ADHD for Smart Ass Women with Tracy Otsuka

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Start with my this training: Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

_____

Politics has a way of putting people into boxes. Danielle Ford has spent much of her life questioning why those boxes exist in the first place.

When Danielle first joined me, she had just won a seat on the Clark County School Board. Today, she’s running for governor of Nevada as a nonpartisan candidate with a philosophy she calls systems repair: the belief that education, health care, housing, affordability, and government accountability are all connected, and real solutions need to address them together.

Diagnosed with ADHD at 30, Danielle has spent years questioning rules that don’t make sense, connecting ideas others overlook, and being labeled difficult for challenging the status quo. But after losing her reelection campaign, she began questioning herself. She had so many ideas and interests, but where were they actually leading her?

We talk about the exhaustion of being misunderstood, how Danielle found the common thread connecting her seemingly scattered career, and why she refuses to let political labels define her approach. It's a conversation about finding your purpose, trusting the way your brain works, and realizing that doing things differently doesn't mean you're doing them wrong.

Resources:

• Website: https://daniellefornevada.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/daniellefordlv
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/trusteeford
• Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@daniellefordlv

Send a Message: Your Name | Email | Message

Explore more from me:
🐝 AOK Hive: https://tracyotsuka.com/hive
🧘 SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift
📚 Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn
📖 Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book
🧠 Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok
🌐 Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/

ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem.

That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits, start here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

Connect with me:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyotsuka
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heytracyotsuka
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyotsuka/

Are You Ready to Discover Your Brilliance? Order Now: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Start with my this training: Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

_____

What happens when a girl gets tested for ADHD and walks out with a different answer?

At 11, Molly Smith was evaluated for ADHD and ended up diagnosed with anxiety. Her teachers noticed she couldn’t sit still and talked out of turn, but she was a good student who loved school, so the daydreaming, the chewed pencils, and the tears during timed math tests got chalked up to nerves.

For the next decade, she blamed herself. When a therapist finally pushed her to get tested again at 21, the psychologist reviewed her childhood report and said she didn’t know how anyone could have missed it.

Today Molly is a freelance writer and creative marketer, and the host of the movie podcast Did That Age Well?

In this episode, we talk about what gets missed when a smart girl looks fine on paper, the cost of believing your struggles are a character flaw, and what changed when Molly finally understood her brain.

If you keep thinking you should be able to handle things by now, there’s a lot here you’ll recognize.

Resources:

• Website: https://www.portfoliomollysmith.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/molly-smith
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mollybirdsmith
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/didthatagewell
• Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@didthatagewellpod
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@didthatagewell
• Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/did-that-age-well/id1546089548

Send a Message: Your Name | Email | Message

Explore more from me:
🐝 AOK Hive: https://tracyotsuka.com/hive
🧘 SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift
📚 Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn
📖 Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book
🧠 Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok
🌐 Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/

ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem.

That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits, start here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

Connect with me:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyotsuka
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heytracyotsuka
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyotsuka/

Are You Ready to Discover Your Brilliance? Order Now: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Start with my this training: Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

_____

One critical comment. You can get a hundred lovely ones, and that’s the one you’re still thinking about hours later. Then you’re frustrated with yourself because why do you care so much?

Dr. Catherine Mutti-Driscoll knows this feeling. She’s the Director of Executive Function Coaching at the Hallowell ADHD & Behavioral Health Center in Seattle and the author of The Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria Workbook. I had the honor of writing the foreword, and I’m so happy to have her back.

We talk about why rejection can hit so hard, how the fear of it can influence choices we don’t even realize we’re making, and the part I especially love: the strengths Catherine sees in this sensitivity. Because when you’ve spent years wondering why you take everything so personally, there is a lot more about yourself you deserve to understand.

If one critical comment can take over your week, this conversation will help you understand why it stays with you long after everyone else has moved on.

