The ADHD Signs Women Keep Missing with Tracy Otsuka

CASS DUNN: This is Crappy to Happy and I am your host, Cass Dunn.

CASS DUNN: I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist, a mindfulness meditation teacher, and of course, author of the Crappy to Happy books. In this show, I bring you conversations with interesting, inspiring, intelligent people who are experts in their field and who have something of value to share that will help you feel less crappy and more happy.

CASS DUNN: My guest today is Tracy Otsuka.

CASS DUNN: Tracy is a force of nature and she's a champion for women whose brains don't operate like most people's. Tracy is a certified ADHD coach, a former attorney, and she is the best-selling author of ADHD for Smartass Women, How to Fall in Love with Your Neurodivergent Brain, a book that is rewriting the narrative about ADHD in women. Tracy doesn't just speak about ADHD in theory. She lives with it.

CASS DUNN: And drawing from her own diagnosis, her years spent coaching thousands of women and the time and energy that she has invested into her own research, she helps women with ADHD turn what the world calls chaos into creativity, energy, and purpose. Tracy is a firm believer that every woman with a neurodivergent brain has something that makes them brilliant and that our job is to find out.

CASS DUNN: What that brilliance is. And then that is when we live fully authentically, creatively, and really shine and make a Mark on the world. She also hosts the podcast ADHD for Smartass Women, which reaches millions around the world and has become a lifeline for many. Tracy invites every woman who's ever been told she's too much to stop hiding and fall in love with your ADHD brain.

CASS DUNN: Welcome to the Crappy to Happy podcast.

TRACY OTSUKA: Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm delighted to be here.

CASS DUNN: I love your work, Tracey.

CASS DUNN: And for listeners who aren't familiar, you obviously have a very, very popular podcast and a book both called ADHD for Smartass Women. For listeners who aren't yet familiar with your work, Tracey, do you mind just sharing a little bit of your own backstory, how you came to be doing this work, to be so passionate about it and even, you know, getting your own. Adhd diagnosis?

TRACY OTSUKA: So my son was diagnosed with ADHD when he was 12. He started to struggle at about nine and before that, no struggles whatsoever. So we ended up getting him tested, couldn't find anything, thought it was a visual processing issue. We spent thousands of dollars on training, didn't seem to make a difference at all. He ended up going to a different school. He was at a Catholic school.

TRACY OTSUKA: And then two years later, he asked to come back to the Catholic school. And his comment was, this school, it was supposed to teach to interest. So they were all about, you know, the arts and music and things beyond just the regular reading, writing, and arithmetic. And he just felt that there wasn't enough structure. In the Catholic school, there was much more structure.

TRACY OTSUKA: And so he asked to go back to that school. And when he went back to that school, we. Ultimately had him tested. And when he was tested, they told us he has ADHD. And I almost fell off my chair because I didn't know what ADHD looked like. I thought ADHD meant that you're not very smart. You're all over the place and you are not going to be successful.

TRACY OTSUKA: So he was 12 now. And so we went to a psychologist in our community who came highly referred, supposedly an expert on ADHD. And she met with. Us three times. The first time, the entire family, then just with Marcus and then with my husband and me. And that last meeting, she sat us down and she said, your job as his parents is to reduce his expectations so he won't be disappointed in life.

TRACY OTSUKA: I was like, what? I mean, why would you ever say that to any child? I don't care if your child is intellectually disabled. Wherever you put the standard there, you know, maybe they'll fall a little bit below it, but let's not put it on the floor to make, to ensure that. And so at that point I was like, no, we're not going to do this. We never went back.

TRACY OTSUKA: And I started to do the research on ADHD and it took me about eight months. I remember reading, Ned Hallowell and John Rady's Driven to Distraction. By the second reading, I was on a Stairmaster at the gym. And I remember thinking, oh my gosh. Marcus got his ADHD from me, but ADHD looks different in women. So unlike my son, who was very stubborn, and if he wasn't interested in something, he just wouldn't do it.

TRACY OTSUKA: He'd fight everyone. Girls tend to be more people pleasing. And, you know, so they're going to do everything they can, which means work so much harder in order to do as well. And the two things that made me realize that it is ADHD, and he did get it from me, was number one, drivenness is a form of hyperactivity.

CASS DUNN: Interesting.

TRACY OTSUKA: I had gone through a lot of school. I'd gone through law school. I'd gone through graduate law school. I'd always been successful in what I did, but I jumped around a lot. I left the practice of law to start a high-end women's wear company where 60% of our business was our top three, do we call them department stores, but our high-end luxury department stores.

TRACY OTSUKA: And I made that happen in eight months. So I would do these crazy things. But if I was really interested in them, I would be able to make them work and make them work really fast. The second thing was many people with ADHD have interperson intuition, really heightened interpersonal intuition.

TRACY OTSUKA: And that means you can walk into a room, not know anyone that's there, and you can literally just feel what's going on. You can feel the energy. And it's not hippy-dippy. It's not woo-woo. What it is, is if you can't always rely on your brain, you start... To develop your other senses, right?

TRACY OTSUKA: So how a person will give you that sideway glance or how the weather changes or these little things that you're able to put together and come to conclusions that are actually true, even when the people that might be in that room, number one, don't want you to know, or they don't know themselves. So it was those two things that really made me realized that, oh my gosh, he got it from me.

TRACY OTSUKA: And so then of course I was totally into it and I wanted to learn more about ADHD. And so, you know, initially I started a Facebook group, pretty quickly we were at a hundred thousand members. And then, what I really wanted to do was start a podcast. And so I started a podcast.

TRACY OTSUKA: My whole thought was I'm going to put guardrails on my learning. I might disappoint myself because the thought of doing a podcast, a podcast every week for someone with an ADHD brain. Sounds kind of terrifying. And so I decided that if I did a podcast, I would be able to learn with whomever it is that decided to learn with me.

TRACY OTSUKA: And whereas I might disappoint myself, I would never disappoint them. So if I had even one listener where this was making a difference, I would continue to do it. And it's been, I think, six and a half years now. And then of course the book came after that and my programs and all of it. That was a very long answer.

CASS DUNN: It's totally fine. I can relate to so much of what you said. When I was in the middle of my master's degree in clinical psychology, the summer break where you get the longer break, and I had a three-year-old, two-year-old daughter at the time. I was studying psychology full-time, and I'll keep it really short. Please don't.

CASS DUNN: I got interested in veganism. I'd been vegetarian and I read something about veganism and I thought I need to be vegan. I need to at least try to be vegan. So I started to be vegan. And then I went to buy some stuff online and you couldn't really get good vegan stuff online. And the shipping was terrible. And there was only one online store in Australia.

