and hours and hours, I mean hundreds of hours writing this book. And every day I woke up so excited to get back up and write. I wrote125,000 word manuscript and turned it into my editor. It was supposed to be 75000 words. She's like, okay, cool. Like we have to cut, cut 50,000 words. But I was like, I just can't stop. I have. I love it so much. So I'm going on and on and on, but that's where we are now. Book came out last year. All the fun things.

[B]

So what changed in 2022 once you were diagnosed?

[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

[B]

feel like you're failing.

[A]

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

[B]

that actually works for you.

[A]

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.

[B]

Now let's get back to it.

[C]

Everything. I mean, I medicated. Still medicated to this day. If I remember to take my. That's a really fun one for me is in the morning being like, did I take my Adderall? And then I'm like, well, if you're asking if you took the Adderall, you didn't take the Adderall. Megan. So. But everything, I mean it. And it's only getting better the more that I'm understanding my needs and talking about it and also building structures and systems around myself that really help me to thrive and the way that I Understand that my brain works. Very recently I've been working with a woman here in Boulder and she just has been deep dive into AI systems and she understands how to set up the back end of your operating system with AI to do things for me like, like organize all of my content into a dashboard. I have hundreds of hours of interviews, I have heaps of research, I have that whole manuscript, I have podcasts, I have so much stuff that it was so overwhelming that I didn't even know where to start with like my content strategy. And she came in, helped me set it all up into dashboards and all the things. And now AI mine is down to the point where it's a HTML, it's its own landing page where I can go and say I need everything that I have ever done on Compassion. And I can click down into the Compassion. It'll show me every story, every piece of research, everything that I've ever written, everything I've ever written that I've never used, everything I've said on a podcast, like it's unbelievable.

[B]

We set into AI.

[C]

Yes, yes.

[B]

And it learns about you.

[C]

And so it just really decreased my sense of overwhelm and anxiety. It helps me be more intentional about the way that I'm moving forward. And fortunately because I, I was able to write the book about this stuff and meet so many extraordinary entrepreneurs and business leaders who seemed like they were happy. I also have been able to weave in what they have been doing in their playbook. Things like I wrote an ideal life statement like how many hours a week do I want to work? How much time do I want to spend with my friends and family? How much time do I want to have with my kids? Who do I want to be working with? What types of things do I want to be working on? And I'm a solopreneur, which I have been for six years now. And so I work for myself and it's stressful financially sometimes because I have to like eat what I kill. And it gives me the creativity to be able to work on whatever I want. And so I just feel I'm like just so much more grounded and happy and intentional. I stop my work every day at 2:30, I pick up my kids. I don't work nights and weekends. I don't have my work email on my phone, I don't have slack on my phone. My work has, it is a priority, it's not the priority. And that has been a real change since the diagnosis. And just thinking, shifting my mindset about why I'm Doing what I'm doing, which the Adderall and being medicated has just helped me stay the course and really focus on what I do want to focus on in life.

[B]

Okay, so I want to go back to AI because I am a huge believer in AI for the ADHD brain. But before we do that, you talked about pattern recognition, which is usually one of our gifts. Sounds like it's yours too. And all of these women that you had interviewed and what the successful ones who also had a healthy balance and a calm nervous system, what did they actually have in common?

[C]

