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
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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:
🧘 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
Visit our website: https://tracyotsuka.com

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

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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:
🧘 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
Visit our website: https://tracyotsuka.com

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

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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:
🧘 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
Visit our website: https://tracyotsuka.com

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

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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:
🧘 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
Visit our website: https://tracyotsuka.com

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

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“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:
🧘 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
Visit our website: https://tracyotsuka.com