Women with ADHD – a Live Interactive Webinar

A Webinar for Women with ADHD and who think they might have ADHD

Friday, August 26th at 11 am PST

● Get a clear understanding of the difficulties that occur with ADHD

● Identify your specific function impairments with your own unique ADHD

● Explore the impact of ADHD on Adult Women

● Learn about the important research on the topic of ADHD

[JOE SANOK] This is the Practice of the Practice Podcast with Joe Sanok, session number 768. I’m Joe Sanok, your host and welcome to the Practice of the Practice podcast. All this month, as well as in early September, we are interviewing and talking to people about how they’ve leveled up, what’s helped them get to that next level, whether they are in a solo practice and just getting started with that or maybe they’ve started a group practice or a starting one, or maybe they already have a group practice and even leaving a practice; so building an audience outside of just the clinical work that they’re doing and doing that on a little different scale. We’ve already talked to a few different people, we talked to Anna last time, before that we talked to Ellen, we have a bunch of other people that have had practices and have leveled up, but then we’ve also got some folks that are more at the beginning phases. It’s interesting to hear all this full spectrum of people that are leveling up in different ways. This is all in prep for September 12th when we kick off Level Up Week, a time when we are just covering all sorts of things around leveling up, including having my own writing coach who helped me get the Harper Collins deal for Thursday is the New Friday. She and I are going to be talking that week and we’re bringing in some other really big names also. Make sure you sign up for that over at practiceofthepractice.com/levelup. Also, just a reminder, Killin’It Camp tickets are on sale now. They went on sale first to people that were in our membership communities. If you missed that, then we had some volunteer spots and the early bird tickets are on sale. They’re only $197 right now for that ticket for the early bird. That’s going to be in Cancun, Mexico at the Club Med. We were able to negotiate per night, it’s under $200 per night. That includes your food and lodging. It’s an all-inclusive. We’re going to be hanging out pool poolside, having breakout sessions, getting to know how people do private practice. So Killin’It Camp is the private practice conference. Make sure you get all the details over at killingitcamp.com to join us over at Killin’It Camp in October in Cancun, Mexico. It’s going to be an awesome time to just hang out with people. [JOE] Well, I’m so excited to have Laurie Wilson back in the show. Laurie is someone who I’ve been helping and she’s been helping herself and going after big things to help women with ADHD as a private practitioner, and just doing really big things as she builds an audience. Laurie, welcome to the Practice of the Practice podcast. [LAURIE WILSON] Hi, Joe. Thanks for having me. It’s nice to be here. [JOE] So excited to have you here. Fill in the gaps for people a little bit about your clinical work that you do and who are some important people in your family. [LAURIE] Sure. The clinical work I do, I guess I’ve been practicing in private practice, so I am been practicing for since 2014. I mean, I love what we do, I love working with different types of people and I’ve niched down my clinical practice to women with ADHD, women struggling with anxiety and imposter syndrome, maybe being new mothers and so I feel like that’s where yes, I’ve developed as a private practitioner. Then I also opened a group practice in March of 2020. Shortly after that, I think six months after that opened a non-profit pretty close to the group practice just so we could continue to serve the community with all the needs of children and teens that we’ve been seeing after the pandemic. That’s, yes, how I stay busy day to day. Then you also said important people in my family, [JOE] People in your life or family, in your life or family, what’s your life look like for people in a couple sentences? Sure. [LAURIE] I have a two-year-old, so busy, I think is a good word. Yes, I feel like busy, my life looks like getting up when he gets up. He likes to get up bright and early, usually around 6:00 AM. Yes, my husband and I are, I feel like we just work really well as a team. I think my weaknesses are his strengths and my strengths are his weaknesses so we’ve been navigating the new parenting thing because he’s only two. I feel like fairly well, we’ve both been able to get sleep in and continue to eat food. So I feel like that’s a win. [JOE] We can eat food, that’s great. Oh man, that’s the thick of it. I feel like until they turned four it just felt like you’re just nonstop. That whole three major thing, at least for my daughters, was legit, they didn’t have the verbal skills to share what they wanted, but they knew what they wanted. [LAURIE] Yes. Oh, he knows what he wants. That is for sure. I actually joke with my husband about how he’s going to be an entrepreneur because he, yes, he just likes to do things his own way. He’s a very practical player. He likes to play with kitchen stuff when I’m