Tracey Goodwin (00:00:00)
Welcome to Make ADHD Your Genius®, the podcast for lawyers and legal professionals. I'm Tracy Bromley Goodwin, certified coach, consultant, speaker, and your host. Through neuroscience, subconscious reprogramming, and practical strategies, you'll learn how to work with the brilliant brain you have rather than against it. Because your ADHD isn't your limitation. It's unique to you, and it's time to make
ADHD, your genius. Check out the disclaimer below and let's get started. If you are feeling like ADHD is a problem, I want you to get really curious. I want you to imagine that maybe you haven't learned how to understand your unique brain or the strategies that are meant for your brain.
And not meant for neurotypical brains. And what if the problem has been fighting against your brain's natural way of working? That is what this podcast is going to be all about. It's going to be a way for you to understand ADHD in a new way, to take a look at what's running underneath your ADHD.
All the old stories you have been carrying around that you started carrying around way before any of your legal training, and that has snowballed into where you are today. And we are going to strengthen executive function skills, skills that can be strengthened. And you can do it in a way that matches your brain.
I'm Tracy Bromley Goodwin, your host of the Make ADHD Your Genius® podcast, and I am thrilled to be here. This conversation is one that lights me up. There is nothing more that I want for you than to have you be able to step into your legal career in a way that you haven't been able to yet. There is so much to come for you.
Tracey Goodwin (00:02:24)
When you can not erase the challenges, not make them go away and disappear, rather figure out how to work your strengths alongside the challenges and be able to reach your goals, to be able to start projects and finish them, to get to meetings on time, to be able to keep track of what someone is telling you in a conversation.
To prioritize in a way that is expansive. A person who is feeling on top of their game is not leaking energy into a whole bunch of areas that often happen with ADHD. These are the things we are going to be taking a look at together so that you can own, claim your genius, and
figure out what to do about the challenges. It is possible. I see this kind of change every single day. And does it take work? Yes. Does it take practice? Yes. Does it mean that there is support that you're going to need and accountability? Yes. And it's all doable. So get ready to learn and step into your ADHD genius.
I want to take you back a little bit in my past so you can have a clear understanding of what brought me to this work because it's a question I get all the time. How did I end up working in the field of ADHD with lawyers and legal professionals? So the story goes way back in time, and I'm going to give you little pieces to help you understand.
I first became really passionate about ADHD when I started my career as a high school teacher. My favorite part of teaching was when students would hang out in my classroom after school. And it was a variety of students. It was athletes and musicians and artists and students who didn't have an activity after school. The commonality between these students was that they were.
Tracey Goodwin (00:04:51)
All searching for a way to figure out where they belong, where they fit, because their challenges that they were facing, which I would say were definitely executive function challenges, were causing them to feel less than. They were sitting in classrooms feeling frustrated that they weren't keeping up like their peers, even though they were intelligent and creative and had all of these strengths. They were feeling less than behind. And they were being told, oftentimes, maybe in a really nice kind way, if you could try harder or put more effort in, or you have so much potential. And the impact of that was taking them in the reverse direction, feeling like they couldn't keep up and they weren't capable.
I saw it immediately and I decided to help these students and my fellow educators that I was working with to understand that every single learner is and has a unique brain. There is no one way to learn something. There is no one system to get from point A to point B.
Are there common threads for neurotypical brains that tend to work? Sure. Are there common threads that work for neurodivergent brains? Sure. But the challenges are unique person to person. ADHD, your ADHD does not look the same for every individual. And that needs to be celebrated, not fixed.
Not shoulds being involved or I am statements where you're feeling really negative, but that you have a unique brain and perhaps you haven't learned how to reach your goals in your own unique way. I know you are very successful. I know that you are ambitious. You wouldn't be in the positions and roles that you are in if that was not the case.
Tracey Goodwin (00:07:14)
What is most likely going on under the surface is a whole bunch of feeling stress and overwhelm and exhaustion internally, being afraid of what happens if you can't keep up, or what happens if anyone finds out about what's really going on underneath. I knew immediately with these high school students that these were.
All the things that were going to build and continue happening, if someone didn't help them understand that the brain is malleable, we are able to train our brain to do things differently. And if our energy constantly goes to what is wrong without bringing that cognitive energy into what is right and having support and figuring out how to connect those dots.
It can be really, really frustrating. So that led me to working with a neuropsychologist. I decided that I was going to leave education and work in a way that I could see people specifically for executive functioning and ADHD. So that's what I did. And I started a coaching practice. And fast forward a little bit, when I was working with young people, parents would come in all the time.
Telling the story of their child and quickly recognizing, wait a second, this sounds like me. I'm talking about myself and my own experience. Can you help me? That is also when lawyers started showing up in my practice. There were a lot of high achieving professionals, and lawyers and legal professionals were one group that came in time and time again.
People always say, Well, you must have been really surprised by that because you know, lawyers have gone to law school and they've got through that and then they've been hired or started their own practice. I mean, ADHD can't really be part of that picture. I was not surprised at all because ADHD in your brain is all about extremes, and lawyers' minds are fascinating.
Tracey Goodwin (00:09:37)
The creative problem solving power, the ability to hyper focus on cases or some type of work that goes along with a case, or maybe for you it's being in court. There's so many different aspects of it, but not surprising to me because when there are these intense abilities, there's oftentimes challenges that can feel
equally as intense. So when people ask, well, how did you get into it? That's how it started off with high school students, myself being trained more and more in the field of ADHD, graduate work and conflict resolution and communication skills, and quickly combining all of this to be able to create a method that I see work with my clients.
