S2E36: Untangling The Story - ADHD Behind Closed Doors + guest Kayla Oughton

Julie Legg speaks with Kayla Oughton — a Napier-based AuDHD coach and neurodivergent advocate with an eclectic background in construction project management, health coaching, suicide prevention, and digital marketing.

Kayla shares her journey from burnout in a male-dominated construction industry to becoming a voice for ADHDers and autistic women navigating late diagnosis, shame, and self-trust. She talks about the importance of understanding rejection sensitivity, embracing neurodivergent strengths, and leaning into the body’s signals.

This conversation cuts through the fluff and dives deep into what it really looks like to rebuild your life after diagnosis, and long before it. From beast days to slug days, Kayla reminds us all that we are not broken.

Key Points in the Episode:

• How a therapist’s question sparked Kayla’s ADHD diagnosis at 35
• Life inside the chaotic, undiagnosed world of construction project management
• The link between rejection sensitivity and suicidal ideation
• Why shame often hides behind the productivity mask in women
• How understanding ADHD can reframe your entire life story
• The overlap (and contradiction) between ADHD and autism traits
• Why rest, nervous system awareness, and body cues are vital tools
• The reality of success amnesia and the power of small wins
• Kayla's words to those still feeling broken or “too much”

Links:

LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kayla-oughton/

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/adhdcoachkayla

WEBSITE: https://dopamineandco.com/services 

MATES4LIFE: https://mates4life.org.nz/ 

Thanks for listening. 

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 🌐 WEBSITE: ADHDifference.nz  

 📷 INSTAGRAM: ADHDifference_podcast 

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

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

Transcript

KAYLA: I think when you can lean into those strengths, and lean into the right environments, and working out what those environments are, because not every environment is a supportive one, you start to feel so much more freer and so much more just like weight off your shoulders. You know, like you can finally breathe and you can finally just be unapologetically you. And it's the best feeling in the world.

JULIE: Welcome to Season 2 of ADHDifference. I'm your host, Julie Legg, ADHD advocate, author of The Missing Piece (a woman's guide to understanding, diagnosing, and living with ADHD), and an unapologetic doer of many things. This season, we're turning up the volume with a global lineup of brilliant guests, bringing their lived experiences, insights, research, strategies, and resources. And of course, along with a healthy dose of humour and humility. Whether you're neurodivergent yourself or just curious, there's something here for every curious brain. Let's dive in. Meet Kayla Oughton, an AuDHD coach based out of Napier, New Zealand with a wild range of experience behind her. Certified in ADHD informed coaching, health coaching, personal development, and suicide prevention, as well as being a qualified project manager in commercial construction, her journey has taken her down the entrepreneurial path post ADHD diagnosis with a recent venture into digital marketing dedicated to making other late diagnosed women not feel alone in their journey. This is a conversation about untangling old stories, what ADHD really looks like behind closed doors, and how we move from self-lame to self-trust. Thank you so much for coming on the show today, Kayla. Oh, thank you for having me. Awesome. Right. There was a time where you genuinely believed that you were 'broken' or 'too lazy' or 'sensitive' and incapable of doing life the way other people around you seem to be doing it so effortlessly. So looking back now, how do you understand your undiagnosed ADHD self and what were those experiences or patterns or breaking points that eventually led you to seek a diagnosis at 35? 

KAYLA: Yeah. I think it started around when I was 30 probably, just seeing friends, you know, starting to buy houses, they were starting to get married. They were climbing the career ladder in their stable jobs that they'd had for years and it was like "Oh I can't do any of that. Like what's wrong with me?" you know. And that was when those kind of questions really started to I guess play on my conscious a bit. So I started to look into it a bit more to be like well what is going on here? And so I started down a path of self-development first actually so I, you know, I was like, I'm going to do this and I'm going to... I'm going to learn all about myself and I'm going to be fixed. You know, I'll suddenly have everything together. And I didn't. But I learned a lot about myself and I'm so grateful I kind of did do that path first because it helped me, I guess, process a lot of the other things that were going on in my life as well. And so I started to look into a bit more around my own health and well-being and kind of little bit by bit by bit. And you know, it was another oh probably three or four years before I thought okay maybe therapy you know, like let's try therapy. So you know, went down that path. And it was while I was in therapy, I think I might have been maybe five or 6 months into therapy, when my therapist asked me the question that changed my life. She asked, you know, she was flicking back through her notes and she goes, "Oh, I need to ask you a question here, you know, are you diagnosed ADHD?" And I remember laughing and saying, "Oh, no. I'm not. I'm not fidgety." And she looked at me like very clearly. She's like, "Well, for start is you can't sit still." But she knows that's not actually all it is, you know. And so, and so we started digging a bit deeper and worked on rejection sensitivity because that was what triggered that question from my therapist. So, yeah, and then it was another year to get the diagnosis because just wait lists and all that sort of stuff. And yeah, unpacking rejection sensitivity in particular was huge. It was huge. And I think once I learned about RSD, a whole lot made sense. Probably more so than any other trait of ADHD. So yeah, it was bit of a journey. I think we're up to about seven years now. 

