When Dr. Nanci Smith realized her neurodiverse childrens’ needs weren’t going to be met by the public school system, she knew she had to try a different approach to education. Luckily, Nanci has a background in psychobiology and is motivated by a challenge, so the transition to homeschooling was a no-brainer.    Nanci learned how to support her childrens’ sensory, socio-emotional, and executive functioning needs, and along the way she learned how to support her own unique brain as well. She...

For years, Kalin Johnson was operating with a dysregulated nervous system and putting her body through unnecessary stress, and it was only once she started listening to her body’s needs that she realized how much easier things could be. Kalin now combines her personal experience with her professional training as a healthcare provider to help others bridge the gap between mental and physical health. Through her work, she shows high-achieving, neurodivergent, and hypermobile individuals how to...

    Lisa Lewis’s skill of talking to anyone and everyone has taken her on unexpected adventures around the world, from the Scottish Highlands to the running of the bulls, and now she’s here to talk to us about her ADHD journey. For the last twelve years Lisa has worked as an HR professional who focuses on diversity, equality, and inclusion in the workplace. She received a late diagnosis of ADHD and now attributes her diverse background and success to her neurodiversity. Join my conversation...

When Alice Gendron entered the workforce, she struggled to manage the workload of a nine-to-five job and also stay on top of the endless demands of adulting. When she was diagnosed with ADHD at 29, it all finally made sense.  Alice started making doodles about her ADHD experience, a skill she had been honing since grade school. Before she knew it, her illustrations had grown into the popular online platform ‘The Mini ADHD Coach’, with over half a million Instagram followers and a brand new...

Antonia Bowring is a top executive coach who works with founders, C-Suite executives, and leadership teams. One of Antonia’s areas of expertise is helping neurodiverse leaders create the necessary scaffolding to leverage their gifts and maintain their focus.   She is a frequent speaker to companies and groups on topics ranging from mindfulness, ADHD in the workplace, and communication best practices. Her new book, Coach Yourself! Increase Awareness, Change Behavior and Thrive provides...

Resources: Visit: Tracy Otsuka: Instagram: @tracyotsuka

This is the hardest episode I’ve had to record to date. In truth, I’ve been avoiding it like the plague, which means procrastinating everything so I don’t have to go there, but I knew I had to do it for my beautiful mother.   Since starting this podcast back in 2019, many of you have asked for an episode on grief. Just like my episodes on trauma that took years, I dug my heels in because the words I was telling myself sounded like, “how can you talk about grief when you haven’t experienced...

Growing up, Author Sivan Hong struggled to focus on reading long enough to connect with the text, until she discovered audiobooks and a whole new world opened up for her. Years later Sivan was diagnosed with ADHD and she finally understood why visual reading had been such a challenge for her and had caused so much unnecessary shame.    Sivan’s diagnosis opened her eyes to how much easier things could’ve been if her different learning style had been encouraged and she was inspired to start...

Show Notes–Ep. 247: Breaking Up with Booze and Living Your Best Life with Amanda Kuda   Amanda Kuda was acutely aware of being different from her peers growing up–the movie Matilda made her feel seen, minus the telekinesis–so when she discovered that alcohol made it easier for her to fit in, it became a regular part of her social life. After an ADHD diagnosis in her early 20’s, Amanda started to take note of what was and wasn’t helpful for managing her symptoms and realized the habit change...

Personally, I can't think of anything scarier than being a live performer, but there's something about the ADHD brain that seems to make us happier when we're running into the fire rather than away from it.    For comedian Blaire Postman, what scared her more than getting up on a stage was the idea of never trying, which is why at 43 she chose to run headfirst into that metaphorical fire and turned her passion for comedy into a full-time career.   Speaking with Blaire, it's easy to see why...

Stephanie Caldero is a self-made, self-taught interior designer who owns a boutique design firm in Charlotte, North Carolina. Stephanie has always loved interior design starting when she was a child circling items in catalogs and learning from her seamstress grandmother. For years she designed for friends and family on the side while she worked various marketing jobs, until 2021 when she finally turned her side hustle into her main hustle and never looked back. Stephanie knew she had to turn...

Perfectionism causes so many of us ADHD women to get in our own way and stops us from reaching our full creative potential for fear of criticism. My guest this episode, Dr. Fiona Peters knows firsthand just how disabling the anxiety-perfectionism spiral can be, which is why she’s so passionate about helping others escape it.  Dr. Peters is a speaker and trainer for schools and is currently touring with her talk entitled "Perfectionism and Anxiety,” with which she helps parents, educators, and...