Resources:
Website: https://catherinemuttidriscoll.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/catherinemuttidriscoll
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-mutti-driscoll-ph-d-b9847919
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/@catherinemuttidriscoll

Send a Message: Your Name | Email | Message

Explore more from me:
🐝 AOK Hive: https://tracyotsuka.com/hive
🧘 SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift
📚 Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn
📖 Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book
🧠 Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok
🌐 Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/

ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem.

That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits, start here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

Connect with me:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyotsuka
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heytracyotsuka
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyotsuka/

Are You Ready to Discover Your Brilliance? Order Now: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book

Need help actually getting started? Join the A-OK Hive and get things done alongside other ADHD women: https://tracyotsuka.com/hive
____

Anita Robertson prepared for everything when she became a mom. Then the parts nobody warned her about showed up anyway.

Anita is a licensed clinical social worker, therapist, ADHD mom, and author of ADHD and Us. She's back on the show with her new book, Being a Mom with ADHD, and I was honored to write the foreword.

Knowing her ADHD history, she had a plan for postpartum mental health. That part went fine. What blindsided her was everything else: a birth that left her barely able to move, sensory needs suddenly going unmet, hormones changing how her brain worked, and a son who didn't sleep through the night for three years. When an occupational therapist fixed his bedtime in a few weeks with a simple sensory routine, her first thought was, why is this not common knowledge?

In this episode, Anita and I get into how pregnancy and hormones affect the ADHD brain, why she gave mom guilt a name and a villain's hat, what mom rage is actually telling you, and why she says stop fighting for consistency and redesign your setup instead.

If motherhood has made you feel like you're losing your mind, this conversation will show you how much of it was never your fault.

Resources:

• Website: https://www.anitarobertson.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anitarobertsonlcsw
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anitarobertsonlcsw
• Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@strengthinyourmind
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anitarobertson
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@strengthinyourmind

Send a Message: Your Name | Email | Message

Explore more from me:
🐝 AOK Hive: https://tracyotsuka.com/hive
🧘 SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift
📚 Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn
📖 Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book
🧠 Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok
🌐 Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/

ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem.

That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits, start here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

Connect with me:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyotsuka
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heytracyotsuka
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyotsuka/

Are You Ready to Discover Your Brilliance? Order Now: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book

Need help actually getting started? Join the A-OK Hive and get things done alongside other ADHD women: https://tracyotsuka.com/hive
____

Some jobs make you feel brilliant. Others make you wonder what happened to your brain.

Rosemary Hollinger is a certified ADHD coach who works with female lawyers and other analytical professionals. Before coaching, she spent 32 years at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, eventually becoming Head of the Chicago Regional Office and Deputy Director in Enforcement. She was trying cases, shutting down Ponzi schemes, working alongside people she liked, and getting plenty of stimulation from the work itself.

Now she coaches lawyers who are every bit as smart and capable, but sometimes feel like they’re failing at the very careers they worked so hard to build.

And this is where it gets really interesting. Because what happens when the problem isn’t whether you can do the work, but the way the work is set up?

In this episode, Rosemary and I get into the parts of the legal profession that can be especially brutal for an ADHD brain, why the usual advice about priorities doesn’t always help, and something she discovered about her ADHD lawyer clients that genuinely surprised me. We also talk about what her own 32-year legal career taught her about the kind of work, people, and environment that can completely change how a brain performs.

Resources:

• Website: https://www.partnerupcoaching.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100048929782976
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/partnerup_coaching
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosemary-hollinger-2379453

Send a Message: Your Name | Email | Message

Explore more from me:
🐝 AOK Hive: https://tracyotsuka.com/hive
🧘 SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift
📚 Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn
📖 Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book
🧠 Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok
🌐 Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/

ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem.

That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits, start here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

Connect with me:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyotsuka
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heytracyotsuka
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyotsuka/

Are You Ready to Discover Your Brilliance? Order Now: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book

Need help actually getting started? Join the A-OK Hive and get things done alongside other ADHD women: https://tracyotsuka.com/hive
____

I’ve been doing this since college, and until I was diagnosed with ADHD, I just thought I was a little odd. I work better when other people are around. Not helping me, not talking to me, and definitely not asking me how it’s going. I just need them there, doing their own thing.