JULIE: And for having a therapist or someone else actually point out what seemed to be relatively obvious to them but kind of news to you, that must have been an experience? 

KAYLA: It was and I thank my lucky stars that I had a therapist who's ADHD which I did not know at that time. So she just spotted the behaviour probably faster than I guess you know, a lot of other people would have because she recognized it. Yeah. So yeah, I was very grateful. 

JULIE: Kayla, as a female in a predominantly male area of construction, you were undiagnosed at that point in time. Would you be able to share what life was like for you and how your undiagnosed ADHD self may have shown in that situation? 

KAYLA: Yeah, so I was a commercial construction project manager. I climbed my way up pretty quickly through the ranks in construction. And knowing what I know now about neurodivergence, I can confidently hand on heart say that I firmly believe about 75-85% of construction probably fall into that same bracket. And I always felt really at home on the building sites rather than in the office. I always felt really accepted and I understood the tradies, the ones on the sites, because typically speaking, and this is going against a lot of stereotypes, here but true is that a lot of them perhaps didn't do so well in the school environment so they went into the trades. They were really good with their hands. They were creative. They liked being outside. They're problem solvers. Like there's all of those extraordinary strengths and traits that they have that do very well in that industry. However, on the flip side, you have an industry that is incredibly high pressure, very low support, almost non-existent training or professional development. You have a lot of people in roles that should not be in those roles. So they were hired because they were maybe someone's brother or uncle or dad. Or maybe they were just the admin person who' just been with the company for 20 years so suddenly they're HR. And that's really rampant in that industry. So you have a lot of unregulated, undiagnosed, unsupported people in a fast-paced, high pressure, high stakes industry. No wonder the suicide rates are so high. No wonder. And I firmly, having worked in construction for I did almost 10 years, I was in Melbourne and in Napier, Hastings that might be here. I've worked from the client point of view, from the main contractor point of view, from a subcontractor point of view, and I've rinse, repeat, done different cycles. I've job hopped. I'm not ashamed to admit that. That's my ADHD kicking in. So there were parts of it that I absolutely loved. I loved the chaos. I loved that no two days are the same. I love that you were constantly thrown in the deep end and that sink or swim mentality is very strong in construction. You know, they often say that you got to have a thick skin to be in this industry and you do. You really do because there is no support anywhere. And it's just this melting pot of like personalities, of egos, of like just absolute utter chaos. Like I used to joke that I was a professional cat herder because like I was and I loved it. So like on one side of it, my ADHD was an absolute godsend like because I thrived. I like I absolutely thrived at it. The other side where it didn't thrive was the admin. The boring contracts. I was a project manager. I didn't want to look at contracts. Turns out that's a really big part of my job reading specifications. Like boring, you know. No, thank you. And I didn't care enough. I wasn't interested enough in the technicality and like the specifications of things. So, a lot of the technical side of stuff would just go straight over my head. But, I was extraordinary with people management. So, as a project manager, I actually did quite well because I brought those people in around me and I brought them up. Every single meeting I went to, if I was going to meet with the client engineers, like you know, the high consultants or whatever, every single meeting, if I could, I brought my foreman in with me or the, you know, the main builder, like whoever it was that was going to be physically doing the work. And that kind of connection went a long way with those people because they were brought in at the table. They were... their opinion counted, their opinion mattered, right? Because I didn't know. I was like, well, I'm not the qualified builder. You are. I'm here to connect the dots. And that's and it used... that was unusual. That was unusual practice you know, and it was just it was an interesting time. It was a really interesting time. Sorry the fact that I was a woman, and I'm a qualified... like I went to university and got a degree in project management in construction and I would still be questioned. I would still be, you know, oh, you're just too emotional right because I would I think my justice sensitivity had a field day. My PDA, my OD, like it all just was like a kid in the candy store basically, which made me a really good advocate for the workers. And that's what led to me going down the suicide prevention path was because it was like there's a problem here and no one's talking about it. No one's doing anything about it. So, I wanted to be part of the solution going forward rather than part of the problem because I was the problem. I was the one putting the timelines, the deadlines, the pressure, the financial pressure. Like that was my role. So I couldn't do it anymore. So I burnt out with construction quite spectacularly because it was just so long trying to square peg round hole it with the suicide prevention work. 

