The ADHD Skills Lab

Why ADHD Makes You Start Too Many Projects (with Katy Weber)

• Skye Waterson • Season 1 • Episode 154

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0:00 | 41:08

Presented by Understood.org

You keep starting new things and abandoning the ones that were working.

Katy Weber is the go-to voice behind the Woman and ADHD podcast, reaching millions of listeners and building a multi-stream business from lived experience. Her approach to growth is grounded in what actually works with ADHD, not what sounds good on paper.

She explains why ADHD pulls you toward new ideas, how pivoting too early kills momentum, and what changed when she stopped rebuilding from scratch. The conversation also covers how she used her podcast as the foundation for everything else.

You will leave with a more stable way to grow without constantly resetting your progress.

What We Cover

  • Why ADHD brains pivot too early and lose momentum
  • The hidden cost of constantly starting over
  • How to build around one stable “core” system
  • What changed when she stopped chasing new ideas
  • Why expansion works better than reinvention

If you're enjoying ADHD Skills Lab, you may also enjoy Understood.org’s new podcast, Sorry, I Missed This.

Listen here: https://lnk.to/sorryimissedthisPS!theadhdskillslab

Connect with Katy Weber:

 P.S. Losing work because the admin layer around your business can't keep up with you? Invisible Systems is a 90-day done-for-you sprint where I (Skye) extract the processes from your head, build the operating layer, and find the right person to run it. Six spots left at the founding price, book a call at invisiblesystem.co

SPEAKER_00

Once the reviews started coming in from Total Strangers, talking about how seen they felt by listening to the interviews and how they were nodding their heads and crying and feeling just so moved by somebody else's story. And I saw this like three-way experience where like the people who were being interviewed were saying, Thank you so much for allowing me to tell my story. I was learning so much from interviewing women, and then realizing that people out there, listeners, were having an equally emotional journey, that there was this like, you know, triumvirate of feedback that just felt to me like I had really stumbled on something very special.

SPEAKER_02

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the ADHD Skills Lab, brought to you by understood.org, the leading nonprofit helping millions of people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. Today I am very excited to be joined by the wonderful Katie Webber. She is an ADHD advocate. She is a certified holistic health coach. She is the founder of Woman and ADHD Podcast, uh, which I was on many years ago, and she was also one of the first people on this podcast. So very, very cool to have you back. And yeah, she's completing a master's in clinical mental health counseling, and we're gonna get into that as well as all the wonderful work that you've done with the podcast. So great to have you, Katie. Yeah, thanks for having me back. Yeah, thanks for thanks for being here. And and thanks for honestly, thanks for lending your brand and name and and just general information to the very first episodes. You know, we we really were just out here not knowing what we were doing, and uh it was it was a very cool moment. I was like, oh, Katie's gonna be on the podcast. This must be a real thing. I know that feeling well. Yeah, yeah, 100%. So you started, and I was looking back at it again, it's so interesting to me that you started the Woman in ADHD podcast before you were officially diagnosed. You were waiting for your appointment. I understand this. I actually started um working around ADHD before I got officially diagnosed because it's a long wait. How long did you end up waiting for your actual diagnosis?

SPEAKER_00

Thankfully, not as long as some people unfortunately have. I self-diagnosed fairly quickly after lockdown and the pandemic. So that would have been like late spring of 2020, as I was hashing things out with my therapist. And then around the summertime, I did a deep dive, as one does, into oh my goodness, this changes everything. Like going over my entire life through this through this new lens. And I was officially diagnosed in December, right around the same time that the podcast launched. So I was interviewing women before I had my official diagnosis, but I was piling up the interviews before I actually like published the podcast.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, oh yeah, great idea, great idea. Was there anybody that you really like clung to in those initial diagnoses, you know, before you'd been officially diagnosed? I know for me it was how how to ADHD. Jessica's videos were like, okay, it's gonna be okay, because everything else was like very official documents that were like, it leads to this bad thing and this bad thing and this bad thing. Did you have anything that you read during that time or really spoke to you?

