ADHDifference - WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP + guest Dr Alessandra Wall

Dr Alessandra Wall, founder and CEO of Noteworthy, joins Julie Legg to reflect on her life, career, and insights into women in leadership. 

She shares her experiences of working with children and adults with ADHD and what led her to shift from psychology to founding Noteworthy, a platform helping women in leadership roles find their voice and value. Though never formally diagnosed with ADHD, Alessandra recognised many of its traits in herself. The conversation dives deep into how to communicate our value, the reality of executive stress, the concept of the “gilded cage” and the power of the pause.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Noteworthy: Alessandra's leadership platform supports women in high-powered roles by encouraging authentic self-expression and dismantling internalised narratives that keep them playing small. Success shouldn’t require compromise on identity or mental health.
• Women in Leadership: Many are high-functioning but secretly burning out or feeling "less than." Societal expectations, especially around femininity and behaviour, often cause women to mask their neurodivergent traits more than men.
• Communicating Your Value: Women often downplay their abilities or wait for external validation. It is important that women are able to articulate their worth—not in a loud or performative way, but with clarity, intention, and confidence.
• Managing Stress: Stress is a constant in high-performance environments, but it's how we relate to it that matters. Many high-achievers are taught to grind, but few are taught to rest with purpose.
• The Gilded Cage: This metaphor refers to being successful on paper while feeling unfulfilled, stuck, or disconnected in reality. Life ‘at the top’ can feel like a prison made of gold—prestige, salary, title—but still a prison.
• “Mastering the Pause”: The power of stopping, reflecting, and responding with intention. ADHD brains are often fast-reacting, but the pause allows for clarity, emotional regulation, and better decision-making.

LINKS:

• LinkedIn – Dr Alessandra Wall 
• Website - Noteworthy
• Noteworthy Newsletter 
• Unforgettable - A 3-step roadmap to articulating your value with confidence, poise, and Impact
• Back To Me, a 4 week guide to restoring balance & regaining control

Thanks for listening.

• Visit ADHDifference.nz to find past episodes, videos, links, or to say hello!
• Get social with us on Instagram

Transcript

JULIE: I'm Julie Legg, author of The Missing Piece and diagnosed with ADHD at 52. Welcome to ADHDifference. In this episode I chat with Dr Alessandra Wall. She is founder and CEO of Noteworthy, an international speaker, author and psychologist. We talk about women in leadership and executive roles, managing stress, communicating our value, the gilded cage and mastering the pause. Welcome Alessandra. Thank you so much for joining us today. 

ALESSANDRA: I am very excited for this time we get to spend together. 

JULIE: Fabulous. And we're going to go straight into the questions. We've got lots to cover and I'm excited to hear your story. Going straight into looking back at your childhood, what ADHD-like traits stand out most to you now, and how do you think they shaped your personality and your career path? 

ALESSANDRA: In hindsight, you and I were talking about this, I was never formally diagnosed with ADHD but I actually became a clinical psychologist and I did the diagnosing for lots of people, worked with children and adults. So in hindsight, I had an aha "Oh this explains so much." And what it explained, when I was a little girl I remember this very specific moment in what in America they would call middle school. In French they call collège.  So must have been 12, 11 or 12. And I remember sitting in a class and shaking my head. You know, the way you do when you're driving and you're tired and you're just trying to stay awake. And then trying to like literally creasing my eyes like this, and going and asking myself this question "Is it as hard for everybody else to focus on what's going on?" Where I would sit and I would just maybe... and then my brain would squirrel someplace. For me, what that meant is as a child, especially as I chose to become more academically conscious, I would lock myself in my bedroom. I am so lucky compared to many folks with ADHD that I was internally very driven so my parents had no idea I had ADHD. I did find a book one day and I asked my parents "Is this for me?" And they go "No it's about your brother." Okay. But I would lock myself in my room for hours and what I do is I'd read a book but in order to be able to follow the book I'd have to highlight. And then you'd look and 90% of the page was highlighted. So then I take notes on those highlights but have dozens of pages of notes. At which point I had to highlight those notes and write a second set of notes and that's how I learned. So for things that I presume might have taken one of my classmates 30 minutes to learn was probably a 4- or 5-hour process for me. But again, incredibly lucky because nobody had to be on my back. The thing is all of that taught me how to be persistent. All of that taught me how to trust in this idea that if I put my mind to it I could unlock certain things. However the reality is the result was still mediocre grades, just barely good enough. So the downside of this and where in hindsight I think it has helped me as an adult but it won't feel like it, is I spent a lot of time feeling very dumb and wondering what, why, why? Okay I could, I could get a PhD. I could unlock certain things but why for everybody else it seems so simple and for me it was so hard? And I could not appreciate my own intelligence or my own ability because I had to work to make it happen. 

JULIE: Your highlighting of books and taking notes, 100% that was me as well. And getting frustrated rereading over and over again the same paragraph because I'd forgotten already. And I could understand the words, that wasn't a problem. But it was just it wasn't quite settling in as I thought it should. So yeah, I was also too quite happy not to share that challenge with family members, to tuck myself away in a room and quietly read or the best that I possibly could. But your career path has been wonderful. I mean you've spent 17 years as a clinical psychologist. How did your neurodivergent traits shape that work and what ultimately led you to creating Noteworthy? 

