ADHD for Smart Ass Women with Tracy Otsuka

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

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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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
Visit our w...

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:
🐝 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
Visit our w...

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:
🐝 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
Visit our w...

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:
🐝 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
Visit our w...