cooking. He likes to do that. He likes to play with cleaning things, so like mops and brooms and stuff. He’s very practical, which I can appreciate. [JOE] Get him a swifty. It’s great because you can take the pieces off so it’s like just their size, “Just go play with the swifter.” [LAURIE] Oh, he would love that. I mean that would be days of play. [JOE] Oh man, that’s awesome. [LAURIE] So just trying to keep up with him. [JOE] When you were leveling up into private practice and you were starting your solo practice and getting it going, what were some things that helped you level up during that phase? [LAURIE] That’s a great question. Well, and I went into school knowing that I wanted to do private practice and had a history in business. I had previously owned a restaurant and owned a non-profit and like just had had a little bit more business experience than maybe other people going into private practice, which I think really helped until I got to the level I’m at now. So making sure I was keeping contact with a few referral sources and I mean really word of mouth was big. I was working full-time while I was building my private practice for the first, I think maybe seven or eight years. That was challenging. I think just wanting stability of income, I think it was, it was hard to take that leap to just doing private practice and learning about how to level, like you’re saying, learning up how to, how do I keep people coming in the door? How do I do that? I mean, I listened to a lot of, I mean I really have been following you since 2014 whenever you started that video, so listening to a lot of the things that I found helpful and had utilized those things. I never had a huge presence online just because I’m not great at that stuff. It was just better and easier for me to talk to a local psychiatrist who I know and have a lunch and hand business cards which I know is now what my struggle is. It’s a different leveling up when you’re trying to build more of an audience and for what you’re building it for. So I think utilizing some of those things that I used to utilize, yes, I’m just looking does that have to be different because you can’t get as many people in the door. [JOE] Yes. Now, when you were thinking about your group practice, I mean March, 2020 it’s quite a time to launch a private practice or a group practice, and I do think that sometimes people overthink a group practice. They think it’s going to be this crazy big thing and it’s hard to like figure out. For you, what was helpful to level up into group practice? Why did you do that? What was the mindset? What made it easier for you to level up into a group practice? [LAURIE] I mean, again, having a little bit more entrepreneurial, I don’t sit down and write a business plan and I don’t advocate that, but I also think a lot of us get stuck by our fear and then don’t do something. I think the growing pains come obviously and again, March of 2020. Rented a space open to group practice and then the pandemic hit and everybody was telehealth. We were able to pivot very easily but myself and the woman who co-owns the practice, I mean that’s one thing, I feel like I’m more of a visionary when you think of business people like a visionary and an implementer. I’m more of a visionary and that’s where my husband’s always been able to, he’s more of an implementer, like where he would maybe do something a little bit slower, a little bit more methodically, where I would just go for it. So I’d been successful with private practice as much as I knew I could and it comes to this point where you can’t see, you can only see a certain number of clients per week. I really enjoy educating and empowering new clinicians. Part of that, I mean, even being an adjunct professor, I enjoy teaching and educating and I think that that was just like the next step. We honestly, we still have growing pains now. So what are we, two years in? We just expanded. So we had a three office suite because I just, and I did some consulting with Alison, but wanted to stay small and then build as we go. I didn’t want to get a seven-office suite and thank goodness I didn’t because there was a pandemic. We were able to build some telehealth, which is actually great for just for expense purposes. So we had a three-office suite and now we have added two more offices to that so we have a five-office suite. Yes, the challenge for that is just getting enough people walking in the door, but mental health is not in a lull right now. I’m more trying to predict what’s the next five years going to look like and how are we going to sustain, like if a lot of people are going into private practice. So once everybody’s gotten their feel of seeing therapists, I just wonder if there’s going to be a shift or a change and I just want to stay ahead of that. I don’t know how, yes, I know you owned a private practice, but then you sold your group practice. That was a while ago, wasn’t it? [JOE] Yes, 2019, I sold it to Nicole, who was one of my clinicians and I think that episode’s gone live me interviewing her. I’d have to look just to be sure. I think I want to say that went live a couple months ago about just like that process. I mean, she is taken it to levels that I didn’t care to take it to. Like