Sarah McCall is the author of the book, Cecil Gets a Haircut, which she wrote as a tool to help parents, educators, and superintendents of schools work with children with anxiety. Her work both on the pages and in the classrooms helps get the conversation started about ADHD, autism, and mental health, making it easier for students to get the understanding and support they deserve.    Sarah’s life goal is to help children and their adults better understand mental health, but it wasn’t until...

Jessica Liddell is a professional mosaic/mural artist and the owner and founder of Bella Mosaic Art, where she’s been making mosaics professionally since 1997. Before becoming a professional artist Jessica tried pursuing a more practical career in teaching, but after an eye-opening trip to Barcelona, with its exquisite mosaic buildings, she realized that art is where her true passion lies.    When Jessica returned home she dove headfirst into mosaic art, eventually merging her two passions of...

Jessi Kingan left the United States at age 22 for what was meant to be a six-month adventure of traveling and teaching scuba diving around the world. Like so many ADHDers with a plan though, she ended up on a completely different path than she was expecting.    Now almost 13 years later, Jessi lives with her husband and children in Iceland, where she owns and operates a restaurant, hostel, and apartment hotel on the south coast, and she couldn’t be happier. Jessi makes entrepreneurship work...

Growing up, Kathy Joseph was convinced she wasn’t smart because she struggled to memorize facts like everyone else. But as she got older she realized she is smart, she just has to do things her own way.    Kathy leaned into her pattern recognition skills and became a math whiz; she went on to receive four higher education degrees in physics, engineering, and science education and spent 12 years teaching high school physics before ultimately starting her popular YouTube channel, Kathy Loves...

I have been searching high and low for the perfect specialist to come on the podcast and talk about autism and ADHD, and I think I finally achieved that with this episode’s guest, Dr. Megan Anna Neff.    Dr. Neff is not only a clinical psychologist who specializes in working with neurodivergent adults, but she herself is an autistic ADHDer, giving her an essential understanding of the internal experience. She was officially diagnosed at 37, and since then her work has grown to focus on...

Anna Daphna is an ADHD and executive function coach, mentor, and psychologist based in London. She started off her career in education with the goal of giving kids a better school experience than she had herself, but eventually she felt called to psychology and pursued a psychology degree. Now, Anna combines her two passions by coaching people with ADHD using holistic and neuroscience-based strategies specifically designed for neurodivergent brains to maximize happiness, confidence and...

ADHDers tend to be good at a bunch of different things, but just because we're good at something doesn't necessarily mean it's the right career path for us. In fact, career counselor Shell Mendelson is here to ask us: forget about the things you’re good at, what are the skills you love using?    As a career coach and counselor of 30 plus years, Shell specializes in supporting ADHD adults in building lasting, fully satisfying careers and businesses. She has developed a unique career counseling...

Applying to college feels more like a grueling competition these days, with an acceptance into one of the top 20 schools being the ultimate prize. But when you “win” the competition, what are you actually winning? That’s a question author Irena Smith poses in her recent memoir, The Golden Ticket: A Life in College Admissions Essays.  Irena, who also runs a private college counseling practice, has seen how much the pressures of college are impacting our kids’ mental health and limiting their...

Hey there! This is a bonus episode Resources: AOK: with the code PODCASTSASS Juliann Decker: Tracy Otsuka: Instagram: @tracyotsuka

When Mandy Zelinka and I first crossed paths in a women's marketing mastermind group years ago, her vibrant energy and unmistakable talent made it clear she was headed for big things. However, nobody including Mandy could’ve predicted the eccentric places her creative ADHD brain would wind up taking her.    Mandy’s foray into filmmaking first began when she got bored and convinced her Mayor husband to run off to a nudist colony and live in a tiny RV nestled in the Issaquah Alps. Their...

Hey there! This is a bonus episode Resources: AOK: with the code PODCASTSASS Trinlee Chodren: Tracy Otsuka: Instagram: @tracyotsuka

Whether it scares or excites us, artificial intelligence is here to stay. So instead of fighting it, what if we learned how to make it work for our ADHD brains? Unfortunately, even talking about AI is completely out of my wheelhouse, which is why I invited product designer Laura Vig onto the podcast to talk about how we can use AI to improve our lives. Laura recently got her ADHD diagnosis back in February, which unlocked a new level of understanding and insight into how to best support...

Hey there! This is a bonus episode Resources: AOK: or with the code PODCASTSASS Haley Lin: Instagram @7am.hlz  Tracy Otsuka: Instagram: @tracyotsuka