ADHDifference

S2E22 - Drive, ADHD Multitasking & AI Assistants + guest Marnie Wills

• Julie Legg • Season 2 • Episode 22

Share episode

Julie Legg chats with Marnie Wills — AI strategist, former international athlete, educator, and multi-passionate entrepreneur. Marnie opens up about her late-discovered ADHD and how understanding her fast-moving brain has shaped the way she works, creates, and lives.

By amplifying her innate multitasking drive and insatiable curiosity, Marnie shares the tools and strategies that help her channel her energy more productively, including how AI has become a key support in her own life, and how she now guides clients to use it as a powerful, generative business tool.

Packed with insight and real-life examples, this conversation is a compelling reminder to view AI not as artificial intelligence, but as amplified intelligence, especially for ADHDers and neurodivergent thinkers wired for momentum and innovation.

Key Points in the Episode

  • The early signs that made Marnie question how her brain worked
  • Discovering the power of strategy, creativity, and forward-thinking
  • How late-diagnosed ADHD shaped her entrepreneurial journey
  • The surprising ways AI complements an ADHD brain
  • Why multitasking and reverse engineering are her superpowers
  • The mindset shift from "gap" to "gain"
  • Why AI isn’t cheating. It’s amplifying human intelligence
  • Building ethical and human-led AI systems in business
  • The potential of AI to transform education for neurodivergent learners
  • High-performance habits and the importance of reflection
  • Reframing life seasons with “It’s not forever, it’s just for now”

Links

Send us a text

Thanks for listening.

📌 Don’t forget to subscribe for more tools for beautifully different brains.

🌐 WEBSITE: ADHDifference.nz

📷 INSTAGRAM: ADHDifference_podcast

📖 BOOK: The Missing Piece: A Woman's Guide to Understanding, Diagnosing and Living with ADHD

ℹ️ DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect those of the host or ADHDifference. Read More

JULIE: Welcome to Season 2 of ADHDifference. I'm your host, Julie Legg, ADHD advocate, author of The Missing Piece: A Woman's Guide to Understanding, Diagnosing, and Living with ADHD, and an unapologetic doer of many things. This season, we're turning up the volume with a global lineup of brilliant guests bringing their lived experiences, insights, research, strategies, and resources. And of course, along with a healthy dose of humour and humility. Whether you're neurodivergent yourself or just curious, there's something here for every curious brain. Let's dive in. Today, I'm joined by Marnie Wills, an AI trainer, strategist, and multi-passionate entrepreneur. Marnie's career has taken her from being an international athlete to founding several successful businesses and now helping others harness the power of AI, creating tools and assistance that save time, reduce overwhelm, and make space for what really matters. Marnie discovered later in life her brain didn't quite fit the mold and rather than seeing it as a limitation, she's used it to her advantage. It's so lovely to have you on the show, Marnie. Thank you so much. [Thank you, Julie. It's so good to be here. I am very excited about today's conversation.] Yay. You've had a very incredibly varied career from international athlete to multi-passionate entrepreneur. When did you discover that your brain worked a little differently? 