ALESSANDRA: I'm trying to answer to figure out the question of how it led me to it. I think if you meet anybody who starts as a psychologist they have, we all have, our own sob stories, right? We all have. Whether it's ourselves, or a family member, or a friend. Somebody we're trying to fix. In hindsight I started off as a child psychologist. I eventually moved into adult therapy. But there was something incredible. First of all, at not feeling so dumb, right. So still feeling dumb because I had to work so hard but being able to unlock certain things like a degree or anything that proved to me that maybe I wasn't as unexceptional as I thought I was. But then being able to work with children in this space, being able to do the testing that's... it's only once I started diagnosing other people that I understood it. And it really shaped certain things. my conversations with those children often, and mostly boys, although that's I think just because it's when you see impulsivity and hyperactivity, which I had I had both of those, but they just called me a tomboy, right. That was the... that was the word. It's easier to spot. But my ability to be patient and kind but also to be tough in certain ways to tell them this isn't an excuse. This isn't your get out of jail free card. This is me telling you that yeah, you have this therefore you will have to work harder because you are capable and you deserve to unlock those. So that really shaped the way I push things. One of the best gifts neurodivergence gave me is this. One of my top abilities is the ability to listen to what somebody says and from the jumble of words and stories to pull out themes and threads. In my house I like to say I'm a gestalt person. My husband can listen to a movie. My sons can do this, can listen to songs or a movie and they can quote word for word. They can remember dates from battles and I have a youngest son who's a World War II, and now a Formula 1, and then you know an armament buff. And he "That's a 15 mill gauge." What? I can't do that for… I cannot. I mean I'll meet you and 30 seconds later I won't remember your name. But I will have, and this is the skill that comes from having ADHD, I will have the uncanny ability to hear you say something and say "You know what that's like?" and give you the simplest comparison that will allow you to put two ideas together that seemed so far apart before. And because I teach a lot of communication, and building recognition, and explaining complex concepts to other people, showing them how you can simplify everything and still make it powerful. I don't think I'd be able to do that without, if I hadn't honed that skill from, having ADHD. 

JULIE: I think that's marvellous and being able to join the dots for your clients. It can be quite a frustrating and bewildering time when you're trying to make sense of it all when you've lived with ADHD undiagnosed for most of it and trying to make it make sense. Having someone to simplify it would just be marvellous. And I think we're getting better. I think with information out there now, and the amount of resources available and support, it's no longer battling ADHD alone. Now I'm really pleased how things are progressing there. 

ALESSANDRA: I have to say I really do sell it to my clients. Like whereas this was this thing that as a child I think I would have been very... I would have wanted to hide the neurodivergence. I just wanted to be like everybody else. As an adult I'll literally say, you know "I have ADD." It's not like it was when I was a child. I can read and retain things. I read one book a few years ago it's called Trespassing on Einstein's Lawn. It talks about quantum physics. I have to say that was a book as I was reading it, I had the memory of that experience because I'd read these sentences and like all of these words make sense. But we're talking about string theory and my brain isn't putting like... I can't. That connecting thread, all puns intended, with string theory, I just couldn't put together. But as a whole now I sell it to my clients as an advantage in two places. One is this thing where they say "I'm not sure how to make..." and I'm like you don't need to worry. I'm really good at this. I'm like "You'll talk. I'll listen. I'll translate for you and you'll see it'll all make sense." But the other thing is a growth mindset. You know the... I talk about... I wonder if you have this about having a starburst mind? So if somebody gives me a single idea instead of my mind going linearly or even in roundabouts, it's starburst in like 5, 6,15, 20 different spaces at once. [Yes.] The downside with the neurodivergence is you have to slow down your mind and figure out which ones are relevant, how to prioritize, you know. What, when, how. But in my mind there's always possibility and it's not blind optimism. It's seeing things that other people don't necessarily see because their mind is functioning in a single or maybe, maybe on a triple track. 

JULIE: You would have had some highs and lows and setbacks along your career journey. Are you able to share any of those with us today? 

ALESSANDRA: Always. I'm completely transparent. Based on the neurodivergence I mean let's just start with feeling really really dumb. I mean that when we talk to adults who have grown up with neurodivergence, and especially if it isn't something that they understood or that was properly explained to them. I had to do a lot of therapy to get over feeling not good enough. And with that 'not good enough' it's just going to sound like I'm contradicting myself from what I just said, but when it comes to others, I was I've always been excellent at seeing possibility. But the pain of these things, when it came to me, was not seeing possibility and just feeling so stuck. And you have this built-in excuse for why you're going to fail, right? Because it takes so much more time. Because it's so much harder. Because that was hard. That was a big piece that is directly tied to this. The other one I'll say, I mean this isn't a huge hardship, but it comes up more and more. I move too fast and I make mistakes that really undermine my authority and undermine being able to show up in a certain way. There's a lot of work that needs to be done to build trust and create a foundation where people understand what you can do. Because an email is going to get sent out with like typos. And I can read something 15 times and there will still be typos. Or like sometimes I'll put my foot in my mouth. But I've branded that. I now, I've branded the impulsivity. Instead of fighting against it, instead of trying to make myself somebody who complies by everybody else's rules I've basically put out in the world that I am the kind of person who will tell you things that other people won't tell you. And I will be not brutally but generously candid and open and honest with people. Sometimes that means that I put my foot in my mouth. My wording is off. My timing is off. But it's always in service of that idea of, and I don't like the word anymore but 'authenticity', and truth. And I tell people very often "Here's the truth." Like I couldn't help it if I wanted to, right? It just is. There's that inner adolescent and she just blurts stuff out. But there's a way, I mean this stuff got me in trouble in the past and there's a way of building it where as an adult, it's a differentiator, like a positive one. 