I mean, I had to write an entire book about it because there's so much, oh, this handy little prop right here. This isn't working. Some specific individual practices for their own leadership. And I don't think this will come as a surprise to anyone, but some of them were things like very healthy boundaries. They said no. They were very intentional about their time management and what they said yes to and only said yes to. Hell yes. Opportunities. Instead of obligatory things or saying yes out of obligation or for fear of judgment, they focused on the basics. Sleep, nourishing, food, mindfulness, moving their bodies on a regular basis, doing. And here's one of my favorite ones, cultivating their joy, which this is something that so many of us lose touch with, especially when we get in the rat race of the careers and we're high achievers and we're doing all the things and then if you have kids or you're caretaking for elderly parents or whatever the dynamics are outside of the home, we just get into these, these cycles of busyness. And then we glorify busyness and make it seem like it's totally okay that we're all running around with our heads cut off and we forget about our own joy or we feel guilty or like it's a burden to do things purely for the fact that they bring us as individuals joy. Not our kids joy, not our partner's joy, not someone else joy, but us joy. These women unashamedly had joy practices. They all got professional help, worked with some sort of mental health practitioner or physical health practitioner. They were, they like the basics, all the basics. And many of them had some sort of practice around compassion or gratitude or savoring moments. And so those were some of the individual ones. There were workplace ones that we can get into. And then mindset shift wise. This was the biggest thing for me was they thought about success completely differently than most people, most of us. You can tell me if this was your story. From what I've heard on Your podcast, it might be similar, but I was conditioned that success meant of course as you're younger, grades and getting into the best school and all the things, and then as you get older, title, money, influence, power, it's all extrinsic motivation, awards, achievement, accomplishment, and you just accrue more and more and more of that as much as humanly possible until the arbitrary age of 65, at which point you can stop doing, working yourself to death and then maybe enjoy your life and do the things that you actually want to do. That is all extrinsically motivated all of these women to a T. Their idea of success was based on intrinsic motivation and three core pillars of that being, having, purpose and meaning. So they did something that, that brought positive impact. Their passion or growth and mastery, learning about the things that they actually care about and that light them up. They followed their passion instead of following the should. And this is the one that was often missing for many people that they ended up finding later in life was a quality of life element, was nurturing their quality of life and making sure that, that their idea of success was really about the quality of their being, the quality of their time, the quality of how they showed up and how they were with other people and how happy they were. That was, that was what can they built success around was if I am not happy, if I am not peaceful, if I'm not able to show up in a good way, I can't consider myself successful. And I was like, it's like blew my brain wide open. And so those three pillars, purpose, passion, quality of life, been what I've been trying my little hardest to do of building my little ideal life statement and staying true to them. But if, if you don't set those markers for yourself, then we almost always inevitably fall into the conditioned idea of just setting the next mile marker higher, bigger, better, and more stress, more anxiety, more pressure, all the things. And we look at the statistics around chronic stress and anxiety and depression and burnout, right now they are higher than they have ever been. And so, yeah, you know what hits

[B]

me with what you're saying is, okay, this is probably perfect for anyone, right? But this is like these are non negotiables for someone with an ADHD brain. We are so mission driven. We have to be doing work that makes a difference to us. We love learning, right? But learning about things that we're actually interested in, then we have to be following one of our passions and then, you know, all those, you know, nurturing the quality of life that you want, I Mean, all of that is so specific to the ADHD brain. And when we kick one of them out, I think everything suffers. So you connect undiagnosed ADHD with burnout in working women. Why do you think that so many women end up leaving jobs, businesses, careers before anyone realizes that ADHD might be

[C]

part of that picture? Yeah, I mean, it stemmed from my own experience of extreme burnout at the hands of being undiagnosed. And what I continue to come across time and time again is women who are blaming themselves and feeling like they are deficient or they're the problem where they're not understanding that one, the workplace, the way that we have set up and designed the modern workplace is built to burn people out. When you look at the core drivers of burnout, lack of community unfairness, lack of acknowledgment, lack of control, all of these things, this is what, this is how we build our workplaces. We have top down management, we're overworked and overwhelmed. There's high pressure environments with individual competitions so we don't feel connected to our co workers. So the system itself burns everyone out. And then if you are a woman, you are contending with additional issues and challenges on top of that. And then if you are a woman with ADHD trying to thrive in a system that no one is thriving in. They just released the workplace disengagement rates Gallup did for 2025. And global disengagement at work right now is at 80%. 80% of people are disengaged at work.

[B]

Chronic stress in the world?

[C]

Yes, worldwide, 80% disengagement. We have chronic stress. You know, between this 60 to 80%, we have burnout rates at 75%. The way that we have designed the workplace is not working for anyone. ADHD specifically. When you look at some of the ways in which our brains work differently, things like keeping organized and constantly feeling overwhelmed and anxious when you are completely overwhelmed with too much work to do. And then you're also expected to work harder than your colleagues to prove yourself. It is just this recipe for disaster of women who are undiagnosed thinking they are the problem working in a broken system. And we're losing more and more women out of the workplace than we ever have. People are just convincing themselves that they don't belong in the workplace without realizing that they one, are undiagnosed and two, that the workplace that they are in is most likely causing them and exacerbating their issues.