CASS DUNN: And I thought there needs to be more online vegan stores in Australia. And who better to start an online vegan store than me? So I did that. And within six months, it was up, running, logo, fully functional. I had my spare room turned into a warehouse. I was running a very successful online vegan store. And meanwhile, I had to go back to uni and finish my master's.

CASS DUNN: And then I got a job as a psychologist and unpacking orders after seeing my clients and picking my daughter up from school. And I thought, this is ridiculous. Why am I doing this? And so I just got rid of it. I just sold it and was done with it and walked away from it. But I didn't get diagnosed with ADHD until about 12 months ago. So I look back at these things now and go, oh.

TRACY OTSUKA: They all make sense.

CASS DUNN: Now that makes sense. And I think that's such a typical experience, isn't it? Of women who, who go through life, you do these things and you get the degrees and you do the jobs and you feel like, well, I can focus and I can get stuff done. And then, you know, something happens and you realize, and then everything, you look back on everything with such a different perspective. Once you understand the diagnosis.

TRACY OTSUKA: Yeah, absolutely. And what you were doing was constantly firing your dopamine. And I work. Primarily with very successful women with ADHD. And what we learned early on, many of us were people pleasers. We noticed that, oh, when we do these certain things, we get a lot of attention for them.

TRACY OTSUKA: And it starts with grades and school, right? And so we just work so hard to make sure that we're always producing. And when we produce, we get attention. When we produce, things also start going better, right? Because we're in action. We're actually doing things. So in fact, I'm going to say that you're at least combined type ADHD, right?

TRACY OTSUKA: You're not inattentive ADHD. And I think the women that really struggle are the women that have inattentive ADHD that are always in their brain. And they're always thinking, thinking, thinking instead of getting into action. Now. There's negatives to both, right? We can get to the point where everything is about producing. And, you know, at some point it's too much as you noticed and something needs to give. So it makes sense.

CASS DUNN: Yeah. And that's one thing I wanted to ask you about. And, you know, we can preface this with that you're not a doctor and a psychiatrist, but you have so much valuable lived experience.

CASS DUNN: Experience from the community that you've created and the women that you've spoken to. And obviously your podcast has been going for such a long time. Like you really are an expert on the topic of ADHD, particularly for smart, successful women.

CASS DUNN: And I think that even with all of the information, more awareness that there is out there now, I still know from talking to my own community, my own listeners and clients, that there is still misconceptions out there. There is still a misunderstanding.

CASS DUNN: And even though people will say, well, understand conceptually that, oh, women are underdiagnosed because they only ever looked at hyperactivity in boys. That was the criteria. I mean, I studied psychology. That's what we were taught.

CASS DUNN: But I don't think that there is necessarily a clear understanding of, well, what does it look like for women? How does it present? What is inattentive? How does hyperactivity look? Can you explain some of that for women who are listening, thinking, well, I don't know, is that me? What does it look like in women?

TRACY OTSUKA: Okay. What I'd love to preface it with, however, is I do not believe that ADHD is a disorder.

CASS DUNN: No, it's not.

TRACY OTSUKA: And there was a study, a Canadian study that came out in 2022. I don't know why no one seems to be talking about it. And that study showed that 43% of people with ADHD are in excellent mental health. I didn't say good mental health. I didn't say okay mental health. I said excellent mental health.

TRACY OTSUKA: And so we need to understand that so much of what we see when people really struggle with ADHD is in large part trauma. And it can be developmental trauma, you know, childhood trauma, but it can also be the trauma of having ADHD, especially if you really struggled in school. So, you know, you go through school, you keep trying so hard and everybody's telling you to try harder.

TRACY OTSUKA: You know, they're giving you this impression that it's a character flaw. You, you know, you just don't care and it's not true. And so You just keep trying, but you can't try any harder. So then what do you do? You just give up. And so then you have learned helplessness, right? Where I can't do it. Tell me what to do.

TRACY OTSUKA: Well, that's the biggest prescription for unhappiness that I know. So please understand that just because you have ADHD does not mean that you can't do amazing things. And I see, I have worked with thousands of women with ADHD, and I will tell you, there is not one of them that I have ever met. Ever worked with, ever talked to that wasn't truly brilliant at something.

TRACY OTSUKA: So the key, because we have these interest driven brains is to figure out, okay, where is that? Where's that interest? What am I truly passionate about? Okay. So now, yes, ADHD looks so different in women and girls, which explains why 75% of women and girls remain undiagnosed. The biggest thing is we have two times the rate of inattention.

TRACY OTSUKA: Because of that, and I'll explain that, inattentive ADHD looks like, in a woman, the absent-minded professor. Brilliant in her area of interest, but everything else, not so much. So things like taking care of the house, things like, you know, making sure lunch is packed, things like, you know, your car might be a mess, your kids, you know, the administrative paperwork for school, you may forget that.

CASS DUNN: Picking up your kids from school.

TRACY OTSUKA: And I have done that, literally forgotten about that. So that would be inattentive ADHD. In a girl, it might look like sitting in the back of the classroom and being off in her own little fantasy world, not even realizing she's in school, let alone that class until the teacher calls on her.

TRACY OTSUKA: And so of course- If that's you and you're daydreaming and you don't know what's going on, and then the teacher calls on you and the other kids are making fun of you, maybe the teacher can be kind of bullying in terms of how she responds to you because she thinks that you're doing it on purpose. No, you're totally bored.

TRACY OTSUKA: And what's so frustrating is there may be things that you do so well because you are interested, but you don't understand that, oh, that's what's going on in my brain. The other form of ADHD, there's three types, hyperactivity, inattentive, and combined type. Most people, honestly, I've never met anyone who was purely hyperactive.

TRACY OTSUKA: Most people are a combination. And so hyperactivity or the hyperactive form of ADHD, that looks like what you were saying, the traditional boy, right? He's jumping off the wall. He's getting in trouble. He is annoying to the adults around him. So he gets the services versus the girls. Who tend to be people pleasers, who tend to be very sweet. They're daydreaming in the back of the classroom.

TRACY OTSUKA: They're not really hurting anyone. They're not causing problems. So they don't get diagnosed, but instead in their brains, they're wondering what is wrong with me? Why can't I do what all the other students in class can do? And so they tend to get diagnosed with anxiety and depression instead. Anxiety and depression might be comorbid, but often it can also be that if you treat the underlying ADHD.

TRACY OTSUKA: The anxiety and the depression go away. Girls also get diagnosed later in life. They tend to get diagnosed after puberty because what we know now is that estrogen modulates dopamine. So those times in our life when estrogen is bouncing around, those can be the times that we struggle the most. So of course, puberty, pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause, and then menopause.

CASS DUNN: I heard somebody say the other day that the hyperactivity, because I'd always heard that the hyperactivity. Could be mental hyperactivity, just overthinking everything. But then somebody said, what about hyperactivity of the mouth? It's the talk, talk, talk, talk, the one in class, it's always talking. And I thought, oh, of course.

