How Tracy Otsuka is Shifting the Conversation Around Women with ADHD

two years to write. I wrote and I studied for two years. And sometimes I think, Oh, someone's going to ask me a question. And sometimes people do about the book. I'm like, I don't know. Did I talk about that in the book? Did I write about that in the book? It's just gone.

not a weakness. Tracy leverages her analytical skills from being a lead counsel at the US sec, Securities and Exchange Commission to identify the right questions to ask her clients so they can boost their productivity, improve their finances, save failing relationships and live happier lives. Tracy's expertise and experience as an adult living with ADHD a regular sought out by top tier media including Inc, Forbes, attitude magazine, and the gold digger podcast with

Jenna Kutcher. When she's not sharing her thought leadership around ADHD on other platforms. She hosts her own podcast which ranks number one in its category and has over 6 million downloads across 160 countries. So if you are not following Tracy's podcast, go do it now. And then come back to the episode or listen to our episode and then do it but just put it on your to do list or to do list whatever you use. She also moderates a Facebook group in nearly 100,000 members. She's married, and a

mother of two. She lives in Sonoma County outside of San Francisco. Her new book ADHD for smartest women just came out in 2024. And was number 60 on Amazon out of all books, and is Amazon recommended. So if you are learning about how to use ADHD, towards your strengths, if you're learning about ADHD, I had the pleasure of reading Tracy's book and it goes into all different areas of ADHD and the complexity of it and how to

use your strengths. And Dr Halliwell, the foreword Dr. Halliwell also calls Tracy, the godmother of ADHD. So Tracy warm welcome to successful with ADHD.

fourth grade. He just developed this anxiety around going to school. I mean, he was we went to a Catholic school and they had to wear this like little red sweater and he would literally chew the sweater to

school, what is it? And so, three years, we went to all these people when he I think it was nine years old to he came to us and he said, You know, there's this this other school and I think he was at a Catholic school, I think it would be better for my brain. It was a Country Day School. So it was more creative. And he said, there was an application process, his sister was applying to high school at the time. And so this would have been for fifth grade he was applying. And there was a leadership

scholarship. And he said, I'm going to apply for it. And so he took a pencil, and he applied by himself. It was a Sunday morning. And we came out for breakfast. And there he was. In fifth grade, he was so ambitious. He was always googling stuff and trying to figure out like, how do you get into Harvard, you know, things that most kids don't do, right? They're just fooling around and having fun. But he was really, really ambitious. And he had big

sights for himself. And I think what it was, is that he was so worried because something changed in his brain. And all of a sudden, what was really easy for him was no longer easy. And the hardest subject was math. So in this Catholic school, up until fourth grade, they would do 10 problems a night, we would later find out that Marcus is gifted in math. But then once they got to fourth grade, it was 30 Problems tonight. And after 10 problems, he would just check out and so we would have these

nightly battles. And finally, I was just like this, this doesn't make sense. I don't want to have these arguments with my son. And so then we brought in a tutor, you know, I mean, we were, you know, privileged, right, we were able to afford to do all these things to try all these things try to fill in. Yeah, yeah. So he decides he's going to apply to the school were like, okay, he's not gonna get the leadership scholarship. Well, lo

and behold, he got it. You know, he went to the little interviews, and he got the leadership scholarship. So he was there for two years. The first year, he loved it. The second year, sixth grade, we started to hear from the teachers again, you know, we don't understand what's going on, we don't understand how a child is brightest, Marcus could be so like, unmotivated, you know, he just doesn't care. And so he decided he wanted to go back to the Catholic school, there was a lot of structure in

the Catholic school. And what he complained about is, look, this is ridiculous. Like, kids can just come into school, however they want. They're literally sliding in, like, on their bellies, like on the desks. And he was like, there's so much chaos. You know, I don't think that's the best way to learn. And I think there was so much to learn and not enough structure.