SPEAKER_00

Oh, good question. You know, I mean, you know, one of the things that I found interesting about my ADHD diagnosis was that I, for a long time, it had been suggested to me that I look it up with my therapist, and I was like, I don't know what you're talking about. I was vaguely offended because I was sort of like, I had such a raw, I had such a you know misguided idea of what ADHD was. And so I was like, well, she thinks I have ADHD. Is she seeing somebody who is, you know, uh can't sit still and misbehaves and you know is a basically a felon as far as I was like I just had such a you know, such a negative view of ADHD. That's and that's what it said back then. Yeah, and and I remember taking the ADHD for adults self-test from Attitude Magazine for just the generic one for adults, which is based on the very much based on the DSM, and really like getting kind of a middling score on it, like maybe like a 75 or something. And and thinking, like, yeah, I guess some of this, like I relate to some of this, but it didn't really feel like it was my entire identity until I took the specific Sari Solden self-test for women. And that talked a lot more about some of the the executive functioning stuff that isn't really talked about in the DSM. So a lot of it was about like my house and shame around behaviors and some of the ways in which I may have been masking and just all of these things that were really just like, oh my goodness, it like hit me in my soul. So I, you know, really found that Sari Solden spoke to me in a way that uh I, you know, read every single one of her books, and the women's the radical guide to women with ADHD or the workbook became so central to my own journey. And I started my online book clubs at the time where I was get you know amassing women virtually to talk about this book. So Sari Soldon is the first person that comes to mind who really just changed everything for me in terms of the way that she translated ADHD in terms of the the experience in girls and women.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, no, that's so so great. And it is funny to think back on that time now because now there's so many people talking about ADHD, there's so much information about it in many ways. But back then it wasn't, especially for women, it was very light on the ground. I'm curious, you know, you were starting this podcast talking about women with ADHD. How did you get your first, you know, guests? Were they people you knew or had heard of?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so I had already started a podcast with a a friend of mine who was a registered dietitian, and we were talking about, you know, as a holistic health coach, I was working with diet recovery, I was working with like anti-diet health at every size, and I was working primarily with binge eaters. And I had had a podcast with a friend of mine who was a registered dietitian, and we were mostly interviewing about food and body positivity and body neutrality, and you know, it was it was fun, it was a hobby, and I really enjoyed it, and I really enjoyed learning more about everything from like microphones to sound editing to I was doing all of it in my home during the pandemic. And I when I was, you know, going down my ADHD self-diagnosis journey, I joined a whole bunch of Facebook groups, as one does, and I had joined a Facebook group called like female entrepreneurs, female ADHD entrepreneurs. And I had this idea of like, this has been so transformative for me and so life-changing in such a very, very quick amount of time. Like it was so intense. And I wanted to know if other women were experiencing the same thing, and I kind of went onto the group and said, like, I'm thinking of starting this podcast, and I really just want to interview women about their adult diagnosis and like what was happening in your life that made you think this could be ADHD. And, you know, I also, because a lot of you are entrepreneurs, like we'll promote your business, we'll talk about your business, and it'll be sort of a nice little symbiotic arrangement. And I put that out there on this Facebook group, and with in the first 24 hours of that post, I had about 75 women reach out to me, real willing to be on this podcast and to talk about their businesses. And I had that like butterfly stomach moment where I was like, oh, okay, I feel like I may have hit on something and just started from there of interviewing women. And like for me, it was just sort of how I was learning about what ADHD looks like in myself and girls and women, and again, like in my children too. Like both of my children have been diagnosed with ADHD since my own diagnosis. A lot of my daughter's diagnosis I credit with the interviewing women because her version of ADHD is so vastly different from what my version is. I I didn't think she had ADHD initially until I started talking to women who did very well in school, high performing, you know, really just like white knuckling it and then ending up with anxiety and depression diagnoses in adulthood. And I was like, oh yeah, that's where my daughter's headed for sure.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. No, I I relate. I have that one. High high levels of burnout.