JULIE: Do you have a name for it? [I don't. I would like a name for... Do you have a name for it?] No, but I think it should be created. I like the idea of your starburst, your starburst of ideas. Yes. I'd put a name to it. It sounds wonderfully honest but it's done with love and you know, it's not done out of nastiness or full of criticism. It's just telling it like it is, isn't it. And sometimes it's hard to hear but sometimes it's the best thing to hear, that it's not being sugar-coated. We know where we're at with honesty. 

ALESSANDRA: I agree. I completely agree. And I, you know, I've met so many, especially since the term neurodivergence has come out right, I meet so many more neurodivergent people. I meet a lot who still wear it like it's a special ed label, right? And to help them realize there are these things you do you take for granted. You don't even realize how exceptional they are. You see in images. I see in images all the time. So that's one of the ways in which I connect the dots. Where somebody will say I'm like "Oh you know what that reminds me of? Have you ever seen this movie This. It's the same theme." Or it's like you're talking and I have this image of X Y and Z, right? Temple Grandin used to talk about seeing, seeing in images. She was on the autism spectrum. She is, she's still around. I don't need to talk about her in the past tense. Being able to understand how the things that you think hold you back also have like this light side to them, actually this really gilded side, that that has value. It's hard but it's so important. 

JULIE: Can you talk to me about Noteworthy please? 

ALESSANDRA: Yes. So Noteworthy is an offshoot of... let me go back a second. I operated as a psychologist. I absolutely loved, loved my career as a psychologist for many years. And maybe who knows maybe this is because of the ADHD and the need to constantly being challenged. And it's like a video game I needed to get to the next level. There came a point where it was not fun anymore and what we know, with ADHD at least, is if you can interest the person they can be single-mindedly focused and driven. But if you bore them, they're lost. It's not that I was bored. It's just that it wasn't fun anymore. But there were certain skills that were, there were certain practices, there were certain engagements. So I took all of that and I refocused it into a different career, an adjacent career, executive coaching. But one where I get to work at much faster and higher levels with people instead of just trying to pull people out of maybe the depths of depression or massive anxiety. It's not that the clients I work with don't experience depression or anxiety but they're all trying to level up. They're higher conversations. Sometimes with the kind of women who in the past I would have said "I don't belong in this room. They're so smart. They're so accomplished. They can remember all the lines and the numbers and the dates. And they talk in words and it's all initials, and I have no idea what they're saying." But I'm in a place where I feel very at home and I get to work with these exceptional women, many who don't have any of this neurodivergence. They're brilliant and still doubt themselves which is always interesting to me. Many who don't doubt themselves but are reaching for bigger things. And these skills that come out of ADHD and the neurodivergence, the willingness to have hard conversations, to say the things people don't say, the ability to connect the dots for them. They're working in spaces I don't. Finance, and technology, and biotech, and healthcare. And the ability to see things from a different perspective and connect the dots even though I don't have the technical knowledge. The willingness to explore possibilities with them. So all these things that came out of being or having ADHD they make me really good at what I do and they make what I do fun. I mean that's the other piece, right? Once when you stop fighting against who you are and you just move into that space you're like "This is who I am so this is how I'm going to operate." It's so much better. And I bring that in with my clients, right. This is one of the things I teach them. I'm like you can continue trying to condense yourself to fit what other people think it means to be ladylike or what other people think it means to be successful. Or you can own who you are and teach other people how that fits within a larger definition of success and fulfilment and power. And ladylike is my recent newest thing because my mom used to tell me to remember to behave like a lady. I'm like, can we redefine what it means to be ladylike please? 

JULIE: So we're talking about managers and those in leadership positions. 'Being a boss without being bossy' and 'visibility without guilt or backlash'. And I think both of those ideas are massive. And with executives with ADHD, we're battling with imposter syndrome or the fear of ourselves being too much, or too noisy, or too energetic or whatever it may be. To be authoritative and authentic whilst battling our own inner challenges. 

