Simplifying Writing for ADHD Brains, with Tracy Otsuka and Kris Jones

Hello, my brilliant friends. We just launched Blends. Blends is my daily Monday through Friday, 10 minutes or less mix of audio coaching, teaching, mindfulness, affirmations, breath work, humor, gratitude, and inspiration, all blended together to regulate your nervous system and create positive emotion in a way that works for our ADHD brains who generally struggle when told to meditate.

This is my labor of love. I can't even begin to tell you the positive emotion I have felt getting blends into the world. It's so much work. It's going to be so much more work because I'm committing to a year of these, but I am so looking forward to it. And right now it's only 47 for the whole year of positive emotion to start your day off on the right foot.

I know it's kind of insane. And if you want more information, you can check it out at adhdforsmartwomen.com/blends. 

Richard Branson, Michael Phelps,  Justin Timberlake, James Carville. Wait a minute!  Where are the women?  Greta Gerwig, Lisa Ling, Audra McDonald, Simone Biles.  That sounds like a list of highly successful Titans in a variety of industries. They all have ADHD, but you don't hear much about that now, do you? You know, what else you don't hear about are the 43 percent of people with ADHD who are in excellent mental health.

Why aren't we talking about them and what they're doing?  I'm your host, Tracy Otsuka, and that's exactly what we do here. I'm a lawyer, not a doctor, a lifelong student, and now the author of my new book, ADHD for Smartass  Women. I'm also a certified ADHD coach and the creator of Your ADHD Brain is A OK, a patented system that helps ADHD women just like you.

Like you get unstuck and fall in love with their brilliant brains here. We embrace our too muchness and we focus on our strengths. My guests and I credit our ADHD for some of our greatest gifts. And to those who still think they're too much, too impulsive, too scattered, too disorganized. I say no one ever made a difference by being too little.

Hello. 

Hello. Hello. I am your host, Tracy Otsuka. Thank you so much for joining me here for another episode of ADHD for Smartass Women. My purpose, you know it, it's always to show you who you are and then inspire you to be it. Because in the thousands of ADHD women that I've had the privilege of meeting, I've never met a one that wasn't truly brilliant at something.

Not one. So, of course, I am just delighted to introduce you to Chris Jones. Chris Jones is a pioneer in storytelling and entrepreneurship. She founded Red Door Stories in 2003 after overcoming significant challenges, including a struggle with writing and a fear of being seen. Chris has worked with experts like Donald Miller of building a story brand and has collaborated with major names like Jeff Bezos, Nike, and Adidas.

Yet, Amidst these achievements, Chris's heart beats strongest for female coaches and service providers, empathizing with their struggles of copywriting, visibility, and the transformative potential of a well crafted signature story. For Chris, writing isn't torture, but a delightful journey of self expression and professional growth, especially for those navigating the challenges of ADHD.

Red Door Stories embodies a revolution, turning the chore of writing into an empowering and enjoyable process. We'll see about that, Chris. Welcome, Chris. Did I get 

all that right? You did it. You did it. Yep. That was perfect. 

Wonderful. So before we go into the enjoyable, empowering process of writing, cause you've got a lot of convincing to do here.

Chris, can you talk about your ADHD diagnosis first? Cause we always want to start there. Some sort of maybe, um, tell us your origin story. 

Absolutely. So in 2017, I had a friend who had been diagnosed with ADHD and. Like many people, they think of ADHD as this inability to engage or pay attention to something.

And I thought when my friend told me that, I thought it was just absurd and untrue. And of course I went home and did some digging and  trying to understand what she was talking about. And I, as I read about ADHD, I realized, oh my God, this is.  Like everything, check, check, check the box, everything around ADHD.

It just, it was incredibly validating. And so at that point I eventually found a nurse practitioner who's specialized in 80 working with women that have ADHD, she has ADHD herself. And so she. was the one that I worked with to go through the testing and validate that I did have ADHD. Even if I hadn't gone through that, I know I, I mean, it's almost laughable all the ways my life shows up with ADHD symptoms.

So can you tell us what were you like as a child? 

Absolutely. As a child, I was very anxious. I just, I remember just like this visceral. Desire to be invisible, to hide, to not have any attention on me. And at the same time, you know, I love my friends. I love to be creative. I was happiest just working on a creative project.

I was very curious and interested in different things. So my, my parents helped me and allowed me to take a lot of different classes. But it became kind of a joke inside of our family because I like to try a lot of different things, but I never stuck with anything. And so that's, that's kind of what I was like as a kid.

Did you struggle in school or was school easy for you? 