that wasn’t my passion. So just to know, hey, I really like the consulting. I like the innovative work and don’t want to do as much of the clinical work anymore. It was a good realization to say, I’m ready to let go of this thing. [LAURIE] Yes. I think we, my staff and I actually, we took like a compassion fatigue burnout quiz the other day during a meeting just to see where everybody was at. I think after about 11 or 12 years of practicing shifts are always, it’s always nice to yes, be able to adapt and to change to what you’re, I want to spend more time with my son and with my family. That means I can’t be there all the time so I think being able to change it always is important and why I started yes, trying to figure out who is my audience outside of those walls or that telehealth in my practice or in that group practice. [JOE] As you were starting to explore, going beyond your practice was it difficult to narrow in on women with ADHD or was that a pretty intuitive thing for you? [LAURIE] No, it was a pretty intuitive thing for me because of how, my story started like that, but I didn’t, even when I became a clinician, I didn’t think I am going to treat women with ADHD in private practice. So when I was, I think in third grade I had a pretty severe learning disability and wasn’t reading at the level that I should have been reading at. Potentially wasn’t reading very much at all. I was quiet, so my things from teachers or my comments from teachers, “Oh, she’s a good kid. She’s doing great.” But my reading comprehension was maybe 20% or 30% and I wasn’t thriving. Luckily my parents took me to remediation so I had a private tutor and I ended up graduating at the top of my class in high school but had I not had that remediation, I wouldn’t even be able to be anywhere here today. So it wasn’t until I was like, my personal story with it, I was 27 when I got diagnosed with ADHD. So we’re talking like eight years old right where learning disability starts and there’s usually a reason you have a reading comprehension score that’s fairly low, whether it’s an executive functioning thing or dyslexia or ADHD, whatever it is. That was never, like it that didn’t continue to be assessed after my reading remediation had had worked. They weren’t really looking for the reason the problem was happening, which was fine. Because the problem had been “fixed.” Well, as I got older and became a professional and was doing different things and just had a lot of self-doubt, like whether it was imposter syndrome or whether it was feeling like people thought I was annoying or whatever, that was those social things that come along with ADHD that I didn’t start to realize or recognize until I was a woman working in the field. Then when I work with women and started to hear these experiences, there were a lot of women who were not correctly diagnosed or not diagnosed with ADHD and were just struggling to even finish tasks or to figure out how to finish tasks. So I think it was just a combination of my own journey with it and my compassion for the women I was working with and then really wanting to get the information and the correct information out to, yes, out to as many people as I can [THERAPY NOTES] Is managing your practice stressing you out? Try Therapy Notes. It makes notes, billing, scheduling, and tele-health a whole lot easier. Check it out and you will quickly see why it’s the highest rated EHR on Trustpilot with over 1000 verified customer views and an average customer rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars. You’ll notice the difference from the first day you sign up for a trial. They offer live phone support seven days a week so when you have questions, you can quickly reach out to someone who can help. You are never wasting your time looking for answers. If you’re coming from another EHR, they make the transition really easy. Therapy Notes will import your clients’ demographic data free of charge during your trial so you can get going right away. Use the promo code [JOE], J-O-E to get three months, totally free to try it out, no strings attached. Remember telehealth is included with every subscription free. Make 2022, the best year yet with Therapy Notes. Again, use promo code [JOE] to get three months totally free. [JOE SANOK] So when you, because I know that you’ve been thinking through how to talk about women and ADHD and their pains and things that you see that are helpful, if we start with the pains or the side of it that people maybe don’t think about that much or why it’s goes unnoticed what are some of the things that maybe are common misconceptions about women and ADHD that we should start with? [LAURIE] Sure. I mean I guess one of them is that it’s a boys’, like it’s, most males have it, males have ADHD more. It’s a boys’ thing, like girls don’t have it or teen girls don’t have it. So then when you’re looking at a woman, especially they call them the lost generation, women in their, I think it’s mid-thirties to 50, they weren’t diagnosed. They weren’t diagnosing them. Then so you have women who are maybe thriving in a field, in their field in some way or maybe, or even an entrepreneur because people with ADHD are 300% more likely to become entrepreneurs. So likely if