TRACY OTSUKA: And think about how many girls, I was one of them, you know, on their report card, it was like, you know, she talks too much. She disturbs the students around her. Tracy could be an excellent student if she would stop talking. But we're bored, right? So we're always looking for dopamine. We're looking for interesting things. And I'm sorry, my neighbor talking to her was more interesting than listening to the teacher.

CASS DUNN: So that, I think what you just said then about the hormones is so important because I know myself that there's, and what I've talked about, what I hear people talking about is this rate of women being diagnosed during perimenopause when hormones are all over the place.

CASS DUNN: And so symptoms that have been there that you may have been able to manage become impossible to manage. But the that idea that at puberty... That just went ding, ding, ding in my brain about the girls who do really well in primary school and then the wheels fall off when they get to high school.

CASS DUNN: I thought it was just, oh, suddenly there's more homework and there's extra things to do and there's assignments, but you layer in there the hormones exacerbating the symptoms, then again, it makes perfect sense that high school would be challenging.

CASS DUNN: Then university, well, then it was all over for me once I got to university. I had to go back to university way later to actually do well because it wasn't happening for me straight out of school.

TRACY OTSUKA: And it can be both of those things, right? The hormones, but also school is getting harder and harder. And so your capacity to maintain everything, you know, becomes less and less. And I remember literally up until eighth grade, and I always wondered why was this? I could memorize anything. I was the lead in the English speaking plays. I was lead in German speaking plays. I could memorize. Everything.

TRACY OTSUKA: Once I got to eighth grade, I literally, I have no memory of even a one chorus of a song. So if it happened after eighth grade, couldn't, and I always wondered why could I memorize so well before? And then afterwards I couldn't memorize at all. So today, if the song, you know, was popular up until eighth grade, I know the song, like it's literally in my brain, But anything after eighth grade. Nope. Can't do it. Yeah.

CASS DUNN: So interesting. And then, you know, you mentioned pregnancy postpartum as well. And I think if you consider that women haven't been aware or have struggled to get a diagnosis, there's so many of these times in life that because of the life circumstances, we blame that.

CASS DUNN: Is that what happens? Like, you know, oh, well, it's baby brain. It's you're, you're a new mom, you're forgetful. But in fact, if there's ADHD there, then it's going to be exacerbated.

TRACY OTSUKA: Absolutely. Because you have more responsibilities. Things get a lot less linear, meaning, you know, when you just have to take care of yourself and you just have to, you know, get yourself fed, get your book read for the class. Now you're not only managing your own career, but you're likely managing the whole household, probably managing your husband's social calendar and all that.

TRACY OTSUKA: And you're managing this brand new baby. And because, honestly because of sexism and social stereotypes and gender roles Most of this falls on women still, 75% of the care tasks. So it all makes sense that it just becomes too much.

TRACY OTSUKA: And that part actually is serious because what we know today, research shows that 24% of women diagnosed with ADHD will attempt suicide. So to just brush it off and say, oh, it's nothing, that's not true either. So that is three times higher than men with ADHD. And eight times higher than women with ADHD.

CASS DUNN: Okay, this is Cass just jumping in with a quick note on that. What Tracy meant to say was eight times higher than women without ADHD. So the study she was referring to is a Canadian study by Fuller Thompson, and it reported that women with ADHD are roughly three times more likely to attempt suicide at some point in their life than men with ADHD and eight.

CASS DUNN: Times more likely than women who do not have ADHD. So that is, I think, an important clarification because that was a little confusing. Back to the episode.

TRACY OTSUKA: So I believe that, you know, this is in large part because of all these extra roles and duties that are stacked on women that aren't stacked on men. I mean, if you think about it, if a man has ADHD and he goes and hires a house cleaner or, you know, a nanny, let's say he's a single guy.

TRACY OTSUKA: Nobody would think twice about it. They would literally be like, of course you're going to do that, right? Even if he didn't have ADHD versus with women, no, we're supposed to do all the things.

CASS DUNN: So the work that I do in my coaching work predominantly is around self-confidence and imposter syndrome. I'm really interested in how you see these two things interact.

CASS DUNN: Undiagnosed ADHD in women really potentially contributes to these feelings of self-doubt, low self-confidence, feeling not good enough. What's that relationship? I mean, you must talk to women all the time. So I'd love to get your take on this.

TRACY OTSUKA: Yeah, no, it is huge. So first of all, if you think about a young woman or a girl who struggles in school, maybe she goes home and her room's a mess and, you know, her parents asked her to do things. She can't get them done. She starts feeling judged. She doesn't feel heard. She doesn't feel safe or understood. She certainly doesn't feel good enough.

TRACY OTSUKA: And she feels like nothing she will ever do is good enough. And so she can develop something called rejection sensitive dysphoria. So she becomes really sensitive to rejection and criticism. And so what ends up happening is I call them mental mind fields, all of these things start connecting where.

TRACY OTSUKA: So you start developing these perfectionistic tendencies because if I'm perfect, then nobody's going to be able to judge me, right? And this comes from this feeling of feeling judged and trying to avoid criticism and rejection. But feeling judged develops into this need to constantly be understood, which means you're always over-explaining yourself. You're constantly overthinking everything.

TRACY OTSUKA: You're constantly second-guessing yourself. And so you... Develop these perfectionistic strategies, basically. And so then you're comparing yourself to others, but you're also feeling disappointed by others because you're a perfectionist, right? So they are never going to be able to reach your exacting standards. And then you become really critical of others.

TRACY OTSUKA: Like nothing is ever good enough for you and nothing is ever good enough for them, which really can start to hurt relationships. And it just becomes. This nine-legged stool. And what I always say is that if you can knock out just even two legs, the whole thing can fall, right? If you can learn, oh my gosh, this all came from my ADHD, right?

TRACY OTSUKA: And it started with these feelings of constantly being criticized and rejected because we know that kids with ADHD, they hear 20,000 more negative messages by the time they're 12 than a neurotypical child. And so over time, I'm sorry, all those little cuts, that's trauma. And that can add up to one big trauma. And you can understand that if you're constantly like.

TRACY OTSUKA: I'm thinking of a girl who she just feels so beaten down. And so she just gets smaller. She develops learned helplessness. Boys will be more likely, some girls too, but boys will be more likely to say, screw this. There is nothing I can do that's ever going to be good enough. So I'm rebelling, right? And then you see a lot of oppositional behavior. It makes perfect sense though.

CASS DUNN: Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I'm working with women and... Through their whole adult life and career and they're really successful, but they cannot shake this self-doubt, this feelings that nothing is ever good enough. It goes to their core.