I struggled in school a lot. I did get good grades because I worked really, really, really hard. My executive function was challenged, let's just say. And so I would have to, in school I remember like meeting my mom at lunch and we would go through the book that I was reading in English class.

And because I couldn't,  I couldn't grasp and remember the information that I was reading, and so we would talk through it and she would help me kind of absorb the information so I could go to class and actually know what was going on. I think just memory wise, That was really challenging for me. I eventually became a cheerleader and I couldn't remember the dances.

Like I, I literally, I was, I would watch everyone around me do the dance that we had just learned. And I was like, what is going on? And then what I would do is go home and practice, practice, practice, practice, practice. And eventually I'd get it, but I had to really take the time in quiet. Do the extra work in order to just do what other people were doing in my grade.

Did school get harder for you as you got older or did it get easier? 

So basically when I turned 18 in college, they make you pick a major. And I was like, I have no idea what I want to do. So I chose to major in sociology, which was It's mildly interesting, but not enough to really get into learning about it.

And I struggled, I wasn't really interested in my major.  And I think I just needed  to mature, basically, to have life experiences, to learn about myself, what I'm good at, what I'm not good at, what I'm interested in. And so,  So throughout college, I just wasn't that into school. And then ironically, after I graduated from college, I got a degree in education.

I knew I didn't want to be a teacher and I decided to travel the world and just buy time before I had to figure out what I wanted to do for a career. And during that time, I got exposed to  the industry of graphic design and that Was an immediate like, Whoa, this is what I've been doing as a child. This is what I've been, you know, for fun.

I'd be making trifold vacation brochures and just silly things that I thought were art projects, but they were actually technically kind of graphic design projects.  And so when I got exposed to that after college, I decided to go back to school, to community college. And that was the. Best college experience of my entire life because I was learning about something that I was truly interested in and I wasn't learning about theory or reading big textbooks.

I was learning from people who were real graphic designers in the industry and so it felt very relevant and I knew within about three minutes of the very first class I was in, I knew what I am in the right place, this is my thing, and I never looked back. I just immersed myself in that, and I couldn't, I didn't have any interest for anything else, um, until I, I kind of mastered this skill, and.

It took about a year or two of that to get a job and then kind of work my way up into what I do now. So it really is a testament to the power of like finding that thing that you're really authentically interested in. And once you do anything is possible, but finding that thing is can be really hard. It can take a whole lifetime.

You know, it's really interesting that you, you say this because what I always. say is the ADHD brain is a brain of interest. And so when we can figure out what we're interested in, which is really that sweet spot, right? Of where our values, our strengths, our talents, skills, passion, and then purpose, because we tend to be mission driven people.

When you can find that sweet spot of where all of that intersects, then  Everything happened so quickly for us. So you were floundering, trying to figure out what you wanted to do,  and once the light bulb went on, it happened so quickly. It did. It 

did. And to go from somebody who bounced around from hobby to hobby and taking horse riding classes and then knitting classes and then, you know, and never sticking with anything.

Uh, and then at the age of 25.  coming across design and marketing. And it's essentially the only thing that I've stuck with my whole life. You know, it's, uh, it's been 23 years now and I am still every day as passionate about design. This work as I was at the beginning because they're I'm never solving the same problem twice.

So it's like my brain has a perpetual bone to chew on, you know, like you give a dog a bone. I think we, our brains need bones to chew on and problems to solve to keep us interested. And because every client that I work with is different and I'm constantly learning, it's just always fresh and new. No matter what.

And so 

I never 

get bored of it. Yeah. It makes perfect sense. And it was there from the time you were a kid. It was. We go out there searching for what can it possibly be? You know, we're constantly out there. It's external when really. The answers are all inside of us and we've been doing it from the time we were little.

That's right. But no one teaches us that, right? Yes. Yeah. 

Yeah, or when you go to a liberal arts college, right, there's like 12 different things you can choose and  the ADH brain is like, So nuanced, you know, that like general buckets of  subject matter are often just really, really bland and really boring.

And I, I think one of my biggest challenges and also my greatest gifts is that I get bored very easily. And when I'm bored, I am painfully bored. And so it's, it's I've got to keep things interesting and fresh, and thank God I found a career that did that. 

So I'm curious, um, once you figured out, oh my gosh, this is ADHD, and my friend has it too, what changed for you?

Initially I was, Ashamed of it. I thought it was like something wrong with me, something I had to hide it, that it was like a disability. And so I struggled with it internally. I kept it very private. I didn't want to talk about it at all, but I did have my friend and I could like bounce things off her, like, Oh my gosh.