JULIE: How did that occur? 

KAYLA: It was a Mates for Life. It's a Hawkes Bay not for-profit charity set up and they go into workplaces and they train people on suicide intervention and prevention. So it's around recognizing the signs. It's around asking the question: are you thinking about suicide and then what to do with the answer basically. So it was yeah, wasn't on the crisis end. It was more on the prevention side of things. And I got into it because I myself have had suicidal ideation and experiences all through my life. And I always knew I wasn't depressed like the doctors would say. I was like, "No." So I could bounce back. And then the more I learned about it and the more I learned about rejection sensitive dysphoria in particular, it was like, "Oh, that was probably it." So yeah, and it was so... it was kind of my own journey of being like, why am I like this? Why do I have these incredible lows? Why do I sink so low instantly? But, you know, sometimes a couple hours later I'm all good. Like what is that? Like what? And that's, you know, like am I bipolar? Like what's wrong with me? But no, every single time I was triggered by something and it was, now I know what it is, that rejection sensitivity. It's like gosh, more people need to know about this because it's going to save lives. And I firmly believe like again just from my own experience and from what I've seen and from the research I've read and the you know the statistics you look at around particularly ADHD and autism around suicide are horrendous. They're really, really high. So it's and I think that rejection sensitivity or just that overwhelm emotional overwhelm and that shut down, I think they play a big part in those numbers. 

JULIE: Now, you're a neurodiversity coach and you're also known for cutting through the fluff. And for late diagnosed ADHDers especially, there's often decades of shame to unpack before strategies can even land. And in your coaching work, what helps people untangle those deeply held beliefs of being lazy or unreliable or being too much? 

KAYLA: I mean, knowledge is power, right? And I probably nearly every single person I've coached, you know, you get the initial chat like, "Okay, what's going on? What's the problem?" And then it's like, "Well, hang on a minute. Let's peel it back. What do you actually know about ADHD?" And starting from that place of like no assumptions. It's just right, you know, I might be telling you to suck eggs here, but let's just pull it back to like the executive functions. Let's pull it back to, you know, what's actually happening in your brain, like what might be behind some of these struggles, right? And I think when you can put that lens on it, it really helps to soften the blow like for lack of a better term of, yeah, no wonder you struggle with these things because you're literally wired differently. So, let's try and build you know, the structure and support systems around that. But that awareness is huge and it's... and I can hear it, you know, I can hear it really quickly of where somebody's at on their journey of and I notice. I coach a lot of autistics as well. And I always laugh. I've only really picked up on it lately, but the autistics have done the research. They've gone down the rabbit holes. They know all about their neurodivergence. Whereas the ADHD, they tend to not. They tend to be a bit more higher level or they've maybe heard one or two things, you know. So it's quite fun kind of getting to meet them where they are at that journey, but pull it back to just like let's just go back to the basics and then we can start. 

JULIE: And that I think that having that level of understanding and awareness is massive for going forward. And I guess you know, we tell ourselves there's a standard... well there's a standard narrative and then there's our own narrative, our own story. So how do you help clients kind of separate who they are from the narratives they've inherited about productivity and success and their own personal value their own worth? 