TRACY OTSUKA: Yeah, exactly. And I mean, I have women where I will start working with them and they are so broken. But the thing about the ADHD brain, we've always wanted to know why, why do I feel this way? Why did I do this?

TRACY OTSUKA: Why am I always challenging the status quo? Why can't I just let it lay?

TRACY OTSUKA: Once we realize it's ADHD, we have an explanation, we have a reason, and then we start putting it all together and understanding ourselves, then our life makes sense and our new choices and decisions can serve us instead of always trying to do everything to make everyone else happy, to make other people comfortable, rather than, well, wait a minute.

TRACY OTSUKA: Is this really what I want? I say all the time, I don't believe that ADHD is a productivity issue. I believe that it's an identity issue. You've been doing whatever everybody else has been telling you, not knowing who you are, not knowing what's important to you. And so no wonder you're not successful.

TRACY OTSUKA: Once you know that though, once you know what it is that you actually value, what's important to you, what your natural strengths are that you're- practicing today every day. Most women, they don't even know, you know, that come to me, they don't even know what that looks like.

TRACY OTSUKA: You know, what talents you've built skills around that are actually now your superpowers, you know, okay, this is a big one. We have so many passions, right? So many interests. We love the bright shiny and we try this and we try that. And then we go up and we go down and we sideways and we never really complete anything. And so we start to believe. That that's just our personality.

TRACY OTSUKA: That's just who we are. And in fact, what you need help with is really understanding who you are so that you can choose the passion that connects to a purpose. Because one of the things about ADHD women is we are so mission driven and we are so justice sensitive. So we can't just pick any passion.

TRACY OTSUKA: We're going to get bored. Might be fun for a while. Spikes our dopamine. No, we need it. Passion that connects to our purpose. So who are we going to help? It's all about service, whether it's a person or a cause that needs to be intricately bound to what we do so that we're in that sweet spot where all those things, our values, our talents, our skills, our passion and purpose and strengths are in that sweet spot.

TRACY OTSUKA: And so then what happens is when you are constantly working in that sweet spot. You are going to have none of the executive function challenges you have in all the other areas. So that's how you can see a woman who, you know, we struggle usually with the boring, stupid stuff, the administrative stuff.

TRACY OTSUKA: If you can get yourself through school, and then you get out into the world, what are you doing? You're doing stupid administrative stuff. And so then you believe there is nothing that you're brilliant at when in fact, I believe ADHD women, we are not meant to follow.

TRACY OTSUKA: We are meant to lead. But we need to be leading in an area of interest. And then, oh my gosh, it happens so fast. Everything flips, you know. And it happens so, it's so easy. Rather than constantly trying to push ourself up a hill, doing this work that we think we're supposed to do, but feeling no joy whatsoever around it.

CASS DUNN: Yeah, that makes so much sense. As you were talking to Tracy, I was thinking, you know, about how in terms of that confidence and feeling like a fraud and what you feel on the inside doesn't match what you present on the outside. And therefore you constantly feel like, you know, people, people think I'm smart, but I'm, I'm really not. And all of that sort of stuff going on.

CASS DUNN: But also the fact that systems, workplaces, schools are not set up to accommodate ADHD brains. So, and the reality is that if you, if you have a job, no matter how smart you are, and we can say it's a super, like lean into your ADHD, but What do you say to women who are trying to make it work in those environments where systems and structures, they don't cater for the difference, right?

TRACY OTSUKA: They're not at all. And what I say is environment is everything to us. So you need to figure out what that sweet spot is so that you can start working in that sweet spot. And I know it is scary, but it is never going to get better where you are. You need to change your environment. You need to be around people that see your brilliance, that love and respect you exactly the way you are.

TRACY OTSUKA: And that's career, but it's also relationships. Whether we're talking about intimate relationships or we're talking about friends, we all have, you're a psychologist, you know this, we all have this rudder inside ourselves, right? And that's partly our intuition. And when we are doing things that serve us, we feel good. When we are not, we don't feel good.

TRACY OTSUKA: So if you have relationships with friends where you leave it and you never feel good, those aren't friends. You need to find some new friends. Because the most important. Thing for us is to be around people who get us, who we feel connection is one of the most important things for us. If we don't feel that sense of connection, it's really hard to get out of bed.

CASS DUNN: Yeah, that's so true. That's so true. And everything that you're saying, like if you're not around people who get you, that just further fuels those feelings of something's wrong with me.

CASS DUNN: What's wrong with me and I need to change. So what you're really saying is when you When you know with that level of self-awareness, when you understand the difference, then you can start actually changing the environment to suit you as opposed to trying to change yourself to fit in with whatever the expectations are around you. We can't. No.

TRACY OTSUKA: Yeah. We can't fit in.

CASS DUNN: And the trying will make you miserable and burn you out and make you depressed, right?

TRACY OTSUKA: Oh, it totally will. Right. It absolutely will.

TRACY OTSUKA: Surprisingly, though, what I've noticed with ADHD women is when they can finally identify who they really are, lights them up, what is so important to them, you know, the work that is important, it's almost like they can't help but change because they have that awareness. And it might be a little tiny change every single day.

TRACY OTSUKA: But when you know where you, when you finally know where you're brilliant, that alone increases the confidence. And the more you work in that area of your brilliance, the more confident you become. And so it kind of feeds on itself. And there will always be times, I mean, I'll admit it, where something will happen. And I don't struggle with RSD to the level that most women with ADHD do.

TRACY OTSUKA: But I think I don't because I don't have childhood trauma, at least not anything major. I also learned really early on, I was pretty good at school. I figured school out. Yeah, I had to work harder, but I figured it out. And it was those actions that taught me that, okay, you need to do more of this. And so that's what builds the confidence versus for some women with ADHD.

TRACY OTSUKA: If you're constantly in your head, you think that you're actually solving problems, but you're not doing anything. You're like on a rocking horse, right? You're not going forward. You're not going backwards. And what that does to self-esteem, well, it certainly doesn't grow it. So I always say even the smallest little thing that you can do, but it's got to be something that you want to do for you.

TRACY OTSUKA: There has to be intention behind it. It cannot be something that someone else is telling you to do. I mean, there are things that we have to do that we don't want to do. There are ways to get the ADHD brain to do it, but over time, it can't just be so-and-so tells me to do this thing and so I'm going to do it. There has to be something in you that wants it.

CASS DUNN: You mentioned your foray into women's fashion. And I mentioned my vegan store. In the communities and all of those thousands of women that you interact with, Tracy, how many of them have an entrepreneurial spirit? How many of them are out doing entrepreneurial things?

TRACY OTSUKA: Most of them.

CASS DUNN: Yeah.

TRACY OTSUKA: Most of them. Even if it's a side hustle.