In college, I couldn’t study in my quiet apartment, so I’d pack up my books and head to the noisiest floor of the library. My friends thought I was nuts. Decades later, when I had four months to write ADHD for Smart Ass Women, I ran into the same problem. I could spend an entire morning avoiding my manuscript at home, then walk into a coffee shop and write for hours.

So why does the same brain struggle in one environment and work brilliantly in another?

In this episode, I’m exploring why working around other people can help us get started, why silence isn’t always the answer for an ADHD brain, and what we might actually be borrowing from the environment around us. I’m also sharing how this led me to create the AOK Hive, a place where we can work alongside each other and get things done.

Maybe we need to stop asking why we can’t make ourselves do something and start paying attention to where our brains actually work best.

Send a Message: Your Name | Email | Message

Explore more from me:
🐝 AOK Hive: https://tracyotsuka.com/hive
🧘 SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift
📚 Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn
📖 Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book
🧠 Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok
🌐 Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/

ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem.

That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits, start here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

Connect with me:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyotsuka
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heytracyotsuka
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyotsuka/

Are You Ready to Discover Your Brilliance? Order Now: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Start with my this training: Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up
_____

Jenny Dietsch was the kid with papers flying out of her backpack, missing shoes, forgotten assignments, and parents asking, why can’t you just get it together?

Today, she runs a seven-figure professional organizing company. And weirdly enough, that makes perfect sense.

Jenny is a certified professional organizer and the founder of Getting It Done Organizing, a seven-figure home organizing and move management company in Dallas.

She was diagnosed with ADHD in her 40s after two of her three kids were diagnosed first. Suddenly, a lot of her own life made sense too. Her doctor saw the irony right away: Jenny had spent years building the systems she needed to function, then built an entire business around helping other people do the same.

Then the business scaled, and some of the chaos she thought she had left behind came right back with it.

In this episode, Jenny and Tracy talk about why structure can create more freedom for an ADHD brain, what happened when Jenny’s growing business became too chaotic even for her, and how she rebuilt it using repeatable systems, workflows, and routines.

If your life looks like chaos from the inside, this one is about what can change when you stop fighting your brain and start building around the way it actually works.

Resources:

• Website: https://gettingitdoneorganizing.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gettingitdoneorganizing
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/getting-it-done-organizing
• Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/gettingitdoneorganizing

Send a Message: Your Name | Email | Message

Explore more from me:
🐝 AOK Hive: https://tracyotsuka.com/hive
🧘 SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift
📚 Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn
📖 Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book
🧠 Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok
🌐 Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/

ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem.

That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits, start here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

Connect with me:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyotsuka
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heytracyotsuka
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyotsuka/

Are You Ready to Discover Your Brilliance? Order Now: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Start with my this training: Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up
_____

Dr. Ann Bennett has spent more than 20 years studying what helps people learn, adapt, and thrive. So when she decided to look at what ADHD podcasts were actually doing for women, she was not expecting the results to be THIS strong.

Dr. Bennett leads Applied Research & Evaluation at Understood.org and identifies as disabled, autistic, and AuDHD. In a first-of-its-kind study with Torrens University Australia, she and her research partner looked at how podcasts hosted by and for women with ADHD affect self-perception, health literacy, relationships, and hope for the future.

What they found was bigger than “podcasts are helpful.”

Women were moving from “something is wrong with me” to “I am a woman with ADHD, and I can navigate this.” About 85 to 86 percent reported a stronger sense of hope for their future, and the benefits showed up across every dimension of thriving the researchers measured.

In this episode, Tracy and Ann talk about why lived experience matters as much as credentials, why being talked with feels different from being talked at, what clinicians could learn from podcasts, and why hearing another woman say “me too” can genuinely change the way you see yourself.

Resources:
Website: https://www.understood.org/en/people/ann-m-bennett
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-annbennett
TEDx Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=noZM8CRmrBo
Podcast Study: https://www.understood.org/en/research-and-surveys/the-power-of-podcasts-how-podcasts-are-supporting-women-with-adhd

Send a Message: Your Name | Email | Message

Explore more from me:
🐝 AOK Hive: https://tracyotsuka.com/hive
🧘 SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift
📚 Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn
📖 Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book
🧠 Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok
🌐 Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/

ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem.