[B]

You know, I also think it's because we do, we have a more sensitive nervous system. Right. So often I think we can pick up things that other people can't, and then that exacerbates the problem. Especially like, you know, you gave the example of, I mean, having a nightmare boss who would even consider firing you because you turned your phone off because you were having dinner with a friend on Friday night. Like, like, what is wrong with our society that someone thinks that's okay?

[C]

And we have. There's another statistic that blew me away for the book. 70% of people now say that their boss or manager has as much or more of an impact on their mental health than their spouse does. And so many of us are dealing with toxic managers who have never. They have been promoted based on individual performance and workaholism and going above and beyond and all the things. And they're not being promoted based on leadership, leadership skill or their ability to emotionally regulate and communicate and listen and be a decent human being. And so we're subjecting people to this day in and day out, and then wondering why people are burning out and chronically stressed. And so your manager has a huge impact on how you see yourself and the way that you feel when you

[B]

come home, you know, and for, for a while, I sort of got the sense that we were looking at the workplace and we were trying to make some changes, but lately it's almost like, no, the more toxic the behavior, the better. And I'm just like, how do we get out of that? Other than women like us saying, screw this, we're going to do our own thing. Right?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Entrepreneurialism.

[C]

Yeah. And there are some companies that aren't doing it, and they are the ones that give me so much hope. I mean, I feel like it was Akaya Windward, maybe. One of the women I had talked to for the book was talking about when the old systems are crumbling, they have their last, final gasp and it comes back and they are just trying their hardest not to die. And this is what's happening with toxic workplace culture and this hustle culture, profit at all cost mentality. I think, think I'm hopeful that we're watching its last gasp where it's coming back. We're going a little bit farther on the spectrum than we want to be. And then we will settle back into something newer and better because the younger generations are demanding it. When you look at the Great Resignation, there's so many managers and leaders that were saying, oh, the younger generation is just entitled. No, MIT looked at the Great Resignation and the number one reason for Turno and is turnover is toxic workplaces driven by cutthroat, abusive, disrespectful, unethical behavior.

[B]

So it is archaeological system.

[C]

Yes. And we, I think we're looking at the first generation in history that is not willing to settle for anything less than they deserve. And I am so freaking excited to watch them resign in droves and tell these companies through their actions that it is not okay to treat people like this and then go work for extraordinary purposes driven companies. My favorite in the comp in the country right now, Tarani syrups. If you've ever had a flavored latte, you've had Torani syrups, I guarantee it. They make flavored coffee like flavored circles.

[B]

There's literally writing about the house of Torani right now.

[C]

I am doing a deep dive case study with them because their, their CEO Melanie Dobeco. I think she's one of the most extraordinary leaders in the country. She's been at the helm for 35 years and since she came in, 34 years in a row, 20% growth annually for 34 years in a row. They double almost every three and a half years. They're almost a billion dollar organization. And it is because they invest in the opportunity of their people. Financial resilience. They do employee ownership, profit distribution, bonuses for everyone. They get their entry level workers to a living wage, not a minimum wage as quickly as possible. I it's just everyone is given education and growth opportunities. Everyone is given autonomy, collaborative decision making. It's bringing dignity back to the workplace. And they are watching what happens when you do this at scale. So there are companies that are doing this and I think the more that people start learning about that and are wanting, I mean their tenure rate is in manufacturing. Manufacturing has one of the lowest retention rates and they have people that have stayed there for, for 15 and 20 years and then also recruit their family members to work there like so anyways, there are, there are stories of hope that exist.

[B]

This is the next question. So those stories of hope, are they coming from women, women managers, but also women driven companies.

[C]