TRACY OTSUKA: It's that level of interest, right? And when we become interested in something, we hyper-focus and then it just kind of takes over and we want to do more and more. So I think it's very common. There are some women with ADHD who have no interest at all, and they actually like things. They have learned for their brain. They want everything in systems and structures.

TRACY OTSUKA: And those women, they can be entrepreneurial too, but they actually do really well. Those women usually have a little bit of autism as well, which is very common. So 60% of women with autism also have ADHD and 40% of women with ADHD also have autism. So I think it's all, you know, it's all these labels, but I think it's all connected.

TRACY OTSUKA: But those women, you can imagine. So you've got the autism wanting the structure and the discipline and all of that fighting with the. Adhd, which is like, ah, free for all, you know, don't tell me what to do. So those women tend to be very good entrepreneurs because they're able to build the systems and the structures.

CASS DUNN: Yeah. How interesting. How interesting. I was going to say with that entrepreneurial thing too, I think for, I think in my experience, and I'm sure for many women as well, it is a way out of that, that corporate bureaucracy, like that, those, that environment that just doesn't work, that doesn't fit.

TRACY OTSUKA: No. One of the things I wanted to add that I forgot is when you asked the question about, you know, fitting into the corporate environment, school, whatever, what research shows, if you're a parent and you're thinking, oh my gosh, my son or daughter or child has ADHD and they're in the school system and they're not doing well, what research has shown is if they have one parent who is on their side, who is...

TRACY OTSUKA: Fighting for them, who sees their brilliance, they're going to be okay. And I can say firsthand, you know, from firsthand experience that I really believe that's true.

CASS DUNN: Yeah. You mentioned a couple of times, Tracy, about childhood trauma. Now, again, we're prefacing this, you're not a psychiatrist. For a long time, there were these opposing views about ADHD being purely biological and it's genetic and it's inherited from a parent. And then the other view, which is that it's...

CASS DUNN: Manifestation of childhood trauma because trauma, as we know, does affect your brain development. And then there's some that say, well, if you've got ADHD or you've got a predisposition to it, then the trauma is going to exacerbate it. From all of your research and what you have learned, where do you come down on that in terms of the nature-nurture debate about ADHD?

TRACY OTSUKA: Yeah. So I believe that it's hereditary. You're born with it. The thing about it, though, is the symptoms of ADHD mirror the symptoms of trauma. Yes. So what ends up happening, and usually families with trauma, it's very common that one or more of the parents has ADHD, right? So you've got the symptoms of ADHD on top of the symptoms of trauma.

TRACY OTSUKA: And then, of course, then you go into hormones and perimenopause and menopause and those symptoms on top of it, because we know there are studies that have been done on women without ADHD. During the normal menstrual cycle, their brains make less dopamine. You know, all women's brains make less estrogen as they age.

TRACY OTSUKA: So you can see all of these things that, you know, stack on top of each other. So if you have ADHD and then there's also trauma, it's going to be so much worse. And those are the women that struggle the most in my experience. But even those women. Once they understand, oh my gosh, it's ADHD, and they start learning about ADHD, it really makes a difference.

CASS DUNN: There's so much else that goes into that as well. I mean, you think about ADHD, and particularly if it's undiagnosed, and they're more likely to develop substance use issues, drink too much, shop too much.

CASS DUNN: But drink too much is the big one. Recreational drugs, they're drawn to or more inclined to develop. Issues with substances, et cetera. And again, none of that's very good for an ADHD brain.

TRACY OTSUKA: No. And I mean, so much of it as I'm sitting here listening to you talk is what is, we're talking addiction. What are the socially acceptable addictions, right?

TRACY OTSUKA: So I'm pretty much a workaholic. The thing is, I love what I do. So it's fun for me, but that's socially acceptable in our society.

TRACY OTSUKA: What we know with the ADHD brain is we struggle with the reward deficiency loop. So, you know, we're, this is not one of my challenges, but you may think, oh, okay, when I go home, I'm going to have a glass of wine. That glass of wine is going to taste so good. So you go home, you have the glass of wine and you're like, I didn't get the reward that I thought I was going to get.

TRACY OTSUKA: So maybe the second glass of wine. Food's the same way, right? So you have the second glass of wine. Nope. And the third and the fourth. And so you can see how. All of these addictions can happen because we're not getting the reward. We're not getting the, you know, the dopamine, the serotonin, all of that.

TRACY OTSUKA: And so my take on it is always, we're going to have these somewhat addictive tendencies. So can you push that into an addiction that is a little bit more socially acceptable like exercise or work or, you know, I don't know. Helicopter parenting or, you know, versus addictions that really physically hurt you, like alcohol and, you know, all kinds of drugs, whether it's prescription or not.

CASS DUNN: Yeah, yeah, totally agree. So when it comes to anybody who has struggled traditionally with standard advice about productivity and time management and all of that stuff, you know, I put both my hands in the air and I'm a life coach and I... Could never make any of that stuff work for me. So what does work for women and people with ADHD?

TRACY OTSUKA: Yeah. Okay. Whatever you're trying to do. And there are things that you're going to be so interested in, rabbit hole, you don't even feel like you worked, right? Completely lose.

TRACY OTSUKA: track of time, which is part of ADHD. Then there are going to be the things that are more difficult. So how do you get those difficult things done? You make it fun. You make it challenging. You make it social. Urgency works too. But what we're trying to avoid is the urgency because that burns out your nervous system. So for example, oh, I don't know.

TRACY OTSUKA: You know, you want to, you commit to yourself that I noticed that I feel positive emotion when I walk into the kitchen and it's cleaned. The dishes are washed, you know, first thing in the morning, it just, it pops my dopamine and it makes the rest of the day better. So how do I go about making sure that I get those dishes washed?

TRACY OTSUKA: Well, the first one is fun. How can you make it fun? Can you put music on and dance, you know, jump around? Can you get the whole family to help with this? Can you listen to a podcast? You know, that's what you get to do while you're washing those dishes. Challenging. This one works for me. I will set a timer on.

TRACY OTSUKA: I'll know that, okay, last time I got it done in 15 minutes, can I do it in 10 today? Fun, challenging, social, what would be, can you involve the family or can I get on the phone and can I call a friend while I'm washing the dishes? And then we know about urgent, right? Urgent will be, oh, I don't know, your mother-in-law's coming over and the whole kitchen is, it's like a bomb hit it.

TRACY OTSUKA: But that doesn't really help you. What helps you is walking into a room and being proud of yourself and saying, oh my gosh, look, this is how I'm starting out my day in positive emotion instead of walking into the kitchen and beating yourself up because, you know, it looks like a bomb went off.

CASS DUNN: So working with your natural tendencies, understanding what motivates you is the key, right? I know you talk about this, about this, like accepting it, embracing it.