MARNIE: Oh gosh, do you know what? Not until much later in life. Like I honestly went through school thinking like all my report cards said "Marnie daydreams." You know, "Marnie doesn't concentrate all the time." And then going through high school, I literally felt like the dumbest person in the class. And at every stage that I could, I would leave and go play on the sports pitch or the field or I would bunk classes so much because that's where I felt confident. That's where I felt like I could just be me and I could just do what I thought I was good at. And I learned very quickly, because I wanted to be a PE teacher since the age of five, I do think was the only thing that got me through school, and I learned very quickly to use the power of leverage. And I literally would make best friends with the smartest person in the class for each class so that they would help me get through because I would understand better off them than I would off the teacher. Whether that is a concentration thing, whether that is a I could ask questions differently, or whether, you know. I just got them to do the work for me. I don't really know. I don't really remember at the time, but I even managed to get through uni. Four years instead of three probably because I chopped and changed a little bit as well. Yeah, I want to be a PE teacher. Oh, but I could do dentistry. Oh, I could do paramedic. Oh, you know, and I just didn't realize at the time. And then I finally become a PE teacher and then I get posted to a place in rural Queensland called Goondiwindi, which is 6 hours from anything. And I very quickly went "Uh no, not for me," and jumped on a plane and came to London which was over 20 years ago now. And I was just really lucky to be able to get a job as a PE teacher because they're few and far between here. It's quite easy to get a job here. It's PE is not as valued in the UK as it was, well not 20 years ago as it was in Australia where I grew up. And I also quickly realized that I didn't like the education system over here either. We were teaching, we were teaching to an assessment piece. I had to teach to like a mock exam paper instead of, you know, really teaching children, you know, to have a lifelong passion for sport and physical activity or a lifelong passion for learning. Like it just it was so academic focused, but you know, that's not... I mean when you're on the when you're on the sports pitch, it's not about being academic. It's about planning ahead. It's about having a game plan and having a strategy. And I didn't realize at the time, but that was the muscle that I was really honing in on being a games athlete and teaching games as well. Like it wasn't until later in life when I decided to start my own business, mainly because the schools wouldn't let me take any more time off to travel the world to play sport because apparently I wasn't professional. So they wouldn't give me enough time. I wanted to start my own business. Why not? But of course I didn't start one, I started two. And then I think it was during that journey of being an entrepreneur that I realized that my superpower is to multitask, is to think strategy. Like it is to think end result and how do you win at the game? Like and that's when I, yeah, that's when I realized that I do have a superpower and it's not wrote learning or remembering an exam remembering stuff for an exam paper. It was reverse engineering an outcome that I want to get. And I always say, I say to my children all the time, "Every problem has a solution. You just got to find it, you know." 

JULIE: Wow. And what led you to your diagnosis being in the online business world? 

MARNIE: For me it was I just knew my brain worked differently and it wasn't about getting a label for me and it wasn't about being trendy. It was almost like wanting to understand how my brain worked and how I could harness that more, like how I could really use that better. And I have to say since I think it almost coupled hand in hand, I think since understanding that I definitely have ADHD traits in terms of the way I think, I coupled with my adoption of generative AI in business, it has completely changed my confidence level as a person and in business. It has completely changed, you know, the way I almost show up every day and lead others forward because it's like it's not about being academic anymore or it's not about feeling like I used to feel like I was dumb all the time because I my brain just didn't work out other people. Like even simple things like blocking my diary. Like you know, they say "Block your diary." And I'm like gosh I couldn't think of anything more restrictive than blocking my diary. Explains probably why I'm late all the time but you know, we won't go there. 