I have found a lot of them with women driven companies and not only women driven companies. One of the better ones that I got the pleasure of going and actually doing a case study with at their plant. It was Barry Waymiller. It's like one of the larger organizations nobody's ever heard of. They buy up distressed manufacturing facilities and they're, you know, for $4 billion international company at this point. But they're now late CEO Bob Chapman, I think he passed away. Last month, he had this epiphany at a wedding while he was watching his friend's daughter walk down the aisle, that every single employee that he had on his team was someone else's precious child. And he was treating them like garbage. And so he completely revolutionized the workplace and brought dignity and education and communication skills and listening and all of these things. Empowerment training to everyone. And so I went to Phillips, Wisconsin, population, I believe, 1700. And they have a paper equipment manufacturing facility there it is that employs 700 people in a town of 1700 that was about to go bankrupt in 2008. And Barry Wehmiller came in, bought it. And I asked one of the line leaders there what was it like to work here before and after? And he said, before, I was treated like a cog in the machine. I had to wear a hat that told people what my hierarchy was. I had a bell that told me what time I could go to lunch, a bell that told me what time I could leave. I was. Wasn't involved in any decision making. They told me what to do, and if the management wanted my opinion, they gave it to me. After Barry Raymiller, I got all this leadership training. We were involved in creating the values. There's all these awards around, people showing the values in the workplace. Like all this extraordinary stuff he was talking about. Not only has he become a line leader and believed in himself that he could be a leader, it's made him happier when he goes home, it makes him a better communicator with his wife and children. And then the thing that blew my mind was he said, at this point, when I go to a bar and someone disagrees with my opinion, I no longer yell at them. I try to understand. And I was like this. It's like solving world peace. Like, because so many people feel disenfranchised at work, they take that anger with them to their homes and to their communities. But when they feel seen and valued and heard heard, it ripples out past the workplace as well. And so there are extraordinary workplaces like this led by leaders of all types out there. They do exist. They are thriving because they are doing things well. And I think it's the workplace of the future.

[B]

You do think it's growing?

[C]

Very much so.

[B]

Okay, that's really encouraging and inspiring. So I'd love to talk about guilt because I think it's safe, sits underneath so much of the ADHD experience. I have met time and time again women. I was just talking to a woman yesterday who's chief of staff for a legislator. And she literally feels like nothing she does is good enough. Yet all the information that she tells me, as far as what people are saying, she is so smart, she is highly respected. She is doing so much more than anyone else. So my question is always, why do some, so many ADHD women carry this constant feeling that they're failing people, even when they're objectively doing so much more than anyone else?

[C]

Oh, my gosh, Tracy, how long do we have? Because I'm like, patriarchy, period would be an entire thing that I could go down. I also think it's probably societal conditioning. There's so many stories that we are handed that we are not writing ourselves about the timelines in our life. And I just interviewed Stacy Lindsay, whose book came out this week. Here it is being 40, she's a good friend of mine, she's in Seattle, and she is talking about the arbitrary timelines that were handed at age 40, at age 50, about what we should be doing that we're not doing enough, that we. All of these things about that we're told and pressured to feel like we should be doing. I feel like that's part of it. And I also think, I mean, women just started being, quote, allowed into the workplace in the last 50 or so years after 3,000 years of exclusion. And so the microaggressions that we contend with on a daily basis of being doubted and questioned and hired 50% less and promoted 14% less. And even though we asked for raises at the same time rate that men do, we're getting them 7% less than the men. We get all of this feedback. I think there was one statistic. 88% of women get feedback about their personalities from their managers, as opposed to 12% of men. We are constantly being fed the narrative that we are not enough, that we need to change. If we are too confident, we're bitchy and bold and unlikable. If we're are people pleasing and quiet, we need to be more assertive. I mean, there's so many lose lose situations baked into the system that it is. It is just completely overwhelming. And so I fortunately have not experienced the. I am not good enough to do any of this because I am completely impulsive and will try anything. And if it fails, I'm like, oh, okay, I'm interested in something else. I just like, I don't know.

[B]

I. I'm.

[C]

I'm a rare bird and I have. So I was working with the woman this morning, the woman who's helping me set up my AI systems And this is the story she's telling herself. I'm not good enough to pitch this business on doing this service because I can't prove to that. Every single one of my clients has. I've saved them 10 hours a week on their work. And I was like, like, like it's so ingrained in us to believe that we're not enough.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And I, you know, I'm thinking about this woman and she went to, I guess there's someone that she works with. I don't know if it's her secretary or treasurer. And she just respects him so much. And everything she's told me, he respects her so much too. But she keeps saying, well, but he's so together, you know, he just, he's so smart and he's so concise and blah, blah, blah. And the first thing I'm thinking is, and he's got a family and kids and all that, so why am I struggling so much and he isn't. Well, I bet you his wife who stays home is handling all of that part of his life versus she is required to be this brilliant chief of staff, but also be this brilliant wife, partner, mother, you know, and so nothing is ever going to be good enough if you are the one who's stuck doing it all.