Like, and honestly, I found your Facebook group too. And that became. Such a comfort to me that other people were in the same boat as I was, and that the way you present ADHD is so much more of a superpower than anything else, but it, it's the whole range of it, right? It's like that group is, it's full of a lot of support and a lot of people that can echo your experience and totally get it.

It's also Full of wins and great things that people are doing and changing the world, you know, it's pretty cool. Now, I, I mean, having ADHD has become so common, you know, now I don't even think about it. I just, Oh yeah, I have ADHD and everyone, and if I'm talking to anyone, they usually go, yeah, me too. And so it's just like, it's just kind of a, um, I just don't think of it as anything negative anymore.

I just think of it like this is just part of who I am and I have my ways of managing the world with it. Like little tools that help me remember things and you know. The idea list, oh my gosh, I think that is like, is a little out of control. Explain that. I just, I have so many ideas. The idea list,  just the generation, like the The ideas that one can generate when you have ADHD is really extraordinary.

And um, and so, you know, there are so many, I'll never accomplish them, but it's, it's really comforting to know, like, they're all, they're all in a place. They're all there. If I ever need to reference them, they're there. 

So you can let them go, right? You don't need to do the bright sparkly, where you're a little bit here and a little bit there.

Like you've got the focus on, oh no no, this is what I do, this is what I'm great at. And I love. Right. I'm just curious. How did you end up, um, working with, uh, Donald Miller? We have the same speaking coach, by the way. And so, I've heard about him personally, and it's, it's good.  

Yeah. He, oh, he's, he's a genius.

He is really, really a wonderful human. 

Oh, and you're in Portland. That makes sense. He's the Portland guy. 

Yeah, he's the Portland guy. So he actually lives in Nashville now, but he went to Reed College, which is in Portland and is the Portland guy. He talks about Portland a lot. And I got turned on to him. I don't even remember how I initially got turned on to him.

He had a podcast, but it was before he had written the book building a story brand. And so nobody really knew About him, people knew about some of his other memoir work, and I just resonated like I had been doing marketing and design for long enough that I knew his approach to communication and the less is more, keep it simple type of way of communicating that he talks about was in perfect alignment with what I was already doing.

His story brand framework. Just was a way to really, it really kind of defined what I had been doing and also elevated it and enhanced it. And so I decided that I wanted to learn more about that. And then at that point in time, he had decided to bring his entire team up to Portland for like a month over the summer because it was really hot in Nashville.

And so I was able to learn from him up here in Portland with a really small group of people. And then he asked me to come back to Nashville and work more with him and become a guide. And this was again, before building a story brand came out. So it was early on, but I just, I so resonated with everything that he  taught me and I knew in my bones, kind of like when that first community college class, I just knew in my bones, Oh, this is what I meant to be doing right now.

And, and I, I still wholeheartedly feel 

that way. I was going through your website and I was fascinated by, how do I even explain this? My biggest struggle, it sounds like yours, is working memory. So, when people tell me ADHD is a superpower, or do you believe ADHD is a superpower?  I say no, but I believe there's certain strengths that we have that can become superpowers, because if I could have fantastic working memory, and keep my ADHD, Oh, my God, you know, the sky would literally be the limit.

And so, I get that everything you do is around this idea, like your whole business has sort of been built for the ADHD brain who struggles with working memory. Because Yeah. I will tell you that when I was a lawyer, I still remember those Monday morning meetings. I hated them. We had to talk about our cases.

And I just, you know, it was so broad that I could never remember what to say. Or when people, you know, you're at a cocktail party and they're like, so what do you do? Oh my gosh, just like nails on a chalkboard. I can't even, you know, and you know, I'll say, Oh, I help ADHD women fall in love with their brain.

Well, what the hell does that mean? That doesn't encompass the book. That doesn't encompass the podcast. I'm not really an ADHD coach, right? When I was a lawyer, when I was a fashion designer, when I owned, you know, a high end women's wear company, when I was a real estate broker, that was easy. People know what that is versus today.

And this is exactly the pain point. That you address in how you work with your clients. So, I still haven't found an answer. But I've gotten better because I wrote the book at kind of solidifying, okay, well, what is it? What is it exactly? But still, I stumble when it's hard. What do you do? And, you know, just the thought of having to present what, what do I do, um, in groups of people?

Like, I totally can get it if you give me enough time, but you make me do soundbites. Like when I actually, I think I, is it am Northwest? Is that in Portland? Yes. Yeah. So I was on am Northwest, you know, I don't know, a month ago for my book. And again, I don't know how to truncate anything. It's almost like I don't know what's important, so I have to give everything.

And so when I am put in a situation where I'm limited to seven minutes, like I could not even believe how quickly seven minutes went by and it ended and I was like, I don't even think I told the main points  so I can completely, like I am your customer, right? So I'm going to shut up now and I want you to talk to this issue.