KAYLA: Yeah, I think it just comes back to awareness for one. And I think as well because I've done a lot of work in self-development like personal development, I also worked as a health coach for a year so I'm certified health coach and I did suicide prevention work as well. So I'm quite good at kind of picking up on the negative like the self-talk or the words that you know, the stuff that they're not saying maybe. Or the things that they're avoiding and I can pull it out of people in a safe, you know, trauma-informed way. And I think that approach has been quite a unique blend because it's like, okay, well, hang on a minute. Like, yes, you may be struggling with ADHD, but how's your sleep? You know, what's going on? Like, where's your nutrition? What movement are you getting in your day? Like, I can really pull back at that holistic point of view and like, okay, well, how's your stress? You know, let's look at that bigger picture. Are you stuck in a job you hate? Like, cool. Let's look into like maybe we need to explore other options for you. Like it's really I think I kind of pull it away from the diagnosis and the traits and the symptoms as such and pull it back to like the person, the environment and the situation. And I think that's where you start to get that different story they can start to tell themselves because that's what helped me. 

JULIE: It's having this different perspective on your on your past as well too, isn't it? Because if you keep telling yourself the same old, well, this happened and this is why, but just having a different lens as you said earlier, really, really important. 

KAYLA: Absolutely. Yeah. And I something I always come back to, and this was taught a lot in suicide intervention, was you did what you could at the time with the tools you had, right? Like you did the best you could and you can't change that. But going forward if you've got more tools and more knowledge and you know like that's where the change can happen. So like there's that separation of like you know, you before diagnosis versus after. Or like you know, what you can do with the knowledge going forward but accepting that you know things were different like even 5-10 years ago. You know, the knowledge and the education I mean it's still not really there which is a lot of you know, what the work that we do right? Like it's putting that knowledge out there. So it's like you can't beat yourself up for something that you didn't even like... you don't know what you don't know. So that's okay. 

JULIE: I love that saying. I say that all the time. And also this knowledge is really evolving all the time, isn't it? There's all new studies coming out all the time and which is yeah very, very exciting. You've helped others untangle so so many of these old narratives and you're supporting others to do the same. You've done it yourself. What's really exciting you at the moment in the work that you're doing right now? 

KAYLA: I recently started, I guess, digging a bit more into my autistic side because I'm not officially diagnosed autism. I tick a lot of boxes and I, the more I coach autistic people, the more I'm like, "Oh, I do that." And it's actually been quite an amazing like my own evolving going through of coaching and recognizing like, oh, actually, if I step into my own truth, into my own voice, into my own power, I actually need to acknowledge both parts of me, along with all the other bits and bobs. And I feel like stepping into that level has been really exciting for me because it's I, you know, I can't separate the two. It just it's me. So, whereas I felt before I always felt a bit restricted or restrained like solely talking about ADHD and I was like, I just doesn't quite doesn't quite feel right, you know. And now, stepping into that side of it, I've been really excited about it. And I think as well, like I share a lot on social media and just seeing the overwhelming amount of predominantly women who you know, leave comments saying "Gosh you've just explained me," or "this resonates" you know like and that's really rewarding just to go yeah, you know it's you're not alone. You're not going crazy. This is a thing and this is what helped, and that's been really lovely and exciting. 

JULIE: Can we briefly talk about ADHD and autism together? And you've had a lot of experience that with your clients and with your own lived experiences. My understanding is sometimes the ADHD traits and autism traits can be opposites and yet you're... but you're the one in the same person and you're kind of autism traits, ADHD traits, sometimes there can be quite a battle when it comes to executive functioning or focus and the rest. Can you briefly sort of add your thoughts onto that? 

KAYLA: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So, I, as I say, like I'm not officially diagnosed, but it was once I had my ADHD diagnosis and I went down the medication path along with coaching and therapy and exercise and nutrition and all the things. And I remember about six months later thinking, oh, things have just gotten really hard all of a sudden. Like I was starting to feel on top of the ADHD and, oh, okay, this is I'm getting the hang of this. And then I had this huge regression and it was the sensory side of things just started to become so overwhelming and so loud and I couldn't ignore it anymore. And I remember being like it was it was an emotional moment of like, oh my gosh, has this been here this whole time? Like no wonder I was so unregulated and so just never felt like I fit in or any of that sort of stuff because and to this day I still think my ADHD is the louder neurodivergence. It's definitely the more predominant which you know, I'm really I'm thankful for in a lot of ways. There's a lot of wild experiences that I've would probably have never had, you know. I'm a big risk taker and I'm very creative and I'm you know, all those really good things. But I've... it's and it's probably taken me about 18 months almost to kind of reconcile that oh hang on there's this other side of me that needs that transition with change that needs the really quiet wind-down. It's not the social bunny. It's, you know, it does it does interactions on a small scale and then needs to retreat. It's the one that likes to eat the same meal every single day. It's the one that likes to wear the same clothes every single day. You know, like there's that little battle and it really is like a... you wake up and it does feel a bit Jekyll and Hyde like, okay, who's taking control today? And like I've really learned and this has been a really hard lesson to learn, but rest. Rest is so important. And the more I learn about autism and that side of things and just ADHD in general, you know, I can't be 100 miles an hour 24/7. I just, I can't. So I'm really learning to pull it back and unfortunately they don't often match up. So, it's trying to find that balance of like, okay, I've had a really big few productive days, like a a good few days where I'm like, man, I'm on fire. I am I'm killing it, you know? I'm smashing goals. I now know there's going to be a crash. So, I allow for them now. So, like when I'm in those big productive like my beast modes, I call them. And I know that there'll be slug days. That's what I call them. So far my days where I literally don't want to speak to anyone. I just want comfort. I want cozy. I want quiet. And I need to just, I need to have those. So I yeah, I try and it's probably still going to take me another year if I'm honest of getting it right. But it's a journey and you just you never know. 

