ADHD for Smart Ass Women with Tracy Otsuka

Tracy Otsuka
  • 4.8 (1.6K)
  • Alternative Health
  • Updated Weekly

Want to fall in love with your ADHD brain and make it work for you? Learn more about my patented program, Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy  here : programs.tracyotsuka.com/signup * I have NEVER met an ADHD woman who wasn’t truly brilliant at something! This podcast, with nearly 7 million downloads, is for smart, high-ability ADD/ADHD (diagnosed or suspecting) women who see their symptoms as more positive than negative. If you want to fall in love with your ADHD brain and discover where your brilliance lies, this podcast is for you!** ADHD for Smart Ass Women is globally ranked in the top one-tenth of one percent of all podcasts in the world on any subject. It’s streamed in more than 160 countries and is downloaded by more than 150,000 listeners every month. My book of the same name, published by HarperCollins/William Morrow, was recently honored by Amazon Editors as a Top 20 Best Nonfiction Book of 2024.** I’m Tracy Otsuka, your host. I’m a lawyer, not a doctor, a lifelong learner, and a certified ADHD coach. I’m on a mission to change the conversation around ADHD because I believe it’s time to focus on the strengths that come with our unique brains. When I was diagnosed eight months after my son, my entire life finally made sense, yet all I read and heard about ADHD focused on what I should struggle with. What I discovered, though, was that my ADHD was responsible for some of my greatest strengths.** Another thing we constantly hear is all the success stories about ADHD men, but no one talks about the women. This podcast is here to change that. ADHD women are my people, and I’m here to acknowledge, support, and cheer them on. My experience as an adult living with ADHD, along with my expertise, is regularly sought out by top-tier media, including Bloomberg, Forbes, CBS Mornings, ABC News Live, Inc., Prevention Magazine, Verywell Mind, ADDitude magazine, and The Goal Digger Podcast, etc.**adhdforsmartwomen.com **The content in this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment and does not constitute medical or professional advice. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of anything you have seen or heard from Tracy Otsuka, her guests or this podcast. 

  1. 10h ago

    EP. 397: Building a Business with ADHD: Clare Edwin on Finding What Finally Worked

    Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Start with my this training: Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up _____ “Why can’t I just?” was the question Clare Edwin kept coming back to. Why can’t I just answer that email? Why can’t I just leave the house on time? Why can’t I just do the ordinary things everyone else seems to manage? Clare grew up in Nigeria, studied aeronautical engineering, earned a master’s in mathematical modelling, worked as a quality engineer, and became a secondary school maths teacher. She was rated a good teacher, but behind the scenes, she was struggling. The same pile of books came home to be marked night after night and went back untouched. Eventually, the demands of teaching contributed to repeated episodes of depression, and she left the profession. While off work, Clare started making beaded bracelets on her coffee table, mostly to get herself off the sofa. That small beginning became Lollamac, the jewellery business she still runs fifteen years later. Her ADHD diagnosis did not come until 2021, after a woman in her business group described her own experience and Clare found herself mentally ticking off the same traits. If you have ever worked hard, looked capable from the outside, and still felt like you were falling short, you will recognise yourself in this one. Resources Website: https://www.lollamac.co.uk Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lollamac_ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lollamac Send a Message: Your Name | Email | Message Explore more from me: 🧘 SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift 📚 Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn 📖 Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book 🧠 Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok 🌐 Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/ ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem. That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits, start here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up Connect with me: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyotsuka Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heytracyotsuka LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyotsuka/ Are You Ready to Discover Your Brilliance? Order Now: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book Visit our website: https://tracyotsuka.com