That I think many of us with ADHD, most of us with ADHD struggle with. It's so 

true. Whether you're self employed or you're employed, you have to be able to talk about what you do or just what you're doing, like with your, your lawyer meetings, what are you working on now? Right? And you have to be able to talk about it.

And that's why the framework is so liberating because. Like, when you are on Northwest, what you really needed to do is hone in on just the important things and filter out the clutter and the noise. And when we're so close to what we do, it's really hard to do that. There's a thing called the curse of knowledge, which means You forget what it's like to not know what you know.

So you kind of just start talking and you think that they understand the lingo that you're sharing. And they're like, their eyes are glazing over. They are not understanding it. Or you do the opposite of that, which is like the two word answer. I'm a real estate agent and then everyone's like, okay, well, Oh, look at the buffet table over there.

Like it, it just doesn't open up anything. Nobody. Yeah. It's not interesting. And so the beautiful thing about storytelling is that it doesn't matter whether it's a movie, a book. spoken story that always follows the same formula, which is really comforting for the ADHD brain, because you just know, once you know the formula, you can always fall back on that.

And so  there's limit, limitless creativity that can occur within the formula, just like  Every movie is the same formula, but you go to 10 movies in a year, they're wildly different from each other. They always begin with a hero that has a problem that they don't know how to solve. And that's how every story begins.

And then, That hero, eventually, about a third of the way through the movie or book, they meet a guide who has overcome this problem before and can give them a clear and simple plan. If the hero follows that plan, they are going to experience success. And, They're going to avoid failure. And so this is really, that is the story brand framework in a nutshell, but story has been around for thousands of years.

It's what, you know, pulled us together around the fireside at the beginning of time. So we're really wired for it. And it's story is story, but there's so much psychology that's baked into story and humans. We respond to story when we position. The work that we do as a story, for example, if somebody asks you, what do you do and you  have practiced and memorized an answer to that and you answer it in a way that follows that framework, a hero has a problem.

They made a guide with who has a solution and they hero experiences success.  If you follow that. It takes about two sentences and you have just pulled somebody into an incredibly engaging conversation. And you show up with more confidence because you're not fumbling your words. And then the recipient or the person you're talking to gets pulled in because our brains cannot help but engage when we tell stories.

We just can't, cannot help but engage. And so they're pulled in and then it opens up the door to a more engaging conversation. Or if they're like, if we're self employed and there's somebody that is struggling with the things that we solve, they can self identify. Oh, I'm, I can relate to that. I want to work with you.

Oh my gosh, tell me more. And so it just, it opens up the door to so many opportunities. And the same thing if you're employed. By a company, you still have to market yourself. I don't care if you're employed or self employed, you have got to market yourself for the next promotion or for whatever that next goal is that you have.

And the way you do that is to start to really understand and communicate. What you do and be able to concisely share the problem that you solve in a way that really makes sense and is not overwhelming for people. 

So this is what I'm thinking. Okay. So in a situation like, so what do you do?  My struggle around this question is if I say, Oh, I help ADHD women fall in love with their brains.

People are interested, typically, but I personally feel it's not important enough, which means it's boring. And so what can I say? So that it's not so boring because yeah, they're like, oh, well, you're an ADHD coach. Well, actually, I'm not like, it's just, you know, versus being able to have one phrase that it encapsulates everything with, without also sounding like a complete jerk, right?

Well, I have, you know, you know, a bestselling book and I, you know, have a podcast with six and a half million down. Do you know what I mean? Like there's really this balance of I don't want to sound boring because you know boring is just like I can't like I can't even go there But also I don't want to sound like a total jerk like I'm completely full of myself, 

of course and you know when you Get braggy, which I know you don't do that But answering that question doesn't mean you have to be braggy what we don't want to do is When we answer this question is kind of become the hero of our own story.

We always want to lead with the hero who has a problem. That is not you. You are not the hero of the story. You are the guide. You are Yoda. You are Mr. Miyagi. You are the guide. So you don't even enter into this story until a third of the way through it. 

Okay. So give me an example. I mean, it sounds like that's what I'm doing then.

I help ADHD women fall in love with their brains. I'm doing that. Nope. 

You're not doing that. Yet. Let's create it because I think it'll be really helpful for us to create it together and then if somebody wants to try it for themselves, they can follow. the structure of it. So remember, every story begins with a hero who has a problem.

When you get on the phone and you talk to the people that you're working with,  or the people in your Facebook group, or whoever, all the ADHD women, what are they complaining about? 