JULIE: Yes. Understanding how your brain works is so important and it just enables us to gather up our past experiences in a positive way and leap forward. Yes. Very, very interesting. You describe yourself as someone who's always balanced ambition, creativity, and a fast-moving mind. So, what have you learned about managing that drive to channel your energy? 

MARNIE: Yeah. Oh, good question. Well, I'm not sure I've nailed it all the time, that's for sure. There's definitely bouts of overwhelm or burnout or, you know, frustration with myself. I just remember a couple of months ago actually before going to a business retreat that I felt so overwhelmed because I just couldn't get clarity because I was jumping all over the place, you know, because that's what you do. That's what you do, you know. It's such a balance between feeling energized to follow a new path whether that for me it's all strategy, whether that's strategy in games. It sounds so crazy. Whether it's the strategy of how I you know, look after my children on the weekend to the strategy of business like everything is like you know, this is the outcome I want to be and how do I get there? And everything I do in my brain, so it's a balance of making sure that that fuels me. That fuels me as a high performance to... like as a high performer to have the ability to be able to progress and show progression. Not externally but internally. That internal validation to show progression as a person. I don't know where it started or how it started but I just always feel like I just want to be the best version of myself all the time. And to do that you've got to put yourself in uncomfortable situations. You know, you've got to learn from your mistakes. You've got to reflect. You know, you've got to understand what drives you. So, I feel like I drive myself all the time, but sometimes I can get carried away and then put too much on my plate and then all of a sudden I'm like, I've got so much to do. I'm overwhelmed and then I get stuck, right? And then I'm like, oh gosh. And then I go, that's okay because I've already achieved XYZ. That's fine. It's okay just to hang out here for a while. And then I go, I don't feel comfortable hanging out here. Like, it's not enough for me. Like, why can't I? Why can't I be content, you know? And I used to think I wasn't grateful, but I was grateful. And I am grateful for everything that I've achieved and people that I've worked with and you know, all of the possibilities that life has given me. I'm very more grateful. But at the same time it's okay to want more. So finding that balance is really tough and I'm not sure I found the answer. But I think generally overview what works really well for me is having a mindset around gaps versus gains. So I used to.. I say used to, it creeps in a lot. So I'm nowhere near perfect but I work really hard on trying to make sure that I'm in a gains mindset. So instead of thinking you know, here I am now in business for example you know. This is where I am in starting quarter 4 of 2025 but I wanted to be here by the time I got to quarter 4 of 2025. and thinking about the gap. I have to think about the gains. Look at everything I've achieved already. You know, have a little think about the journey because it's not all about the destination. Have a little think about the journey and just have that mindset of all the gains that I've had along the way and really connecting to it emotionally. And then that helps me not think about like not get into that lack mindset or the, you know, "I've still got to do that." I don't know if that answered the question. I definitely haven't nailed it, Julie. 