[C]

Yeah, that Eve Rodsky, her book Fair Play, she looked at. Yeah. The research around. Even in the most equitable heterosexual households, women still take on a disproportionate amount of domestic labor and caretaking duties. And so we are expected to do more outside of the workplace. And then because we are the minority population in a very male dominated system being business, we also have to overly prove ourselves in the business world as well. So we're working more in business to prove ourselves and then we have more external labor as well. And then as you were just talking about this woman, I'm like, well, especially most of us who've been undiagnosed for a lot of our childhood, a lot of the messaging we've been receiving or feeling about ourselves our entire life is that we are different. We are wrong, we do not fit into this. We are not the way that everyone else is. We are getting rejected from groups, we are overly emotional, we are highly sensitive. Like every. There's so much messaging that we are wrong and it is garbage.

[B]

This made me think about a comment you said early on. I think it was probably in junior high school, high school where you just felt excluded. And I'm curious where that exclusion or that feeling of being excluded came from. Was it because you were so different and you were bold and you were. You were just. Say what was on your mind or was it something else?

[C]

Oh, my gosh, Tracy, I've been trying to unpack this for years, honestly. I mean, and it was a pattern that happened in elementary school and middle school and high school, and it was, I mean, like, the painful, Megan, you cannot sit with us at this table. Sort of exclusion to my face. We. You. You are not my best friend anymore because you said this. You're best friends with this other person. And I was not. Like I said, I was really performative in high school because I had really strict parameters around me. And so I was, you know, constantly trying to be the best and do the best and was oftentimes the best. And so there's a part of me that's like, that probably wasn't super fun to be friends with. Like, picture perfect, cookie cutter, ridge, rigid lady who wouldn't do anything outside of the rules. And I also wasn't very genuine because I felt like I needed to perform for everyone. And so that, like, just deep, authentic, genuine, beautiful friendships that I built in my adult years, I don't think. And I, you know, I don't even know high schoolers and middle school. I don't. My brother's still friends with a lot of his friends from high school and middle school. I have none. And I'm like, I don't even know. Like, maybe it's not totally normal that you're friends with people for your entire life. I don't know. But I think there was a lot of, like. Because I was so scared of being rejected, I was overly sensitive to being rejected, and then became a very needy, you know, that, like, annoying girl who's, like, just so starved for love and attention that it becomes hard to give her her love and attention. So I don't know.

[B]

And I bet you also saw things like, between the layers, right. That other girls did not see. And then sometimes maybe you approached someone and said what you were thinking, and there was either denial or they didn't even know. Right. They didn't even know that that was going on with them. But you saw that, which I think can make people uncomfortable if they don't want to divulge that.

[C]

Yeah. And I. And I had a lot of experiences of adults seeing me as the leader and putting me in that role, which oftentimes became something that would ostracize me from my peer. Like soccer, for example, my junior year. It was very. Every single year I'd ever known the soccer team, the varsity soccer team. Our soccer team was very good. Often won the state championship. They always made three seniors the captain. That was the rule book. That was just what you did. And when I was a junior, our wonderful coach said, I'm not going to do it the same that I've always done it. This year, I don't know who I want to be the captain of the team. If you think you should be the captain of the team, let me know and do that by calling me. Because we had landlines back then. We didn't even have cell phones. And I called my coach and I said, I feel like you're telling me that you want me to be the captain. And I think that's a terrible idea. I do not want to be the captain of this team. It will be divisive. The other girls, the seniors will hate that. The younger like it it. I do not care who you think the best leader should be. Do not make any of the juniors a captain. Do not make me a captain. And the next day he made me a captain. One of the other juniors, a captain and one senior. And overnight, girls on the soccer team just hated me. And so it was like this weird mix of, like, I was emotionally smart enough and intelligent enough to understand and sensitive enough to, like, know that, like, that's not a good thing. But I was a high performer. And so a lot of adults believed in me. It's like, I don't even know. It was a perfect storm of weird, weird stuff. And the rejection and abandonment and betrayal that I felt was so acutely painful at that time and shaped me going forward for years to come and to, like, I really started doing the work on myself. And so who knows, my therapist, Lynn, she might be able to tell you,

[B]

okay, so let's go back to AI because as I said, I personally feel like it is a game changer for ADHD brain, certainly for my brain just organizing all these thoughts. Right. I know you agree with that. I would like to know what you've actually found helpful for your brain from an AI perspective.