They feel overwhelmed. A lot of times, I think the biggest problem is the shame, right? They're embarrassed that they have ADHD, so they're unwilling to tell anybody about it.

They kind of feel like they're all over the place. They don't know that they're doing what they should be doing for them. 

Right. Okay. Okay, so what we want to do here is pick one problem. So, like if you're watching a movie, Let's just say like Born Identity, for example, the main actor, Matt Damon, he doesn't know who he is.

And so the whole movie is about this is his problem and he is trying to solve this problem. And so we want to pick one problem. If Matt Damon really wanted to adopt a stray animal or a stray cat, and he wanted to have a girlfriend.  Now we've just overwhelmed the person that's watching the movie. We need to pick one problem, the biggest problem, the one you hear the most.

So I think of what you shared, I think there are two big problems. I'd like you to pick one. So many women with ADHD are embarrassed by the diagnosis, or many women with ADHD are overwhelmed and feel like they're all over the place. Which of those problems feels more, more bigger? 

I mean, obviously the shame.

I think is bigger, which is probably where I'm going when I say fall in love with their ADHD brain, right? Because they are not in love with their ADHD brain. They think it's a problem. 

Yes. Okay. And here's what's beautiful about what you just shared. You're already telling part of a story. You just forgot that beginning problem part, which is the thing that hooks the brain.

That's the most important part of this story. And so we really want to make  We want to remember to make our clients or the people that we do our work with the hero of the story. And we do that by showing that we care about them and their problem more than we care about ourselves. And it's kind of a load off for us.

At least it was for me to realize like, oh my gosh, my story isn't even about me. Yes. 

So it is a bit of a load off. So it's a process and it can take a little while, but we can get the structure of it and the scaffolding of it in place. And we're just going to do it on the fly so we can like create it together. So we're going to hone in on the fact that they're embarrassed about it and ashamed about it, because when you share the part about, I ADHD brain, what you're doing is positioning your work as the solution to the problem.

And that is incredibly powerful.  And notice, I helped them fall in love with their ADHD brain is like eight words.  It's like your part of this story is the shortest part. Which is the only reason I 

can remember it, 

right?  Yeah, but this is what I tell my clients. Once you've got this, what I want you to do is print it out and put it next to your computer.

Because for brains like ours, we need it in front of ourselves. And then the people that know what to say when someone asks them, what do you do? When they have an answer,  you think that they're thinking off the top of their head. They're not, they've memorized this. And so  it's really important to say it out loud, walk around the house, practice it out loud.

And until it's. It's so effortless. It just comes off your tongue. Like the first time you said, I helped them fall in love with their ADHD brain. It probably didn't feel as effortless as it does now, um, because you'd said it many times. So let's go back to this structure. We've got every hero. Every story begins with a hero that has a problem.

So many women with ADHD are embarrassed about it. And we want to keep this conversational because people can remember conversational much better than they can remember formal. So I want you to be able to say this at a coffee shop, at a cocktail party, or at a presentation.  Many women with ADHD are embarrassed about it and Keep it a secret.

Something like that. Shorter is always better. I help them fall in love with their ADHD brain. So now what we've done is we've introduced you as the guide that has a solution. We always want to position our service as the solution to the problem. And then What we want to do, our job as, as the guide, think again, Yoda and Mr.

Miyagi, we want to show them what's possible. Right now, they're stuck feeling ashamed about this. They can't imagine not being ashamed about it. I know I couldn't when I first got diagnosed.  And so our job as the guide is to really point to that mountain peak and say, this is what's possible for you.  This is, I have a.

I have a greater vision for you because I've been there, I've done that and I know what's possible. Let me remind you and show you what's possible too.  And so the tail end of what we're creating here today, is your one liner and. A lot of people call it a one liner, some people call it an elevator pitch.

I like to call it a very, very short story. In two sentences, it contains all the components of story. You start at the beginning of the story, you've got a middle to the story, and now we're going to tackle the end of the story, which is  painting a picture of a brighter future for your hero. What we want to brainstorm here is I help them fall in love with their ADHD brain so they can, so they can what?

Like, what's possible for them once they fall in love with their ADHD brain? Just brain dump. I know what it is. So 

they can live 

to their full potential. 

What else? Um, so that they can be happy. So that they can feel inspired. So that they can feel worthy. That's awesome. So that they can recognize how brilliant their brain really is.

Okay. Oh, I love it. 

Okay. So when we think about the mountain peak, we're literally, we're halfway up the mountain. We've just met the hero and we're telling them, Oh, I'm your guide. And what I do We'll offer you this solution so you can experience success. And so we want to go big here. I kind of like to go, go big or go home.