And so he went back to the Catholic school, but that was the summer of it would have been the summer going into seventh grade, we decided we're gonna get them tested. There was actually a friend of mine who she didn't test kids, but she worked in a school and help the kids that had various neurodivergent seas. Or were neurodivergent. I know, there's a proper way to say it. And I can never remember like one way is supposedly a no, no. Oh, well, I can't remember it.

worth of tests. And when they came back to give us the result, they sat us down and said, he has ADHD, and I almost fell off my chair. I thought ADHD meant you're not very smart, you're all over the place, you're never going to be successful. And I knew how ambitious this kid was. And so the two things didn't square. So we ended up hiring a psychologist to explain ADHD tests, and to meet with Marcus and to kind of help us, you

know, navigate it. She had a meeting with him, she had a meeting with our entire family. And she had a meeting with my husband and myself. And she sat us down. Thankfully, Marcus wasn't there. And she said, Okay, your first job as his parent is to reduce his expectations, so we won't be disappointed in life. And I just remember thinking, I don't care if my child was intellectually disabled. I would never say that to any child, right? I mean, if you aim here, okay, maybe you'll

come here. But if you ain't here, you're you know, down here, you're never going to I just could not believe that. She said that. So lo and behold, we never went back. And I started to research ADHD on my own for you, you know, what does it mean? How could mark as possibly be diagnosed? Because this doesn't make any sense. And I knew there were things that when he was interested in oh my gosh, he became the best that you

could be. And I also knew that at the Catholic school, the principal The teachers, everybody loved him because he wasn't a disruptive kid. I mean, he's funny and a little inappropriate at times, so he could get himself into trouble. But he wasn't disrespectful. And my understanding of ADHD is, you know, you're the crazy kid who could care less what the teacher says. And he wasn't at all like

that. So as I was researching ADHD, literally eight months later, and it was a second reading of net Halliwell's book driven to distraction. I still remember I was on the Stairmaster at the gym. Driven, this is a form of hyperactivity. And I was like, Oh, my gosh, he got his ADHD from me. And I started to look at my family of origin, all the things that I was learning about ADHD. And I was like, it's all over my family, you know, but I had no, I just thought, Oh, we're just a

little differ, you know. And I, you know, my brother is extremely, he's never been diagnosed, but he's totally ADHD. But he was the classic ADHD, you know, rolling cars, he crashed motorcycles, he, he was always in trouble. And so he was very, you know, classic. My sister much more inattentive. My brother probably inattentive. My father, again, you know, they haven't been diagnosed. So I'm just kind of outing them here. But they would they would agree. My father, probably more

inattentive as well. And my mother is more like me. So it was just all over my family, you know, and my, my grandfather was actually adopted, and I'm half Japanese, half German. And, you know, the, there's just so much less ADHD in Japan. And in Japan, they don't get your kids up for adoption, you know, diagnose Yes, diagnosed, but I still think from the research that I've looked at, there is just a smaller percentage of ADHD in Japan. Now, if you have ADHD, though, it is a big

problem. I can imagine. If you have ADHD in Japan, it's probably pretty bad, right? Because there's, you know, there's nobody to help you. Everybody seems to be very linear in their, in their thoughts, and just their ability to follow rules, right? The

super, super ambitious. But I would like girls typically do all the masking, everything I could possibly do to get the good grades, right, where my son was, like, Screw that, you know, school is a social construct. Why do I have to do this? You know, probably smarter than I am in terms of like questioning all of it. I didn't. Sure. But when I think about law school, and I think about how hard I had to work compared to my peers, I went to graduate law school as

well. And did this program at Georgetown, it was securities regulation. So you know, stocks, bonds, finance, no aptitude at all, I you know, makes no sense whatsoever. But anyway,

into three by five cards. And that is how I had to study and I had a roommate who lived with me, she was older, very linear, very, like classically bright. And she would literally pick my notes, just my note cards, she would pick my note cards up, maybe read my, you know, my truncated outline one time, the night before. And without fail, if I got a B plus, she would get an A minus, you know, if I got an A minus, she would get an A or an A plus, like, I could never do better than she did.