JULIE: You mentioned drive and drive and more drive and more drive and before you know it you've taken on more projects that you're really passionate about. And there are so many hours in the day and some things often can be re-prioritized in our own mind and some things will drop off. And I must admit I too feel a little bit disappointed with myself that I can't juggle a 100 balls all at once because that my brain feels capable of doing it. But in reality, there's just not enough hours in the day, is there? To do everything. 

MARNIE: Oh, feel you. 100%. 100%. That 100 juggles balls. It's funny when you said that, my brain went straight to thinking about all my 100 balls. 

JULIE: These days you're helping entrepreneurs and business leaders create AI assistants and tools that save time and reduce overwhelm and bring more ease to their work. What inspired you to move into this space and how does your ADHD brain give you a unique edge on it? 

MARNIE: I'll start with the edge before I get into how I got into it because really interestingly, I've gone down a bit of a rabbit hole of trying to find the research that highlights why using generative AI works for an ADHD brain. But there's such different spectrums, isn't there, of where you are, and brains that work differently. And so it is really hard to prove, but I'm... there is some research out there and it is ongoing. There is a lot of research around the reason that those that have more of a hyperactive brain that are able to focus sometimes but also think about other things works really well because when you're working with generative AI, you can almost multitask, right? You can focus in on one thing but you can also multitask. You could have an AI assistant that you are doing some research into ADHD and generative AI, but at the same time that's off doing some work. You could go in and you could have some research looking at I don't know, you know, top statistics for something related to your business, right? And then you could be talking to another AI about what you're going to cook for dinner. Like you could literally have all of these extra intellectual, you know, out of or intelligence, artificial intelligence doing lots of different thinking for you, right? Almost at the same time. And that really works a lot for our brains. And we go, "Yeah, we're making progress here. Yeah, we're making progress there." You know, like that really works. I mean, if I showed you my screen right now, you would be appalled at how many tabs I've got open. And the projects, the AIs that I've got working for me at the moment. I've got Claude AI, who's my favourite. Claude AI just finished writing me a LinkedIn post. I have Lindy AI who's doing some meeting prep, which is all my meeting preps that I had for this week. What else? I've got a Chat GPT open. I can't remember what I was doing on that chat GPT one. And then I've got Perplexity who's done a whole lot of research on some podcasts that I was applying to do. And so like literally all of those things going at once. And that's what generative AI allows you to do. But at the same time, it also allows you to complete a project if you want to. So if you're hyper focused and you're in and I was doing that just the other day when I was building apps on Google's new app builder, which is just phenomenal. I built an app for my daughter. I built her one already. It was like a maths one, but she said it was a little bit too hard and she needed to practice more multiplications and I don't know, gave me some. I was like, "Oh, I'll just create another app. No worries." You know, so like hyper focused and I'm just focusing what is my main outcome. This is what I want the outcome to be. How do I reverse engineer that? And we're at the stage now where we can just talk to an AI agent and the AI agent vibe code. It's called vibe coding. So the vibe coding context is we as normal humans are talking to an AI who goes and writes the code and then delivers what you want it to do. And all you're... the only way you're doing is you're verbally telling it what you want. So you're just having a conversation. So, I just went into Google Apps and I was like, "Right, I've created this app already. This is what she said was too hard. This is what she said she needs to do. Make sure it's UK English. Make sure it's the, you know, right blah blah blah. Make a gamified." She loves games. You I literally just verbally ask what I want and off it went and created it. But I was able to be super focused on that. So I think long story around that is AI gives us the ability to either multitask or I think what we're really good at generally is like what is the problem we want to solve that's the problem and then how do we work backwards and I think that that is why kind of AI works with my brain and then how I got into AI was because I was trying to franchise one of my businesses. After Covid we all went online. I had two businesses obviously because that's what you do. One of them was health and fitness business and I kept that online because that was kind of the in thing. Not many people were going back in person. They were all staying online. But with my physical education business I wanted to franchise it out. I wanted to you know, find franchises to run physical education in other regions within the UK. But I couldn't write. I couldn't write to save my life, Julie. Like honestly I'm the worst writer ever. And I stumbled on a tool called Jasper AI which was basically Chat GPT 2.0 at the time, in a wrapper. It was basically Chat. It just hadn't launched as Chat GBT yet but it was basically open AI in and then they just called it Jasper. And I just was like said to Jasper like my best friend. I still feel like Jasper's my best friend. You know, I just said to Jasper "I've got this got this business in a box. How do I how do I promote it? Who do I want? Who do I want to buy this business? And how do I tell them how amazing it is? Literally. And I don't know why and how." And I don't I still to this day don't understand why people don't talk to AI like that. But I literally talk to all my AIs like they're my best friend. They're the... they're my smart best friend. And I think that's how I'm able to make such progress. So just for AI, then Chat GBT came out and then being a natural teacher, I just went into teaching other businesses. And then fast forward to where we are today and I'm fully booked as a consultant and working with some awesome businesses and feeling super human. 