That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits, start here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

Connect with me:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyotsuka
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heytracyotsuka
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyotsuka/

Are You Ready to Discover Your Brilliance? Order Now: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Start with my this training: Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

_____

Holly Fowler was the kid who got told she was too loud, too distracted, too much. She was also a C-grade student barely passing maths and science until an academic scholarship gave her a reason to care.

Then she got straight As.

That same intensity now fuels Wable, the global social network Holly founded for neurodivergent people to connect across friendship, dating, work, and support. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, she has since scaled the company across four continents.

Diagnosed with ADHD in her early 20s, Holly can now see the clues all over her childhood, including years of school reports calling her easily distracted and distracting to others.

In this episode, Holly and Tracy talk about ADHD as an entrepreneurial advantage, what rejection taught her about RSD, how she manages overthinking and constant decision-making, and what building a company has revealed about how her brain works under pressure.

If you have ever been told your brain is too much for the room, this conversation explores what can happen when you build around it instead.

Resources:
Website: https://www.hellowable.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itshollyfowler
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/holly-fowler-3b36b9163
Mindbridge Coaching: https://www.mindbridgecoaching.com
Wable: https://www.hellowable.com

Send a Message: Your Name | Email | Message

Explore more from me:
🐝 AOK Hive: https://tracyotsuka.com/hive
🧘 SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift
📚 Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn
📖 Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book
🧠 Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok
🌐 Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/

ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem.

That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits, start here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

Connect with me:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyotsuka
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heytracyotsuka
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyotsuka/

Are You Ready to Discover Your Brilliance? Order Now: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Start with my this training: Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

_____

Tessa MacKay can spend hundreds of hours on a single painting. Her photorealistic work can look almost indistinguishable from a photograph, but for Tessa, that precision became more than technique. It became a way to work with her ADHD, dyslexia, and the way her brain processes the world.

An Australian oil painter diagnosed with inattentive ADHD at 18, Tessa built a career around the kind of detail and focus that once helped her make sense of the world. But success also brought her face-to-face with the art world's complicated relationship with photorealism, forcing her to question how she thought, learned, and defended her own work.

In this episode, Tracy and Tessa talk about what happened when she decided to retrain her brain, why painting could feel easier than everyday life, and how her latest project, Social Realism, turns forgotten Facebook photos into art.

If you have ever wondered how someone can do something extraordinarily difficult while struggling with things that seem simple, this conversation goes there.

Resources:

• Website: https://www.tessamackay.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tessamackayart
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tessa-mackay-8a7121289
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tessamackayart
• Arrowsmith Program:
https://arrowsmith.ca
https://thetrailblazersbook.com
• Trailblazers by Howard Eaton - https://www.amazon.com/Trailblazers-Spearheading-Educational-Australian-Difficulties/dp/1779414250
• The Woman Who Changed Her Brain by Barbara Arrowsmith-Young - https://www.amazon.com/Woman-Who-Changed-Brain-Transformation/dp/1451607946

Send a Message: Your Name | Email | Message

Explore more from me:
🐝 AOK Hive: https://tracyotsuka.com/hive
🧘 SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift
📚 Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn
📖 Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book
🧠 Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok
🌐 Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/

ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem.

That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits, start here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

Connect with me:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyotsuka
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heytracyotsuka
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyotsuka/

Are You Ready to Discover Your Brilliance? Order Now: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Start with my this training: Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

_____

Have you ever tried to fix your spouse? Push a little harder, remind a little more, explain it one more time, and eventually they will just get it?

Jackie Kelley did that for years. Then she realized the thing she kept trying to change was often just a brain that worked differently from hers.