[C]

Effective. Yeah. One thing, working with someone who understands how to build operating systems and show you the. There. My friend Leah is showing me things that I didn't even know AI was capable of doing. So, yeah, you can try to figure a lot of things out, but when you're trying to figure things out and you have ADHD and there's so many things that AI can do, I was just like, so working with someone who can show you Leah has been my godsend and has figured out how to do this. Number two is voice dictation. So I have a million ideas. I get a lot of them when I'm walking. I walk most days. You know, I have a little 3 mile open space loop behind my house that I do and I walk and talk and just to be able to capture everything that's coming out of my brain and have a place that will organize it and also synthesize it and be able to make sense of it all. Absolute game changer and stress testing. I, I don't ask AI to write anything for me. I still write everything that I put out. I post a lot on substack and LinkedIn and I have my own podcast and all the things. So I do everything first and then I put it into AI And I have asked AI. I've told my little Claude who I have renamed Nova, my little Nova agent. I do not want you to be a heavy handed editor. I just want you to point out if I am missing something really obvious that would be really helpful like a piece of research that's in my content dashboard that would be really helpful to make this point or if I'm treading on a area that is something that I don't want to be showing the public. I have given AI my values. They are love, joy, exploration, impact and authenticity. And so if I'm doing something that is. Is misaligned with my values or is showing up in a way that isn't from my soul and my heart and is like coming off as defensive or, or if I'm attacking someone personally, it'll just like help me make sure that I stay intentional and grounded into the things that I and how I want to show up. So yeah, it's like a little bit of a guardrails. It's an organizing system and it's like the only thing that I have ever found that can keep up with my bonkers brain and how many ideas come out of it on a regular basis.

[B]

What I love about it is I am the kind of I just vomit. Like when I have a thought. I'm here, there, every. And there's no judgment. Right. It will take all of those vomited thoughts and somehow show me how they're all connected. Yes, right away. Instead of me having to sit there and staring at it, you know, and then getting bored and not doing it, I, I just love it. So I'm curious, you said Claude. Why Claude? Other than the fact that they're probably the most ethical out of all of

[C]

them, that is the reason, yeah, I was on ChatGPT and then saw some of the decisions they were making was like, nope, that's a hard no. So I switched over to Claude or Latter, like two months ago. And also because the woman Leah that I'm working with who told me, you know, I can pretty much build you an entire operating system and organize everything for you and put it in a way that your brain can understand. For the first time in history, I know how to do that on Claude. And I was like, okay, sign me up. So that's why I'm over there. And it's game changer.

[B]

So do you think that AI has the potential to level the playing field for adhd people who are brilliant thinkers, but they struggle with the organization, the follow through, or turning ideas into systems? I know what you're going to say, but I still want to hear it.

[C]

I mean, yes. And I say it with some caution because my friend Anneliese and I both have adhd and she is someone who has steeped herself in AI and she and I have both spoken many times about the fact that it can be a blessing and a curse if you can build some guardrails around it like I have had to do around. Here's what I want to work on. Here's how I want to show up. You know, here's the things that I. Here's my intentional life statement here. I don't want to work a bajillion hours. I don't want to build a big company right now. You can also. There's a slippery slope of it will tell you your ideas are so good and you can go down rabbit holes that you never would have been able to go down. And so that's where the guidelines and the guardrails come in is. I mean, AI has told me so many of my ideas are so good and that I should do them and then they don't work. And so. So, like, it can be a huge time waster if you aren't really clear and don't have some of the systems built around it. But I mean, for me, my content output as a result of being able to actually have all of my content from the last 10 years of my life organized and streamlined. My content output is through the roof right now because for the first time ever, my brain can actually make sense of it all.

[B]

I love that. So if someone listening is where you were exhausted, overwhelmed, they're secretly struggling and they're wondering whether ADHD could explain why life feels harder than it should. What would you want them to know.

[C]

I mean, I'm sure that we all say the exact same thing, but go talk to a professional. It feels there's so many reasons why we tell ourselves that we, you know, we don't have time or like between our kids dentist appointment and the meetings and all the things that we can't fit it in or we're worried we're not going to find the right professional, the right psychiatrist that we jive with or whatever. Go talk to a professional. Like period. That's. And it gets a lot better if you get a diagnosis.