SPEAKER_00

That flavor. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that flavor. Yeah, that's so interesting. So when did this then? So you start interviewing people, you have that feeling, oh, it's hit. This is a something. I love that feeling, by the way. You don't have it that many times in your life. It's it's great feeling. I think we almost like I would say you get to know it, and then it helps you on the future of when you start other things. I am curious about that. Did you ever get that feeling with anything else you've done? Because you've gone on to have a coaching business now, right? Too.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think another time was when I was building my coaching business initially, and I at the time, this is like a weird random story I wasn't expecting to tell today, but here we are. So I was, I was actually started coaching as a Weight Watchers leader, and I was a Weight Watchers coach. And Weight Watchers had an app that was called, I don't even remember at this point, it was so long ago, what their app was, but it was a sort of a social app where you could go on. I don't even know if they still have it, but you would go on, you had, you know, message people and you could post things. So it was it was sort of their own little version of Instagram. And I started posting how to eat whole foods that were not highly processed, because a lot of foods that Weight Watchers sells are very highly processed. And I really was like not into all of the like I it felt antithetical to me for somebody who's on this health journey to be, you know, getting all this boxed crap. And so I decided I was gonna start showing people how to eat within their points range while also opting for whole nutritious foods, full fat foods, and not going, you know, but in a way that also felt really easy because I've never been a fancy cook. You know, this was all before my ADHD diagnosis, so I didn't realize how much of my own executive dysfunction played into my inability to follow recipes and my interest in like doing something in five minutes, otherwise I'm not gonna do it. And so I started posting these, like, you know, how to eat within your points range and ended up like getting a following. And I had started this business out of that, which was called worth it with Katie. And that's how I wrote, wrote my book and kind of went on my own journey, you know, of as I was going through all of this, I was like talking about how it how important it was to eat whole foods and full fats, but also was developing this binge eating disorder because of the strict caloric deficit from Weight Watchers that I ended up having this binge eating. You know, now I joke that like I joined Weight Watchers and all I got was this binge eating disorder. But you know, it led me down this next journey of like, I actually want to become a you know a bona fide coach and you know help women to develop a healthier relationship with food and their bodies, which, you know, now looking back at the number of binge eaters I worked with, I was like, when I was diagnosed with ADHD, I was like, I wanted to call them all and be like, hey, we all have ADHD because binge eating is so prevalent and they're you know, so interesting to look at our relationship with food and our bodies through an ADHD lens. Wow, that is that is interesting.

SPEAKER_02

There's lots of things. Random, right? I think this is very well, you know, it's funny you should say that because I feel like I have this on podcasts as well where people are like, and this, and you're like, well, should I say that whole thing? How many different hobbies slash jobs slash lives can I put in one podcast? Look at me. Um, but it's very novel, you know, it makes a lot of sense. Before we get back to the ADHD Skills Lab, I want to share a podcast I think you're gonna love. It's called Sorry I Missed This from the team at understood.org. We know that our executive functioning challenges don't just stay at our desks, they follow us into every part of our lives, including our most intimate relationships, whether it's dating or longer-term commitments. Hosted by Kate Osborne. The show explores strategies that will actually respect how our neurodivergent minds are uniquely wired for love and connection. I listened to an episode called Oh Baby, it's an ADHD pregnancy, which I've been through three times now, and I love what they said about the sensory struggles we can have, how we remember, and all of those little differences you don't realize until it gets there. So to listen to sorry I missed this, search for sorry I missed this in your podcast app. That's sorry I missed this. Your, you know, your podcast is now ranked, and I'm sure this has gone up since since we last spoke, you know, top 0.5 globally, 2.9 million downloads and growing. And it's just, you know, it's a it's a juggernaut in the ADHD space. Like it is it is massive and and well represented, and so many wonderful stories have been on it. Did you get a sense of what its potential could be? Like when did you realize that your podcast was one of the top ADHD podcasts in the world?

SPEAKER_00

I I I I don't even think about it. It's just one of those random numbers that sort of I put out there and I know it exists, but it's feels so irrelevant to my life a lot of the time. I mean, I think there was a time when I was getting my taxes together a year or two after the podcast had started where I was looking at all of the different income revenue streams I had amassed from this podcast and social media that I was sort of like, oh my goodness. Like, first of all, this is so ADHD, right? My husband has his one W-2 from his job that he has had for 15 years, and I have like 50 different 1099s from all over the place. Yeah, so I think, you know, I I had this other podcast that was, you know, had unfortunately I had to retire because what women in ADHD took over, but I very quickly had this other podcast to compare what it's like to have no platform and no following and to go from like a couple dozen people who listen to your podcast, and most of them you're probably related to, to suddenly seeing the numbers go up and up and up every week and seeing, you know, I just really felt like I was at the right place at the right time in terms of the growth of diagnoses. And I, you know, really followed my own journey. So, like the first thing I did when I was looking into ADHD is I'm a podcast listener. So I typed women, ADHD, into podcast into the podcast player. And so I kind of felt like from an SEO standpoint, that's what I wanted to call it. I didn't want to call it something cutesy or something that would be difficult to find because I had no platform and I had no following. So I was really just going on like, how am I going to make myself easy to find for people? And and then once the reviews started coming in from total strangers talking about how seen they felt by listening to the interviews and how they were nodding their heads and crying and feeling just so moved by somebody else's story. And I saw this like three-way experience where like the people who were being interviewed were saying, Thank you so much for allowing me to tell my story. I was learning so much from interviewing women about myself, about what this looks like, about who we all are, and then realizing that people out there, listeners, were having an equally emotional journey, that there was this like, you know, triumvirate of feedback, this feedback loop that just felt to me like it I had really stumbled on something very special. And and and now looking back, realizing how lived experience in all of its forms on social media and podcasting and like how lived experience has really tremendously shaped the way we think about and talk about ADHD in adulthood over the last few years.