Jackie is a neurodivergent content creator, illustrator, children’s book author, wife, mother, and founder of JK Illustrates. Diagnosed with ADHD at 30, after motherhood knocked down what she calls the “perfect house of cards” she had built around herself, she began sharing what she was learning about ADHD, marriage, and family life. Her viral “Marriage Rules” videos took off in 2024, and her book, So You Married a Human, comes out October 6.

She and her husband married two weeks after she graduated, having never spent more than 72 consecutive hours together. Two very different neurodivergent brains, each convinced the other person’s way was the problem, eventually built a set of rules to communicate better in the middle of conflict.

In this episode, Jackie and Tracy get into “Voted Off the Island,” “No Wrong Answer,” “Do It Yourself,” and “Love This Idea for Five Minutes.” They also talk about sensory overload, defensiveness, the “little man” screaming in everyone’s head, why the goal of a fight cannot be winning, and why laughter matters so much in an ADHD marriage.

If you have ever quietly resented your partner for not doing something the way your brain needs it done, this one is for you.

Resources:
Website: https://www.stayathomejackie.com
Website: https://www.jkillustrates.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Stayathomejackie
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@stayathomejackie

Send a Message: Your Name | Email | Message

Explore more from me:
🐝 AOK Hive: https://tracyotsuka.com/hive
🧘 SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift
📚 Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn
📖 Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book
🧠 Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok
🌐 Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/

ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem.

That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits, start here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

Connect with me:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyotsuka
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heytracyotsuka
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyotsuka/

Are You Ready to Discover Your Brilliance? Order Now: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Start with my this training: Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

_____

“Why can’t I just?” was the question Clare Edwin kept coming back to.

Why can’t I just answer that email? Why can’t I just leave the house on time? Why can’t I just do the ordinary things everyone else seems to manage?

Clare grew up in Nigeria, studied aeronautical engineering, earned a master’s in mathematical modelling, worked as a quality engineer, and became a secondary school maths teacher. She was rated a good teacher, but behind the scenes, she was struggling. The same pile of books came home to be marked night after night and went back untouched. Eventually, the demands of teaching contributed to repeated episodes of depression, and she left the profession.

While off work, Clare started making beaded bracelets on her coffee table, mostly to get herself off the sofa. That small beginning became Lollamac, the jewellery business she still runs fifteen years later.

Her ADHD diagnosis did not come until 2021, after a woman in her business group described her own experience and Clare found herself mentally ticking off the same traits.

If you have ever worked hard, looked capable from the outside, and still felt like you were falling short, you will recognise yourself in this one.

Resources
Website: https://www.lollamac.co.uk
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lollamac_
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lollamac

Send a Message: Your Name | Email | Message

Explore more from me:
🐝 AOK Hive: https://tracyotsuka.com/hive
🧘 SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift
📚 Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn
📖 Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book
🧠 Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok
🌐 Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/

ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem.

That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits, start here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

Connect with me:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyotsuka
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heytracyotsuka
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyotsuka/

Are You Ready to Discover Your Brilliance? Order Now: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Start with this training: Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up
_____

About one in nine adults is on a GLP-1 right now. And women with ADHD kept telling me the exact same thing after starting GLP-1 medications: they expected to lose weight, but they did not expect their brains to feel different.

The brain fog lifted. The food noise got quieter. Energy felt steadier. Emotional reactions became easier to interrupt. For some, inflammation, pain, bloating, cravings, and compulsive behaviors changed too.

So I brought back Dr. Kalin Johnson to tell us whether there is real science behind that or whether we are getting ahead of the evidence. Kalin is a licensed clinical pharmacist, functional medicine wellness coach, and patient advocate who runs a concierge whole-person care practice for high-achieving, high-masking neurodivergent adults. She is also queer, ADHD, autistic, and living with hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and this is her fourth time on the show.

In this episode, Kalin and I get into how GLP-1 receptors communicate across the gut, brain, pancreas, immune system, and vagus nerve, and why that matters for ADHD women. They also talk about food noise, brain fog, inflammation, metabolic health, emotional regulation, microdosing, side effects, muscle loss, access, and what the research still cannot tell us.