[B]

So was getting diagnosed for you kind of the. It was the thing that really changed everything for you?

[C]

It was one of the things I had a perfect storm of a bunch of things coming together at once. One being finally working with a therapist, getting my postpartum depression handled, the ADHD diagnosis, and then the fact that I had an outlet, this book, to be able to fully dive into and bring my creativity to life and revitalize my career in a new way and find my confidence again. And then the fact that the thing that I was writing about had a bunch of tools in it to help me build a better life and a better working system for myself. They all just came together and were monumental in me feeling, you know, I have a four year old and an almost seven year old and. And I am so happy right now. I am the happiest I've ever been in my life and I'm a solopreneur and I work for myself and I do all sorts of random stuff all over the place and I finally feel like grounded and peaceful.

[B]

Was your book like therapy?

[C]

Very much so. I think all the best books are right. They are sourced from our individual traumas. And then it was the coolest form of being able to process things because I got to weave in my stories. But then I was talking to other people and hearing their stories and so the pattern recognition and the confidence building was a big part of the therapy of it all. But then I was getting to really unpack a lot of the ways in which, how I built my former company, some of the things that I did poorly and some of the things that I did really well that I was able to actually understand why they worked and look at the research and just fully process what I had gone through in that five year period. So. So it's. Yeah, it's a wonderful experience.

[B]

So before I let you go, what is your number one ADHD workaround? Do you have one?

[C]

I think it's a, it's kind of A amalgamation of all of a couple of things that I just said. But it would be either an intentional life vision or your values. For me, I literally, I have my values. They're on a sticky note inside this cute, cute flower that my son Jack drew for me. But having a system or a tool or a guide rail or something that helps you stay intentional and helps you say no to things and know why you're saying no to them and help you say yes to things and know why you're saying yes to things. That has been massive. And I mean I. And also I would say another kind of part of this is releasing guilt and worry about judgment as like really just you do you and like go Brene Brown, her entire talk about people, you know, the people in the arena, like there are a lot of people have opinions and it's up to you whose opinion you let matter. And. And that has just been such a source of release for me, of just being able to work on whatever I want and talk about the things I want to do and be really intentional about it. So intention is probably the foundation of

[B]

all that I say all the time. I don't do normal ADHD coaching because I don't think ADHD is a productivity problem. I think it's an identity problem. And so when you can figure out who you really are, what you value, what your natural born strengths are, what your talent skills that you've built into superpowers, what your passion and your purpose is, and you're in that sweet spot. You have none, if not very few of the executive function challenges you have in all the other areas. So I just could not agree with that more. And I guess that's why I spend my time doing it. So are you working on something that you want to tell us about? Like where can people find you if they want to know more about you and what you do? Your book. All of it.

[C]

Yes, the book. This isn't working. You can find it anywhere, books or sold. I always throw people to bookshop.org because they support small independent books booksellers. I have my podcast Unbehaved where we talk about all of the unbehaved ways you can push back against the harmful systems of work and life. And I also have a substack called Unbehaved. So writing, podcasting, whatever. And also I would put in a good plug for go put a five star review on Tracy's show because it is a huge help to her.

[B]

Oh well, thank you. So yeah, they should go listen to your show and then do the same thing for you.

[C]

Well, thanks.

[B]

Okay, so this is going to be all in the show notes. Thank you so much for spending time with us. Thank you.

[C]

Thank you for what you're doing. This is. If I had had this, if I was listening to your show four years ago, it would have changed my life. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for what you're doing.

[B]

Absolutely. And thank you for what you're doing. So that's what I have for you for this week. If you like this episode with Megan, please let us know by leaving a review. She already asked about that. Right? Our goal or didn't ask. She told you what to do.

[C]

They invited you.

[B]

For an ADHD brain, you are right, right. Invited sounds a lot more inviting. So our goal obviously is to change the conversation around adhd, helping as many women as we possibly can learn how their 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.

[A]

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 okay system to 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

[B]

feel like you're failing.

[A]

But here's the truth. You were never the problem. You just have a different brain. Which means you need different. 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

[B]

that actually works for you.

[A]

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.

[B]

Now let's get back to it.