SPEAKER_02

It's been it's been really interesting, and I think you're right, the lived experience has been massive because you know, we talk about research a lot on this podcast, and you know, sometimes we really have to hunt for the silver lining in the academic journal. People are saying, Oh, that's cool.

SPEAKER_00

Academic journals too, right?

SPEAKER_02

Like it's Yeah, yeah. We still have, you know, healthy controls and on you know, just like all of that language and and it's hard to to find the good stuff. Whereas when you talk about when you talk about experiences, you get a lot more, especially over the weeks and months and years that your podcast has been doing this, you almost get a kind of like it's almost like a qualitative analysis in it on itself.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. It's phenomenological data. Like I that's how I look at these interviews right now. I'm like, I see a lot of academic research, I see a lot of scientific research around. I read a lot of research because I'm nerd I nerd out about it like you do. I read a lot of research, but then I'm comparing it to this massive data bank of interviews that I have amassed, and like really seeing how few of us are in this unique position to be able to connect the dots and see all these threads of like what are we seeing and what are the trends? And you know, what does this mean that you can't necessarily get from a controlled trial? Exactly.

SPEAKER_02

So let's talk about the business side. You know, we talked about the research side, let's talk about the business side. Obviously, I'm curious to know does the podcast pay for itself now, or is it still um something that's or is it sort of funding the coaching or vice versa? Like how is that working?

SPEAKER_00

I think, you know, so when I went back to school, I had to take the podcast from weekly to monthly. And I'm very excited to go back to, I don't know if I'll ever go back to weekly. That's a lot. It is a lot. Uh, but I'm looking um, you know, very soon to uh go back to at least bi-monthly because that made a big difference in my podcast revenue, obviously, was when I decided made the decision to go monthly instead of weekly. But it's still, I would still say it's about a third of my overall income is podcast revenue, either from from direct advertising or from programmatic ads that come. Yeah. So I mean, yeah, it's it's definitely more than pays for itself, which has been really nice. I feel like in the the glory days of the height of the podcast, which was probably like three years ago at this point, it was more much more than half of my income. It was it was mind-boggling to me. It's not like it was millions of dollars, but still the fact that I was like this hobby of mine that started at home in my pajamas is now this wonderful job. It was just was felt too good to be true.

SPEAKER_02

It's the most fun job, honestly. We talk about all the kids say yep, yapping about things we we find interesting, you know. It's oh my goodness, it's good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Well, and I I call it sanctioned nosiness because, you know, now as a therapist, thinking about like the jobs, you know, from going from a journalist, because I was a newspaper journalist, newsprint journalist for many years, and then podcasting, and now therapy, I'm sort of like they all have the same thing in common, which is sanctioned nosiness, which is like I get to ask people inappropriate questions for a living, and it and it's my favorite thing to do.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, all the things that made you awkward in social situations as a child are now sanctioned and have a lot of people. Absolutely. Yeah. So, you know, where are you spending your time now then with the business? Are you mostly in the coaching side? I'm so curious to find out how the ADHD coaching side came about because that's a whole thing that you're doing now as well.