ALESSANDRA: Okay so I will say this.  When I started Noteworthy, I started with women who were climbing up the ladder. At this point in time I'm working with women who are at the top for the most part, or very near the top. And if you're listening to this and you're not there, and you're wondering how do you get there, I will say there are two categories of women at the top. One are the category of women who get to the top and feel so threatened and so, so kind of diminished by the experience of getting to the top that once they get there, they guard the top. They can't function fully. It's not on their terms, it's whatever. They're just trying to... they're like a dragon. They're just trying to guard the mountain, right. The other are the women who unfortunately many have still made a lot of those same sacrifices so they have made themselves small or constricted themselves to fit certain spaces as I get into my square here. But they've also retained part of who they are which means they're status quo breakers. Not just because they're one of 10% of women in their positions but because they've reached that place while retaining part of who they are. Those women, the battles were tougher. I would say the journey was probably harder. It might have taken them a little bit longer. Once they get up there though they're so much more effective. They tend to be much happier and if they're not happier they're quicker to get out or to change the systems that are shaping them. So if you're thinking "I'm somebody who blurts out all the time. I have a thousand ideas. I don't know which one's right.  I meet somebody and I can't remember their names. I'm supposed to be looking at all these data sheets but when I'm asked to speak in a meeting like I look at the numbers and they don't make sense." You have two options. You can be like the first group of women and you can try to pretend, and you can try to contort, and you can work seven times as hard as everybody else. And do the whole reading 15 times note taking process to your exhaustion. And when you finally unlock these spaces you will have the imposter syndrome because you don't believe, just the way I did in my 20s, that you belong in those spaces. Or you can get really comfortable understanding who you are. I talk with my clients all the time about the dark side, the shadow side of their talents. "I didn't get that on my own. I got it from one of my coaches who got it from somebody else he read. It's not..." So I'll talk about the, you know, the dark side of being the most intelligent woman in the room. The dark side of giving a damn. The dark side of being somebody who can see possibility. There are dark sides to all positive qualities. You and I, we've talked about the light side, right. It's supposed to be such a terrible thing to have flight of ideas, to have this impulsive mind, but there's a really positive side. The ability to see opportunity. It's supposed to be so dark and so inconvenient to not be able to remember details but I see the forest all the time. And strangely enough, and you probably do too, I remember specific trees. I just don't remember all the trees. And I remember the trees and can describe them in such perfect detail that it surprises even me sometimes. So if you know what makes you you, one of the things I talk about, is what I said earlier I did for myself, I do for my clients, brand it. If somebody says "Well you jump in all the time." You can say "You know the behaviour is one I'm trying to correct, absolutely. I don't want to be someone who interrupts all the time. And, not but otherwise I put a strike through that sentence, and the reality is because when you speak I have a thousand ideas. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to, when we're in meetings, I'm always going to be taking notes. I want you to know I'm listening to you. I'm just writing down my ideas so I don't interrupt you. If I do happen to get a little excited on something you say and I interrupt you, please call me out on it." So I start creating an engagement. Now it's not just that I'm being that I'm not paying attention, that I want to hear myself talk, that I interrupt all the time, it's that I'm coming up with ideas. I'm being creative. I've invited you to be part of the solution to me developing a behaviour where I... there's checks and balances on how that comes out. And I've also given you, given myself, room to bring in a system like writing notes that really works for me without me feeling bad. That what are they going to think? Everybody else is just listening and I have to take notes. That, when we can create conversations around who we are and why it's okay to be who we are, we can create that visibility. When we're not just looking at the dark sides but we're looking at the light sides. Or when we're not just looking at the light sides of other people's qualities but we're looking at the dark sides. We open things up. To me that is really really big. If you know you're not good at something, don't do it. That's another conversation around visibility that I have with my clients. Women tend to raise their hands for all the things they know they can do. And because we're good at a lot of things we learn to raise our hands even for stuff we hate doing. If I were teaching this in a room of people, I would ask the room "How many of you have built a brand or built a reputation around tasks or skills that you hate putting into play, and people come to you again and again and again to do that work, right?" And it would be a ton. Do you have that by the way? What's one for you? 

JULIE: I just... my mind's gone to a situation where I needed to do a... one of those personality questionnaire things and I got stuck at the very first question because it... I think it was a Myers Briggs thing, because it was "Do I answer this as me at work or do I answer this as me at home?" Because me at home everything, creativity, you know spills, from my pores. At work it wasn't a creative environment. At work I was looking at data sheets. I was good at it because I was quite meticulous because I knew that if I wasn't, I'd overlook something and you know, so trial and error. But at work I was doing things that I did not enjoy but I was good at. So it was very difficult how to do this questionnaire because I was almost a split personality in so far as, if you only saw me at home you'd know that you know it's not the person you see at work. It's tricky to be authentic when you're trying hard to fit in. And I think the other thing I wanted to ask you about was this feeling of being invisible when, and I know that I did experience it in corporate life when I was tied to the office. I was so busy conforming and fitting in, trying not to stand out, that I felt that all the brilliant work and the hard work I was doing was almost... well it was going unseen. And that was kind of an imploding feeling that I was just a pencil pusher, you know. I was just literally sitting on a seat filling in my time and I wasn't really providing all of the energy and ideas and ability that I would have loved to contribute. I felt yeah quite restrained. So that feeling of being invisible. How do you turn that into being someone unforgettable? 

