Living with ADHD: Real Talk on ADHD in Women with Leah Carroll

Full Episode Page: Living with ADHD: Real Talk on ADHD in Women with Leah Carroll

Host Kelly Berry talks with Leah Carroll - ADHD life and mindset coach - about ADHD in women, from late diagnosis and masking to time blindness, executive function, and emotional regulation. You’ll hear practical strategies for neurodivergent adults, why momentum beats motivation, and the best boundary habits to protect energy and avoid burnout.

Find Out:

• How ADHD in women gets missed and misdiagnosed
• What time blindness feels like and how to fix it
• How to build momentum when motivation fails
• Why executive function gaps create shame cycles
• Best boundary scripts to reclaim your energy
• Whether nightly brain dumps reduce overwhelm

Links:

• Leah’s Official Website
• Momentum Monday Newsletter
• Leah on Instagram
• Leah on Facebook
• The ADHD Academy Collective
• ADHD Small Group Coaching
  
  

Chapters:
00:00 Welcome to Life Intended Podcast
02:51 Meet Leah Carroll: ADHD Life & Mindset Coach
04:34 ADHD in Women: Awareness, Diagnosis & Stereotypes
09:50 Leah’s ADHD Journey: From College to Coaching
11:14 Supporting Neurodivergent Adults with ADHD
18:36 Executive Function Struggles and Emotional Regulation
24:52 Time Blindness, Planning, and Daily ADHD Challenges
28:58 ADHD Strategies for Organization and Task Management
31:12 Building Resilience and ADHD Self-Compassion
34:09 Most Common ADHD Problems for Adults
36:49 Motivation vs Momentum: Leah’s Take on Productivity
41:25 ADHD Coaching Insights: Boundaries and Burnout
44:52 Managing Energy and Setting ADHD-Friendly Limits
53:02 Self-Care Routines and Dopamine Reset Ideas
01:01:02 The Mission of Life Intended

Life Intended is a podcast and coaching platform for women who are ready to stop waiting and start leading. Co-hosted by Kelly Berry and Sadie Wackett, each episode explores self-leadership, identity, emotional wellness, and living with intention.

About Kelly Berry
Kelly Berry is a strategic business leader, coach, and founder of Life Intended. She helps women build clarity, confidence, and alignment in life and work. She enjoys spending quality time with her husband American entrepreneur Nick Berry and daughter Vivienne. Her life is a testament to the power of resilience and intention.
🔗 kellyberry.info | @lifeintendedpodcast

About Sadie Wackett
Sadie Wackett is a C-suite HR executive, certified coach, and co-founder of Life Intended. She supports women through leadership transitions, self-trust, and personal transformation. Sadie is originally from the UK and now lives in South Florida with her husband, daughter and dog, Pickles.
🔗 sadiewackett.com | LinkedIn

Life Intended is published in partnership with FCG...

Transcript

00:00 Welcome to Life Intended Podcast
02:51 Meet Leah Carroll: ADHD Life & Mindset Coach
04:34 ADHD in Women: Awareness, Diagnosis & Stereotypes
09:50 Leah’s ADHD Journey: From College to Coaching
11:14 Supporting Neurodivergent Adults with ADHD
18:36 Executive Function Struggles and Emotional Regulation
24:52 Time Blindness, Planning, and Daily ADHD Challenges
28:58 ADHD Strategies for Organization and Task Management
31:12 Building Resilience and ADHD Self-Compassion
34:09 Most Common ADHD Problems for Adults
36:49 Motivation vs Momentum: Leah’s Take on Productivity
41:25 ADHD Coaching Insights: Boundaries and Burnout
44:52 Managing Energy and Setting ADHD-Friendly Limits
53:02 Self-Care Routines and Dopamine Reset Ideas
01:01:02 The Mission of Life Intended

Kelly Berry (01:05)
Today is a really, really fun episode and one I'm so excited about because you guys, I'm interviewing one of my friends from high school. Not only is she doing awesome things,

She lives a totally enviable life, which we'll get into, and I can't wait to introduce you to her. Leah Carroll is an ADHD life and mindset coach who has helped hundreds of ADHDers gain control over their lives and find a sense of authenticity, calm, and control. She didn't always have it all together, and she's honest about the ups and downs of living with ADHD. Her journey started at the University of Kentucky, where she majored in community development and leadership.

but she struggled with impulsivity and poor self-regulation. After bouncing through various jobs and even getting fired a couple of times, Leah left the US in 2016 to travel the world as a dirty backpacker. Those are her words, not mine. To be honest, it looked really glamorous on Instagram, so I'm sure she'll tell us more about that. Along the way, she completed her yoga teacher training in India, which brought much needed structure to her life.

After settling in Germany, Leah pivoted from health coaching to life coaching, discovering her true calling working with ADHDers. For the past three years, she's focused on supporting neurodivergent adults, helping them thrive in a neuro-typical world by offering tailored strategies and deep understanding. When she's not coaching, you can find Leah reading, hiking in the Alps,

That's another part of her glamorous lifestyle. She told me she goes to Italy every weekend, but it sounds more glamorous than it is. So we'll hear about that. She also loves to cook, indulge in her favorite self-care routine, which is taking naps. Welcome, Leah. I'm excited to have you here.

Leah Carroll (02:51)
Thank you so much for having me, Kelly. I'm super excited to chat with you and your audience and yeah, dive into all things ADHD.

Kelly Berry (03:00)
Yeah, great. So Leah and I mentioned we went to high school together. I'm a little bit older than her, but we have stayed connected, I guess, via social media for years ever since then, really. And so I've always kept up with what she's doing, not necessarily where she is because she's been all over. But recently she is more likely in one of two places, which is either the US or Germany. And

Yeah, and Leah has a pretty cool story and I is working with women mostly. I'll let her tell you her story, women, amen. But in what I would say is like a growing.

How do you describe it? Like something that's gaining more attention, I would say, maybe not growing, but just people are becoming more aware.

Leah Carroll (03:43)
Yes, there is definitely a heightened awareness around ADHD. People are just becoming more aware of what that means. There's a lot of, and we'll dive into this, but there's a lot of rhetoric around like, everybody has a little bit of ADHD. And that is highly problematic for those of us that actually struggle with full-blown ADHD. But yeah, I mean, I think that as things change,

Kelly Berry (03:58)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Leah Carroll (04:08)
Doctors are becoming more aware of it. Social media has been like, wait, all of these boxes are ticking and they're ticking all the things that I've been through. So I think with the prevalence of all of that kind of stuff, people are definitely becoming more aware. The pandemic kicked in a lot of stuff too. Yeah.

Kelly Berry (04:24)
Yeah, yeah, I'm

sure. So tell us more about what you do, how you got into it, the types of people that you work with. Let's just get a little bit more like background.

Leah Carroll (04:34)
Yeah, definitely. So yeah, let's see. Where do we want to start? So I was diagnosed at the age of 28. I think it was around 28. I'm not really sure. surprise. I was living in Nashville at the time. 40. Yeah, I'm 40 now. Yeah. So just a few years ago, I was officially diagnosed. I think we always kind of knew it. I was always a bit hyperactive.

Kelly Berry (04:44)
Yeah.

And you're 40 now, so, okay.