CASS DUNN: And making it work for you, finding things that work for you instead of thinking it's something that needs to be fixed or something. You're never going to be able to do it and you're never going to be like all the other people who get things done and all of that sort of stuff, which clearly just makes you feel crap about yourself.

CASS DUNN: You just mentioned about the motivation, but do you have any examples about what it means or what it looks like to lean in to the ADHD?

TRACY OTSUKA: So whenever you're diagnosed with ADHD, all you ever hear about is the weaknesses. We are supposed to shore up our weaknesses. Whoever sets the world on fire in their weaknesses, right? We set the world on fire in our strengths. And if you think about what are the strengths of ADHD? Creativity. We see things all at the same time that most people will never see. Curiosity.

TRACY OTSUKA: That's why we're so creative because we're always kind of wondering, well, why and how? And is there a better way to do it? You know, it's also why we can be annoying because we don't struggle with change. Usually there's ADHD and autism. There can be a little bit of that, but in general, we love things that are new and different and novel. We tend to be lifelong learners.

TRACY OTSUKA: So I don't know about you, but I have friends who, you know, clock in at nine, clock out at five, been doing that for 20 years and they'll ride off into the sunset of retirement. I could never do that. My thought is. Oh my gosh, I'm running out of time. There's not enough life and there's so much more to live. What could I do more? I can't see myself ever retiring. I will always be building something, right?

TRACY OTSUKA: So I just feel like we are so much more interesting because we've had all these experiences. You have these stories about, oh yeah, I was in grad school and suddenly I decided I was going to open a vegan store. You know, I mean, all those experiences, I'm sorry, they make you more interesting. Then the person who clocks in at nine and stops at five and is in the same job for, I don't know, decades, right?

CASS DUNN: Yeah.

TRACY OTSUKA: We are risk takers. So whereas most people would say, you know what? That's because of the impulsivity. Whereas most people, you know, are saying, I don't know, that doesn't sound safe or it sounds scary. Or are you really going to leave law? Are you, you know, versus for us, we don't even really think about it. It's just, we're given so much of the things we've had to struggle with. We are so up. Optimistic, right?

TRACY OTSUKA: And sometimes I meet women that are literally, they've been addicted to meth, they're living in their car, and they are still so incredibly hopeful because they know that there's something inside themselves. And I hear this from ADHD women all the time. It used to be something that I say to anyone, and that is, we just know we are meant to do big things. We know we are meant to do important things.

TRACY OTSUKA: And so if we are doing the nine to five, hating our work every day. It's really taxing on our nervous system, on our sense of self, on our purpose, because we just know there's something more. But we're scared to even say it out loud, like we're not allowed to feel that way. So I said we were really mission driven. We are highly empathetic. And I think part of that is what's responsible for our intuition. So...

TRACY OTSUKA: Because of the empathy, we're also really justice sensitive. You know, we can see ourselves, even if we've not experienced that, we can put ourselves in other people's shoes, which we could use a lot more of in this world today. So there is nothing that you could say to me that would ever, okay, look, I don't think ADHD is a gift.

TRACY OTSUKA: I will never say that. Because if I could have all the skills I have now, but also have incredible working memory, I would take that in a heartbeat. But I know that my lack... Of good working memory has allowed me to develop these other skills. And so I will say I wouldn't give up my ADHD for anyone or anything.

TRACY OTSUKA: I know it is responsible for so much of what I've been able to achieve, but even more than that, like who I am and how I'm able to help people, right? That it's just not enough for me to just do any old job. I need to do work where I know that I'm making a difference.

TRACY OTSUKA: And it's that ripple effect because you make a difference and then those people tell their people what they've learned and then they make that ripple effect. And so it's doing good in the world. And I think we don't have enough of that. Did I answer your question? I can't even remember what it was.

CASS DUNN: I know what I asked, but I've also got sidetracked as well. I was actually asking what productivity tips work for ADHD women. So you're an ADHD coach, right? Now, I'm very curious about this. What does an ADHD coach do? Because clearly you're not teaching people time management. Or are you? What are you doing? Okay.

TRACY OTSUKA: So most ADHD coaches do.

TRACY OTSUKA: Most ADHD coaches work with clients so that they can become more productive. I don't do any of that. Because of course, you know, I'm oppositional and I'm always challenging the status quo. So what I do is the foundational work. I do the identity work. And then once they've got the identity work done, it's going to be so much easier for them to get those things done that they really want to do.

TRACY OTSUKA: You know, what I said before, there are going to be certain areas in your life where you're not going to struggle with the executive functions like you struggle in these other areas. So let's get you pointed in the right area. And then once you understand, we're going to teach you not only who you are, but then how your brain works, because only then can you start building systems and strategies that work for your brain.

TRACY OTSUKA: Because just because we both have ADHD, does not mean that I can give you a strategy that works for me and it's necessarily going to work for you. I want to give you my best. Well, I don't know if it's my best strategy, but it's one that has never not worked. Do you use this? It's called a data. It's called, it's no longer called data. It's called a time cube. Have you ever seen this?

TRACY OTSUKA: Okay. So we struggle to start right when we are bored, when even when we're not bored, even when it's something we're interested in, sometimes We know that, oh gosh, that's going to be a three-hour project. I can't start. So we're doing everything not to start. So the beauty of this time cube is it's sitting on my desk. So we struggle to start, but we also struggle to stop, right?

TRACY OTSUKA: Once we get in, then we can't stop. So why don't we take advantage of that? So the normal productivity advice is the Pomodoro method. You work for 25 minutes and then you stop for five minutes and you take a rest. Then you work for 25 minutes. I'm like, what? It took me this long to start and you're going to want me to stop?

TRACY OTSUKA: And then I'm going to have to start again? That is the stupidest advice. So the beauty of this is it completely removes the friction. I don't have to go into my phone and look for a timer app. I don't have to go into the kitchen and pull the timer app. This thing sits on my desk. When I'm screwing around and I'm not starting, like when I had to write that book, I see it sitting on my desk and this is what I do.

TRACY OTSUKA: So. This is a podcast. So what I'm showing is it's a bamboo cube. Unfortunately, they don't make the bamboo one anymore. They're plastic, but on four sides, there's 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 25 minutes, and five minutes. Maybe I should have started with a five minutes. Now, when you flip it on its head, am I on 25? No.

TRACY OTSUKA: When you flip it on its head, all you do is one motion and there is a countdown automatically. So yes, I don't have to set anything. And the deal that I strike with, so it starts counting down 24, 50, 24, 49. The deal I strike with myself is Tracy, all you have to do is 25 minutes. If you want to stop after 25 minutes, be my guest.

TRACY OTSUKA: Do you know after seven years, I have never stopped and I can't figure out how my brain hasn't figured out that she's playing a trick on you. She's playing a trick on you. I know I'm playing a trick on me, but I'm telling you it works every single time and it's worked for it. Everybody that I've recommended it to. So that is my best bit of advice for when you are struggling to start. Perfect.