SPEAKER_00

It is. And, you know, to be perfectly frank, I do not have ADHD coaching training. So I am trained as a holistic health coach, and it was one of the things that I kind of came to this crossroads because the from the podcast and from my Instagram presence, I started getting more and more women who were coming to me for coaching. And I'm have always been very frank about this as my training, but also like never knowing what to do with the podcast as training, right? Like I looked at myself as a journalist, but also had to admit I was developing expertise, but it wasn't like official expertise. And so I kind of always felt like I was in this gray area of like, am I operating unethically by ADHD coaching? I had known a lot about executive functioning, I know a lot about coaching. What do I do with all of this? And at that point, I also felt like I had gotten to this place where a lot of the women I was working with, we were talking about relational things. We weren't necessarily always talking about SMART goals. And you know, a lot of the time with ADHD, there's that combination. Like a lot of it is like uncovering why do I think this way? What are my thinking patterns? What's holding me back? And so there were a lot of moments where I felt like, God, I don't know if I'm properly trained and what training do I need? I was very curious by I was led by a lot of the women I was working with who either had given up on therapy or felt like they had had negative experiences with therapists, and then were asking me, like, you're not my therapist, but who can you recommend that could be a really good therapist? I got that question a lot. Right? And it's like, who could who can understand not only the the radical transformation that comes with an adult diagnosis, but also this unique brand of depression that so many of us are diagnosed with depression and anxiety? And it's like it doesn't feel the same. Like it feels like it's different somehow, and I've never been able to articulate it. And do you know somebody who like really gets ADHD in women? And at the time, four years ago, I didn't know very many therapists. So I was impulsively like, well, I don't know, give me four years, I'm gonna do this. And so I decided when I was at that crossroads of like, I really feel like I'm operating out of my depth as a holistic health coach. I felt like the move for me was to become licensed as a clinical mental health counselor, as opposed to taking money and putting it toward ADHD coaching certification, because a lot of that felt like I already had it. I just had it in like an unconventional way. And I I know, like, I'm the last person who's like, I I believe me, I know how important it is to have the right certification and the right training. And like, and the coaching is a Wild West in so many ways. And I never wanted to be that person who was like, sure, I can coach you. What you know, I don't like training schmaneing. I didn't want to be that person. Right? Exactly. But also felt like if I was going to be investing that kind of money, I wanted to invest it clinically. I still am not sure if I made the right choice, but I'm graduating in a month. And um in answer to your initial question about like how do I spend my time, this last year of my master's has been internship. And so I have been working in a clinical environment for since June, almost a year. It's been a lot of time. It has, you know, I really do feel like in many ways, women in ADHD is on life support right now. And I'm very excited to graduate from this phase to be able to like invest a lot uh back into this business I love and the podcast that I've never stopped loving. Um, and to see like where I can take that and where I can go with it.

SPEAKER_02

So yeah, that's so interesting. So because you you're working with a with a partner in the business, is that correct? Like somebody else?

SPEAKER_00

Well, not necessarily. I have a team of coaches, and right now I've got five coaches who I I approached women who I knew and trusted that I aligned with, who had very similar like I knew that if I was gonna recommend somebody because I wasn't able to take on new clients, I would I knew like who's the who are the coaches that I'm gonna easily recommend because I know you're in good hands. And I reached out to a bunch of them and said, like, look, I don't have any more space for for women, but I have this platform. I'm not able to coach anybody right now. But if people come to me through the podcast or, you know, are looking for coaching, I I want to be able to send them to you and I want to be able to send them to you and also get a finders fee. So yeah. So that was sort of how that started, right? Which was like, I can send people to you, and you know, and then you can, you know, you'll do we'll do like an initial finder's fee, and then you take them and run with them and have fun and do wonderful things. So that's kind of the setup I have with the coaching team. But again, we've been, you know, we have so many ideas of ways that we can collaborate because I do feel like we're all really on the same page. And I think there's a lot that can be done collaboratively. I think people with ADHD tend to be lone wolves a lot of the time because we are so like, you know, have these blinders on about uh our businesses. And and you know, one of the things I really like about the therapeutic space is how peer supervision and peer relationships are built into the training and and coaching, you really have to kind of find that yourself. So we we are a team in that way, but I I don't mostly it's me just sending clients their way.

SPEAKER_02

Interesting. That's so interesting. And this is why I wanted to ask you these questions because I think I remember having this conversation with Russ Jones as well. Sort of similar conversation. I think it's really interesting, especially maybe in the podcasting space to see how people have structured their businesses because it's all kinds of ways. Some people like me, literally up until last month, are just like the podcast is something that I do and I pay for, and it doesn't make any money, but it's just a thing that is a way to you know share what we do and and talk about you know, the business and the and the coaching that we do. And then for some people they're like, oh, it's just the podcast, and that's it, and I don't do anything else. And and then some people it's a mix, and and so for you, yeah, it's it's so interesting to see how you have structured it. Is that a decision that you made sort of intentionally? Has it been more of a well, well, this is where we are right now?