a woman, yes, I’ve just noticed in my interaction, with female entrepreneurs, if they’ve chosen to do that, the likelihood that they have some, I’m not saying that all of them have ADHD, but they have some executive functioning deficit that’s not helpful to them they’re more of the visionaries. When we talk about like visionaries and implementers in business, I am definitely a visionary. I do struggle sometimes to implement. It’s not because of, and that’s the misconception, it’s not because of procrastination or laziness or anything like that, or she never finishes anything she starts. Those are the kinds of misconceptions of she’s got five projects going and doesn’t finish any of them. To be fair, I think it’s putting people in the right seats around you because my husband is an implementer or I’ve put people in work around me who do those things. So likely I, and that’s the interesting thing about it, I wouldn’t be able to turn myself into an implementer and then fix my executive functioning skills because some of them aren’t fixable. If my working memory isn’t that great, then I might struggle to remember how to do certain things or the things that I’m supposed to do. So some of it is just putting people in the right place around you and knowing what you thrive at and what you don’t thrive at. I think that can be a hard conversation with yourself, like what are my strengths and what are my weaknesses? Especially when you grew up, when you grew up with ADHD, everybody’s constantly pointing out your weaknesses or you are constantly internally like having self-doubt and just doubting yourself. If you hear parents say like they’re lazy or they don’t do this or that, usually, it’s none of that. It’s usually some a deficit because we’re not born lazy. So I think with women it becomes a lot more of the self-doubt and the social anxiety, like worried how you’re coming across which can then prevent even things like this like being on an interview or yes, not just speaking in front of people but even going to dinner with people. So I think there’s a lot of misconceptions when it comes to women with ADHD and I think there’s a lot of incorrect information out there. That’s what I hope to accomplish is to, yes, talk about that and make sure that everybody has the correct information, the correct statistics, because it’s one of the most debilitating things we treat in the outpatient setting. If I have a male who, because there was an education on boys with ADHD, I will typically have a male who’s maybe been on medication or has had tried medication previously at a younger age, anywhere from 10 to 17, where a lot of the women I see it’s new. It would be a new conversation we’re having, maybe a new diagnosis. Or maybe somebody had briefly said it when they were younger, but it wasn’t like a full follow through on it. So those conversations, those newer conversations of why these are things you’re struggling with and if this potentially is the cause, I mean, how do we navigate that? how do we help you? [JOE] As you were talking about executive functioning and remembering things, it made me think of when I interviewed David Allen who wrote Getting Things Done and how he was talking about how little we should be using our brain as a storage unit that when we take things out of our brain and have some sort of organizational system for whether it’s notes in your phone or you put it right in your calendar or having some system to just take things out of your brain how much that allows you to free up how you work right here and now, instead of also having this background operating system running of trying to remember all this stuff that there’s no point in trying to remember all that. So it’s just, as you talk about your husband almost as a system that helps you, I think just having some sort of system or operations thing or person that can help you. Even on my team, I fully recognize that I move so fast that I probably will drop the ball on something. So if I’m talking to Jess, I’m like, “Hey, will you start a Google Doc with this? Will you put it in my calendar please to like follow up in a week? If we’re in a meeting, will you do that for me so that it’s all lined up and then a week from now, there it is.” Or if I know I have some webinars like September 12th, that whole week is Level Up Week, I’ve got a bunch of webinars that week, so I have to put in my calendar a few weeks ahead of time, have time to think about the webinars and then make sure you get all the information to Sam so she can design the slides for it. It’s getting that system to work backward so it’s not all just in my brain trying to remember. There’s no way I could remember everything that’s in my calendar going on if I didn’t use those systems. So I also wonder if sometimes, not that I’m trying to dismiss ADHD, but I also think that we’re just not taught organization as, at least in our generation, we weren’t really taught a lot of those things. If someone’s predisposed to ADHD tendencies or an ADHD diagnosis, how much more amplified will it be when most of us are bumping along anyway so then it’s like you’re just bumping along even more because it’s like an extra challenge beyond what we weren’t taught. [LAURIE] Totally. And I