  2. Aug 5

    EP. 396: Ozempic, Mounjaro & ADHD: Why Women Are Noticing More Than Weight Loss

    Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Start with this training: Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up _____ About one in nine adults is on a GLP-1 right now. And women with ADHD kept telling me the exact same thing after starting GLP-1 medications: they expected to lose weight, but they did not expect their brains to feel different. The brain fog lifted. The food noise got quieter. Energy felt steadier. Emotional reactions became easier to interrupt. For some, inflammation, pain, bloating, cravings, and compulsive behaviors changed too. So I brought back Dr. Kalin Johnson to tell us whether there is real science behind that or whether we are getting ahead of the evidence. Kalin is a licensed clinical pharmacist, functional medicine wellness coach, and patient advocate who runs a concierge whole-person care practice for high-achieving, high-masking neurodivergent adults. She is also queer, ADHD, autistic, and living with hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and this is her fourth time on the show. In this episode, Kalin and I get into how GLP-1 receptors communicate across the gut, brain, pancreas, immune system, and vagus nerve, and why that matters for ADHD women. They also talk about food noise, brain fog, inflammation, metabolic health, emotional regulation, microdosing, side effects, muscle loss, access, and what the research still cannot tell us. Resources Website: https://www.kalinjohnson.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/kalinpharmdLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kalin-johnsonpharmdAnia Jastreboff, MD - Director of the Yale Obesity Research Center, principal investigator on many of the landmark trials for tirzepatide and retatrutide. If you watch only one thing, watch her Lincoln Center talk. https://medicine.yale.edu/profile/ania-jastreboffDr. Spencer Nadolsky - https://www.instagram.com/drnadolskyRocio Salas-Whalen MD - https://www.instagram.com/drsalaswhalenSend a Message: Your Name | Email | Message Explore more from me: 🧘 SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift 📚 Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn 📖 Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book 🧠 Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok 🌐 Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/ ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem. That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits, start here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up Connect with me: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyotsuka Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heytracyotsuka LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyotsuka/ Are You Ready to Discover Your Brilliance? Order Now: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book Visit our website: https://tracyotsuka.com

  3. Jul 29

    EP. 395: Why ADHD Brains Reach for Alcohol with Faye Lawrence

    Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Start here: Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up _____ Faye Lawrence got blackout drunk at 13. What she remembers is not the drinking. It is the relief. She started drinking heavily as a teenager and kept going for decades. From the outside she looked successful and high functioning, right up until late 2017, when the wheels came off the cart and she found herself in inpatient detox. She got sober. Then she waited five more years to find out why she had been drinking in the first place. Faye was diagnosed with ADHD at 48, and suddenly the chaos, the burnout, the emotional intensity, the boredom, and the constant need to switch her brain off all made sense. Alcohol had not come out of nowhere. It had been doing a job. Faye is now a certified grey area drinking coach and ADDCA certified ADHD coach with degrees in psychology and counselling, and she has spoken at TEDx and SXSW. She founded Untoxicated, which grew into Australia's largest alcohol-free social community back when being sober was decidedly uncool. In this episode, Tracy and Faye get into grey area drinking and why the all-or-nothing label keeps people stuck, what alcohol is actually doing in an ADHD brain, the mummy wine culture that was sold to women on purpose, and why the carrot works where the stick never will. If you have ever needed a drink to get your brain to be quiet, this conversation is not here to shame you. It is here to give you clarity. Resources Website: https://fayelawrence.com.au Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_fayelawrence_ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FayeLawrenceCoaching LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/faye-lawrence-aus Free Wine O'Clock reset guide: https://fayelawrence.com.au/tracyo ADHD-alcohol small group coaching program also opens in mid-August: https://fayelawrence.com.au/loop Send a Message: Your Name | Email | Message Explore more from me: 🧘 SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift 📚 Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn 📖 Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book 🧠 Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok 🌐 Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/ ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem. That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits, start here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up Connect with me: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyotsuka Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heytracyotsuka LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyotsuka/ Are You Ready to Discover Your Brilliance? Order Now: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book Visit our website: https://tracyotsuka.com

  4. Jul 22

    EP. 394: The Chainsaw Sculptor Who Turned Her ADHD "Too Much" Into a Superpower

    Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Start here: Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up _____ Some brains cannot sit still long enough to be careful. Ella Fielding found a machine that runs on exactly that. Ella has a BA in Fine Art Sculpture, a Masters in Fine Art, and a chainsaw operator's license, and she uses all three to turn whole trees into monumental sculpture. But she left school at 14 because it was too traumatic to stay. She was quick with her hands and slow to get anything out of her head onto paper, and for most of her life nobody named why. She was 38, running her own art business and drowning in the admin, when a work coach kept mentioning ADHD and she kept insisting she was just dyslexic. Turns out it was both. Now she carves outside in full gear, running a machine most people won't touch and making it behave like a scalpel. Not despite the ADHD. Because of it. A chainsaw does not let you drift or second-guess or wait for the perfect plan. It demands you be right here, right now, which is the one place her brain has always worked best. In this episode, Tracy and Ella get into the school years that nearly broke her, the "poof" moment where a thought vanishes the second she reaches for a pen, why immediate and physical beats slow and planned for a brain like hers, and how she reads her own overwhelm as a signal instead of a character flaw. If you have ever been told you were too much, this one might reframe the whole thing. Resources: Website: https://ellafielding.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ella.fielding.sculptor Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ellafieldingsculptor LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ella-fielding-sculptor Send a Message: Your Name | Email | Message Explore more from me: 🧘 SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift 📚 Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn 📖 Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book 🧠 Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok 🌐 Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/ ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem. That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits, start here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up Connect with me: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyotsuka Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heytracyotsuka LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyotsuka/ Are You Ready to Discover Your Brilliance? Order Now: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book Visit our website: https://tracyotsuka.com