SPEAKER_00

Well, very early on in the podcast, when I started to see the numbers going up and thinking like, okay, I've hit on something, I hired a business coach because I didn't know what I was doing. And I was like, should I be an LLC? Should I not? Like, there were all of these questions about like what, you know, do I want to be a business or do I want to be just a podcaster? And what how do I bring things under this umbrella in terms of the coaching business and everything? So I I was very intentional about hiring a business coach. And one of the, you know, one of the advice, the most like, you know, pertinent advice she gave me was like, the podcast is everything. Never let go of the podcast. And I don't think she said it that much. I think that's how I interpreted it, but it was really like the podcast is bringing you clients, the podcast is bringing you revenue, like it's the thing you love the most. So you might be tempted as you build your business to put your emphasis and your focus elsewhere. And it was like, you can do all that because you have ADHD, you can't not, but like have that be your, I guess the trunk of the tree, right? Is the podcast. And so every decision, it was very helpful for me to visualize that as like every decision I made in terms of growth. I thought about it in strategically in terms of how is this going to augment or help with my own, you know, with the business side of the podcast. And, you know, like it really felt like no matter what I do, I am not letting go of this. And so it was a really difficult decision when I went back to school to go back to monthly, but I was like, I refuse to let go of this. And I'm so glad I didn't because it's still been so phenomenal. But yeah, it's I think I really credit that advice because I think in the past, you know, I had so many businesses that I had started and failed and stuttered and did all of this. And I think a lot of it was the like pivoting too soon or pivoting completely and dropping things and not really paying attention to like why I might want to keep certain elements alive, right? And so now it's much more of like expansion within the same, you know, rather than like dropping everything and grabbing a new URL and starting from scratch and reinventing and everything. It's been much more of like how can this fit under this umbrella?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's interesting. So tell me about getting that mentor. I think that's such an important stage. I got a mentor for this business and and it really helped me sort of expand my vision. Tell me about when you had that mentor. What changed in how you saw this, you know, really starting to see it as a business?

SPEAKER_00

I mean, I I think definitely looking at all the different income streams from affiliate links to, you know, like it kind of started out with like affiliate links and then, you know, just making funny, silly reels and then having people attack come and, you know, having businesses uh coming and um asking me to do sponsored reels and and and saying yes to a lot of really silly things at first to just be like, you want to pay me for what? Okay. Uh and then you know, seeing all of these different streams of incomes, and then also doing like there was there was that side, but then a lot of it was driven, much like the podcast was driven from like, what am I interested in? What's gonna fill me up, what's gonna nourish me. So, like the book club, for instance, was a was a big source of income for me for a for a couple years, where I was like, I really wanted to read this book. There's a lot of workbook, you know, there's a lot of writing elements, and I knew I was never gonna write it on my own. So I was like, let's body double, let's like, let's get together and we'll write the book to, you know, we'll fill out the worksheet together on Zoom. You know, I started out thinking like maybe six or eight women would join, and and then it got to the point where there were too many of the, like I had to keep doing them because I had to cap it at some point. I think like the most I had was like 75 women and it was too big. Uh, but like these notions and even like starting an online community for a while, like I was just sort of testing the waters a lot of the time in terms of I was never thinking about income generation. I was mostly thinking about like how can I bring women together in a way that is supportive and and helps me too. And also like I'm doing a lot of I'm putting a lot of time and effort and expertise into this. So what feels like a reasonable exchange of money, you know? And then just sort of growing from there in terms of I guess, you know, recognizing I over-delivered and undercharged for a very long time.

SPEAKER_02

Everyone does that, I think.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, exactly. And then, you know, and then that's where you know I had a really major, major episode of burnout in January of 2023 that I had to like, there was like a record scratch where I really had to think about sustainability and and yeah, sustainable growth. And that was a big, a big moment for me.

SPEAKER_02

Was that, you know, because I was gonna ask you if there was a moment where you felt like your business really did struggle or you had to change directions. Was that the moment for you?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think it really was. It was like it was sadly, I think a lot of people with ADHD have these moments of just like I couldn't function. I stopped functioning. For me, I started getting vertigo. I had I had been diagnosed with minirs 10 years ago, and so it sort of comes and goes. And one of the side effects of that was vertigo. And in January of 2023, I was just about to do another book club, and I was like burning the candle at both ends, and it was all like just excitability and saying yes to things and wanting to do everything perfectly. And and I started getting vertigo again, and I had to like it was like the day before this podcast or before the book club, and I had to just send out an email that was like, I can't, I can't do it. How about like I'm gonna postpone it a month? And everybody was perfectly lovely about it. They were like, Yeah, take care of yourself, it's totally fine. I was devastated, but it was just this moment of how oftentimes we have to like, I I wasn't lying, but it felt like okay to cancel because I had a physical illness. And I think so often when it comes to burnout, like we lie and say we have a physical illness because we can't articulate what it is to like be outside of our capacity sometimes. And so I think for me that even though it was like a very physical stop that I had to recover from and get better from, like it just it really made me come to terms with like what am I gonna say no to moving forward? And and how am I gonna do, how am I gonna grow in a way that is slow and not going to have this ever happen again.

