Episode Transcript
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Yeti Stereo Microphone & Fa (00:00):
Hey
beautiful people.
Welcome back to another episodeof organizing an A DHD Brain.
This week it's gonna be a littlebit different.
I'm gonna tell you a little bitabout my own story and my
journey to where I am today.
You may have heard some of thesestories before, so if you have
sit back and relax, it's alwaysnice to have a good reminder.
And if this is your first timehearing a little bit more about
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me, welcome and it's so weird'cause I'm a little nervous to
share more about me personally.
But I also think it's importantto have this transparency,
especially if you're consideringgetting a coach.
I want you to know a little bitabout me to see if we align or
if you just simply like me andwanna continue to listen to the
podcast.
In other news, I am hosting aclothing swap in the Colorado
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Springs area, and morespecifically in Monument Palmer
Lake area on April 19th from12:00 PM to 5:00 PM.
So bring all of your oldclothing things that are in
good, gentle, used condition.
We're accepting women'sclothing, men's clothing, kids'
clothing and accessories andshoes.
It's$10 to get in.
You drop off your old clothingand you can shop other people's
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gently used clothing.
We actually turn Balanced Studioin Palmer Lake into a little
boutique.
It's so fun and you can takewhatever you want with you.
I've always had some reallygreat luck.
You also have the chance to wina mini styling session with Tara
from Style Elevation with Tara,or a virtual decluttering
session with myself where weactually work in a space of
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yours, which is super fun.
So if you're interested, pleasecheck the show notes below and
you can RSVP on Facebook.
I am not on Facebook, but theFacebook invite is in the show
notes below.
Also, super fun announcement.
I am going to be transitioningmy membership platform from
where I'm currently at on Wix tocircle.
my good pal Russ from the A DHD,Big Brother hosts a community on
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circle and it has been so cooland I'd really love some
additional capabilities for myown community, so I'm gonna be
making that transition, so rightnow signing up for my membership
is on hold as I build theplatform for our new membership,
and I invite you to join me overthere.
But if you're in the membershipright now, don't worry.
everything that we have plannedthis month is still happening
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and you can still access thecurrent community.
This Thursday the 17th, myselfand Russ from the A DHD Big
Brother are hosting a publicdecluttering body doubling
session on Zoom.
We would love for you to join,get to know us, and we're gonna
talk through letting go of somestuff in our home and we're
doing it all together.
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So pick a space, join us on Zoomand come enjoy some witty
banter, I'm sure, and someinsights into letting go of your
own stuff.
I'd love to see you there.
Okay, let's dive in.
I wanna give you an idea of someof the things that I've started
to acknowledge as part of my ownA DHD journey, even though I
wasn't diagnosed with A DHDuntil about three years ago.
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I wanna tell you a little bitabout my journey into where I am
now as an organizing coach.
But I do think it's reallyimportant to start with my
childhood.
And what I remember from mychildhood is that I threw a lot
of temper tantrums.
I remember some of them, but Ialso am reminded of them from my
family who tells me all the timethat's what I used to do.
I used to yell all the time.
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I would scream, I would kick.
And I like to joke around nowthat is how I built my lung
capacity.
But if I remember back being achild, I remember being very
adventurous.
I remember loving to laugh.
I remember loving life, and Iremember that I always loved to
build a good fort or collectnewts from off the ground or get
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my hands dirty.
I loved playing in mud.
I loved being outside with myfriends.
I just genuinely loved being akid.
I was a Navy brat, so we movedaround a ton before we
eventually landed at mygrandfather's house that my
parents inherited.
And that is where I spent mostof my childhood.
I didn't have a lot of kidsaround in the neighborhood that
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were my age, so this was anadjustment for me.
But I do remember having friendsthat were second homeowners from
New York and they would come upand we would have adventures in
streams, building dams andclearing out the streams of old
leaves so that we could make thewater run a little bit faster.
I remember my childhood beingfull of joy.
there's nothing like a goodrainstorm in New England.
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I remember when I was in fourthgrade.
I was outside playing with oneof my good friends and we saw
the rainstorm coming.
I don't know if you've ever seenthat before, but you can see the
rain before it actually hits youand it starts to roll in and it
just pours down on you.
instead of running for cover, wejust decided to play.
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We decided to run around andjust get soaking wet, and it was
so incredibly amazing.
I'll never forget that moment.
One of the first times reallystarted to feel different as a
kid was moving to mygrandfather's house.