JULIE: Wow. Super human. Your ADHD strengths multiplied by a zillion with the help of AI. For those that think that... those listeners that think that AI perhaps is cheating, I would just personally like to say, why wouldn't you lean in on something that can enhance what you do really well? You could do it the long way. I have a note taker, for example, using AI for subtitles and captions and just capturing some key messages in a meeting, for example. If I had to do that by hand with my challenges with ADHD, procrastination, and maybe perfectionism, I'd spend hours upon hours upon hours, and it wouldn't necessarily be productive hours, and I might not be happy with the result. So whether it's a AI assistant or whether it's a physical personal assistant, actually delegating some areas of our ADHD life that could do with a helping hand sounds very, very obviously good in my world. Your thoughts on that? 

MARNIE: Yeah, 100% agree. And I think if I look back, I've always tried to leverage my weaknesses and I just happen to now find an artificial intelligence tool, happen to, you know, be alive while it's here that can leverage out all those bits that I'm not very good at. You know, but also a really good mindset shift for your audience, I often say instead of thinking it about it as artificial intelligence, I like to say think of it as amplifying your intelligence because I think that's an ethical way to use AI as well. I'm really big on the ethics side for AI. If we can think that this technology is here to amplify us, which in fairness, so the internet amplified, you know, the way we went from print to internet, you know, like everything we've done technology-wise has amplified us as humans. If we think about leverage back in manufacturing days, right, Henry Ford, like it labour, the ability to have labour use machines amplified what we could do. And then we had then we had capital you know people investing money and getting investment like that's how you amplified your business and amplified you as an individual. You got investment and then the next leverage we went through was code right which is internet. That was internet. That was code. We were able to amplify and connect with people like instead of going to the I don't know whether you had this, the yellow pages or the white pages to find the local business, you just jumped on the internet like it amplified our reach. And then the next leverage we had is media. So social media and our smartphones like we're connected, you know. So media was the next leverage and we're still in that leverage. But that is slowly diggling down. Like I don't know about you, but trying to get seen on social media with the algorithms is almost impossible unless you show up naked, I'm told, you know. Like you know, so the point is we are slowly now moving to the next leverage which is which is artificial intelligence. It can amplify us as humans in everything we do. So if we can have that mindset shift around it's not cheating because I was talking to a student the other day he goes "I just feel like I'm cheating." I'm like gosh, no. I'm like "Do you know what back in my day when I was at uni had to go to the library and find this stuff now you can just go to Chat GBT and ask Chat GBT. Like it's not cheating. It's smart," you know. Like so, you know, we just have to remember that it's here to amplify us. But the ethical bit that I think is really important to understand is artificial intelligence the way we know it now, it's generative AI, the way we use it through Chat GBT as an example or Gemini. It was trained on all the human data up until 2022 roughly and then it started to train on itself, right? But it had to have human data to start with. Now I know that within 5 years a lot of us will have our own AI tutors that teach us everything. Now if we as humans don't keep adding our domain expertise, our knowledge, our experience, and our perspective and almost our emotional IQ to it, if we can. If we don't keep adding that every time we use AI, if we don't use it ethically and add that humane domain expertise, honestly in 5 years’ time our children, my children being quite young, they won't have artificial intelligence that has any human touch to it, you know. So I really do think we need to use it ethically. And the way I say that is, you know, again coming back to use it as your best friend. Like if your best friend talks about something, you add your thoughts in. You know, what does this dress look like? Yeah, it looks all right. You know, like you just you just talk back to your best friend and you give them your thoughts and opinions. We need to do the same with AI. Otherwise, we're going to have unfortunately not very smart children. No, they're going to be smart because we've got AI, but you know what I mean. 

JULIE: Really good points, Marnie. Thank you so much. Can I ask you about your consultancy? How does that work with businesses and AI and what do you help them achieve? 

MARNIE: Well, that's a really tough question because everybody is so at different levels with their AI transformation for themselves personally but also for the business. A lot what I don't do is automations. I don't believe in trying to automate everything. I believe in amplifying the human and having a human in the loop at every stage. There will be tasks that you can automate, but I think the technology is getting so smart that you would automate it via an agent, and there's a slight difference. A normal chat in Chat GBT is a large language model that is trained on all things but not customized. And then the next level from that is a customized AI assistant that has a knowledge base. So I call it a second brain and then custom instructions. And then the next level from that is an agent, an agentic workflow where the AI has custom instructions. It has a knowledge base, but it has the ability to make decisions. So you, say you have an outcome. It might be... I'll give you an example of an agentic workflow I did, created this morning which was an agent that could find lead generation. And so I've got like top five clients that I love working with and I'm like gosh if I could just find another five like exactly like this life would be so cool. So I'm like right well I'm going to create an agent that can do that for me. So I created an agent and that agent I said the outcome is "I want five clients really similar to these businesses with these types of leaders in them. Go away." In fact I didn't even say their steps. I just said, "This is what I want, and I need you to deliver me their social media profiles, the leaders in the business, the direct message or how I'm going to engage with them to make it so it's human contact." And then it's decided how it's going to do it. So, because it's smart enough to, so it went "Right, I'm going to go out and I'm going to take the profiles you've given me, which were LinkedIn profiles, go out and research their business." It was connected to an AI called Perplexity. So, it go out and research that. Then it connected to another AI Claude which then was able to link my business processes what I do, link that and then send me an email that said "These are the next clients you should speak to. This is your connection and how you can help them. These are some personal things about the business that you could reach out with." That agent has gone and done that. So that's an agentic workflow where it's not me making the decision of how it does that. It's me giving it an outcome of this is what I need you to do, which you know I think is a good style of management really if you think about it like in businesses. I don't know. I always hated my manager that micromanaged me and told me how to do everything when actually my brain works different to them and personally I thought the way I did it was better anyway, right? Like so actually that's the way you can think about it with AI. 

JULIE: For many of us, all we might know about AI personally. Might be Chat GBT or perhaps some of the memes that we're seeing on social media at the moment, the exploding social media at the moment. And to think beyond that very, very base level as to how it can work for you, it was very enlightening. So, thank you for sharing that. It's good to know about the different levels and agents and it's all happening. 