think, and again that’s, it’s hard to, like you said, not to dismiss ADHD, but to put it in a box. That’s why even if we just think of our executive functioning skills, everybody doesn’t have the same strengths, so yes, we and organizational systems, like if somebody was to come in my house and be like, oh, use this organizational system, it really has to be personalized to you and to what works best for you. So I think that’s important as well too because I can say, “Oh, this’ll help with this, but not for everybody.” So I’ll tell a lot of people just try these things and if they work for you, great. If they don’t, then that’s fine. Especially if there’s more challenges with technology and like storing things, I mean I think Google Drive is great but we have all these systems and then our phone has all these apps and we were already distracted. So whether we’re distracted from our ADHD or from something else, I think we have a hard time staying on tasks sometimes and making sure we’re methodical. That became apparent when I had my son and wanted to spend more time with him and was like, there’s never enough time in the week. Well there has to be because I want to work less. So if my hope is to get down to a four-day work week or something like that, well I can’t do that if I have too much to do and never a good system for doing all of it. [JOE] Yes, well it sort of reminds me of, there’s a TED Talk I heard a while ago where they talked about auditory load. I forgot how they did it, but it was like the average person talking to you is like 40 units of auditory load and the average person can only handle like, say 60 units of it. So if two people are talking to you at once, that’s like 80 units and that’s above 60. That’s why you can’t listen to two people at once and understand it. But you can listen to symphonic music and a person talking to you because symphonic music is like a five auditory loader. I’m not getting the numbers exactly, but the principles there. I also just think that there’s times when we have just taken on so much, our brains haven’t evolved to the point that we can take on the level of technology and information and just busyness that we have. So I’m interested in techniques for women that have ADHD that you’ve found that really works with them to maybe slow things down a bit or stay organized or not feel like you’re like losing your mind or dropping balls all the time. What are a handful of things that you have found with the women that you teach and that you work with that really works with them to take some initial first steps? [LAURIE] I mean, the slowing down part is I think one of the most important because a lot of times people say, “Oh, I’m good at multitasking,” but I mean, there’s research that not a lot of people are great at multitasking and that we shouldn’t be doing it. I feel like mindfulness, and I say mindfulness and I won’t say meditating because if your brain is ruminating or just thinks randomly about different things, even if they’re not bad things, even if you’re just thinking about all these cool new business things or it doesn’t matter what it is, you’re going to have a really hard time meditating. So when I try to help support clients slowing down, we would do more of a mindfulness that’s maybe something with movement or even eating’s a good place to start. A lot of us don’t sit, especially if we’re by ourselves and not with family. If we sit and have lunch and let’s say it’s chicken and broccoli, you are likely on a computer or on your phone or watching tv. Most people don’t sit and just eat. So then you pay attention too, when you put a bite in your mouth and you’re chewing it and you slow down, what flavors are you tasting? What is the experience for you? Then walking would be another one, just noticing your foot on the ground and I think trying not to do something else while you’re doing those things can be really challenging. [JOE] Yes, I think just that idea of being in the moment and not just distracted to have that occasionally to remind you of what that feels like and be like, do I want more of that? [LAURIE] Yes. I think that’s just that, I don’t know the full neuroscience behind it, but I mean, I think that’s really important just for alleviating, I think of the rabbit all the time on Winnie the Poo, I’m late, I’m late, I’m late. That just helps slow down your whole system. We’re a fast society. It’s pretty easy to get anything now. I’ll age myself here, but we didn’t have cell phones when I was in high school and we didn’t have Facebook until college started. So yes, I mean, you can just, you can contact anybody at any given time and it wasn’t like that before. If we think of, like you said, how technology is just so fast, like what would it be like if I had to send a letter to somebody and that’s how they got it? I mean, that’s like, if you think about that, wait, I can’t talk to them right now. It’s going to take me two days to get this letter to them. But that’s how I equate what mindfulness is. Mindfulness is sending the letter instead of immediately sending a text and just slowing down I think is the first thing. That’s really important just for helping start the process of organizing and not getting caught up in some of