Resources

• Website: https://www.kalinjohnson.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kalinpharmd
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kalin-johnsonpharmd
• Ania Jastreboff, MD - Director of the Yale Obesity Research Center, principal investigator on many of the landmark trials for tirzepatide and retatrutide. If you watch only one thing, watch her Lincoln Center talk. https://medicine.yale.edu/profile/ania-jastreboff
• Dr. Spencer Nadolsky - https://www.instagram.com/drnadolsky
• Rocio Salas-Whalen MD - https://www.instagram.com/drsalaswhalen

Send a Message: Your Name | Email | Message

Explore more from me:
🐝 AOK Hive: https://tracyotsuka.com/hive
🧘 SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift
📚 Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn
📖 Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book
🧠 Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok
🌐 Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/

ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem.

That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits, start here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

Connect with me:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyotsuka
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heytracyotsuka
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyotsuka/

Are You Ready to Discover Your Brilliance? Order Now: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Start here: Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up
_____

Faye Lawrence got blackout drunk at 13. What she remembers is not the drinking. It is the relief.

She started drinking heavily as a teenager and kept going for decades. From the outside she looked successful and high functioning, right up until late 2017, when the wheels came off the cart and she found herself in inpatient detox.

She got sober. Then she waited five more years to find out why she had been drinking in the first place. Faye was diagnosed with ADHD at 48, and suddenly the chaos, the burnout, the emotional intensity, the boredom, and the constant need to switch her brain off all made sense. Alcohol had not come out of nowhere. It had been doing a job.
Faye is now a certified grey area drinking coach and ADDCA certified ADHD coach with degrees in psychology and counselling, and she has spoken at TEDx and SXSW. She founded Untoxicated, which grew into Australia's largest alcohol-free social community back when being sober was decidedly uncool.

In this episode, Tracy and Faye get into grey area drinking and why the all-or-nothing label keeps people stuck, what alcohol is actually doing in an ADHD brain, the mummy wine culture that was sold to women on purpose, and why the carrot works where the stick never will.

If you have ever needed a drink to get your brain to be quiet, this conversation is not here to shame you. It is here to give you clarity.

Resources
Website: https://fayelawrence.com.au
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_fayelawrence_
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FayeLawrenceCoaching
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/faye-lawrence-aus
Free Wine O'Clock reset guide: https://fayelawrence.com.au/tracyo
ADHD-alcohol small group coaching program also opens in mid-August: https://fayelawrence.com.au/loop

Send a Message: Your Name | Email | Message

Explore more from me:
🐝 AOK Hive: https://tracyotsuka.com/hive
🧘 SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift
📚 Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn
📖 Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book
🧠 Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok
🌐 Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/

ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem.

That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits, start here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

Connect with me:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyotsuka
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heytracyotsuka
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyotsuka/

Are You Ready to Discover Your Brilliance? Order Now: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Start here: Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up
_____

Some brains cannot sit still long enough to be careful. Ella Fielding found a machine that runs on exactly that.

Ella has a BA in Fine Art Sculpture, a Masters in Fine Art, and a chainsaw operator's license, and she uses all three to turn whole trees into monumental sculpture. But she left school at 14 because it was too traumatic to stay. She was quick with her hands and slow to get anything out of her head onto paper, and for most of her life nobody named why. She was 38, running her own art business and drowning in the admin, when a work coach kept mentioning ADHD and she kept insisting she was just dyslexic. Turns out it was both.

Now she carves outside in full gear, running a machine most people won't touch and making it behave like a scalpel. Not despite the ADHD. Because of it. A chainsaw does not let you drift or second-guess or wait for the perfect plan. It demands you be right here, right now, which is the one place her brain has always worked best.

In this episode, Tracy and Ella get into the school years that nearly broke her, the "poof" moment where a thought vanishes the second she reaches for a pen, why immediate and physical beats slow and planned for a brain like hers, and how she reads her own overwhelm as a signal instead of a character flaw.

If you have ever been told you were too much, this one might reframe the whole thing.