  5. Jul 15

    EP. 393: AuDHD, Decision Fatigue, and Rebuilding a Life That Actually Works with Dr. Shannan Palma

    Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Start here: Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up _____ She was good at the job. She just kept bombing the people. Dr. Shannan Palma has a PhD from Emory, founded a master's program, and taught as a college professor. Then, in midlife, she found out she was autistic. ADHD turned up right behind it. For decades she had followed the rules exactly as they were written and could not work out why that kept failing her. She was direct when directness was not wanted. She said no when everyone else said yes and did nothing. She ran full speed until she collapsed, then ramped back up and did it again. The diagnosis did not just explain the pattern. It ended it. Today she identifies as AuDHD, co-founded the autistic-led nonprofit Independence Through Interdependence, and serves as CEO of ITI Lab, where her team built Decide, an app for decision fatigue. In this episode, Tracy and Shannan get into why decision fatigue is not a willpower problem, what happens when the autism wants routine and the ADHD wants novelty, the assessment that went badly wrong, and what it takes to rebuild after burnout on your own terms instead of someone else's. If your brain has ever turned a small decision into a full-body shutdown, this one will help you understand why. And more importantly, what actually helps. Resources Website: https://weareiti.org Website: https://itilab.io LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannanpalma ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem. Send a Message: Your Name | Email | Message Explore more from me: 🧘 SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift 📚 Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn 📖 Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book 🧠 Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok 🌐 Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/ ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem. That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits, start here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up Connect with me: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyotsuka Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heytracyotsuka LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyotsuka/ Are You Ready to Discover Your Brilliance? Order Now: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book Visit our website: https://tracyotsuka.com

  6. Jul 8

    EP. 392: When You Finally Stop Fawning with Laura Pasley

    Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up _____ Laura Pasley is a child and youth worker in Ontario, Canada, who has spent more than a decade in intensive mental health and dual-diagnosis treatment programs for children and adolescents. She is the person who runs toward the crisis when everyone else is running away from it. After postpartum anxiety, postpartum OCD, complex trauma, and her sixth concussion, Laura started questioning whether ADHD had been part of her story all along. At 32, she finally received the diagnosis that helped her see herself differently. Not as someone who had fooled everyone. Not as someone who was not smart. As someone whose brain had been working hard to keep her alive. In this episode, Tracy and Laura talk about ADHD, trauma, fawning, concussions, crisis work, motherhood, shame, and what changes when a woman finally stops explaining every struggle through what happened to her. Laura also shares why she is now returning to school, writing a memoir, and learning to embrace being a daydreamer. If you have ever wondered whether it is ADHD, trauma, anxiety, or all of the above, this conversation offers a gentler question: what if understanding your brain is not about proving what is wrong with you, but finally seeing what has always been true? Resources Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arttaropy Threads: https://www.threads.com/@arttaropy Send a Message: Your Name | Email | Message Explore more from me: 🧘 SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift 📚 Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn 📖 Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book 🧠 Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok 🌐 Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/ ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem. That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits, start here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up Connect with me: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyotsuka Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heytracyotsuka LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyotsuka/ Are You Ready to Discover Your Brilliance? Order Now: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book Visit our website: https://tracyotsuka.com

  7. Jul 6

    Collect the Evidence

    Stuck in an ADHD pattern that keeps repeating? SHIFT is a collection of 120 guided audio experiences designed to help you see yourself and your ADHD brain differently. Explore SHIFT here: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift _ How many times have you told yourself, “I’ll do it when I feel more confident”? When I feel ready, I’ll apply for that job. When I feel more confident, I’ll start the business. When I believe in myself more, I’ll have that hard conversation. We spend so much of our lives waiting to feel ready. More confident. More certain. More qualified. But what if we have had it backwards all along? I want to talk about why confidence does not actually come first. It does not magically appear before we take the risk, try the thing, or do something that scares us. Confidence comes after. If you have been waiting to feel ready before taking the next step, this episode will help you stop waiting for confidence and start building it. ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem. That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start seeing yourself differently, explore SHIFT here: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift Send a Message: Your Name | Email | Message Explore more from me: 🧘 SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift 📚 Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn 📖 Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book 🧠 Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok 🌐 Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/ ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem. That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits, start here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up Connect with me: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyotsuka Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heytracyotsuka LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyotsuka/ Are You Ready to Discover Your Brilliance? Order Now: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book Visit our website: https://tracyotsuka.com