And it was so frustrating. So you know what I thought I just thought, okay, she's just smarter than I am. You know, I'm just not as smart. And so that's what ends up happening. You know, if you have this really poor working memory, you go through life thinking, I'm not as smart so I have to work harder. Either that or you give up. And so my entire life until I was diagnosed with ADHD, I really thought well, I'm just not as smart. And so you're

doing a lot of masking right? To this day, I can't remember one chorus of my favorite song, I have no working memory. And so, you know, this book, it was terrifying because it took me two years to write. I wrote, and I studied for two years. And sometimes I think, Oh, someone's going to ask me a question. And sometimes people do about the book. And I'm like, I don't know. Did I talk about that in the book? Did I write about that in the book? It's just gone.

afterwards. It's just like, if you asked me on spot, like, I'm not going to likely remember that. I studied that. Or I wrote that, or that happens. That's

fail me. And if I didn't have all the structure and the systems, right, because this is impromptu. Now, what I discovered in writing the book and marketing the book is, it's actually my favorite thing to do. But it was all of the masking and this this, these thoughts in my brain that I wasn't going to be able to do it. That were the problem, right? Because you know how when someone tells you, okay, this is what we're going to talk about. And so you are preparing it

right. And I have a runway, because I know what to expect. But if you come in and you throw me something from left field, no, I am planning to go down this runway, I can't now divert and go, you know, it's because I'm thinking about what I already was, like, it's so hard

right now I know. I know. So, talk to me, you wrote your book, because we jumped a little bit. And that's totally fine, because that's what we do. You wrote this book, it took you two years to write it. And you are on this path of like, unlocking pieces that made sense to you. But also, you had a really difficult time. I know, on a personal level, while you were writing this book, you had a parent that was close to you who passed away and sorry for your loss. You

So that happened in March. And then we got back from Prague, and I was finishing up all the books stuff. And the book was due in in June. And so I had to put off so many things, and a lot of things with my parents.

And I was putting everything off thinking, Oh, well, once the books done, right. Well, my nephew got COVID. And my nephew was living with my parents. Oh, gosh. And he brought COVID into the house. My dad got COVID. And then my mom got COVID. So my nephew and my dad were fine. My mom seemed fine. My mom has high had high blood pressure, though. And what they don't tell you is if you have high blood pressure, there is up to a 25 times higher risk of a massive stroke. And so

she seemed to be fine. On a Wednesday, I remember she sent me a message and said, you know, no, no, no, I'm totally that was Tuesday. Totally fine. We're all you know, on the men no worries at all. And then that following Wednesday afternoon, she's like, I just really have a headache. I can't not, you know, get rid of this headache was now Thursday morning. You know, I had dentist appointment, I had all kinds of work stuff. And you know, the book, though I had I sent it out

on Tuesday. So it was now Thursday. I'm thinking okay, now I can get back into you know, all the things that I'm supposed to be doing. And I get a call from my dad. And he said your mom had had a massive stroke. And I don't know how long she was in the in the house because he had been out in the back gardening. And the long and short of it is unfortunately she never came out of them. So sorry. And my mom, she was just like, there were no health issues. This wasn't like she had

been really ill. She none of that it was literally all of a sudden one day, you know, she's gone. And I guess what I realized when I wrote the book is I really wrote the book for her. Because I've always seen so much of myself and her. I remember when Ned Halliwell wrote the foreword, I was gonna send it to her. But my perfectionist side, my parents were really, my dad's a dentist, and they're really all about

science and data. And, you know, at some point, we were having dinner at our house a couple of months before. And I remember my parents said to me, Well, what do you want to do with all this? And I said, Well, you know, honestly, I would love to go

into the medical schools. And, and talk about, you know, how we're missing all this, the, you know, these women and educate them on what ADHD looks like, and women and both my parents at the same time when, you know, like, what, you're not a doctor, you're not a scientist, you're not, you know, and I will say my parents have always been really supportive. So that kind of was like shocking to me. And so that is what played into my thoughts about, okay, I'm not going to

send my mom, the foreword. I want the book all done. I want it perfect. I want the hardback and then I'm going to give it to her because, you know, perfectionism, and that's more credibility and blah, blah, blah. And so, you know, I never gave it to her. She never read it. She didn't know that I wrote it for her. Um, but what I will tell you is I was really surprised at how I handled everything. And I did recently on my podcast, an episode on

grief. And then I did an episode on grief with three other women who also have ADHD who at the same time, last year, like they went through the same thing, and we talked about how there's something about the ADHD brain. Oh, my gosh, I was on fire. I could not believe I never thought I am so squeamish. I hate hospitals. I hate it all. I never thought I would be able to do what I did. But I just kind of took over. I did a lot of tapping. And I really believe I believed in tapping before, like