Leah Carroll (04:59)
definitely very chatty. I was a bit more of the daydreamer. And so it went undiagnosed. And that happens to a lot. I work with a lot of women that are not being diagnosed until their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s. And a lot of that goes back to our idea of ADHD is the eight-year-old little boy that's just like throwing chairs and punching holes and moles and causing all of the havoc, whereas the girls are a bit more daydreamy.

Kelly Berry (05:17)
Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (05:25)
chatty, they're not as disruptive. So it's just not caught on as much. It's just, hey, hey, quit talking. Those are the, if you look at all of my report cards, Leah's a great student. She just talks too much. So I think that was written a few times. And so, so yeah, that's kind of, I knew that I think we all kind of did moving forward all through college.

Kelly Berry (05:30)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

You

Leah Carroll (05:50)
It's always a bit of a struggle. I think I wrote in my bio for you. I actually failed out my first semester in college. I don't know that that had so much to do with ADHD and just being like young and rebellious, but you know, wasn't really going to class, wasn't really applying myself, didn't know that I could withdraw from classes. So always kind of struggled with that, decided like, all right, you got to get your act together. Pulled it together, but that first semester followed me.

Kelly Berry (06:07)
Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (06:18)
And so I was like, I want to go into like marketing and communications. Well, when I went to UK, the College of Marketing was like, well, that's cute, but your GPA is not going to allow this. And so I went into AgComs, which was community development and leadership, which in the end was perfect and exactly where I was supposed to be. But it did not come with some like hits to the ego and everything else that comes with that. yep.

Kelly Berry (06:28)
Mm-hmm.

Thank you.

Leah Carroll (06:44)
Then fast forward, I moved to Nashville. I have a job. I'm working from home. So this would have been back in, gosh, I don't even know, 2011 maybe, something like that. I'm working from home, fully remote. I'm like, this is the best thing ever. But what that turned into was like, let's go have lunch and meet friends for coffee and this and that, and not really doing the things. And so was like, something has got to give. I just could not get motivated to do things. I have since...

Kelly Berry (07:09)
Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (07:11)
come to learn that motivation, especially for ADHDers is actually bullshit. I'm not sure if I can say that on this podcast, but there we are. You can edit me out. Yeah, so just could not get it together. Went and was like, all right, somebody's got to tell me what's going on. Officially diagnosed, started on medication. Wasn't for me, didn't love it. So I haven't been medicated for a long time. Some people love it, some people don't. That's a whole different thing.

Kelly Berry (07:19)
You can say it.

Leah Carroll (07:39)
that I don't talk about too much because it's not my scope of practice, but for me medication did not work. But I really didn't give ADHD a second thought. I was just like, yep, surprise, surprise. We all need that. This is just how I am and there's not really much that can be done about it. I have since come to learn that that is not at all the case. There is a lot that can be done about it. And there's a lot more control that ADHDers have than I think we've.

Kelly Berry (07:43)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (08:04)
led to believe. so

Kelly Berry (08:05)
Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (08:06)
yeah, so diagnosed, went on to, to leave that job. It was, it was not, it was not for me. So left that job a few years later, really just kind of got itchy feet and needed needed out of all the things. And I was in a really blessed position to where yeah, I kind of imploded my whole life and was a dirty backpacker.

Like I said, so I left, I went to Europe. I spent quite a bit of time in the UK and in India and popped down to Australia and yoga teacher training and all of the things. And it's interesting, I've had this conversation a lot here recently about how my ADHD certainly didn't disappear. Like there's no cure for it, it's always there. No matter what you do, no matter the medicine that you're taking, no matter the strategies, it's always gonna be there. You're always gonna have to work with it. But it definitely was not as prevalent.

And that is because I had no responsibility. There was no pressure, really. I mean, at that time when I was traveling like that, I was staying in places for months at a time. So it was really get to a place, find a place to live that is suitable and on budget, and then kind of live your life. There for a while I was teaching English online to kids in China. So that kind of

Kelly Berry (08:59)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (09:22)
paid the bills, but like I said, the pressure just wasn't there. The responsibility wasn't there. The to-do lists weren't there. And so, yeah, the ADHD kind of faded into the background. Now, that is not to say that I did not miss buses and trains and planes. get AM and PM mixed up and all of the things. But yeah, the stakes were just a lot lower. I mean, in some cases they were pretty high, but they were quite a bit lower. And then, yeah.

Kelly Berry (09:25)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (09:50)
I did my yoga teacher training. When I really kind of settled in Germany, I was still teaching English and I was teaching yoga. Teaching English was just not fulfilling at all. It was putting a few bucks in the pocket and that was pretty much it. So the pay was not great and then yeah, just the fulfillment aspect. So I was like, what do I want to do? And I kind of went into the health coaching rod. It kind of paired well with yoga. I think people came to me anyway for that.

Kelly Berry (10:08)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (10:18)
So I went and got a certificate in health coaching, did that for a little bit. Wasn't really a great space for me. It felt a little bit ick, if you will. was a lot of a like super medical situations where people are dealing with, you know, pre-diabetes, they're dealing with thyroid issues, they're dealing with all of these things that I was like, I need a medical background, like health coaching.

Kelly Berry (10:33)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

with this.

Leah Carroll (10:45)
is not cutting it. I didn't feel like now that's not there's not many people out there that can do it. It just felt like I am way outside of my comfort zone here. It got real diet culture-y and I didn't love that. I really loved the life coaching side of things. I really love talking to people. Okay, it's not always about what's on your plate and how many hours are you logging at the gym? It's usually what else is going on in your life? What else is happening? Right. And so I kind of went more into just like

Kelly Berry (10:47)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (11:14)
basic life coaching, whatever that means. And I realized as I was going through that process of working with people, the people that I enjoyed working with the most were my fellow neurodivergent ADHDers, because the struggles that they were dealing with wasn't making it to the gym. It was, I don't have any time because I've mismanaged my time because of this, this, and this executive functioning and blah, blah, blah, And so really helping people get

Kelly Berry (11:34)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (11:43)
an idea of how is your ADHD showing up for you? How is it really kind of messing with you on a daily, hourly, minutely basis? And that's kind of the difference. How I said at the beginning of where people are like, everybody has a little bit of ADHD. Yes, for sure. Everybody's going to maybe run late here and there. Everybody's going to maybe kind of have a little bit of disorganization or, you know, trouble making a decision.

Kelly Berry (12:01)
Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (12:11)
But for ADHDers, those executive functions are all piled on top of each other. And every executive function affects the next one. So we've got emotional regulation, we've got impulse control, we've got task initiation, we've got working memory, we've got all of these things that are all tied together and that end up affecting our lives in a really big way. Yeah.

Kelly Berry (12:31)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. So

yeah, you said a couple of things that I just want to touch on and maybe we'll build on them further. you talked about, I think this is a big one because I see and I know a lot of women my age who have recently been diagnosed or are kind of like trying to figure out, I have ADHD or really am I just overwhelmed? Like, do I have too much on my plate? And I think there's probably a lot to be said about that in our culture.

Leah Carroll (12:41)
Yeah.