ALESSANDRA: The mistake you were making, the mistake so many people make, is the belief that hard work alone is enough and that hard work speaks for itself. So I know earlier I mentioned having ADHD really helped me be become persistent and I literally kept myself from saying "from learning the lesson that if you just work hard enough you can do whatever you want" because that's not true. So if you're listening to this right now, I'm so sorry. A does not lead to B. More A does not lead to more B. So hard work, getting the right degrees, getting the education you need, will get you up to a certain point in your life and in your career. And then there's this massive jump. If you're in leadership, I would say past management into those first and definitely when you're in high level leadership, where everybody else is working hard too. And the people who aren't, well they're the exception to the rule. Or they're just hiding how hard they're working. And everybody else is more or less as educated as you are, and more or less as experienced as you are, and more or less driving similar results. And the difference between those who get ahead and those who stay stuck in their careers are a whole set of, I hate the word but 'soft skills' that have nothing to do with soft skills. They actually have everything to do with how humans have evolved to be. So with the way the human brain has evolved to be. So women especially, we're taught since we're very little, since we're little girls, to be very humble, to not be full of ourselves, to not broadcast who we are. I referenced my mom before but literally I'd walk out of the house and she'd say "Alessandra, remember behave like a lady." She never told my brother Christopher to behave like a gentleman. She thinks she does but Christopher is on my side on this one. He says she never asked him. So we grow up into women and we work very hard and women are still in a place where in many industries we have to work two to three times as hard just to be noticed. Not just by men but by women too. Women tend to discount other women. And so we learn. I put my nose to the ground, say "I'm going to work really, really hard. First of all, I need that much just to get where I am. But then we haven't been taught to talk about how good we are and what we can unlock with that skill set. We haven't been taught to sell. And what I mean by selling is we haven't been taught how to position our impact in terms that actually mean something to the person you're talking to. Maybe that's something else that having ADHD helped me with, right. How to be compelling to somebody whose brain just doesn't want to focus on you and because of that, you were... exactly what you're talking about happens. We do all this work and we're just waiting for somebody to notice it. And then we're waiting for that person to connect the dots. So not only to notice what we're doing, but to notice what we're able to unlock with that. And then to really notice and know what we would want to achieve next step in our career and what pace and what way we want to get there and make it happen for us. It's terrible when you say it like that but in our mind we're being humble. So what I tell women, what I've had to teach myself, what I had to, what I teach my clients all the time even my C-suite clients just in case, is that it is absolutely essential. Not only essential but it is kind to walk into a room and with a lot of clarity communicate what you're good at. And with all humility communicate how you've been able to unlock incredible wins, how you might be a top performer, what deals you've been able to make happen. In our businesses, how effective you are with your clients and creating transformations because that helps the people you're talking to be very clear about whether or not you're the right person to help them solve the problems they have and where to find you. Like that is... that is a skill. And if we don't do it, and it doesn't matter whether you are selling apples in a corner store, being/doing janitorial services somewhere, or running a 10,000 person company, if you are not sharing that information then you're asking everybody else to be focused on you. How can brilliant women with ADHD who struggle to talk about their value, how do you break that humble bubble? Okay so here's the truth of all changes. In the beginning you act despite. I'm not asking you to fake it. Don't even pretend that it's not excruciatingly uncomfortable. We can all own that it's those things, but acting despite means recognizing the difference between how I feel and the truth. And the truth is recognition, is the number one factor associated with advancement for women. And the truth is, if I'm not saying it... this is where this is a mindset shift, I want people. I think it's humble for me to not speak up but the truth is, what I'm saying is "I'm so important and interesting everybody should be focused on what I'm doing and taking note." There's no humility in that second attitude, right. The humility comes in saying "Oh of course they don't know about me. My manager manages 15 other people. My employees they have their own stuff. They have no idea how I contribute to making this company work. It's my job." So that's the reframe, to remove the guilt and the discomfort. Remind yourself this is not bragging. It is me educating. It's not boastful. It's absolutely helpful. And then the idea is to find opportunities. So here's a simple opportunity. Somebody comes up to you and says "Julie I have this project that I need some help on. I'd like you to come on board." And let's say it's a project you in your mind you're like "Dear Lord I don't want to do this. I hate that work. I cannot think of anything that would be more mind-numbing than doing that. I can do it in my sleep." You can decline an opportunity and broadcast your value. So you might come back and say "Alessandra, I really appreciate you thinking of me for this project. I want to be really candid with you. Although I could totally do it and I know I've done it before in these cases, it's probably not the best use of my skill set. Where I could really add value for you, for this team, for the organization, for the project, for the client, is you know one thing I love doing that I think is really fun is..." and I describe what that is. "Part of the reason I love this kind of work is because it allows me to use the following skills. Those skills are things I not only enjoy, I'm really good at them. Actually three months ago I worked on a project with Bob and it was this exact same kind of... and we were able to unlock blah blah blah blah. So if you absolutely have nobody else and it's urgent, I'm happy to help. But the reality is you... I'm much better positioned to do this other thing. But I know Rose. Rose loves this kind of work. If Rose has the bandwidth to do this, she might be the person we need to connect you with." So I just declined work. I know it was long-winded but in declining work, I highlighted first of all I owned what's right for me. I highlighted that that was not work that makes my heart sing, so I don't get myself known to do work that makes me miserable then you disengage. Two, I communicated to the person what my highest value was. I tied it to specific skills. I gave examples of how I've been able to use those skills to unlock wins. And if you're lucky enough to know people in your space, I try to meet a lot of other coaches. If you get to know your colleagues, your peers, you can even sponsor somebody else by putting their name in and highlighting how good they are. I would just say if you do that please please please please please use the language "if they have the bandwidth" because you might just be dumping on them. It might be work that they love but they don't have the bandwidth to take. So if you introduce that, at least maybe the other person will think. The same thing can be done when somebody offers you work that you do want to do. "Bob, thank you so much for thinking of me. I actually love this kind of project. Part of the reason I love this kind of project is it allows me to do X Y and Z and those are things that are not just fun for me, they're things I'm really good at. Actually last month I..." Same thing. Yes.  Here's a... I'll just give two more so that your listeners have them, and I have a handout with this if ever you want it. But there's an article somewhere on LinkedIn can, share either of those. When somebody compliments you Julie, how good are you at accepting compliments? [Terribly.] Okay think of a compliment as a gift. Imagine if somebody handed you a gift and you took the gift and you just kind of put it behind your back and you walked away, right. Or worse, what if somebody handed you a gift and you just batted it out of their hand. When somebody compliments you and you dismiss the compliment, it is the equivalent of batting the gift out of the hand. When somebody compliments you and you minimize it "Oh it's nothing." That's like taking the gift and kind of walking away with it behind your back. Somebody has just taken the time to give you a gift. They've seen you. They've acknowledged you. And not only have they done it privately, they're doing it publicly. Those are great opportunities to build your visibility. "Julie, I really appreciate you taking a minute to let me know that. It's so nice. And I have to say, part of the reason we were able to be so successful, part of the reason Marge spoke to you, I'm hoping that part of the reason Marge spoke to you and let you know how instrumental I was on this project is because this is work I really love doing. It allows me to do X Y and Z which allows me to use these skills, and those are things that are interesting and exciting to me but they're also things I'm very good at." And notice I didn't say "I'm kind of good at." I didn't leave it at "I like." I'm letting the person know how good. What's my level of expertise? Is this an emerging skill? I would like more work but I'm still learning? Or am I an expert. I would like more work. This makes my heart sing. It's part of my passion. 