Resources:
Website: https://ellafielding.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ella.fielding.sculptor
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ellafieldingsculptor
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ella-fielding-sculptor

Send a Message: Your Name | Email | Message

Explore more from me:
🐝 AOK Hive: https://tracyotsuka.com/hive
🧘 SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift
📚 Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn
📖 Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book
🧠 Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok
🌐 Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/

ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem.

That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits, start here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

Connect with me:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyotsuka
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heytracyotsuka
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyotsuka/

Are You Ready to Discover Your Brilliance? Order Now: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Start here: Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up
_____

She was good at the job. She just kept bombing the people.

Dr. Shannan Palma has a PhD from Emory, founded a master's program, and taught as a college professor. Then, in midlife, she found out she was autistic. ADHD turned up right behind it.

For decades she had followed the rules exactly as they were written and could not work out why that kept failing her. She was direct when directness was not wanted. She said no when everyone else said yes and did nothing. She ran full speed until she collapsed, then ramped back up and did it again. The diagnosis did not just explain the pattern. It ended it.

Today she identifies as AuDHD, co-founded the autistic-led nonprofit Independence Through Interdependence, and serves as CEO of ITI Lab, where her team built Decide, an app for decision fatigue.

In this episode, Tracy and Shannan get into why decision fatigue is not a willpower problem, what happens when the autism wants routine and the ADHD wants novelty, the assessment that went badly wrong, and what it takes to rebuild after burnout on your own terms instead of someone else's.

If your brain has ever turned a small decision into a full-body shutdown, this one will help you understand why. And more importantly, what actually helps.

Resources
Website: https://weareiti.org
Website: https://itilab.io
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannanpalma

ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem.

Send a Message: Your Name | Email | Message

Explore more from me:
🐝 AOK Hive: https://tracyotsuka.com/hive
🧘 SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift
📚 Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn
📖 Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book
🧠 Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok
🌐 Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/

ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem.

That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits, start here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

Connect with me:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyotsuka
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heytracyotsuka
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyotsuka/

Are You Ready to Discover Your Brilliance? Order Now: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up
_____

Laura Pasley is a child and youth worker in Ontario, Canada, who has spent more than a decade in intensive mental health and dual-diagnosis treatment programs for children and adolescents. She is the person who runs toward the crisis when everyone else is running away from it.

After postpartum anxiety, postpartum OCD, complex trauma, and her sixth concussion, Laura started questioning whether ADHD had been part of her story all along. At 32, she finally received the diagnosis that helped her see herself differently. Not as someone who had fooled everyone. Not as someone who was not smart. As someone whose brain had been working hard to keep her alive.

In this episode, Tracy and Laura talk about ADHD, trauma, fawning, concussions, crisis work, motherhood, shame, and what changes when a woman finally stops explaining every struggle through what happened to her. Laura also shares why she is now returning to school, writing a memoir, and learning to embrace being a daydreamer.

If you have ever wondered whether it is ADHD, trauma, anxiety, or all of the above, this conversation offers a gentler question: what if understanding your brain is not about proving what is wrong with you, but finally seeing what has always been true?

Resources
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arttaropy
Threads: https://www.threads.com/@arttaropy

Send a Message: Your Name | Email | Message

Explore more from me:
🐝 AOK Hive: https://tracyotsuka.com/hive
🧘 SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift
📚 Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn
📖 Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book
🧠 Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok
🌐 Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/

ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem.

That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits, start here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

Connect with me:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyotsuka
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heytracyotsuka
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyotsuka/

Are You Ready to Discover Your Brilliance? Order Now: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book

Stuck in an ADHD pattern that keeps repeating? SHIFT is a collection of 120 guided audio experiences designed to help you see yourself and your ADHD brain differently. Explore SHIFT here: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift
_

How many times have you told yourself, “I’ll do it when I feel more confident”?

When I feel ready, I’ll apply for that job. When I feel more confident, I’ll start the business. When I believe in myself more, I’ll have that hard conversation.

We spend so much of our lives waiting to feel ready. More confident. More certain. More qualified.

But what if we have had it backwards all along?

I want to talk about why confidence does not actually come first. It does not magically appear before we take the risk, try the thing, or do something that scares us.