Kelly Berry (13:02)
altogether, but is the different ways that these symptoms present in girls and boys and women and men. And I think that's like kind of a common theme that I've picked up from some of my other guests that I've been talking to recently is that, you know, our medical system, and I don't, I don't know what it is in Europe, but like our medical system is built on like studying men and boys. so doctors are really only trained to

see symptoms. That's why heart disease is so deadly in women and why it's so often missed is because a woman's symptoms or signals for a heart attack present so much differently and often they're dismissed. It's probably the same way for ADHD. They're dismissed as, she's just really chatty or she's just really social or name all the things that you probably have. But it's just interesting that those

Leah Carroll (13:54)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kelly Berry (14:00)
things are often just so dismissed for women and then they end up struggling for years and years when they could have just been heard and handled.

Leah Carroll (14:12)
Well, I think

too, I mean, it's becoming, it's becoming a lot more, I guess acceptable might be the right word. I mean, I think when we were growing up, it very much, it was very much a boy thing. didn't know. Yeah, yeah, definitely. But I didn't know any girls growing up. I did not meet a girl diagnosed with ADHD until I was in college.

Kelly Berry (14:19)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And there was a lot of stigma to it, you know? Like, yeah.

Mm-hmm

Yeah.

Leah Carroll (14:38)
And I just didn't hear about it. And so I think you're right. I think the doctors weren't really on the lookout for it. My mom has told me recently that I was, I guess I was screened for it and they were like, well, I mean, she might be, but like, I think it'll be okay. And so, and what's interesting is a lot of people, especially women, men too though, I've worked with a lot of men, more men that I would have thought that I've worked with. But you either have this moment of like,

Kelly Berry (14:40)
Mm-hmm.

Thank

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (15:04)
Okay, I'm diagnosed, sweet, everything clicks, this makes sense, it's all coming together, or you have this moment of...

Kelly Berry (15:10)
Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (15:11)
everything could have been different if I just would have known this piece and gotten the support and the help and the blah blah blah. So there is a bit of a grieving process with that diagnosis sometimes or the realization even if it's not a diagnosis with that realization but women are definitely overlooked and women are also better at masking. So we are better at pretending everything is okay.

Kelly Berry (15:13)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (15:38)
Right?

So we are better at people pleasing. And if you've got a kid that's in school and she's just pleasing that teacher, she's not that big of a deal. Okay. She talks a little bit and forgets her homework, but I got way bigger fish to fry. Right? And that's what I was saying at the beginning of girls not being as disruptive. Just kind of, if Leah would just apply herself, you just get labeled as not living up to your full potential.

Kelly Berry (15:41)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (16:06)
If you would just try harder, you must not care all of these things, which the detrimental part of that is that you take that with you. ⁓ I must just be lazy. if I cared more, which is tricky because a lot of us, but I do care. I don't understand why my brain won't, you know, I joke sometimes that my brain is like Teflon. Like certain things just don't stick. It just.

Kelly Berry (16:10)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (16:33)
It just lights off. And for a long

Kelly Berry (16:34)
Yeah.

Leah Carroll (16:35)
time, if you don't know that there is a reason for that, you do think that you're the problem. And to be fair, sometimes you are the problem, but a lot of times it's not down to that. And it's definitely not as easy as you think it is. And that's something else to keep in mind for women that are listening to this episode that are like, I've been thinking about this, a huge part of the DSM-5 criteria for ADHD, which

Kelly Berry (16:39)
Yeah.

Thank you very much.

Leah Carroll (17:00)
It's not perfect. Let's be honest. But is if you've had these symptoms before the age of 12. So a lot of times, perimenopause can mimic ADHD. You've got brain fog. You've got indecision. You've got fatigue. You've got no motivation. Can't handle task initiation, all of that kind of stuff. So that can mimic it. And then low iron can mimic ADHD.

Kelly Berry (17:07)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Leah Carroll (17:28)
motherhood, you're exhausted, especially in the beginning. Everything is new. You're trying to keep this other human alive. Your, you know, your resources are being stretched really thin. So a lot of times people can be like, what is happening? Now, to be fair, that is also when a lot of women are diagnosed, because you got to think about it. Like I said, when I was traveling, the responsibilities are pretty low.

Kelly Berry (17:31)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (17:54)
you know, the bar is not as high, the consequences aren't as big versus you have a kid, everything changes, everything doubles, if not triples, like depending on what you're going through and what's happening. And so, whereas you could kind of handle it when it was just you and you kind of kept all the plates spinning and not too many fires were there. And then you throw a kid in the mix and you're exhausted and you're a huge learning curve and

Kelly Berry (18:02)
Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (18:20)
anxiety and all of the things that come with that, everything starts to spin out of control. And so that's when I see a lot of women are being diagnosed.

Kelly Berry (18:25)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah. So tell us, like, what is the definition of ADHD? What is it exactly?

Leah Carroll (18:37)
Yeah. So ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder. So basically it is not, you know, mental health in the way that we think of it, mental illness, far as, you know, depression, anxiety, that kind of stuff, even though women are massively misdiagnosed as bipolar. And that has part to do with the ADHD of the impulse control, the hyper focus, as well as our cycles. Because you've got to think when

Kelly Berry (18:38)
you

Leah Carroll (19:02)
We're on the upswing and we've got high estrogen and all this stuff. We are feeling good. We've got this, this, we can do that, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then we sink into that winter part of our cycle and it can look like more of a depressive state. So you've got these states coupled with ADHD that look like manic and depressive. I cannot tell you if any women have been misdiagnosed bipolar. So I'm just throwing that out there. So ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder. Our brains developed differently.

Kelly Berry (19:17)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Leah Carroll (19:32)
You're born this way. That is not to say that environmental factors cannot exacerbate the situation. Like I was saying, motherhood exacerbates the situation. Different things that are going on with your blood work, perimenopause and menopause, all of these things, the way that you were raised, what your childhood looks like. Did you have a really supportive system around you or did you have not that? And so our frontal lobe,

Kelly Berry (19:40)
Mm-hmm.

Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (20:00)
is smaller and there's just not as much activity going on there. Our amygdala lights up a lot more so that emotional regulation side of things, really difficult, right? Our dopamine receptors, our neuro-pnephrine are off. There's a whole science behind that, but basically we don't have enough dopamine. And I hear different, there's a ton of different stuff out there and everybody has the research, so I don't know.

Kelly Berry (20:10)
Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (20:26)
But our dopamine sweepers are too effective. The one thing that's too effective are dopamine sweepers. So we end up with not enough dopamine, which makes tasks like doing the laundry feel like bamboo shoots under the fingernails. That is why this task initiation and that kind of stuff, we're constantly seeking rewards because our dopamine is at a deficit.

Kelly Berry (20:32)
You

Mm-hmm

Thank you.

Leah Carroll (20:53)
Whereas, neurotypicals, they have a baseline of dopamine. So to get through the emails, to get through the admin, to get through the laundry, it's like, yeah, okay. Whereas we're bottomed out. So it's really difficult for us and we've got to come up with all of these systems and strategies and they're always changing. Because as soon as you come up with something that works, the shiny wears off and it's no longer novel in our brain. like, nope, next, I'm done. That's why you will meet ADHDers that have gone through a thousand different planners.