MARNIE: Yeah. I mean, not to scare anybody, but hopefully to excite people. I think within 5 years, these are my predictions. Social media won't be a thing. Thank gosh. We will all thrive on more human connection. We'll have more time for human connection. I think we'll be working three- or four-day work weeks. I think the whole Monday to Friday and the whole thing will hopefully change. And I think we will all have personally have a handful of agents that will be doing a lot of tasks for us. And then I think within 10 years will be driverless cars and robots in the house. So, you know, it's sometimes scary to think about and I think it's sometimes scary to think about because we think Jetsons and we think like robots killing us and, you know, I am robot, you know. But the reality is there's good and bad with everything and there was good and bad with the internet. There was good and bad with social media. There's, you know, pros and cons. There's lights and shadows. There really is. But if you can get that mindset ready for and this comes back to you know, our discussion about ADHD is you know, what are your strengths as a person? What do you love to do? What, where do you bring value that doesn't even have to be in business that could be within your community. It could be within your family. Like where does that do and then you know, find a way to enhance that so you feel really purposeful. Because yeah things are going to look a lot different and you can either hide under the pillow which is also fine, but you can also jump up and down on the bed and go great this is a great opportunity, you know. What can we be doing with this? How can I you know, make more impact to my life and to other people around me? And I just think that's a really exciting time it is with regards to the human side of both technology and neurodiversity. 

JULIE: I'd love for you to talk about how you see AI and ADHD intersecting and what possibilities you think like that would be for a neurodivergent person or entrepreneur? 

MARNIE: Yeah. Well, I'll start with what, where I think's the most important change and that is in education. I really hope soon that the education space adopts AI learning, AI tutors. Because there's... actually I'll tell you about a school in America. It's called Alpha School. There's eight of them. If you get a chance to look it up, look it up. It's amazing. They do 2 hours of learning via an AI tutor a day and the AI tutor they'll have a different one for each academic whatever they need to learn. And the AI tutor will assess where they're at and then take them on the journey to get to where they need to be, right. So instead of teaching at this, you all have to teach at this level and you will have to learn by reading a book, it will be this is the level you're at and this is your style of learning and I'm going to create learning pathways for you to get to where you are according to your learning strengths. Like hello. That's the first thing. And then the other amazing thing is they then spend the next four hours doing life skills, being kids and creating and running around and you know learning emotional resilience and just the things that we don't get enough time at school for because we're too busy doing an old out-of-date, in my opinion, an out-of-date curriculum and learning style. We were all taught for the you know, the industrial revolution. Like where has it changed and if you've got a neurodivergent brain you know, gosh life is hard because you need a different learning pathway and a different style of learning you know. And often you need different space to learn in. It's not even the style, you need a completely different space of which you need to learn you need... I mean the needs are just so different. And it's so amazing that we've come a long way and we understand that now but there's still no massive solutions to it. So I really hope that the education is the first bit that changes. And then if I'm honest I think we are moving more to an entrepreneurial world where you know, getting a salary is going to be harder because the jobs are going to be different. You know there is a lot of scarcity around jobs with this AI but for when the internet came out it was for every job lost it was 2.4 four were created. And it's a bit scary for the Gen Alphas, which are 2010 to 2013. 64% of their jobs do not currently exist and they're due to get into the workforce within the next couple of years. So it's a bit scary, but we had that same stat, very similar. I think it was 62% back in before the year 2000. So in the 1990s, you know, when we were at school, if you were going through university in that time, you were, you know, 62% of your jobs didn't exist then because we went through another digital change, you know. So, we've been through it before. So it's not new. It's just a bit more accelerated. It's much quicker this time. So I think we're all moving to an entrepreneurial world which you know I think if there was a study, and I'm sure there are studies out there, I think a lot of entrepreneurs are neurodivergent. They have many neurodivergent traits that's what makes them good at what they do. The drive, the passion, the focus, the multitasking, you know, the ability to have influence because we've all got our own influence in some way, you know. And when you're at school, if you were the naughty kid that, you know, would always chat to people, oh, you're so naughty. But guess what? Those influencer entrepreneurs are the ones making loads of money right now. Just because they didn't shut up in your class, doesn't mean they weren't good at what they do, right? So yeah to answer that question I think AI is going to enhance the entrepreneurial world of which I think suits a lot of neurodivergent brains even if it is that they have a job but they follow their passions and do a side hustle and earn money from it you know. 