JULIE: You're giving some amazing doorways to be able to... another word for "sing your own praises" but I want to put that in a more... [Articulate. I say articulating your value. It's just about articulating your value.] Thank you. Yeah. I think it's marvellous and all of these opportunities that you speak about, they're there. We just need to make it happen, as in have that conversation. Yeah, the doors open to that kind of communication which is great. And I think, what I certainly hope listeners will take that away with them, that they are able to in in general conversation, share their value and own it. We had one more I think you were going to... 

ALESSANDRA: Oh I was going to say, I think... I know, I don't think excuse me. I know one huge missed opportunity is when you're asked to introduce yourself. Do you ever join a new meeting or join a new call and everybody gets 30 seconds to introduce themselves? And you're like "Hi, I'm Dr Alessandra Wall and the CEO and founder of Noteworthy. And I'm an executive coach," and it's so boring like it's the world's most boring introduction. There are contexts where you need to present because you're in a big corporate room and people are trying to figure out why you're in the room. You do need to provide your title and your department. But these are also great opportunities to share something about yourself. And, when you do that and people aren't expecting it, your brain produces dopamine. For those of us with ADHD dopamine is the thing that gets you into those places that are really interesting, right. It's a neurotransmitter that's associated with reward but also memory. We remember things that produce dopamine better. So if you say "I'm..." so you know "Hi, I'm Alessandra Wall. Part of the reason I'm in this room right now is I'm the founder of Noteworthy. So I'm here to learn more about you know, how the women in your company are operating and how we can support them. Part of the reason I love this work is I'm somebody who genuinely enjoys being part of difficult conversations. And I know there are a lot of difficult conversations around this topic and I navigate those fairly well. And I'm really good at helping other people have critical conversations. So I can't wait for us to talk about what kind of critical conversations are happening." Right, and I mean that's it's long- winded because it's off the cuff, but the idea is share your excitement about why you're in the room. Share who, why you're interested to hear people. "I'm really interested to hear Bob talk about what his department is doing. One of the things I get to work on in this company is Y, and I know Y ties really closely. It's something I'm passionate about and it's some of the work that, for me, I do the best and enjoy the most." There, I've just shared my value but I've really been talking about what Bob does. 

JULIE: No, I see it. Great, marvellous. Please talk to me about the gilded cage. Tell me all about that. 

ALESSANDRA: Gilded cage is what I like to talk, as how I like to refer, to leading from the top. I'm sure as a man as well, but I'm going to talk about women for a while. When we're little girls, whatever it is we decide we want to become, whether we want to own our own flower shop, or become a teacher, or run a huge tech company, or be an astronaut, whatever it is. Or work on an oil rig. I want to throw some non-typical jobs out there. There is this story we're told about how once you reach the top, you will unlock all this freedom, all this power, all... And with power for women, this idea of this ability to create impact and influence the world. So we work really hard to get all the way to the top and we get there and we realize there's no freedom. It really is still a cage. That we're working harder, a lot of times than many of our counterparts. Although we're probably very well paid, we're probably still not as well paid as some of the men. We have more responsibility. We have not, for those of us who have families and I don't just mean children. I can mean pets. I can mean parents. We still have families where we still operate as primary caretakers. We are in a space where we have often a seat at the table but not a voice. We have the title but not the authority that comes with it. And to me, that's a gilded cage. Like "Oh it's all gold and I've got the corner office. And what am I supposed to do with this corner office because I'm really tired. I still have to repeat myself 50 times for the men in the room to listen to me. I wanted to come in and change this part of this industry but I'm only told I'm allowed to do this. And it's not all the things I thought it could be. To me, that is the gilded cage. And my mission, among other things, is to make sure that when women get all the way to the top... I think of your premiere a lot when women get to the top, or your former premier I should say. When women get to the top that they look around and don't say "It's too much. It's just not worth it." Right? That we know how to deal with a lot when it's worth it. It's when it's not worth it that we say "It's too much," and that's when we step away. And my job is to make sure that we don't have that incredible woman, who worked very hard to rise to the top, get there and in a very short period of time go "It's just, it's too much. Like, I can't handle it." Because when you watch women operate in the real world, I don't know a lot of women who face the incredible responsibilities and say it's too much, right. Most of us just take it. We take going to work, coming home, managing our households, driving people around, taking care of our parents, taking care of the dog's appointments, and the cat's appointments, cleaning the house, making sure the meals are ready, wondering you know, who's going to do the roofing 3 months from now, while still going to work and making sure that... like it it's not really too much. It's that it's not worth it once we get up there. 