Like, let's not play small with what's possible for you. We want to think big. And so that's why when you share, live to your full potential, that's big. But like, we can even go bigger. Let's just try this one on for size. Ooh, I'm going to get chills on this one. Okay. So, many women with ADHD feel shame about it.

I helped them fall in love with their ADHD brain so they can know their worth, recognize their brilliance, and live to their fullest potential. Now you're talking about who you work with, the problem you solve, and showing them all the success that can happen for them. When they fall in love with their ADHD brain.

I already wrote it out. I really like it. This is my first thought though is, you know when people do the elevator pitch thing and it just sounds so elevator pitchy, you know, like, yeah, it's not like it naturally came out of them. It's this thing they've memorized. Of course, I can never do that because I can't remember anything.

Totally. Yes. How do you not make it come across like that? 

Well, I think that what you're talking about is the elevator pitch. Like, The elevator pitch, that name has a, has a bad rap because it's salesy and because it's smarmy and we think about like going to buy a car or something. Like it can be, it just has a.

bad connotation to it. And so that's why I always hesitate to use those words. When I talk about this work, it's really a story.  And so it's all about delivery. This truly is not at all an elevator pitch. An elevator pitch is about selling and convincing. What you're doing is sharing who you work with, the problem you solve and the benefits that they get to experience.

And so it's not at all about sales. It's about simplifying the work that you do so it can land for somebody else. So they can really get it. And so they can engage with what you're talking about. And so let's just pretend you're at a coffee shop. And someone comes up to you and says, Hey, you know, Tracy.

Hi, do you remember me? Like, what are you up to? I haven't seen you since college. And you can be like, Oh,  Oh, I've been, yeah, it's been a whirlwind, but, um, in the last 10 years, I've really found something that. It lights me up and, you know, a lot of women with ADHD, they feel a lot of shame about it. I help them fall in love with their ADHD brain so they can really know their worth, so they can recognize how brilliant they are and that they can live to their fullest potential too.

And that's the work that I'm doing now that really matters to me. That doesn't feel salesy to me at all. 

No, no. I think that's really good. And what I Especially realizing all of this is I didn't have that first part. I wasn't making it about them. Ultimately, it kind of did though, because they'd always be like, Oh, well, my wife has ADHD, or I know, or my daughter was just diagnosed, you know, many of them.

Well, the ones that would be interested right away would jump in because it seems to be a subject everybody wants to talk about. And then you can tell the people who do, who, you know, they think ADHD, it's like a religion or something. They just don't believe in ADHD. So there's like dead silence. I'm like, Not my people.

I'm not even going to try to convince you. Next. 

You know, totally. Yeah. 

No, I, I think this is really good. Okay. So now I want you to tell us how do you then use this framework? Because I know the other thing you do is you really help us You give us a system to write within, and I know, I mean, I've written a book, and I still don't consider myself a good writer.

I'm a fantastic editor, but I hate to write. It's like that structure, there's so many thoughts, and to organize it, it's literally painful. Thank God for ChatGPT, that's made it a little bit easier, because I can at least dump all my thoughts in there and ask it to create an outline. Um, Right. What advice do you have around that?

Because it sounds like you had that struggle as well, but then do you have a natural, I mean, you consider yourself a writer? No. You have a natural aptitude? No. 

I am a writer, but I have never officially, it took me many, many years to consider myself a writer because I've hated it my whole life, and I am ashamed to admit it that like in.

College, I would get my boyfriend to pretty much write my papers for me. I relate to that  paralyzed feeling that happens when you have to write something and not only, and you're procrastinating, number one. And then when you actually sit down to do it, it's just you write a few things and no, no, no. Oh, what?

This is awful. No, I can't. And it's just,  it's the worst. That's why for me, the framework has been so powerful because it all comes down to like with so many things like, okay, what kind of baby step can I take? What's just that next first baby step that I can take? And when you're writing, if you always begin with a hero that has a problem.

So when you, I asked you, what do you, what do they tell you when you talk to them? What do they complain about? That's really what, in their words, what do they complain about? And When you're stuck writing something, that's always a great place to start. And that actually allows you to kind of get over that paralyzed hurdle.

And we just created a very, very short story, right? It was two sentences long, but it had all the components of story. The framework works like an accordion. So, we were just in the most condensed form of story with your one liner. If you're writing a blog post or a social media post or you're writing a speech or a webinar, it broadens, it widens, you go deeper into the problem that the hero has.

You go deeper into the solution that you are providing as the guide and you get to go deeper into this success. But you can Still follow the framework. And so it's just it's kind of like when somebody gives you a leg up when you're jumping over a fence It's like that's what the framework does it will get you unstuck And that's the hardest part.