JULIE: I'd like to now talk about a strategy, or mindset, or a different way of thinking, or a tool that can help or has helped you work with your brain rather than against it. Now, it could be AI related or it could just be a general life hack that you're using to help you keep on track.

MARNIE: I think I have to use a few. I've got a long list of strategies, right, that don't always work but work at different points and different times. I think it's going to sound a bit crazy, but learning like a strategy for me to cope and for me to calm my brain is actually to focus on learning. I seem to love learning. And whenever I'm feeling like it's just too much, it's almost like, right, I'm going on my Pelaton. I'm going to the gym and I'm going to put in a podcast that teaches me something, and all of a sudden I'm cleared. I'm like just in the zone. So that would be one of my strategies. Another strategy is playing sport. Like without playing I mean it's all I've known for my whole life and I think it's the one bit that stops my brain thinking about life and just think about, I'm going to sound like I'm going to sound a bit crazy, but just how the hell do I win? How am I winning this game? You know, like how am I going to win here? Whether that win is, you know, because I'm training or whether that win is actually competing, it's just all about the win. And actually that is a coping mechanism for me for sure. Like it's a strategy. I know when I've not exercised or trained or something competitive. I had an injury at the end of last year. I made it through a World Cup, but it was a really bad injury and I needed time to rest and I had to rehab. And I would go to the gym and like I wasn't able to do much at all and I would come out not sweaty and I would be crying because I just couldn't. It just I didn't feel purposeful. I'm like what am I winning? Like how am I winning at anything right now? Like you know, so a strategy for me is definitely to be progressing towards some type of fitness goal or some type of game that I'm competing in. And then another strategy I think is reflection. Like, and I know when I've not done my reflections, whether that is, you know, the end of a week again, gaps and gains mindset, whether it's the end or start of a quarter, whether it's just a reflection. And it's it sounds like I'm I talk about myself all the time, but like I have a really close friend, and we just basically share each other's wins. Like, not to big each other up. Like she doesn't need bigging up. She's the most successful, you know, well-earning client manager for a big company I know. She does not need bigging up. She's super. But it is her way of reflecting of, you know, this is how well I'm doing and then I jump in and go, I can't believe I did XY Z today, you know, like. So it's just the ability to reflect and also to reflect and gosh, I kind of didn't really show up today or you know. So I yeah, reflection for me is probably the third strategy that really helps for me and that most of the time the reflection is good reflection but you've got to also be honest with yourself when things aren't working for you or you know I just call them my high performance habits. Like if I've hit a bit of a dip it's like, hmm I've probably binged on bad food. I've probably binged on Netflix and you know, I probably have consumed too much social media. Like you know, I'm like of course, of course my brain is melted you know like. And you reflect on that you go okay well you know. As my mindset coach says to me she says "For how long, for how much and how often do you want to do you want to keep going or beat yourself up? As you said earlier, you get frustrated and annoyed at yourself how long do you want to do that for? It's okay to do that, but how often, how much, and how long do you want to do it for before you go, right, what strategy do I need to, you know, pick myself back up?" 

JULIE: For those that seem to be stuck in this loop on this hamster wheel of never ending, I haven't, I can't, I'm a failure. I really sometimes just want to lift them up above the surface for a big gasp of air because some sometimes we need to force ourselves off that hamster wheel. As you said saying right, how long is this going to go on for? There has to be a stop change in order to get off the wheel to look at things from a different perspective. 