That method is all part of the make ADHD your genius framework. And it's something that we will talk about together so that you too ⁓ can also begin to make ADHD your genius. Let's think for a moment about that first question I asked you today at the start of our conversation. What if ADHD isn't the problem?
You know, you've been feeling like it is. You've been feeling the weight and the heaviness of the things that feel challenging, and perhaps not questioning what is it that I understand about ADHD? What do I have available to me right now that can help me with the challenges that I face? And can I get curious about how much I am masking or hiding?
Because I'm afraid of what other people are going to think. These areas are the ones that we will cover and talk about together. One piece of this that I want you to start understanding and thinking about immediately are what I call the flip side traits of ADHD. The flip side traits are the extremes of ADHD. It's the parts of ADHD that can feel so frustrating.
Tracey Goodwin (00:12:03)
I believe they feel frustrated because sometimes they just don't make sense. And when things don't make sense, it can be draining and exhausting. When we are thinking about extremes, the ADHD brain goes into those extremes with what I call a stickiness. You know, when you lock into something really interesting, could be a project that you are working on and it's all you want to do is dive really deep into it. And when you do, you are locked in. And then the other side of it is a really seemingly simple task that you need to complete and you can't get yourself to get it done. You know what to do, you know how to do it, except you can't quite take that step to get it done. That is frustrating that your brilliant mind.
Can hyperfocus in a particular area. And then when it comes to something kind of boring, maybe simple, you can't get yourself to do it. That is frustrating for so many reasons. And when things are frustrating, you know what happens? Your cognitive ability drops significantly. So when you are going back and forth between these steps and the mental energy is draining so much so because you're frustrated about not being able to complete the simple thing, it also dampens your hyperfocus area. It means that that area of genius is just not shining quite as bright as it could. So during our time together, we will be figuring out what to do about those simple, boring tasks.
Because imagine if you had a way to deal with those that's unique to your brain, your personality, you are going to spend more time doing what you love and your areas of expertise. And it's going to feel really good. Some of these other extremes of ADHD that can be really, really common are having bursts of high energy and very, very low energy.
Tracey Goodwin (00:14:29)
And not necessarily being able to count on the same pattern every day. So that you may figure out a system that works great and you put certain tasks at the start of your day, and then all of a sudden something shifts. And maybe your energy is shifted. It's no fault of your own. And learning strategies to deal with that, it's a game changer because you are able to be purposeful with your energy.
Those are a couple of examples. We are going to dig into many more during our time together and get really specific about how you can manage them and what you can do about it. So for starters, you can start asking some different questions on almost everything that you're doing. So rather than saying to yourself, why can't I just do this?
Why? Why can't I get this done? A better question to ask yourself is what is difficult for me about this task? That is an entirely different question and it provides different answers. Why can't I just get this done like everyone else is going to provide you with a whole bunch of negative looping? Asking yourself the question, what is difficult for me about this task?
gives you factual information that you can then work with and create a solution. Rather than sitting and comparing yourself to everyone around you who seems to be getting things done in a particular way, you can think and ask yourself the question, huh? How can I get from A to B in my own unique way?
When we start operating with some blinders on, we don't want to always do that, but when we can begin to block out the shoulds because of what we're seeing around ourselves, we are able to hone in more on what is going to make most sense for our brain. That's not necessarily easy to do, but when you do it, you free up…
Tracey Goodwin (00:16:55)
creative possibilities, which your brain is naturally good at anyway. Another way to shift your thinking is rather than thinking about forcing yourself to do something, you can put pressure, unnecessary pressure on yourself when you're asking yourself that question like, how am I going to get myself to do it? I just need to get myself to do it.
Better question is, is there an alternative time? I may want to consider this. Out of all the strategies and tools that I have, am I working with my brain or against it? Because when we are forcing, we are typically working against our brains. So start getting curious with your day-to-day habits.
It's less about having a magic formula for how to make things different or feeling like you have to change yourself. This has nothing to do with that. This is about understanding yourself in a new way and getting creative on systems, strategies, environments, workflows that meet your unique brain right where it's at. So.
Your job, you could call it, is to start questioning the thoughts that pop up that are what I would call limiting. So the questions, when their answers are negative or you're feeling pressure filled, those are negative limiting questions. When you ask yourself open ended questions like,
what is difficult about this for me? Is it that my brain feels totally overwhelmed? Is it that I completely forgot I didn't have lunch? I haven't had any water yet today. Is it that the deadline simply doesn't make sense for me and I need to rearrange something? Those are expansive thoughts ⁓ and open-ended questions actually strengthen your executive functioning skills.
Tracey Goodwin (00:19:21)
They force the brain to stop and pause and think. So going back to if you are feeling like ADHD is the problem, let's get really curious and figure out maybe it's just what you have learned so far about ADHD that is preventing you from finding the solutions that are going to work for you. Let's flip the script and start.
Start thinking about all of this in a new way because your brain is capable of change. You would not be here tuning into this podcast if you weren't ready to change and take it as a sign that you are in the right place. This door is now open. And we are going to be diving in deep to understanding you and your brain, to thinking about.
All of those old stories in your subconscious mind that are fueling ADHD challenges. And third, we are going to strengthen those skills so you get exactly what you want to get done done. So thank you so much for being here today, episode one of the Make ADHD Your Genius podcast. And I can't wait to come back and talk more with you about the challenges and the strengths that you possess. Talk to you soon.