Kelly Berry (21:04)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (21:23)
to get organized. This is going to be the one that changes it. But then they get bored and they're like, haven't seen that since February. Yeah, definitely. And like I said, I think I mentioned this at the beginning, the executive functions that we deal with. We've got self-awareness, big one, future planning, self-regulation, like I said, working memory, impulse control and control task initiation. There's

Kelly Berry (21:29)
Yeah. Yeah.

Leah Carroll (21:48)
There's 12 that I work with, I'm kind of blanking on all of them, but they layer. And that's where, like I said, that's where the tricky bit comes in with ADHD is it's not just disorganization. It's disorganization, planning and prioritizing. So we can't, we have a really hard time prioritizing things. Whereas if you make a list, it's probably this vertical list. You can look at it and be like, yep, that goes first, that goes second. Our list are horizontal in our brains.

Kelly Berry (21:52)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (22:17)
is at a volume of 10 instead of the most important thing being at a 10 and then okay and then it gets quieter and quiet it's all screaming at us at the same level so we've got that plus low dopamine plus impulsive tendencies plus this this this and this so it's really yeah

Kelly Berry (22:26)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm, interesting.

So one thing you said at the beginning was, I think you were talking about college and you were like, I've just got to get it together. You're talking about like, I just need to do this. So what does that feel like to you when you're like feeling like you're the problem or you just have to try harder or like, how does that feel emotionally to you? Yeah.

Leah Carroll (23:01)
shit.

Yeah, it's not great. And like I said, I think that it can be helpful to know why that is happening. It can be even more helpful to get the support that you need. So I work with people and I'm like, all right, what does your week look like? What does your semester look like? I've got a couple of college kids that I'm working with and God love them. It is rough. But really looking at what are your time management?

Kelly Berry (23:09)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Leah Carroll (23:29)
look like. Okay, you've got these finals coming up next week. And of course, there was no urgency until now. So not much has been done. The urgency is what kicks us in a lot. And so a lot of this also goes back to yes, we've got the tips and the tricks and the strategies, but it also goes back to mindset. And there's a huge mindset piece of this of why do you give a shit if you pass your college classes?

Kelly Berry (23:35)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (23:56)
Okay, yeah, your parents are gonna be mad. Maybe they're paying. Maybe you're gonna lose your scholarship. Maybe you're trying to get into grad school and you need, so really that future planning bit, you've got to sit down and have some intentional time and we never do it. A lot of people don't do it. But eight years specifically don't do it and we need it desperately to really sit down and say, all right, what does this look like for the next semester? Now that gets really overwhelming.

Kelly Berry (24:06)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (24:24)
That's

where the emotional regulation comes in and we shut down. like, nope, I'm just going to bury my head in the sand. I'll do it as it comes up. It'll be fine. So we've got to learn to sit with the discomfort of like, shit, there's a lot, there's a lot to do. Am I ever going to be able to do this? There's no way I'm going to be able to do this. I can't, I can't keep all these plates spinning. What is the first step? Okay. The first step is that first exam, February 2nd. Okay, cool. Let's start there.

Kelly Berry (24:30)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (24:52)
Right? So we've got kind of some different ways to look at things. And this can go, you know, not only for students, obviously, but for adults as well. So we've got the holidays in five minutes. And I talked to a lot of people about, especially 80 years, start looking at things now. So I've been running a whole email series on surviving the holidays and we started in November.

Kelly Berry (24:59)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Leah Carroll (25:15)
What does your social calendar look like with kids and with work stuff and with Christmas parties and New Year's parties and blah, blah, What does that look like? How does that affect you? Right? You're feeling burnt out. You're feeling overwhelmed. Where do you have control? Because you do have control. Probably feel like you don't, but you do. So we want to take a look. We want to kind of zoom out and then it gets really scary and it's okay. We're safe. We're safe. We're safe. And then we want to zoom in.

Kelly Berry (25:23)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (25:42)
and say, right, let's take a look at what this looks like. Let's start going ahead and who am I buying gifts for? Put it in your phone. Christmas 2024. We got Kelly, we got Sarah, we got Leah, we got mom, we got dad, we got, know, okay, cool. That's what that looks like. I'm gonna walk away for a minute. That's too much, okay. All right, and then I can come back to it and say, all right, what are some, you know, things that people would like? Lower the bar. I tell people that all the time. I'm like, lower the bar.

Kelly Berry (26:04)
Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (26:08)
It can still be magic without having to overwhelm you and burn you out and making you exhausted and resentful. And I talk about that a lot in general of plan and we suck at this. mean, it's like we don't plan. That's not how this works. That's not how our brains work. We thrive off of urgency, impulsivity, all of that kind of stuff, but it also really messes us up.

Kelly Berry (26:17)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Leah Carroll (26:37)
So having that self-awareness piece of what are the ways that my ADHD is causing me unhappiness? How am I responsible for this? So I say that a lot. It's not your fault. Your ADHD, your trauma, big T, little t, any of that, it's not your fault. But now it's your responsibility. So what are the things that you can do?

Kelly Berry (26:45)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (27:02)
having an open mind. I tried that Google calendar, that doesn't work for me. How long did you try that for? Three days. Horrible. Okay, well, maybe we need to really make this a practice. Why did you stop using it? Well, I forgot to check it. Well, that's on brand. So how can we kind of put these things? Okay, what are you upset about? Well, I keep missing appointments. Okay, let's go around that circle. You've got to do something if you keep missing appointments, if you keep...

Kelly Berry (27:18)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (27:31)
you know, dropping the ball on some things, where do you have the control? Doing the first thing I recommend everyone, neurodivergent or otherwise, do a nightly brain dump. You're going to bed, have your phone or have a little notebook, whichever you choose. I'm gonna go with phone because it's always with us. I know it's a pain in the ass, but it's the truth. What does tomorrow look like for you? Take a minute and say, okay, tomorrow.

got this call with Kelly and then I've got that other call and I really need to get that thing up on social and I need to write that email and I need to do some laundry. All right I know my ADHD is gonna have me in wait mode until the podcast with Kelly. I can't do anything else. Knows it. This was this was like and and my other ADHDers out there will be like wait mode yes I know exactly what

Kelly Berry (28:19)
Yeah, I've

never heard that, but I've experienced that and I don't have ADHD, but I've definitely experienced that everything has to stop until this thing and then I can move on. Yeah.

Leah Carroll (28:29)
Yeah,

exactly. And so if you know that, cool. Put that on kind of your list. Podcast wait time. Because you know it's going to affect you. Maybe that's going to be the laundry because it's low hanging fruit. It's easy. You know exactly how to do it. You don't have to really put much thought into it. That kind of thing. So really looking at the next day and maybe as you get better at that, okay, what's the week look like? okay. You know, I'm visiting family.

Kelly Berry (28:34)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (28:58)
Right now so okay. I to be able to have time with my brother All right. Well this day in the state don't really work, but Wednesday's looking pretty chill Okay, I can go ahead and swap that in for Wednesday that that kind of thing again It's the the future planning and it gives our brain somewhere to go when we wake up Versus just full-on the world is your oyster overwhelm

Kelly Berry (29:02)
Mm-hmm.