MARNIE: Do you know what else is really funny that really fits into something I did the other day? I bought my little girls, I've got a four and an 8-year-old. I bought them a little rug for their bedrooms and it's this rainbow and it says, "I am enough. I am confident. I am funny. I am four other things I think." And it says, "I am loved." And I bought it for them because, you know, I want them to have that internal validation that they need. I think I definitely grew up in an era where it was all about external validation, but you know, cheesy enough, every time I walk in the room, I like look at that mat and I say a few things to myself. And I just think it's just those little, really little, little things of I really, you know, I walk in and I see I'm enough. I'm like, "Yeah, I'm enough. High five to me." Walk back out. You know, like it's so there's such little subtle things, but if you can't talk to yourself like you love yourself and you're your own best cheerleader, not many people around you are going to do it for you, you know. And it is a learned behaviour that I think many generations didn't get. And it is something that I am going to make sure my children are good at, you know, and I think little reminders like that really help. 

JULIE: So yeah, I think that's a very important point. And often we're looking for this external validation, aren't we? And again, that's a, it's a loop that we need to get off because that isn't always going to be there in our lives. And if we're yearning for it, we're going to be quite disappointed because absolutely, you know, whether it's social media or whether hoping that a good friend will comment on some something that you've done but didn't, and feel that you're losing your edge. No, you've got to... comes from within. So, I fully support and endorse what you've said. Thank you, Marnie. I have one last question for you and that is for someone who's listening who's juggling that kind of mix of creativity, ambition, and ADHD as you do, what would you most want them to know? 

MARNIE: Oh gosh, this might not resonate for everybody, but this is something that's resonated with me a lot in the last probably 12 to 18 months. And I think it's got to do with kind of probably my life stage being a mum of two young children and still trying to juggle an athlete career and building businesses, but also being in the field of AI. And the advice is it's not forever, it's just for now. And the reason I think that might resonate is sometimes we need to change or we need to decide to go ahead with something. You know, we need to go all in on something. If you're juggling a few things and you're like, "Oh gosh, I don't know which direction," or you know, sometimes you just got to go all in on something. And it doesn't have to be the right answer. It might just be it's not forever, it's just for now. So, I think I've said that a lot in the last 12 to 18 months. It was about 18 months ago where, you know, I exited a business and I felt a little bit a little bit stale. Stagnant. Stagnant is probably the right word. A little bit still. And I'm not used to being still. I purposely made myself still, but I wasn't used to. I was like, I had to keep reminding myself it's not forever. It's just for now. And then when the next stage come ahead and I was, you know, focusing a little bit on being more in one of my businesses because I needed to grow a certain aspect of it, I felt like I'd gone back a step because I was back teaching and I was like, "Oh, I didn't want to be a 40-year-old PE teacher." And I felt like I'd gone back a step, but I was like, "Hang on a second. It's not forever. It's just for now." And it got me to that next stage of where the business needed to go. And then whatever you do right now or whatever rut you're in, or whatever decision you want to make going forward or you know, whatever kind of investment you want to make in time or energy or money for whatever you're going to do. It doesn't have to be forever. Like it doesn't have to be your long-term goal. It could just be something. I love 90-day sprints. I don't know why 90 days sounds super cool. You know, 90-day sprints is kind of how my brain works. But, you know, it could just be right. It's not forever. It's just for now. for the next 6 months, you know. So yeah, I hope that helps. Thank you. I think it does. And that perspective can be applied to any part of an ADHD's life where they feel that we've gone sideways or backwards or stagnant. So, it can be in any part of life. But with our ADHD brain, sometimes we feel, I won't speak for everybody, but I feel trapped sometimes. I feel really trapped. Honestly feel like I'm a rebel and can't, I can't follow in instructions. Like can't follow instructions. It's just not my thing. It's like I need to find a quicker way to get to it. I completely understand when some people feel like, you know, they're stagnant. They're not progressing. They're stuck. They don't know what to do next. What's got you where you are now is not going to get you to where you want to go next. That is the fact. And that's hard to take sometimes because you've got to go, "Oh, well, I've done really well to get to where I am now." or you know, "Well, what do you mean I can't get there? Like, what do I have to do?" And sometimes you don't know what you have to do to get to that next level. You just got to have a little bit of intuition, a little bit of trust, and a little bit of gosh, who knows what it's going to look like. Let's just do it anyway, you know? 

JULIE: And on that note, I just want to say thank you so much for being on the show. [Thank you, Julie.]

Head Shot

Julie Legg

Host
Head Shot

Jel Legg

Co-host
Head Shot

Marnie Wills

Guest