SPEAKER_02

To that end, if you were to a day in the life of Katie now, what is that life like? You wake up, you go to your placement, you don't really think about the podcast because everything's batched.

SPEAKER_00

I do. I batch my interviews, and so that's been really helpful to, you know, cut back on that too. And I have a wonderful editor who does like 90% of the work. So for me, that has been a really nice thing is to like outsource everything to either AI or an editor so that like what nourishes me is the is the conversation and also the research, too. Like, I I love preparing for an interview. I love coming up with questions, I love reading the books of the people I'm gonna interview, right? Like that whole process I find delightful and I love it. But I think it's like paying attention to the things that feel effortless that help me operate within my capacity and like quickly offloading the things that don't, and really staying in that realm of like the things that delight me, as opposed to doing things that feel like I want to put them off and I want to avoid them. And so yeah, so you know, three days a week right now until May, I'm still working at a crisis clinic with teenage with adolescents, and it's really heavy. And I'm finding that like, even though I don't necessarily bring my work home with me, it's a very long day and I'm absolutely cannot function. I refuse. Like, I've like I I know that those are the days that are completely dedicated to the internship. So I have I'll I have like a very much like day on, day off. So I have two days a week that are dedicated to my own coaching clients, the podcast, Women in ADHD, and everything that comes with it. And then I have the three days that are my internship, and that's been a struggle. It's been a struggle, but I'm really like, I think my weekends were always when I ended up doing my classwork and my readings, and I am very excited to get my weekends back uh and have that have that section be done.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, no, 100%. And also thank you for being here. Oh my gosh, I so appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00

Well, this is actually my spring break right now, so I'm feeling like very relaxed and very sad this week. So yeah, but it has it's been an exercise in like time management. And I appreciate, I appreciate the fact that, you know, like I say with my coaching clients a lot of the time, like we often approach things like I can't hack it. And oftentimes it's like I refuse to hack it, right? It was just like it's not a matter of like, I'm not trying to catch up and tread water. This is about like what are my boundaries and what are gonna what's gonna help me operate at 100% in the moment when I need to and to be fully present from moment to moment. And that was not something I was doing when I first started my business. So that has been a really important learning curve for me.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. It's funny you should say that. I was working with a client this morning and it was like, cool, so these are everything that you want to do this month. This is a very intense month for you. What are you not doing? Like, let's write down the things you're taking off your plate, which we very rarely do.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely, right? And look at that as a win instead of a failure.

SPEAKER_02

So I am curious because you are currently in classes, and I think this is a really good time to test this. What are your focus strategies now? Like you've done all the work, you've read all the books, but you're in it now. So how are you keeping focused?

SPEAKER_00

I like I said, I really like I'm I'm very I'm a big proponent of like time blocking and partition, you know, part partitioning time so that I can be fully present. And that's been super helpful for me. So one of the one of the my favorite ways to stay organized is Focus Space. I don't know if you're familiar with them. I think they're based in California, but it's like a virtual co-working space, but it's hosted. So it's different from something like Focus Mate, where there's actually like staff that that host the focus space. That has been wonderful. I find what, you know, one of the things I love about Focus Space is they, you know, kind of like you were saying, like they really encourage me to choose between three to five things I'm gonna do today and stick to that. Like I'm not allowed to have more than five things on my to-do list. I have found that really, really helpful because I know I'm gonna do more than five things, but if I focus on the five things, kind of like the podcast was like the root of the tree, if I focus on those five things and make sure that those are the five things that I prioritize, everything else is gravy, everything else is a win. I've done the five things too, which also feels like a win. So that has been super helpful in terms of organizing my time and really being clear about like, no, you're not allowed to do more than these things until they're done. And then, and then it's like, you know, then it's recess all day long in terms of all the different weird things you want to rabbit holes you want to fall down. So that's been really, really helpful. I really appreciate a focus space as a as a platform. And even Llama Life, I mean, I've been using Llama Life. I I always say to Maria, who who started that, like there are very few apps that I have stuck with for, you know, months, much less the years. And I have still consistently used Llama Life every day to plan my time and to plan my tasks and to figure out how long is this gonna take me. And then when I get to the point where I have so many tasks that it's telling me this is gonna be 12 hours, then I know, like, okay, don't be ridiculous. Like, take some of the this is these are not today things. So if they're not today things, where am I gonna put them? And so I just, yeah, that has been very, very I'm clearly a very visual time person. And and so both of those have been super helpful. And also wearing shoes at my desk, who knew that was such an important ADHD hack? Is I am so much more productive when I'm wearing shoes.