JULIE: Definitely. A work in progress absolutely. But by identifying that rest is really important for you, that's an amazing start and you can add them into your day or your routine as much as possible. Fabulous. What is an example of a system, not necessarily a mindset, but a system that can dramatically change how ADHD is, or a combo of ADHD and autism, experienced daily life behind closed doors? So, what's going to change how they work when no one else is watching?

KAYLA: Go with your energy. That's and I think that that could be possibly more the autistic side as well coming in, but I think that has probably been the one that has helped me the most is that I go with the flow. And if the flow isn't there that day, that's okay. It will come back. And that has taken a lot of work to really unpack that because when the flow is not there, the natural thing is to, "Oh my god, you're useless. Why can't you do this?" You know, like that critical loud mean voice gets up and like I say, like actually factoring in that rest side of things. And so when I say go with the energy, it's like if something feels good, do it. You know, like if it's not a full body yes, then it's a no. I've been learning to really lean into my nervous system a bit more and to really pay attention to my body, which I encourage everybody that I work with to really, you know, like I always talk about it, especially from the ADHD side of things, it's that restlessness. It's that skin crawling. And whenever I say that, people go, "Oh, yeah." Like they know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm like, that is your signal to move. That's your body telling you it needs to move in whatever way, shape, or form. So whether that's jumping on the spot, vigorously, vacuuming, dancing, going for a walk, gym, whatever it might be, you know, it doesn't need to be a full-on body pumping 200 kgs kind of session, right? Like it's just moving your body. And like so listening to those body cues because that tells you kind of where the good is and where it's not. And that can get quite tricky with workplaces in particular. You know, not every workplace is fully accommodating or is possibly the right fit for people. So something I really encourage people to is to really listen to pick up on those things of like if you're coming home cognitively exhausted, so much so that you can't even cook, can't even you know, and if you know that there are certain days of the week... maybe you have you know, maybe Monday is like your big meetings day. Maybe you know, Wednesday it's like client facing whatever it is right, there'll be some kind of rhythm. There'll be some kind of pattern to the work that you will know. Some will drain you and some will light you up. And start to really pay attention to those things and that is how you find your rhythm and your strength going forward. And like I said before, you know, like when because you can't always control when the slug days are going to hit. You just can't. You might be bum bum bum bum bum and then sit down for a coffee and boom, the energy's gone. So it's about okay, can I rearrange my calendar on those days to have you know, more of the monotonous kind of low-hanging fruit kind of work, you know. And save the big creative stuff for the other days or like whatever it might be. So yeah, just really very long-winded way of saying just tap into the body because your body will be telling you what it wants to do. And I think we just try and push through because that's what, you know, normal productivity stuff tells us we should do, but that's not how our brains work. We work in sprints, not marathons. 

JULIE: Love it. Great advice for beast days and slug days. I think that's marvelous. Thank you. Awesome. So what happens when again with old narratives resurface say like "I'm failing or I should be able to do this better or what's wrong with me." What's a practical way you help ADHDers interrupt that spiral and respond with maybe more self-trust or more self-compassion?