Thank

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (29:19)
You have this idea of, okay, these are the things that I need to get done and this is why I want to get them done. Maybe some things will fall through the cracks. It happens. Our to-do lists are as long as my arm. And that's another problem. So really just being realistic with what does tomorrow look like? What can you realistically achieve? What's one thing you wanna get done tomorrow that's gonna make you feel good about the day?

Kelly Berry (29:35)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. So what are some of the things that people come to you and maybe do most people who come to you, have they already been diagnosed or no? Okay.

Leah Carroll (29:53)
No, is no.

So because I live in Germany, most of my clients are coming out of the UK. And I think that just has to do with an algorithm thing of how I'm putting this out there. And they're the closest in proximity that speak English. And the waitlist in the UK to be diagnosed with ADHD is upwards of three years. So most of the people that I am dealing with

Kelly Berry (30:00)
Okay.

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Leah Carroll (30:17)
are not officially diagnosed. And even in the States, even the clients I have here, so I've got clients in the States, the UK and Australia, English. So again, Australia also has a really long wait list. In the US, I would say that the diagnosis rate is a bit higher, but no, there's a lot of just people that are like, and what I always tell people, I don't really care if you're diagnosed.

Kelly Berry (30:26)
Okay, yeah.

Leah Carroll (30:43)
I think that if you want that validation and if you want medication, yes, diagnosis is the way to go. Otherwise, if you are struggling, let's chat. Let's have a conversation about how these things are showing up for you, how they're derailing you and how we can get you back on track at least 80 % of the time. Like we're doing 80 % here. We're not doing all or nothing. We're not doing a hundred percent, you know, quote unquote perfection. The ball will drop.

Kelly Berry (30:43)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (31:12)
and we have to expect it. But what

I want to help people with is picking up the ball faster. Instead of the ball is dropped, all is lost, you know, that kind of situation.

Kelly Berry (31:18)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I mean,

everybody needs that, right? You know, that's like resilience. Everybody needs to be able to recover. And I think that I've really loved that, you know, like not all or nothing, not 100 % perfection, because I think when you have that mindset, you can get so derailed when the ball drops. And instead of focusing on, just, the ball dropped and I picked it up faster. You're only focused on the ball drop.

Leah Carroll (31:43)
it's.

Yes, exactly. And that is where such a huge part of what I do is the self-compassion side of things. Especially when I first start working with people because you're learning a new skill. You're learning something different here. Would you yell at a toddler, be like, what the hell is wrong with you? Why aren't you walking yet? Get your shit together. No, you would never do that. And that's exactly what we're doing. We're literally creating new pathways.

Kelly Berry (31:51)
⁓ yeah.

Hmm

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (32:18)
in our brain through neuroplasticity, which is wild that we can even do that. But really coming at a place, I talk a lot about curiosity over judgment. you know, I just had a chat with a client that's having some impulse control things and, you know, she drank a whole bottle of wine instead of just the two glasses. And then, of course, she wasn't feeling great the next day and blah, blah, blah. And so we talk about, all right.

Kelly Berry (32:29)
Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (32:45)
It happened. Let's dive into that. What was going on? What do you? I don't know. Like nothing really even sparked it. I'm like, okay, take a little bit. We'll talk next week. But I want you to think about that. Think about what's kind of, cause something happened. Think about it, right? So just be curious. Be curious about what's going on. I missed that appointment again. Okay. Why? Well, I thought I put it in the calendar, but did you? No, you were probably rushing. So you've got to force the pause.

Kelly Berry (32:56)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (33:14)
has to go in my calendar.

Catch the cues, catch the things that are messing you up. I don't need to write that down, I'll remember that. I don't need to put that podcast on my calendar, that's really important, I'm really excited.

Kelly Berry (33:25)
you

Leah Carroll (33:26)
No, ma'am. As soon as that enters my mind, I know now that that is a cue that my brain will try to throw me off. My brain. You don't need to write that down. No, immediately write it down. So these kinds of things that I work with people on so that you can walk through life and feel more empowered and more optimistic and like you said, picking up that ball quicker and realizing, all right, I dropped the ball. And you can have a moment of like, damn it, Leah.

Kelly Berry (33:33)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Leah Carroll (33:54)
Did she do that again? All right. It's all right. It happened. We're not making it happen again.

Kelly Berry (33:58)
So what are some

of the problems that people are coming to you to solve? Because I'm sure it's like, you know, kind of a relatively short list that people are just, a lot of people are struggling with.

Leah Carroll (34:03)
Thank

Yeah,

I think a lot of people come to me, I mean, and I don't know if you saw this in your previous career, where people come to you because they think it's one thing and it's actually another. So, yeah, exactly. Yeah, so really it's, know, people are coming to me, like I said, with these kinds of things, timeliness.

Kelly Berry (34:24)
Mm-hmm. 100 % of the time.

Leah Carroll (34:36)
chronically late or Missing appointments or you know, emotional regulation is a big one Especially with women RSD is is a big thing and there's a whole school of thought of if that's really a thing RSD is rejection sensitivity dysphoria It's when you receive any kind of feedback any kind of criticism and you literally feel like you've been punched in the face Or in my case the beat mine goes immediately to my gut So really working with people on on that kind of stuff task initiation

Kelly Berry (34:50)
Okay.

Leah Carroll (35:03)
Or people are like, I cannot get off the couch. I've got all of these things to do. My to-do list is 10 pages long. I can't do any of it. And so really looking at breaking these things down as far as, all right, you've got this to-do list that's 10 pages long. Can we archive all of that? You don't have to throw it away. Can we just look at tomorrow? What are the most pressing things right now?

Kelly Berry (35:13)
Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (35:31)
So really helping people just see things in a different way because people think it's, I'm lazy. I need motivation. Motivation does not work for us. Momentum. Momentum is what works for us. So finding, let's have a little list of momentum tasks. What are things that you can do to kind of just get you up? Literally stand up and do five jumping jacks. All right, you're up. Now what? A big one that I recommend to people, go wash your hands with super cold water and drink a glass of water.

Kelly Berry (35:31)
Is it?

Thank

Leah Carroll (35:59)
Momentum, you're up. Go. Have your task broken down into very small steps. You say, clean the house. Depending on what size your house is, that's very scary. Right? So we're gonna start with clean the sink in the bathroom.

Kelly Berry (35:59)
Interesting. Yeah.

Yeah.

Leah Carroll (36:16)
Okay, clean the toilet. Okay, wash out the tub. Okay, wipe down the mirror. Okay, vacuum. Okay, well, I've got the vacuum out. I might as well, right? Like, so we're gonna sort with really small pieces as to not, I mean, one of the biggest things I hear is overwhelm. Overwhelm and burnout.

Kelly Berry (36:25)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I know when we chatted recently, you mentioned the phrase time blindness and I had never heard of that. So talk a little bit more about what that is and how that shows up for people.

Leah Carroll (36:50)
Timeliness is super tricky. and this is really, you and I were chatting before we got started. I have like an ADHD guide and I've outlined, outlined timeliness a bit more in that. But timeliness is where time does not compute in the same way. And I know that that's really difficult to where you're like, but you know how time works, right? And like you have a clock, like, yes.