  8. Jul 1

    Episode 391: What Happens When a School Is Built for ADHD Brains

    Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up _____ Your kid got labeled the “problem.” The defiant one, the behavior kid, the one who couldn't sit still or keep up. What if the room was the thing that didn't fit? Beven Byrnes is a neurodivergent educator, nonprofit leader, and a mom of four. She's the Executive Director of Bridges Middle School in Portland, the only middle school in Oregon built specifically for students with ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and anxiety. Beven spent 25 years and raised over $15 million building environments where kids actually fit. But she didn't have her own ADHD diagnosis until this past year, at 50. Cancer treatment forced her into menopause at 45, her estrogen dropped, and the masking she'd done her whole life without knowing it stopped working. The square-peg feeling she'd carried since childhood finally made sense. Now she runs a school on one idea: behavior is communication, and the job isn't to fix the kid, it's to fix the environment around them. In this episode, Tracy and Beven get into why behavior is almost always communication, what happens to a child's confidence after years of being misread, and what it looks like to build a school around how kids actually learn instead of forcing them to fit. If your child, or you, ever got treated like the problem to be solved, this one will show you what was actually broken. And it was never the brain. Resources: Website: https://www.bridgesms.org/staff-spotlight-beven-byrnes-executive-director Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrs_byrnes LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/beven-byrnes Send a Message: Your Name | Email | Message Explore more from me: 🧘 SHIFT: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift 📚 Free resources: https://tracyotsuka.com/learn 📖 Get the book, ADHD for Smart Ass Women: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book 🧠 Join Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy: https://tracyotsuka.com/aok 🌐 Visit my website: https://tracyotsuka.com/ ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem. That’s why most strategies don’t stick. They were not designed for how your brain actually works. If you’re ready to stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits, start here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up Connect with me: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyotsuka Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heytracyotsuka LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyotsuka/ Are You Ready to Discover Your Brilliance? Order Now: https://tracyotsuka.com/adhd-book Visit our website: https://tracyotsuka.com

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Want to fall in love with your ADHD brain and make it work for you? Learn more about my patented program, Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy  here : programs.tracyotsuka.com/signup * I have NEVER met an ADHD woman who wasn’t truly brilliant at something! This podcast, with nearly 7 million downloads, is for smart, high-ability ADD/ADHD (diagnosed or suspecting) women who see their symptoms as more positive than negative. If you want to fall in love with your ADHD brain and discover where your brilliance lies, this podcast is for you!** ADHD for Smart Ass Women is globally ranked in the top one-tenth of one percent of all podcasts in the world on any subject. It’s streamed in more than 160 countries and is downloaded by more than 150,000 listeners every month. My book of the same name, published by HarperCollins/William Morrow, was recently honored by Amazon Editors as a Top 20 Best Nonfiction Book of 2024.** I’m Tracy Otsuka, your host. I’m a lawyer, not a doctor, a lifelong learner, and a certified ADHD coach. I’m on a mission to change the conversation around ADHD because I believe it’s time to focus on the strengths that come with our unique brains. When I was diagnosed eight months after my son, my entire life finally made sense, yet all I read and heard about ADHD focused on what I should struggle with. What I discovered, though, was that my ADHD was responsible for some of my greatest strengths.** Another thing we constantly hear is all the success stories about ADHD men, but no one talks about the women. This podcast is here to change that. ADHD women are my people, and I’m here to acknowledge, support, and cheer them on. My experience as an adult living with ADHD, along with my expertise, is regularly sought out by top-tier media, including Bloomberg, Forbes, CBS Mornings, ABC News Live, Inc., Prevention Magazine, Verywell Mind, ADDitude magazine, and The Goal Digger Podcast, etc.**adhdforsmartwomen.com **The content in this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment and does not constitute medical or professional advice. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of anything you have seen or heard from Tracy Otsuka, her guests or this podcast. 

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