SPEAKER_02

I heard that one. I've heard people say that, yeah. And shout out to Llama Life, it's it's such a great, such a great app. Still going strong. The last question I really have for you today is if you had a quote that's kind of been getting you through either this period or just over the years in general, what would it be?

SPEAKER_00

This is such a hard one. There's so many. I think the quote that I so often come back to, especially when it comes to like my own trajectory and like trusting in my own decisions, even though nobody else is doing this. And you know, I often say, like, you know, my word my word of the year this year is zag. Like when everybody's zigging, just zag. It's fine. Yeah. Just zag.

SPEAKER_02

I've been saying that too, actually. That's really cool. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Um so I think the quote that comes back to me a lot in that same realm is is the quote, like, you will be too much for some people, they are not your people. Which I believe is like, I think it's been credited to Glennon Doyle. I'm not sure if it's if she just said it at some point. But just this notion that, like, if I'm not, if something's not fitting, it's not me, right? Just keep keep going. You'll find your people. You'll find the you know, you'll attract the right people. And yeah, and I mean, I use that with the adolescents I work with too, right? Which is like, you know, if these are not your people, just like keep going. Keep being yourself, you'll find your people.

SPEAKER_02

So well, thank you so much for coming on here. Thanks so much for sharing. I think podcasting is great because I think it is a great way to, like you said, find your people and and chat it about things that you enjoy. But tell everybody, you know, where they can find you once your semester is over and you're done, you're gonna come out and do the podcast. Tell everyone where to find it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, well, the podcast has always been at womenandadhd.com. That's where everything is, the coaching business, the coaching team, and and working with me. And I also, you know, I have so many free resources there. That's another thing that I've always wanted to. I've always wanted to have a lot of you know entry points, no matter where you are, because coaching is is you know, it's not cheap and it's not accessible to a lot of people. And so I've always wanted to have as many like I do not gatekeep information. Yeah, I know that's the other thing I love about the podcast, is like there's not like anything behind of, you know, pay me money and I'll give you the secrets to ADHD success. I I don't do any of that. So, you know, there's tons of free resources on womeninadh.com too. So it really created this, like I call it like an uh an information and advocacy hub, an education and advocacy hub for women. So it's like I want women in ADHD to continue to be just a place if you're if you think you have ADHD or you've just been diagnosed with ADHD, you don't know where to start, you're feeling overwhelmed, you're doing all the things and joining the Facebook group. Like, I want women in ADHD. My goal has always been to like have a place where you feel like wherever you are on your journey, there's something to, you know, we're gonna meet you there. And and you know, it's like a virtual clinic in that way. Um hopefully that's my vision for it. And you know, and the podcast too, like you know, I was actually talking with this with Will from Hacking Your ADHD. Like, after I've been doing this for five years, like I kind of am an expert, right? Like it's it's kind of I I feel like I've started out as a journalist and a curious person asking questions for my own interest's sake. And like at some point you you transition from somebody who asks questions to somebody who now answers questions. So that's another that's been another big part of the business is speaking and you know, speaking to uh resource group, you know, employee resource groups, and just speaking to other communities who or other podcasts who are interested in like becoming like a kind of a go-to source on women in ADHD has also been an unexpected part of this journey. Cause I was very, I was very uncomfortable with the expert hat for a very long time. And now I was sort of like, you know, it's true. Like I was saying earlier, like sometimes you find when you're just at this unique intersection of the lived experience bit and also the research. And it's like I'm not formally trained in anything, but I I sure do know a lot. And what do I do with that?

SPEAKER_02

Autodidactically, you're going for it.

SPEAKER_00

Right? Yeah, and so that's also been another one of the many income streams, too. It's just been like, you know, psychoeducation.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, 100%. Well, awesome, Katie. Great to have you, and good luck with the rest of your semester. Oh, thank you, Sky. It was so lovely to be here.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the ADHD Skills Lab. If you liked it, leave us a five star review. It helps other people learn more about us. And thank you so much to our wonderful team for making us sound good, look good. We couldn't do it without you.