So when you are sitting down to write Anything that you're struggling with I mean, you know, not a not a simple email or whatever Do you always start with okay? Okay. Who's the hero? Is that literally your thought process? Yep. Okay. So number one is who's the hero? What's number two? 

I kind of combine them.

Who's the hero and what are they complaining about or what are they struggling with? Okay. What's the problem? 

Okay. And then the solution? Then we want to know who's 

the guide. 

Oh, who's the 

guide? Okay. Who's the guide? And what is their solution? So that can come across. So for you, you say, I helped them fall in love with their ADHD brain.

We're introducing you as the guide. We're not saying my name is Tracy and you could. You certainly could, but because we're trying to do a short version of it,  you just step in as the guide. I helped them fall in love with their ADHD brain. You know, nobody has to question who's the guide here. And so the guide has the solution and that is your solution.

Helping them fall in love with their ADHD brain. Now, the way you solve that problem, you do it through your podcast. You do it through your book. You do it through your Facebook group. You probably do it with one on one clients. A lot of different avenues in which you do that, but this is the, the overarching umbrella of the work that you do.

What I really love about this is, I know when I first, um, had a platform and everybody was telling me, you've got to get out there, you've got to get on video, you've got to be visible. And I just hated it. I don't know what it was. Like if you set, if you put me on a stage, I'm perfectly happy there because I can see the audience.

But something about being online, you didn't know who was out there. It just freaked me out. It took me a whole year, you know, of doing all this, you know, taking all these programs where I did everything, but actually get on there and go live. But once what got me over it was this idea that forget about yourself.

This is not about you. This is about them. Who's, whose life do you want to change today? Right? Because if I can get my message to just one person in everything that I do, the ripple effect then of them, you know, changing not only their life, but their kids lives, their, um, you know, family's life, their partner's life, their friend's lives, because whomever we tell.

They tell more people. That just totally took the pressure off. And what you're talking about here in writing, it's the same deal. It's not about you, right? You're thinking about how do you help them. 

Right. I love that. No, it's, it's such a load off. It's such a relief. And when, and when we're talking about, you know, the hero, the true hero of this story, which is not ourselves, we're always the guide.

When. When we're talking about them, we have a lot more clarity around what they struggle with because we're not so close to it, right?  When it's your, you and yourself, we have that curse of knowledge again, or what I also call the bottle effect, which is we're really inside of a bottle, trying to read the label that can only be read from the outside.

And  does that make sense? Like, That's a really good analogy. We cannot get the distance that we need from ourselves to talk clearly about us. And so that's the other gift of storytelling is that it's actually about  who we work with. It's not about us. So we have clarity because we have perspective. The 

other thing I saw that you wrote somewhere, I don't know if it was what you wrote to me directly or if it was also on your website that I could completely relate to, is that we struggle to write our own copy, so  we punt it to someone else who's a copywriter, and  We get back the work product and we're like, no, I mean, literally I would use copywriters as like the first edit and then I would go and just, you know, and I, I had a copywriter poor Esther who, you know, she'd write these emails for me and I would literally come in there and just trash them.

And I kept telling her, it's not you, it's not you. It's just, this doesn't, this isn't me, you know? And I think especially with ADHD. We just have this need to be authentic. It's our voice and  so we can't just take anybody else's copy. So can you talk a little bit about that? 

Yeah, I mean it's, it's a real pickle when you are self employed because  You know, I don't think anyone really realizes, when you become self employed, how much writing you actually have to do, like you said, the emails, and the websites, and the app,  it's all writing, and so,  when you reach a point where you're like, I'm done, like, I, I'm making enough money now I can invest in a copywriter and take this off my plate.

And then exactly what you said, you get the copy back and it just doesn't feel aligned with your voice. It's like off, right? And you can't move forward with it because it's not aligned. And so the reality is you can't outsource your own voice. You can't, but  you know, and I've been, I've been in the industry now 23 years, so  I've been through that on both, on both sides of the coin.

And that's why I developed my method of doing things because collaboration is the key. And I, and every client that I have struggles with that feeling of being paralyzed and not being able to do it themselves. And yet they also struggle with not being able to hire it out. So it's like, okay, well, what do you do?

What you do is, Find a collaborative partner, somebody who knows how to pull the story out of you and can, together with you, craft that message so it feels really aligned and talk about an efficient way to write your copy. It's like, with ADHD, we talk a lot about patterns. Uh, body doubling and, and in a way it's like that.