CASS DUNN: I've written that down. Time cube. I'll be jumping straight on Amazon and impulsive purchasing that.

TRACY OTSUKA: Well, because you're getting out of your head, right? It's the emotion of starting that is stopping you. And so you're getting out of your head and you're getting into action. And that is always the key with our brains because we can sit there and mull through why we don't want to start and what we'd rather, it's ridiculous.

CASS DUNN: You know, it is just refreshing even talking to you, Tracy, and I'm sure that's what women experience when they go into your community and they just hear other people talk that you relate to that completely get that do all the same things, that have all the same quirks and habits and just all of those patterns of behavior that you've thought you were the only one and thought that you probably shouldn't really tell people that you don't get much done and you probably shouldn't really tell people that you know because you're projecting this image of being efficient and professional and productive and so again there's that shame thing right it's like you don't want people to know that you really have trouble finishing things but when you talk to people who get it without judgment.

CASS DUNN: There's just something so validating in that and reassuring, I guess. It's just like, oh, you feel like you can relax.

TRACY OTSUKA: Yeah. I was just going to share something and it just went out of my brain. Oh, finishing things. Can I share that?

CASS DUNN: Yes.

TRACY OTSUKA: Okay. I'm writing it down just because mid-sentence, I will forget what the hell I'm talking about. So just know this is like normal ADHD brain and it gets worse as we get older. So. That's the good news.

TRACY OTSUKA: But I think the intuition gets better. So it's, you know, it's always a balancing act. So this is what happens to a lot of ADHD women. As I said, we have all these passions. We're starting this and starting that and stopping that, you know, and we never finish anything. So we have this mindset and this identity that I'm the kind of person who never finishes anything.

TRACY OTSUKA: Well, how does that help you? So my first comment about that is, no, you are the kind of person that got what you needed out of that thing. And then you didn't need it anymore, so you moved on. The other things, however, let's say we're talking about a house where, you know, you walk by and the junk drawer is a mess.

TRACY OTSUKA: And then there's books all over the place. And then you have that project that you never completed. So your whole house can be, you know, you walk in first thing in the morning into your closet and it's a disaster. So your whole house can be, what I call us, is 97% finishers. So you get almost to the end. And then you just let it go because it's really boring.

TRACY OTSUKA: You've already done 97% of it. So next, we're next people onto the next thing. So what I want you to become is a last 3% finisher. And let me tell you why. Because for example, let's say your closet is 97% done, but you do that last 3%. You wake up in the morning and it's like, oh my gosh, I did it. So you are proud of yourself.

TRACY OTSUKA: So instead of the voice in your head saying, oh gosh, look, I still didn't do that drawer. That drawer needs to be done and never doing it. You're walking in and you're, it's that positive emotion. It's dopamine. You're, you're ratcheting it yourself. So then you walk into your kitchen and it's like, oh my gosh, last night I did the junk drawer and I did it a hundred percent.

TRACY OTSUKA: So now it's not a junk drawer. So then that, you know, also gives you dopamine. And then you walk by that project that. Was 97% done and you see that it's done and you're doing the same thing. So every single thing in your house that you're walking by is generating positive emotion. And that is the way that you want to start your day because you're telling yourself, you know what?

TRACY OTSUKA: Nope, I'm a hundred percent finisher. I'm, or I'm a last 3% finisher. And that is how you actually win life with ADHD. It doesn't have to be done all at one time. You know, the key is always you take one tiny little thing. Something that the friction is so low, like, okay, I'm going to go open the junk drawer. Okay.

TRACY OTSUKA: Well, once I open the junk drawer, well then, okay, I can do this little section of the junk drawer. So that's how you want to get things done, but you want to get them a hundred percent done because then you can use that for the rest of your day, for the rest of the week. I mean, I walk by things that I did a year ago and I'm still using them.

CASS DUNN: That's a great tip because it's swapping the dopamine that you would normally get from just going off and doing something else that looks interesting for the job. Starting another thing. Yeah. That's right. The dopamine from starting another thing. Exactly.

TRACY OTSUKA: You're not going to do a hundred percent.

CASS DUNN: But on that, and I'm conscious of our time, but on that, like when getting back to that leaning in thing, like something that you just said then was so relevant. I am a person, have always been a person. I've always felt really bad about this, that I will start reading a book and four chapters in, I've got the gist of it.

CASS DUNN: I don't need to read anymore. I got it. I don't need another seven chapters of fluff. Because I get it and I'm done. But it always felt really bad that I don't finish books. I would start them but not finish them because I got the gist.

CASS DUNN: And I think that leaning in thing that you mentioned, like it's like that's part of it. Well, that's okay. Like I'm allowed to move on. If I've got what I needed and that's okay, that's being accepting of that is kind of the leaning in, isn't it? It's like that, just embracing that. That's okay.

TRACY OTSUKA: Absolutely. And sometimes I do that too. I have so many books. It's just like, I just love books because we love learning so much, right? But we're also like, okay, let's get to the point. Let's get to the point. I don't need to read these 50,000 stories. I just want, like you said, what are the moments that I need to know that I need to learn from, that I can take with me.

TRACY OTSUKA: And so what I will often do, I did this recently, is I'll get through, I don't know, maybe it's a 14 chapter book and I've gotten through seven chapters. I will then go to chat and I will say, and I tend to do that anyway. I have a book section for chat. And so I will speak into what I want to remember from each section.

TRACY OTSUKA: And then if I'm bored with the book, I will go back and say, okay, this is chapter seven of this book. What is the Just do that. What is it? So I'll get seven, eight, nine, 10, whatever's left. And then if there's anything really interesting that it talks about, then I will go back and read that chapter. But then I take all the chapters and I'll ask it, give me one page and it'll pull, create a one page PDF.

TRACY OTSUKA: And it'll pull, that one page because I don't know about you, but I totally forget what I read, you know, and it'll be something so brilliant that I want to remember and then I can't remember well what book did it come from The other thing I love is I really started when I really love a book, I need less of the audible lately, but usually the audible, the physical book, and then the Kindle, which is insanity.

TRACY OTSUKA: But I've really started because I'm traveling more and I, you know, just carrying all these books. I have a little mini iPad. And what I do is I connected my iPad so you can highlight right in the Kindle. And then I connected it to ReadWise. ReadWise will pull because Once the book's done, I'm like, okay, what do I do with this?

TRACY OTSUKA: ReadWise will pull everything I highlighted into all my notes. And then it'll save there so that I print them out. And I also send myself an email twice a day with all of these different highlights from all these different books I've read. So they kind of still are, you know, are in my brain because otherwise for me, out of sight is out of mind.