JULIE: Which is a good point. My next question is going to be about managing stress and burnout. Perhaps hesitant saying "no" because that may appear that we're being weak, or can't take on the capacity, and that yeah we're lesser versions of ourselves. So I think saying yes and being people-pleasers is kind of an ADHD thing at times. What advice would you give those executives with ADHD really struggling to manage the stress and the burnout that comes with executive roles? 

ALESSANDRA: I promise I'm not saying this because I'm a coach, but find somebody you can work with. For me it would be a coach. I've worked with a coach since I was, since 2017. I can't believe I didn't work with a coach before then. Working with a coach allowed me to figure out what my priorities were. It allowed me to stay on task. I had a thought partner to help me identify what was the most important thing I needed to do, to help me articulate what my number one goal or prerogative or objective was, and to not lose track of it when a thousand first demands but also a thousand shiny objects entered my purview, right. It's not just the obligations. It's sometimes people are like "Oh there's this project you could work on. Oh there's this thing coming on. Oh you can help somebody you care about. Oh there's this job." And you're like "Oh yes yes yes yes yes yes yes." We get so passionate and then we exhaust ourselves, even in doing things that might... that aren't necessarily chore-like. When you have an outsider who forces you to create clarity around what's really important to you and acts as an accountability partner, not like a parent or a teacher who's staying on your back, but who you know is there and is going to ask you "How are you doing? What's it like to be you today? I'm watching you. I know all of the things you're working on are fun and I know this opportunity that just came up is really really fun, but what's going to happen?" Like not to tell you what to do but to ask you the right questions. That's  what we need and we can't expect ourselves to do that for... I cannot do that for myself. I'll tell you right now. I have this great, this is a whiteboard right here, and I have this word that says "what's the most important thing I can do today that will make tomorrow better?" That is my guiding principle on a daily basis. But I have all these other systems and if for any reason, let's say you're the executive of a very very very small firm and you don't think you have the fees or the funds to hire somebody, first of all you do. There's somebody out there who works within your price point. Let's just start there. Second of all, if not a coach, find a mastermind community. Find other peers who are not going to be there to say nice things to you but are going to be there to be true partners in your success, but then you have to show up as partners for them too. The very very short of it and the reason I went through this other piece is because I think it's very hard to do the very very short of it without help and support, is you need to be able to identify what right for you looks like. And what not just your priorities based on importance and urgency but priorities based on value trajectory, long and short-term demands, and aspirations are. I've done that work for myself. I've done it for hundreds of clients. It's possible on your own. It's just really hard. And things that are hard when we have ADHD, we'd rather do taxes than doing them. We'd rather do laundry than doing them. We'd rather do whatever we hate doing rather than doing this other thing that not only is hard but triggers some form of mild or massive anxiety. 

JULIE: Yes. Procrastination and anxiety can lead to delay in so many decisions that could actually be really helpful to us. Isn't it strange. Yeah yeah. You teach your leaders about mastering the pause. [Yes, I do.] And can you explain about how one goes about that, and the wonderful outcomes about mastering the pause? 

ALESSANDRA: I use the terminology 'mastering the pause' to cover many things from literally taking pauses in your day to creating moments for reflection, to pausing in conversation. So for those of us who are a little impulsive with what we say, if you think of approaching the way you speak like strolling instead of walking from point A to point B, and you slow down in your speech, you create time to think but this actually is the version of... this is executive presence and communication, to slow down, to create pauses, people have to follow you. And your ideas will slow down. But the context you're really talking about is Julie, if I asked you to go sit for 10 minutes outside on your back stoop, front stoop, wherever is comfortable and to just I don't know daydream, or stare in space, how do you feel about that?

JULIE: I would be a little bit nervous. I love being outside, love being outside. I can completely... I love nature. And I'd probably be distracted and go and pick some weeds, or to get the last of the sun-ripened tomatoes that are just finishing off their season here. I would see opportunity outside in a thousand ways. So sitting for 10 minutes would concern me. 