But my brain will consistently be like, just, need 30 minutes, so you're ready. That's fine. I in fact need closer to like 60, right? So if I am constantly, and I know you're like, okay, so that happens once, and then you realize I need 60 minutes, but it's just not how it works. We think that we've got more time than we do, and we do not do that, that self-reflection and future planning bit. So self-reflection is really hard for us.

Our brains just do not, I joke a lot about ADHD brains are kind of like a manual car. So you have to like, self-reflection. Whereas neuro-typical brains are like, that thing, it messed you up. Don't do it again.

Our brains are like, no, no, no, it'll be different this time. It'd be fine. No worries. We also love a bit of a thrill. And so we kind of push it. That gives us that dopamine of like, I can do that in five minutes. You can't, you can't do that in five minutes. Right? So this comes down to a lot of, so I tell people a lot, time your shit. Time your shower. How long does a shower actually take you?

Kelly Berry (38:02)
Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (38:25)
Because I guarantee you, if you've never really looked at the clock, you don't know. And your brain will almost always underestimate. It takes me five minutes. I can drive there in five minutes. I can park in five minutes. I can walk in. I can check into the doctor. Five minutes, all right? And so it's these kinds of things of, I mean, I really do tell people, I'm like, I know this is a pain in the ass. Take a little bit of time for a week. Time.

Kelly Berry (38:34)
Mm-hmm. Five minutes. I can do everything in five minutes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

huh.

Leah Carroll (38:53)
your things. How long does it take you to fix your coffee in the morning? How long does it take you, like I said, to do take a shower, blow dry your hair, put on your makeup? You pick out your clothes the night before, because that's when you're chill and you can make decisions. We're not doing that in the morning. That goes along with our brain up. We're prepping the night before. We're gonna have our water bottle. We're gonna have all that out, right? So it's these little things. But time blindness can really, that's why you know people that have never been late. I mean, that have never been on time.

Kelly Berry (39:01)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Leah Carroll (39:23)
day in their life and they're always scattered and

they've got this and they've got that. I'm not saying that that's ADHD because it's a lot of people but time blindness does does play into that quite a bit. a chronic mismanagement of time.

Kelly Berry (39:31)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. So I know I have a friend who, you know, I didn't know this is what she had before. But she definitely had slash maybe still has it, but I think she's using a lot of strategies and everything. But, you know, I had room with her in college and the alarm would go off for hours. You know, it's like, and I just, I don't, I didn't know that that was related to ADHD or anything like that. you know, like

everything could be done in 15 minutes. Even getting ready and getting to some place that is 15 minutes away can be done in 15 minutes.

Leah Carroll (40:12)
you know, with time blindness. So say, you know, I'm meeting a friend for lunch at noon. Okay, I should probably start getting ready at around 11. And then it'll take, you know, whatever, 10 minutes to drive there. So I need to leave here at 10 till. Well, I've left out if there's any traffic, I've left out parking. So I have to actually park downtown at a parking garage.

Kelly Berry (40:35)
Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (40:39)
So it's these little kinds of things that your brain just doesn't, shit, the parking. Now I'm five, 10 minutes late. Those kinds of little things that will trip you up.

Kelly Berry (40:45)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, that's

an interesting thing. And I think, you know, this probably just has to do with, I don't know, like interpretation is the right word, but you know, like when you hear ADHD and you have known it as the eight-year-old boys, you know, what they deal with, sometimes you just don't associate things like time blindness with it. You're associating like being hyper or...

Leah Carroll (41:07)
Maybe.

Thank

Kelly Berry (41:16)
not being able to pay attention or all of these things and you just don't realize all of the executive functioning that you're talking about that is actually a part of it.

Leah Carroll (41:25)
So I wrote this down because I didn't want to mess it up, but I've got this in the guide that you can put in the show notes. And it talks about how each executive function is interconnected. So when you struggle with one, it creates this domino effect. And I'll just kind of read it. So poor self-awareness makes it hard to recognize why you're avoiding tasks. Weak planning and prioritizing leaves you unsure of where to start impacting task initiation.

Lack of focus means you jump from task to task, making organization harder. Emotional struggles like impulse control or self-regulation create tension, making it even harder to stay on track. And then you add in working memory issues and suddenly you forgot steps or lose track of progress. The result, tasks feel overwhelming and ADHDers blame themselves, creating a cycle of shame and avoidance.

Kelly Berry (42:15)
Mm-hmm, yeah. I mean, as you're reading

that, I can just hear like shame and like just constant disappointment and constant like, you know, I was wondering like, are they ever happy? Like, is everything, is anything ever go right? You know what I mean? Like, are you, how do you find joy?

Leah Carroll (42:35)
Well, again,

a lot of people, especially at this point, we have found strategies and things that we aren't even quite aware that we do. mean, a lot of us, I certainly live and die by my calendar. If it is not on the calendar, does not exist. But that took me like, you know, 38 years of my life to figure out that my brain will not retain that information.

Kelly Berry (42:42)
Mm-hmm

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (43:00)
as

exciting as it is, as fun as it is, and it shouldn't have to. Like that's one of the brilliant things about having supercomputers in our pockets is that I don't have to retain all of this information. And I've talked to people about this a lot. If you're trying to, okay, don't forget to do this and yeah, takes up so much energy. It's so much energy. So where can you outsource?

Kelly Berry (43:09)
Alright.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Leah Carroll (43:24)
put it on your calendar immediately. Just do it,

right? So a lot of us have cut people.

Kelly Berry (43:29)
Yeah, like you don't

have to know it. You just have to know where to go to find it. Yeah.

Leah Carroll (43:34)
and you need like one or two places. All

the ADHDers listening to this episode are like, well, I have like 15 notebooks. I you do. So we've got to consolidate. So, and that's what I work with a lot of people on are these things that like, well, this is like, yeah, a to-do list doesn't really work for me. Why? Well, I lose it. Okay. Do you lose your phone? Well, no. Should we try putting it there? I don't really, I don't want to look at my phone because I don't want to open it up. Okay.

Kelly Berry (43:41)
Yeah.

Leah Carroll (44:02)
You've got a choice to make. Do you want to keep losing your to-do list on random scraps of paper? Or do you want to download an app that blocks your social media stuff so that when you look at it, you know, like we've all come up with these different things. We can't bitch about it, but then also make no changes. That's the tricky part. And that list of like how all those executive functions stack, that is what makes ADHD.

Kelly Berry (44:03)
Mm-hmm.

yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Leah Carroll (44:27)
ADHD, instead of just like, well, we all have a little bit, it's that. It's every part of your day being impacted by this, this, this, this, this, it's just a giant cluster. But you can, you can dismantle it and you can pull it apart. And that is where coaching comes in, is to really sit with somebody and say, this is where I'm struggling. And I could say, all right, let's try this. Let's experiment.

Kelly Berry (44:29)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (44:53)
I don't really talk to people about goals, because goals scare us. We're a little bit gun shy. So we talk about experiments. Let's experiment with this for the next week. Let's play with this. I want you to do that brain dump every single night for the next seven nights, even over the weekends, even when nothing's planned and you want to be willy nilly, maybe write that on the list. Chill. Cool. That's fine. Right? And so then when we chat next week, all right, cool. We want to get some foundations built.

Kelly Berry (45:03)
Thank

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (45:19)
some

boundaries, non-negotiables-ish, and go from there.