Confidence comes after.

If you have been waiting to feel ready before taking the next step, this episode will help you stop waiting for confidence and start building it.

ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem.

That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start seeing yourself differently, explore SHIFT here: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift

Send a Message: Your Name | Email | Message

Explore more from me:
🐝 AOK Hive: https://tracyotsuka.com/hive
🧘 SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift
📚 Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn
📖 Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book
🧠 Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok
🌐 Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/

ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem.

That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits, start here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

Connect with me:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyotsuka
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heytracyotsuka
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyotsuka/

Are You Ready to Discover Your Brilliance? Order Now: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

_____

Your kid got labeled the “problem.” The defiant one, the behavior kid, the one who couldn't sit still or keep up. What if the room was the thing that didn't fit?

Beven Byrnes is a neurodivergent educator, nonprofit leader, and a mom of four. She's the Executive Director of Bridges Middle School in Portland, the only middle school in Oregon built specifically for students with ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and anxiety.

Beven spent 25 years and raised over $15 million building environments where kids actually fit. But she didn't have her own ADHD diagnosis until this past year, at 50. Cancer treatment forced her into menopause at 45, her estrogen dropped, and the masking she'd done her whole life without knowing it stopped working. The square-peg feeling she'd carried since childhood finally made sense. Now she runs a school on one idea: behavior is communication, and the job isn't to fix the kid, it's to fix the environment around them.

In this episode, Tracy and Beven get into why behavior is almost always communication, what happens to a child's confidence after years of being misread, and what it looks like to build a school around how kids actually learn instead of forcing them to fit.

If your child, or you, ever got treated like the problem to be solved, this one will show you what was actually broken. And it was never the brain.

Resources:
Website: https://www.bridgesms.org/staff-spotlight-beven-byrnes-executive-director
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrs_byrnes
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/beven-byrnes

Send a Message: Your Name | Email | Message

Explore more from me:
🐝 AOK Hive: https://tracyotsuka.com/hive
🧘 SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift
📚 Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn
📖 Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book
🧠 Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok
🌐 Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/

ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem.

That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits, start here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

Connect with me:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyotsuka
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heytracyotsuka
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyotsuka/

Are You Ready to Discover Your Brilliance? Order Now: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book

Stuck in an ADHD pattern that keeps repeating? SHIFT is a collection of 120 guided audio experiences designed to help you see yourself and your ADHD brain differently. Explore SHIFT here: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift
_

Have you ever noticed that the harder you try to think your way out of feeling overwhelmed, the more overwhelmed you become?

You replay conversations. You worry about the future. You analyze every possible outcome. You keep thinking that if you can just solve the problem, you will finally feel better.

But what if thinking is not the answer?

For a long time, I thought the only way to feel better was to think differently. If I could just figure it out, solve the problem, or make sense of what I was feeling, then I would finally feel better.

But sometimes the fastest way to calm your brain is not to think harder. It is to start with your body.

When I get into my body, my attention has somewhere else to go. Instead of replaying my thoughts, I start paying attention to what I am doing, what I see, what I hear, what I smell, and what I feel.

If you have ever tried to think your way out of overwhelm and only made yourself feel worse, this episode will help you stop asking your brain to do all the work and let your body lead for a few minutes.

Resources:
SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift
Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn
Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book
Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok
Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/

ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem.

That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start seeing yourself differently, explore SHIFT here: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift

Listen to ADHD for Smart Ass Women:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/adhd-for-smart-ass-women-with-tracy-otsuka/id1443678424
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7bG9rgwPgi8zRkQxV6ykk0
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tracyotsuka4796

Send a Message: Your Name | Email | Message

Explore more from me:
🐝 AOK Hive: https://tracyotsuka.com/hive
🧘 SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift
📚 Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn
📖 Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book
🧠 Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok
🌐 Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/

ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem.

That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits, start here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

Connect with me:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyotsuka
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heytracyotsuka
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyotsuka/

Are You Ready to Discover Your Brilliance? Order Now: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book