KAYLA: Something I like to do and I catch people constantly on the calls or the coaching and I catch myself, I always stress to people like I do this all the time so this is still something I practice daily, is when those thoughts creep in of like you know didn't get this done. Hang on a minute, what have I just done because we have that like success amnesia right? Like we forget. We forget all the things that we've actually just managed to achieve. And especially when you throw in, you know, the beast to slug days, like those high productivity days, we can put out phenomenal amounts of work and it's normally incredibly high quality. It's normally under a lot of pressure because we've left it to last minute or it's under deadline. Like that takes a lot of cognitive energy. And I like to think of it, you know, when you do have those little slumps to actually whether it's you're writing it down or even just thinking about it like, well, hang on a minute. What did I get done this week? And just that little practice of like as soon as that that critic rears up, it's like thank you, but shush. Like I know you're just trying to keep me safe here or whatever it is, but this is actually what I've done and I'm actually just tired. I'm cognitively tired right now and I need this rest. And so I try and teach that phrase really of like cognitive exhaustion or cognitively tired. Because you know, we talk about like the mental load and the emotional load and you know, you hear that kind of thrown around a lot and it's like but what about the cognitive load? Like existing in these brains takes a lot of energy. Trying to have this conversation even with you and I can see my dog in the background, the car down the road. Like I'm present with you but it takes a lot of energy. And so like really and again, I think that's that education piece right of like bringing it back to people to say well hang on a minute. Like pump the brakes. Just us having this conversation is taking a lot of energy. Be kinder on yourself and it's just reducing that shame because you can see it. You can see it in their face as they start to talk to you, you know. They withdraw into themselves and you know, maybe they start to speak a bit lower like you know, you pick up on those things. It's like oh hang on a minute. Let's bring it up. Literally sit up you know, deep breath. Whatever it needs to be. Do I need to stand and do a little shake of a dance? Like let it out, like whatever it is and just then progress forward. But just yeah, catching it in that moment is really powerful that pause, the power of the pause so powerful. 

JULIE: Back to acknowledging achievements, my husband and I have this thing that we do every New Year's Eve and we're actually not looking ahead for the moment. We pause and we look back at the last year and say, "What have we been up to?" And it's exhausting. We, oh gosh, we did this and we did that and we did this in the garden and we started this business or whatever it may be. And it's so awesome to stop and actually reflect. And perhaps maybe we could do that a bit more often than once a year, but rather than being too bogged down and goals and goals and goals, but just to stop and pause and Yeah. Enjoy the successes. 

KAYLA: Yeah, exactly. And I think a lot of it gets confused with people think, "Oh, but I didn't have these big milestones." It's like, no, but you managed to get up every morning, you know, like you made your lunches that week. Well done. And like really pull it back to just the small things. And I think because those small things, especially from an ADHD point of view, are normally the ones that trip us up the most. So when you can even just celebrate the little wins and to bring it back to like well hang on a minute, you know, you got yourself to work every single day, the little wins. But also acknowledging actually yeah, I did start three businesses because a lot of ADHDers probably have a list like that. 

JULIE: For someone who's listening who still believes quietly and privately behind closed doors that they're the problem, what would you most want them to know about ADHD, self-worth, and the possibility of doing life differently?

KAYLA: You're not broken. I'm sure probably most people on this you've interviewed have said that. But ADHD is nothing to be fixed. It's nothing to be ashamed of. It's nothing to be scared of. And when it's embraced and when it's supported and when it's, you know, loved and encouraged, it can be phenomenal. And I think that needs to come from an internal point of view. You know, there needs to be that inner acceptance of like, yeah, I am spectacular. I have these incredible strengths. Yes, I might struggle with getting to work on time, and I keep saying that one because that's one of mine. But once I'm there, I'm phenomenal, you know, like, and it's I think when you can lean into those strengths and lean into the right environments and working out what those environments are, because not every environment is a supportive one. You start to feel so much more freer and so much more just like weight off your shoulders, you know, like you can finally breathe and you can finally just be unapologetically you. And it's the best feeling in the world. And I just I cannot stress that enough to so many people I talk to. Yeah. And I think being a coach and you know, one of the number one things I'm asked about as soon as you mention ADHD right, it's medication. People want to know is it going to fix me is it going to cure me. Like no. It just means you be able to focus a bit better. It's nothing to be fixed you know, like it's just like... and I just, I stress that so much. It's not something that needs fixing. 

JULIE: Well you've been a delight to chat to today. Thank you so much for sharing your insights and perspectives there. I really appreciate that. [Thank you for having me.]