Kelly Berry (45:23)
Yeah, yeah, so when, and I don't even know if this matters, but you know, when you're talking about the people who are like, everybody has a little bit of ADHD, or I hear people say all the time, that's my ADHD brain or something, when really they're just talking about like, I.

Leah Carroll (45:38)
Thank

one executive

function that yeah, happened to slip.

Kelly Berry (45:45)
I'm overwhelmed

or you know, I have this big belief and I know I'm not alone in it, but like we are just living in a world with too many expectations and we're not built to be able to do and handle all of the things. So a lot of people, whether you have ADHD or not, are feeling overwhelmed and could probably benefit from most, if not all of the strategies that you're talking about in general.

Leah Carroll (46:09)
Yeah.

Kelly Berry (46:11)
But you know, I think it's important to sometimes just stop and take inventory of am I really having a hard time doing things or do I have too many things on my plate and I just need to like start saying no more. Yeah. Yeah.

Leah Carroll (46:28)
100 but that's

where that self-awareness piece comes in. Self-awareness mixed with a pause. You have to force the pause as an ADHD-er because pausing does not come naturally to us. Again, we've got that manual car run. We have to force it. And so a lot of the work that I do with people is with worksheets and workbooks. And the reason that that is because...

Kelly Berry (46:32)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (46:54)
Like you're basically making me fill out forms, which is like 88 years worth nightmare. And it's like, yeah, but also I'm forcing you to sit down and ask yourself some questions. What is going on? Is it all of the things are spinning? Is it, do I need to say no? Even if that induces some FOMO? Do I need to lean into some JOMO? The joy of missing out, right? So.

Kelly Berry (47:02)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (47:20)
Really looking at

and then also looking at like I said for a lot of women the people pleasing side of things. Why are you saying yes to things is yes, your default? So your kids, know teacher. Hey, can you come volunteer next week? Yeah, of course I'd love to. Have you checked a calendar? Have you checked your you know your social battery? Your energy battery? Where are you in your cycle? Do you want to go deal with 27 eight year olds?

Right? So looking at where your defaults are, why they are there, I don't want to say no, I don't want the teacher not to like me. And that can be really tricky when you're kind of coming into these new things and you're looking at these things that are derailing you. It can be really hard to step back and say, you know what, for my own wellbeing, I need to say no to that. Because it is tricky when you've got something like that, you know, a friend or...

Kelly Berry (47:48)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (48:14)
family member or a teacher or whatever asking you to do something and you just don't have the bandwidth to do it. But I think if more of us understood what boundaries are, how to set them, and then stopped taking everything so freaking personally, and I say that from a place of all the love and compassion because I take everything personally. Everything is about me. This is a personal tech.

Kelly Berry (48:17)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

⁓ huh.

Leah Carroll (48:40)
I mean, just last night I was gonna go have, was messaging my sister-in-law and I was like, well, yeah, maybe I'll stop by in a bit and like have dinner with you guys. Like whatever, they've got three kids. It's Monday, it's homework, this and that. She messaged me back and she's like, your brother said that maybe tonight is not a good night for you to come over. And of course I was like, he doesn't love me. This is awful. God. Like I'm only here for one month, you know, whatever. And so I had to release it with myself and be like, hey, this is not personal. They got three kids. It is absolute chaos.

Kelly Berry (48:59)
you

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (49:09)
He should

be allowed to say, no, I can't handle another human in my space. I don't want to have to entertain you. I don't want to talk about your day. I don't like any of that. And I have to realize that, yeah, I'm only here for a month. The world doesn't stop spinning because you're here, Leah. That's OK. Right? And so having these kind of hard conversations with yourself, because it's real easy to be like, how dare he? That's not goodness anywhere.

Kelly Berry (49:26)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Leah Carroll (49:37)
And I

would want to be able to say no if I'm feeling overwhelmed and it's too much for me to say, you know what? I just can't do it tonight. I'm sorry. And not have him feel like it's a personal attack. So say.

Kelly Berry (49:44)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, I think I was going to say like, to me,

that is like the shoulding on yourself. You know, like, he could very easily stop and say, well, I should let her come over because she's only here for a month and whatever. I deal with this sometimes when it's like, you know, we don't live around any family. And so a lot of the ways that everybody interacts with our daughter is FaceTime, you know, and somebody will reach out and be like, can we FaceTime right now? And, you know, sometimes I have to say no, because

Like, I've had a long day or we're doing something and to stop and like, you know, it's not just like I can hand her the phone and let her FaceTime, you know, it involves everybody and you know, it's like, I just don't have it in me right now to chase her around the house so she can ignore the FaceTime, you know what I mean? So it's just like, sometimes you just have to say those things and like give yourself grace that that's okay.

Leah Carroll (50:42)
And, you know, I talk about this a lot as well, as far as like honoring and paying attention to your energy and your capacity. So, becoming more in tune with that. And that's not something that a lot of us just kind of know, but really, and this is something that you can do at any point in the day, like, where are my energy levels? Okay.

Kelly Berry (50:59)
you

Leah Carroll (51:05)
Today I'm feeling pretty good. I think I can do this. I think I could do that. That might change two hours into your day. But then honoring that, you know what? I don't have a bandwidth. I don't have the capacity. And it's hilarious. My super German husband, who does not use any of this language on a usual basis, has started, hey, do you think you could do that? I just don't think I have the capacity to do it. And I'm like, my god.

Now, you gotta be tricky because I'm like, are you just saying that? Because you know that language. But yeah, like being able to say that to people and to have those boundaries, it's a really tricky thing to do. And I talk about all of this with, you know, take all of this with a grain of ish. I have boundaries ish. They're flexible, right? If I got a friend going through it and she is really needing a phone call, whatever.

Kelly Berry (51:35)
Yeah.

you

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (51:59)
I'm not really feeling all that phone cally. I know that she needs a minute. I'll give it to her. Other times, hey girl, I'm going to have to pass. I just can't do it. I just do not have the bandwidth right now. So really looking at that energy and that capacity. And that is a skill that you've got to practice. That's the only way any of this stuff. The only way.

Kelly Berry (52:04)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

And I think it's

also like a belief that you have to unwind, that you have to be available for everybody, that like, you know, yeah, yeah. And that like being in control of your time is not a luxury that you have, you know what I mean? It's like, I am here at work to like go until it's time to go home. And I am, then I'm home to give everything I've got to my kids, you know, it's like.

Leah Carroll (52:27)
You are allowed to say no. You are allowed.

Kelly Berry (52:50)
It is a lot of belief work, mindset work really to be able to allow yourself to even think about it in a different way. That what you feel and what you need matters.

Leah Carroll (53:02)
Yes, for sure. And

you've got to be proactive with that. So that's what I've been talking about in this Surviving the Holiday series of what normally makes you lose your mind at the holidays? Is it all the family? Is it the food stuff? Is it the parties? Is it the presents? Is it, okay, how can you kind of take a step back and look at...

How is all this affecting me and how is this showing up for me and where am I allowed to set? You know what? 27th of December, I'm gonna book a massage. I'll get that, you know, whatever. Or I'm gonna go on a nice little two hour hike with a friend to just get outside, you know, this and that. So looking at how can I take back some of that and set myself up for some self care. And that might mean locking yourself in your bedroom for 30 minutes and listening to a podcast.