the like anxious things. [JOE] Well, I think that’s the appeal of so many things that we see right now, whether it’s people that are living the hashtag Van Life or the slow crockpot cooking or a slow brew coffee. I even have, there’s a guy in my Improv troop who he has this phone that can only do phone calls and it’s a cell phone that only does phone calls and if he texts it’s the old school, like you have to hit the one to get to the C over and over. It’s so hipster of him, but it’s like, yes, I think that’s a reaction. I think that’s a reaction to the overdoing it of just the stimuli that we have that yes, if all you have in your pocket is a phone call to make calls and you’re bored, you’re going to call a friend and you’re going to say, “Hey, I’m going to go get a drink down at Little Fleet and go to the food trucks. Do you want to join me?” Instead of sitting on your phone and scrolling through social media for three hours? I love that the things you talk about aren’t just necessarily for women with ADHD, but also messages for society. The last question I always ask is, if every private practitioner in the world were listening right now, what would you want them to know? [LAURIE] I don’t know. I feel like just jump, don’t worry about the fear. Just do it, wherever your gut is telling you to go with it, I think just doing it and then thinking about it afterwards. It’s like jumping in a really cold pool. Well, it’s probably not going to be fun, but the more you think about it, the more fear you’re going to have and you’re not going to jump, but once you jump, it gets warmer and it’s okay. So I think yes, try not to have as much fear and just going for what is true to you. [JOE] Laurie, I know you have an email course about this, you also have other content you’re making. If people want to follow your work, what’s the best place for them to connect with you? [LAURIE] They can just go to the website. It’s just lauriewilsoncounseling.com. That’s the best place. We’ll probably do a webinar first because I noticed some of the email series stuff weren’t always getting read by people with ADHD because they have busy schedules and lots of things, so I figured we’d start with a webinar that I’m going to be launching very soon. I’ll get that date and get it popped out to everybody shortly, and I’ll have them, if you can share it and stuff too, but it should be within the next 30 to 60 days and it’ll be live. I’m really looking forward to it just talking about these kinds of things we’re talking about now, practical tips, but also what’s unique to you and what are your executive functioning deficits that you’re noticing and how can we really start to strengthen those. Hopefully, it’s very unique to the people who are attending the webinar and they feel like they got a lot out of it. [JOE] Awesome. Well, I’m so glad you’re doing this work and thank you so much for being on the podcast. [LAURIE] Yes, thanks for having me, Joe. [JOE] We have tons of events coming up and you can see all of them over at practiceofthepractice.com/nextlevel. We are going to be doing a ton of webinars and trainings and giveaways starting on September 12th during Level Up Week. It’s a time for, if you’re thinking about starting a practice, we’ll help you start a practice. If you’re thinking about starting a group practice, we’ll help you start a group practice. If you already have a group practice and you want to do it even better, we’ll help you with that. Then if you want to level up into things even outside of practice, just like Laurie, we’ll help you with that. So many things that week. Make sure you sign up over at practiceofthepractice.com/levelup. Also Killin’It Camp, tickets are on sale now. We’re going to be in Cancun, Mexico at the Club Med, October 20th. We cannot wait. We opened it up to our members and our consulting clients first and our founders who came to the 2019, very first Killin’It Camp. We are so excited to have another in-person Killin’It Camp in 2020 and 2021. Due to the pandemic, we couldn’t host it, but this year we’re excited to be down in Cancun, Mexico. The nightly fee for the all-inclusive is less than 200 bucks a night. We negotiated a killer rate at the Club Med. It’s a great time of year to be in Cancun and we’re going to be hanging out. We have some great speakers. We have a lot of things lined up there. Also today’s sponsor, we could not do this show without Therapy Notes. Therapy Notes has been such a strong sponsor over the years. Therapy Notes is the premier electronic health records. If you’re looking to keep track of your clients better, have more automated billing, better scheduling, better telehealth, Therapy Notes is the way to go. Go over to therapynotes.com and use promo code [JOE] at checkout so they know that their podcast sponsorship is working. Also, you’re going to get some free months when you do that. Make sure you use promo code, [JOE] at checkout. Thanks so much for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Have a great day. I’ll talk to you soon. Special thanks to the band Silence is Sexy for that intro music. This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the producers, the publishers or guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.