CASS DUNN: Same.

TRACY OTSUKA: Yeah.

CASS DUNN: That's genius.

TRACY OTSUKA: I love, I've been using ReadWise, the chat thing I literally just started this year, but the ReadWise thing I have been using for many years and I, and it costs like nothing. I think it's $8 a year or, you know.

CASS DUNN: So this is an app because I just recently got an iPad as well. I haven't had an iPad for years and years, but I just got an iPad. It's not the mini one. So you can download the Kindle app on that, right? So you can read books on the iPad in addition to the Kindle.

TRACY OTSUKA: Yeah.

CASS DUNN: And so then, okay. I'm writing this down. You've got all the hacks, Tracy, read wise. And then if I highlight, it'll, that's genius.

TRACY OTSUKA: Yeah. It will pull the highlights and you'll just have, and I'm trying to remember if you go into, I haven't done this in a while, as you can tell, but I think if you go into read wise and you click on the highlight, then you can also write notes there. And you know, it's, it's really a useful way of reading. The other side to this though, is I was reading something recently.

TRACY OTSUKA: I've been reading so much lately and they were saying, because this is something we're anxious about. We're spending all this time reading and what are we actually able to absorb from it? And the comment was, you know what? Who cares? You're reading for yourself for pleasure. This is slow dopamine, right?

TRACY OTSUKA: It's not like the fast dopamine of scrolling social media where you are literally getting nothing from it. It's calming your nervous system. It's about something that Sure. Interested in, you will absorb what you need to absorb. And so this anxiety we feel about, oh my gosh, what did I learn from it? And so what I decided is, you know, for every book, I love this book, Brain Energy.

TRACY OTSUKA: For every book, I'll do three little post-it notes, you know, of what I got from the book and I'll leave it in the book. And then when I recommend the book, because in my mind, like I know how much I love this book, Brain Energy, but... I often forget, okay, well, what did you love about it? Like I literally forget what I know.

CASS DUNN: I'm the same. It gets worse as you get older because I'll be recommending a book or I'll go to tell my husband all about this book, but try to get out of my mouth what I actually, form a coherent thought about what I actually learned. It's gone.

TRACY OTSUKA: Right.

CASS DUNN: But I know it was so good.

TRACY OTSUKA: Because if you're like me, you have all these like little tabs, right? But what does the tab do?

TRACY OTSUKA: I mean, I never go back and, you know, I, so I need to consolidate everything into the short little soundbite. And then for some reason, that short soundbite triggers. I don't know the other dendrites in my brain, right? And what else I really loved about the book. But if I don't have a way in, sounds so ridiculous, I don't remember. I know I loved it, but why?

CASS DUNN: The other thing, talking about chat, I don't know about you, but I have really found, I've been really leaning into AI and automations to simplify my life. Oh my gosh. And are you the same?

TRACY OTSUKA: I think for the ADHD brain, it is life-changing.

CASS DUNN: Yeah.

TRACY OTSUKA: And specifically, if you have the kind of ADHD brain that struggles to write, I am a brilliant editor, but I hate writing. And what AI, the reason I hate writing is because my brain moves so fast. I can't remember what is the main point and then what are the little points underneath? And I can't sit still long enough to even think about it.

TRACY OTSUKA: But what I can do is vomit it all in while I'm walking and then tell it to organize it for me. And that is You know, it also helps you process. Like if there's something that's bugging you, you know, about something that you're trying to put together and you just kind of going back and forth with it.

TRACY OTSUKA: I honestly think for the ADHD brain, AI is literally life-changing. It has been for me. I feel so much more on top of things and I'm so much more prolific. Once it learns your voice, you know, I fed it my book, which I guess you're not supposed to do, but I wanted to make sure that it really knew what my.

CASS DUNN: What my theories were. I should feed mine into my chat. Why haven't I thought of that?

TRACY OTSUKA: Well, you're not supposed to do it because then the whole world has it. But I'm like, well, the whole world, I mean, it's out there, right? So who cares?

CASS DUNN: Somebody has already done it. Meta already did it. They uploaded 70,000 books into AI. Remember they did that? But I think that you can actually tick that you don't want it used for training or something.

TRACY OTSUKA: I think you can do that, but I don't trust it.

CASS DUNN: And I was just going to say too, that I think also for me, that the getting started thing if there's something that I've got to do that I'm just really cannot get myself over that starting line sometimes getting chat to draft me an outline or give me a like it just helps me because then my brain locks in and I'm there and I'm away so I think using those sorts of tools is just made an incredible difference to me I'm just everything AI at the moment and not just AI automations too I would say that like in my business and my clients I'm just going through this process is my current hyperfixation.

CASS DUNN: Is just setting up my systems. So, you know, like the podcast booking. So you get the reminder, you get the form. It's all just automatic.

CASS DUNN: I don't have to go back and forth and follow up and forget that I haven't gone back to that person and forget, you know, three weeks later, I haven't emailed that person. Automate, automate, automate as much as I possibly can and just let it be done for me so that I don't have to remember those things.

TRACY OTSUKA: Because it's another tab, right, that's open in your brain. And we have this open tabs problem to begin with. So shut down whatever tabs you can. So then the ones that are open are actually ones that serve you.

CASS DUNN: The important ones. Tracy, I'm going to let you go. I've probably got so many other questions, but I'll probably get you back on another time. But let me ask you one last question. If you can leave women listening to this who have ADHD, who think they have ADHD, What is the one? Message that you would like to leave?

TRACY OTSUKA: I think the thing that I would leave with is, again, I have never met an ADHD woman that wasn't truly brilliant at something. And I feel like you owe it to yourself and you owe it to the world to figure out what does that mean for you?

TRACY OTSUKA: And I mean that sincerely. I mean, women that society has just basically cast aside and you start talking to them and you realize, and it never fails, all of the things they've done. But I mean, they can be working as a barista at Starbucks, you know, barely being able to do that job.

TRACY OTSUKA: But then when you start talking to them and realize all the other things they've done, it just becomes so clear, okay, well, this is just the wrong environment because you are on fire when you are in, you know, that space, that sweet spot where, you know, your values, talent, skills, passion, and purpose all convene.

CASS DUNN: I love that. Thank you, Tracy, so much for your time. And thank you for all of your work. Women want to hear more about what you do, connect with your community. You'll find out about your services and your support. Where should they go?

TRACY OTSUKA: The easiest thing would be for them to go to our brand new app. It's called A-OK Mind. It's A-OK, and it's on the App Store and also Google Play. And there are plenty of free resources there and just information on who we are and what we do.

CASS DUNN: Amazing. We'll absolutely put the link in the show notes and everything else that you're doing as well.

TRACY OTSUKA: Perfect. Thank you so much. It was a pleasure.