Kelly Berry (53:28)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yes.

Leah Carroll (53:57)
that kind of thing. really, and you have to know what those rest tasks are. And so I taught people, like, make a list, make a list of things that rejuvenate me. Painting my fingernails, taking a nice hot shower at two in the afternoon, curling up with a hot water bottle, going for a walk.

Kelly Berry (54:04)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (54:20)
petting a friend's dog. Like, I don't know, like having an idea of all of these things so that when you do come to that time of like, okay, I know in the next couple of days, I've got a little bit of wiggle room. What do want to do?

Kelly Berry (54:22)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. So my husband has a podcast and he has interviewed a guest a few times now, but her name is Dr. Haley Perlis and she's a sports psychologist. And she has these, I don't know if I would call them like tools or resets that she suggests to people. And it's kind of like what you're talking about, but like if you're in this situation and you're, find yourself like tense or, you know, whatever.

Find us your song, like create a theme song and play that and get yourself like, you know, okay, well now I'm in a different mindset. Like have a funny like video or a meme or something. if it's like a video, my sister listened to the podcast and then she's like, okay, this one particular video of my daughter is what she looks at now whenever she's having one of these moments. So I totally get that and I think it's a good idea. It just takes a little bit of planning. Like let me create this toolkit.

Leah Carroll (55:24)
Yes.

Kelly Berry (55:26)
of here's how I'm gonna reset when something just really, maybe I dropped a ball and in order for me to like switch my mindset from thinking I'm the worst person on the planet to focusing on how quickly I can pick up this ball, know, maybe I need to listen to Tupac for a minute. You know, I don't know what it is, but you know, there's a lot of ways that you can do that.

Leah Carroll (55:46)
Exactly. exactly. And

for ADHDers, we need that somewhere that we can access it. Like I said, it's the Notes app. It's somewhere because our working memory is unemployed. we need to a place to where we can, we'll forget. know it sounds bizarre, but we will forget our reset tasks. We will forget.

Kelly Berry (55:56)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (56:11)
our dopamine library of ideas of things that give us dopamine. we'll just be like, it's, it's tick tock. That's all I got. don't have anything. Like, so I'll be whole the time. I'm like, think a lot of the things of when you notice, like, you've got that little bit of dopamine, write it down. I love that. So next time when you're in this slump, or like I said, momentum tasks, what like your favorite song, let's get some pink pony club and dance around for a minute. And you know, whatever. Okay. Now I'm up.

Kelly Berry (56:18)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (56:40)
I'm moving. What's that first thing on that list that I came up with last night? That's the first step in line of cleaning house or doing, whatever. Having those in a place that you can find them is huge. Next.

Kelly Berry (56:45)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I love it. Well, we're

at time, we're probably past time, but this has been great. So I'm not that worried about it. So I do wanna give you a chance to talk about where people can find you, how you work with people, all the good stuff. I know you mentioned the guide that will definitely be in the show notes and any other resources that you have, we'll be sure to make available, but yeah.

Leah Carroll (56:57)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. I will, I will send the guide to you and you can, you can send that out to your people. And I'm on social media. It's ADHD coach Leah. I'm getting a little bit better. Social media is still a little bit tricky for me. but yeah, you can definitely reach out to me there. You can book a free call with me. So I always offer a free 45 minute coaching calls. This is not a sales call.

You are not gonna get on the phone with me and I'm gonna be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great. Do you wanna give me some money? It is going to be a full blown coaching call. We are going to talk about where are you at, what are you struggling with, and how can I support you through those struggles. And then if you decide to move forward from there, great. If it's not in the cards for you for whatever reason, no worries at all. I work with people on a one-on-one basis and then a group setting as well. So.

Kelly Berry (57:42)
Mm-hmm.

Leah Carroll (58:02)
I have various group coaching packages that run throughout the year. So I usually have about six that go throughout the year, depending on where. And those are really small groups. As of right now, they are only women. That just happened. The first one I did just happened to be women that signed up. And they all were like, I'm so glad that it was just kind of us girls.

Kelly Berry (58:10)
Okay.

Okay.

Leah Carroll (58:28)
And so I thought, okay, I'm going to keep that going. At one point, I had enough men kind of coming through the pipeline to where I could have probably had a men's only group. The dudes have fallen off a bit. So I haven't heard from them as much, but I would love to have a men's group or even a co-ed group. But I would love to do that. So hopefully 2025 is bringing that into play. But right now it's the women are doing the groups and they're beautiful.

Kelly Berry (58:39)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Leah Carroll (58:55)
The groups are so much fun. They run for six weeks. We meet once a week. They're great. The one-on-ones right now are in an eight week container. So we meet once a week for eight weeks. And we really work on building those foundational things so that you don't drop the balls as often. And then when you do, you have an easier time of picking them up. So yeah, Instagram, ADHD Coach Leah. You can go to my website at leahccoaching.com.

There's a couple of freebies there as well as far as resources go and you can also book that free call from my website as well. Yeah.

Kelly Berry (59:29)
Awesome. Thank you so

much, Leah. I'm so glad we did this. I know this is gonna be super helpful and informative, not only to people who have ADHD or maybe think they do, but people who have people with ADHD in their lives. There's a lot that you talked about that I just think helps so much in understanding what's going on, how to support, how to just understand and give somebody some grace.

Leah Carroll (59:54)
Definitely.

Yeah, and I know you and I have talked about me maybe coming back at some point. if the audience has certain things that they want to know, like, you know, what are some ways to deal with my ADHD spouse, know, family member, whatever, all of these different things are things that we could definitely, I mean, I feel like each one of the things that I've touched on today could be their own episode just because they're so nuanced and they go so many different directions.

Kelly Berry (1:00:00)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Leah Carroll (1:00:23)
depending on what your audience is wanting to know, we can definitely readdress some things.

Kelly Berry (1:00:29)
Yeah, I would love to. So if you're listening and you love it, reach out and let me know. But I think we will probably do something whether people ask for it or not. So yeah, yeah. Because I think there's so much good info about it. So definitely check Leah out on Instagram and reach out to her. Even though she's in Germany, she meets with people in the US all the time. So yeah, yeah. Awesome.

Leah Carroll (1:00:38)
Yeah, exactly.

No worries. All good.

Kelly Berry (1:00:55)
Great, thank you,

Leah, for sharing everything with us and we will talk to you again soon.

Leah Carroll (1:00:59)
Yeah, sounds good. Thank you guys so much. See you next time.

Kelly Berry (1:01:02)
Thanks for listening to Life Intended.

Sadie Wackett (1:01:05)
If something from this episode landed with you, stirred something up or gave you a new perspective, share it. Tag us, leave a review. That's how this work reaches more women who really need it.

Kelly Berry (1:01:18)
Life Intended is more than just a podcast. It's a movement back to self-trust, personal power, and living with intention.

Sadie Wackett (1:01:26)
and we're just getting started.

Kelly Berry (1:01:29)
So keep showing up, keep tuning in. If you're ready for more support on your path, head to LifeIntended.co. We've got tools, community, and programs to meet you where you are. Until next time.