ALESSANDRA: So you are not alone. And by the way you don't need to have be neurodivergent or have ADHD for that to be the case. I worked for a long time as a clinical psychologist with people with anxiety, but even regular people who don't have all those things, whatever regular actually means, people really struggle with slowing down. The problem is your brain, is your brain is like your laptop. You've ever been on your laptop and it's functioning just fine, and the battery starts to die. And then suddenly the fan on your laptop kicks in and the laptop starts heating up. And then suddenly everything like all your applications start moving slower and slower and slower. Our brain is very very similar to a laptop. So all day long we're processing information. There's data. There are 25-70 tabs that are open at once in our brain, all kind of process information in the background, and try to ping us and send us notifications. And on the one hand our brain loves that because novel information gives us dopamine. It's why we're willing to scroll and scroll and scroll until we find that perfect bathing suit. And then when we find it we're like just hold on a second because there might be another perfect bathing suit. It's... we're waiting for that dopamine hit. So unfortunately, our brain is designed to want to constantly be stimulated. But for millennia there were vast periods of time where we couldn't be. Let's just say, when the sun set, in wintertime in harsher climates, in summertime in harsher climates, where you couldn't go outside. You couldn't. You just needed to be put. We've lost that ability but our brain has not changed since we've lost that ability. So what I discovered when I was still operating as a therapist, had two... my kids at the time were under five or six, both of them. I was... we had a Cross Fit gym which was a side hustle and we had, I was building the first version of my coaching businesses, I couldn't shut my brain down. And not just in that ADHD fashion like I couldn't, I couldn't sit down for five minutes. I felt guilty. I felt bored. I felt anxious. I tried lots of different kinds of meditation. I was okay with having the monkey brain go but meditation just annoyed me. But I knew biologically the brain needs to slow. This isn't healthy. If sitting, 10 minutes is a long time, but even two or three minutes will make most people feel really anxious. If that's your response to sitting down, that's your clue that you need it. So the pause is about learning to recondition your brain to sit down, and not clear your mind of thoughts. It's not about not having any thoughts or it's not about mindfulness, meditation just to sit and stare into space. Maybe you'll think about your grocery shopping list. Maybe you'll look at your weeds. That's what I do in my garden and I'm like "Oh I need to do this project and that project and that project. And what if this and..." But eventually if you sit and you get through the anxiety your brain goes 'ahhh' and you can feel the release. And in that release where the brain goes out of this like "Let me, I am processing all the open tabs" to "Let me close tabs. Close. Close. Close. Close," your mind doesn't go blank. Your mind goes in and it starts noticing. "Oh my neck's really tight. This necklace is heavier than I though. On my right here, I can feel the beginning of a headache. It's from smiling, that's what it is. It's from smiling so much. And then go, but is it just from smiling or is there anything else going on? Oh this thing has really been bothering me." And in creating those pauses we can start thinking more deeply about how we're doing, what's stressing us, what we're feeling. Since I work with leaders I say this is part of critical thinking. If you don't have the time to slow down, you can't catch for example when you're having a terrible horrible no good very bad day, and now you're going to operate in a space where you're going to make poor leadership decisions. And that doesn't just affect you. It affects all the people who are counting on you to make good leadership decisions. From the people on your team, to the people three teams below, to clients, to... What we found, what I found, because I've been doing this practice now... my kids are well 10 years, I've been doing this practice for 10 years, they're 16 and 13 now, is you can start with two minutes at a time. Like when you're heating your tea or your coffee, or when you go to the bathroom, if you could just leave your phone behind when you go to the bathroom. Eventually first you'll feel nervous then you'll hit... you'll have this moment where you're like "Oh this feels good." And then the second you realize you've hit it you're like "Okay I'm good so I can go back to doing that thing I was going to do, wash the dishes, take care of this, make the appointment, write that post, edit the podcast." But if you're willing to sit through that second moment of tension, this is a five... this happens in a five-minute period so the second minute of tension usually hits around minute three. Then you get to this point where you're like "ahhh" and as you release your brain starts to realize all these things. It decreases your stress. It decreases your anxiety. Because you have time to think, it gives you opportunities to start problem solving around the stressors in your life. You'll feel more rested, less irritable, less tired, you fall asleep better. It's not a magic bullet but it's pretty close to it. 

JULIE: Wow. I'll definitely be practicing that when I boil a jug for my cup of tea. 

ALESSANDRA: I think I sent you... and one of the things I sent you there's a link to a 7-day challenge. It's 2 minutes at a time. So every day you get an email and every day there's we add two minutes but I give context. I'm like, try thinking about this way, this way. It's just two minutes. Two minutes is... so the way I started because I'm actually grew up in France of Italian origin, is I'd say okay. I put the little one down for his afternoon nap and instead of immediately running into... these are days where I wasn't practicing as a therapist, instead of immediately running into my home office to build my business, I brew a cup of espresso and I would sit outside. It's the advantage of living in Southern California. Sit outside on my back porch and I would just I say "Just drink your coffee. That's it. It's just an espresso. It's not a huge cup of coffee. And just two minutes to drink the cup of coffee. And after those two minutes you can get back into work." But there was always more clarity. There's a better sense of coming into work and going "Okay now that I'm not rushing from point A to point B, what is it that I want to work on? What's most important right now?" As somebody with ADD I might be like "Oh I completely forgot. Three days ago I was supposed to send this email to this person and because I didn't write it down. Oh I'll write," and start better practices. 

JULIE: The power of the pause.  I think that's marvellous. You've, we've chatted about some really, really interesting things today, Alessandra, so thank you. Your links, the link that you mentioned to the 7-day challenge, I will put them as well as all of the other links that people can contact you, I'll put them in the show notes so listeners will be able to find you and learn more about you and what you do. It's been such a fascinating chat and I really appreciate you taking the time to share your life experience and also your expertise in this area with me and our listeners. 

ALESSANDRA: Thank you for giving me a chance to connect the dots and in many ways to take my afternoon pause, right. A nice pause in my day before I wrap it up with the final touches. I really... it was lovely and I really appreciate this.