EFT. Yeah. EFT I believed in it before because it had completely helped me and I'd seen like with a Yeah, especially with the ADHD brain, you know, we need ways to regulate our nervous system where we can move. Meditation is often hard for us like straight meditation. Like there's other meditations. You can walk and meditate, you can wash the dishes and meditate, you know, but most people think of meditation as Yeah, or whatever. And we really struggled to do

that. What I love about tapping is you're, you know, you're moving the whole time, you're tapping on, you know, these parts of your body, these nine pressure points, acupressure points. And so I believed in tapping before, but I can't even rave enough about it. Because what tapping did for me during that time was it allowed me to disconnect from the emotion. Hmm. And so I could be in it. And I, and of course, I was so

sad. I couldn't believe it. It was like, I thought I'd have 10 more years with my mom, right. And my mom and I are going to read your book. Yeah. And you know, we were going to do all these things together, you know, I take her on, you know, book tour things. So I was really, really upset. But I was able to handle it emotionally. I was so strong. And part of it was I didn't really have a choice, right. I, you know, my mom passed away. I had to go back to New York, getting my daughter

set up for law school. So I was there for six weeks. And then the minute I came back, it was all of the promo stuff for the book.

it. I'm telling you EFT I'm just a huge believer now because I saw what it could do in that instance, especially having never had to deal with that kind of grief. Sure.

parents, I still had that. And so Anita Robertson, it was still different with my parents. And one of the things that Anita said when she was on my podcast, the last one about grief. She said, you feel untethered. Because the thing about your parents is you're always kind of tethered to them while they're here, right? And I love my dad. But my mom and I were really again because we are so similar. My dad and I are actually quite different. Ah, but we're also similar. He's very sarcastic

sense of humor. What I realized is It doesn't matter if my parents are proud of me, right? It matters if I'm proud of me. And so the things that I choose to do have to be things that I care about that I want to do not things that oh, well, I'm going to do this thing, because then they're going to be proud of me, right? I know, my parents, what they know about me is when I say I'm going to do something, I damn well do it. So I am totally that poster child for driven.

This is a form of hyperactivity. And I am constantly trying to keep myself in the task positive network, which is where action happens. Because I know, I feel so much better when I'm in the TPN. And when I get into the dmn, the default mode network, and I do, it's probably why I hate going to bed. You know, that nighttime, because there

you are with your thoughts. And so that's when I kind of think about the things and I think about my mom and I, and it you know, there isn't a day, honestly, there's probably not an hour that goes by where there's something that I see. And it reminds me of my mom, I mean, even to the point of I have my mom's smile, but I didn't realize it until she was gone. And when she was in the hospital, I would every time I smiled, all of a sudden, I would see oh my god, that's my mom.

Wow. And it really made me happy, then, you know that, okay, this is my mom, this is part of my mom. But now I think I'm going through this phase that when I have pictures of her all over the place, and I'm not I'm not happy anymore. When I see them. It kind of depresses me, it makes me sad. So I know I'm kind of in the next stage, whatever it is all those stages of grief, which I could never remember, even if I tried. And I'm hoping to get back to the point where I will see things

and it'll make me happy. Sure.

tomorrow. But I think it speaks heavily to what you can do with ADHD, even going through such a difficult time, right? Like, I believe I know, you didn't say it. But I also believe that there was a part of you that was like, I'm gonna prove her wrong, even though she passed, right? I am going to show up and do this. I'm going to get out there and talk to doctors and talk to people about strengths and women with ADHD or what they've gone through through life. Right,

just that drive. And that fire from that unfortunate circumstance.