It's like you need a partner. You need somebody that knows story, that really knows how to clear the clutter and pull out the gold. I call it, I mine for gold. I mine for gold in my client's brains, the story is in there. My job is to pull it out and then we organize it using the story framework.  Because we're doing it together and refining together by the end, it feels perfectly, beautifully aligned with who you really are. 

No, I, I think that makes perfect sense. Um, I can't,  I just wish I would have met you like that. Five years ago,  after going through all of this pain, because that's typically what happens, right? You just give all the information to a copywriter, they go away. And all of a sudden they just come back with here.

And usually I can think of one copywriter I've worked with where I thought, okay, she gets it, but she also has ADHD. Um, but in general. Even if they have ADHD, they're not you, right? It's hard. 

They're not you. You can't outsource your own voice. And even if you find someone who's great,  there's this very time consuming process of back and forth revisions, revisions, tweaks, revisions, back and forth, and then ultimately you kind of end up  putting in so much time into it by the time it gets to the finished product that you might as well have just written it yourself.

Well, and then the other part of that what you just said is so true. I feel like I'm cheating  which is ridiculous But literally that's how I feel because again, it's my voice and we are just so you know All about originality and authenticity and that like, you know being who we really are Which I think makes it even worse, especially since we know that most of us, you know Either are entrepreneurs or want to be entrepreneurs, you know, so I love this.

So what are the ADHD traits that you feel are responsible for your success?  

Curiosity,  a genuine, genuine desire to help and make the world a better place. Love of learning,  always needing to feed my brain with  information. And so just continuing to get better and better and better at my own craft. I would say those are the ones like, I think fundamentally, I just, I genuinely love helping people.

Do you have a number one ADHD workaround? 

Oh, you know, I'm also a parent. And parenting can be 

with a son who has ADHD, right? 

Yes, yes, that's correct. He's six and I love him dearly and  parenting can be really boring. I can get really bored at times with him. And I, for me, having good headphones with a podcast or an audio book or something that can give my brain.

What it needs give my brain that bone to chew on can be a way for me to really comfort and take care of myself While I can also be with my kiddo, too I would say that has probably been like the thing that I've leaned on the most in the last six years 

I would totally agree and there's something about society and That judges women who tell the truth and say that, Oh my gosh,  parenting is so boring.

It's the same crap every single day. Right. And it doesn't end. You just start over the next day. And it's not that we don't absolutely love our kids, but for me, there just had to be something more than that. I had to be able to be learning about something. So I get it. I totally get it. And I love the, You know, having someone in your ears and you're learning something and it just, well, it spikes our dopamine.

It totally does. And you know what? I've never actually shared that out loud, but thank you for, thank you for like, number one, asking the question, but also saying that you get that because it is, you know, it's nothing that I've ever shared before. So maybe it's not all that uncommon. 

You know, I always, what I always said, you know, even when the kids were really little is I am not a sandbox mom.

You are not going to catch me in the sandbox with the sand creating sandcastles or whatever, you know, I would be there and doing the other stuff, right?  If my kids ever need anything, if they need to talk about anything, if they need to process anything, that's when I'm right there in the sandbox. But the actual playing, I'm like, you've got your friends, go play with your friends, you know?

So I totally get it. So Chris, are you working on something that you want to tell us about? You can send us to wherever you want to send us to 

or both. Everything pretty much about me you can find on my website. So you can go to reddoordesigns.  com that's r e d d o o r designs d e s i g n s dot com. All my goodies are there.

You can learn about how I work with my clients. Um, And I do have a freebie that will walk you through exactly what we did today. So if you want to kind of dip your toe in and apply storytelling to the work that you're doing, there's a free way to do that right there on my website. 

Is that on the home page? 

That's on the home page. Yes. Okay. What is it called? It's called How to Write Compelling Copy in Five Minutes Flat. So it's a five minute video and a worksheet walking you through exactly what we did for you today. And you can do it on your own time. It won't take you more than five or ten minutes. And, um, it's a great way to kind of begin to think about your communication.

In a different way about the hero and about you as the guide. 

I love it. Chris Thank you so much for spending time with us here today. Thank you for having me. It was so fun.  Totally my pleasure So that's what I have for you for this week. If you like this episode with chris jones Please let us know by leaving a review.

Our goal is to change the conversation around ADHD, helping as many women as we possibly can learn how their ADHD brains work so that they too may discover their amazing strengths. They're brilliance. Anyway, thank you so much for listening and I'll see you here next time. Next week, 

you've been listening to the ADHD for smart ass women podcast. I'm your host, Tracy Otsuka join us at ADHD for smart women. com where you can find more information on my new book, ADHD for smart ass women, and my patented your ADHD brain is a okay system to help you get unstuck and fall in love with your brilliant brain. 

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