But so is the lived experience. And the problem with women is nobody's been listening to us.

because they are humorless. So I've discovered that if you don't have a sense of humor, I just don't even want to work with you. Now, there are some people who don't have a sense of humor, but you know, they're just so kind and lovely, and, you know, all their, their heart and everything is on their sleeve. And everything is so serious. And that's part of the problem, right? But those kinds of people, yeah, I give them a

pass, I love them. But you know, it's the snarky kind of linear type people who can never laugh at themselves, they can't laugh at other people, they can't laugh at anything. And so with the the name, I knew, I looked at everything I had been able to accomplish. I looked at everything that other ADHD women that I had met had been able to accomplish. And I wanted to make sure that they saw how smart they were maybe not traditionally successful, maybe

not traditionally smart. But frankly, in my mind, smarter, right, they are the ones that are able to use their creativity to you know, put all these novel concepts together and come up with these unusual, you know, ideas, or widgets, or businesses or whatever. And it was just over and over and over again, I would meet these women. So with the name, I wanted to make sure that they knew they were smart,

so ADHD, for smart women. But we're also smart asses, we tend to be irreverent, we tend to say what other people only think, which is why we get into trouble. And I just love that kind of brain. We're not followers know. And when we're asking why, and how come and I'm sorry, I think those are the smartest people in our society. I do not. It's the wool followers who get the straight A's in school and never ask why. It's our curiosity. To me. That is what indicates intelligence.

Not Can you follow rules and regurgitate. I love that.

with dyslexia at 19. And he's gifted in math, but where he really struggles is when you take numbers and letters and put them together, and so it never made any sense, right? So my son has the most incredible working memory. So he's the kind of person that can debate anyone, and he remembers all the facts and figures. I'm the one who I know how I feel. I am capable of putting together you know, a coherent argument in terms of I've done all the research, I've done all the reading, how I feel

makes perfect sense. But hell, if I can remember what the hell I learned when I'm arguing, especially because when I'm arguing, you know, I'm anxious, right, and I'm upset and so I can't remember any of it. So I do not believe that ADHD is a superpower. But what I do believe, is there are traits of ADHD that make you positively frickin brilliant, smarter than, you know, the social constructs, you know that you know, the school system and how all that's been set up, if you learn how to

use your brain properly. So that would be my answer. And I think somewhere in the book, it might kind of give you that indication. Do you

end up being Big T trauma. The women that I have met who by and large had, you know, we're lucky, right, we get the I mean, the biggest privilege there is, is to have two parents that love you. And there's also something about, you know, if you're a combined type if there's some, some hyperactivity in there because I think the hyperactivity is what's responsible for the driven

pneus. And we learned early on that oh, the way to feel better is to constantly be doing now you can burn yourself out doing too much. But if you have my kind of personality that, you know, I need a lot of sleep I'm, I kind of wake up, you know, on the good side, like it's gotten harder as I've gotten older where because you know, our cortisol is or spike, our cortisol levels are highest in

the morning. So my workaround is I literally get out of bed and I walk right to, you know, our, our little room that has our gym equipment in and I work out and that spikes my dopamine and then I'm totally fine. Last

none. And so I'm always feeling like I have more to do than I have time to do it. I have no ability even now to gauge how long will it take me to get these things done? So what ends up happening is I've got my head down, and I'm doing and what I notice is I never do it to burn out. I've never burned out.

will do stupid things. Like I'll start Googling stuff, you know, and then all of a sudden, I'm down a rabbit hole and I look up and it's oh my god, it's two in the morning. But especially with my book, because there was so much work. And because I do have staff that is not on my timezone. I would stay up until like 230 in the morning. And you know, I've done like, you know, trainings on your revenge, bedtime, procrastination, and how important sleep is my entire life. It is the only argument my

husband and I have ever had. He wants to go to bed early, like

for doing what you're doing. And I know you've been doing this for a while, so appreciate you and the ADHD space. awesome to have amazing woman supporting other amazing women. True.