I had previously been at aschool where I played soccer,
and I loved soccer.
I was good at it too.
I just remember having such agreat team and teammates and I
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loved the game.
But when I came to the newschool and I tried out to be on
the soccer team, I rememberfeeling awful.
I remember feeling like I didn'tbelong and as if everyone had
already had all their friends,and I didn't have a place
amongst everyone else.
And I remember just feeling soincredibly shy.
So I quit.
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I told my parents I didn't wannado it, and they didn't force me
into doing it.
And so I retreated and Iconsistently felt like I didn't
belong because I was the newkid.
I came halfway through theschool year and everyone had
already had their friends.
as I started to make friends, Ididn't feel like I was worthy
enough because all of theseother kids had been going to
school with each other sincethey were in preschool and
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kindergarten.
Regardless.
I still saw my brilliance as akid.
I used to sew my own dollclothes because my mom didn't
wanna buy me any of the Americangirl doll clothes that I wanted.
I used to paint rocks My bestfriend and I, her parents were
second homeowners coming up fromNew York City and they had this
gorgeous stream in their frontyard and we used to take all of
my Barbie dolls and pretend thatthey lived on the side of a
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mountain in this stream.
And it was so fun.
I used to build forts and leantoss.
I took care of my neighbor'shorses down the road, and I was
obsessed with adopting cats.
In fact, my dad got my mom a catone day, and then I decided it
was my mission to adopt the restof the cats.
So we had at least three catsgrowing up in this old
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farmhouse, where they definitelyhelped with the mice problem.
But as I got older, theinsecurities that I initially
felt from joining a new schoolstarted to progress.
And ultimately, I found copingmechanisms in food.
my parents worked a lot.
My dad had retired from the Navyand he was a school
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administrator, and my mom was anurse.
And so oftentimes I would findmyself home alone after school.
And I would eat.
I remember pouring myself bowlsof chips and drinking two or
three sodas in one sitting.
And as I approached the seventhgrade, I was over 200 pounds and
my dad kept telling me it wasbaby fat.
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And I believed him.
I was like, oh, this is normal.
It's just weird that all of therest of my friends are super
teeny tiny.
But that I now understand is oneof the coping mechanisms I
developed in order to keepmyself safe as I was growing up.
As I got older, I continued tothrive in certain areas of my
life.
I started singing at a reallyyoung age, and I was a part of
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the choir.
I was performing.
There was nothing I wasn'tinvolved in as far as
performances go.
I loved being on stage.
There was something about itthat just made me so incredibly
happy.
And then in addition to that, Iwas really good at math.
That was something that I coulddo without even trying.
And now I know there's somethingabout music and math.
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I think it's because it has avery clear answer.
It's very clear on whether ornot you're hitting the right
note.
And then of course, whether ornot you get the right answer.
I liked the clear, conciseunderstanding of math and music,
and it lit up my whole world.
I decided I wanted to be a rockstar at a very young age.
What was interesting about thatand what it taught me is that
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those were things that I wasseemingly good at without
trying.
So when I would try to do thingsand I wasn't good at them right
away, I would give up and justsay that I wasn't supposed to be
good at them, that other peoplewere supposed to be good at
them.
And this is just not where Iexcelled.
Because I was good at math, Idecided I was not good at
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history or English or writing,because those involved all of
these other components that feltforeign to me, that felt too
complex, and it felt like thatwas never something that I was
just gonna be good at.
And so I avoided it at allcosts.
But because of that, I acceptedmediocrity as my norm.
I was just meant to be mediocreand to be in the background and
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to not be the star of the showbecause I wasn't good enough for
the other stuff.
And then of course, because Iwas such a larger kid, I assumed
that meant I was less thaneveryone else.
In fact, I was made to feel thatway.
my brothers told me that I wasfat.
the kids were certainly not shyabout telling me who I was
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because of what I looked like,and I believed them.
And we didn't talk about thisstuff.
This stuff was just something wedidn't talk about it.
I just saw that I needed to beskinny based on the magazines I
bought And the posters I put upon my wall.
So I didn't think anything elseother than I needed to be
skinny, but I had no idea whereto begin, and that's where diet
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culture really started to becomea huge part of my life.
But I never stopped singingthroughout this whole process.
I was constantly singing.
I sang in the Vatican when I was11 years old with my traveling
chorus.
We sang in churches in Florence,we sang in Germany.
It was just a really coolexperience.
I even performed with MerylStreep when I was in fourth
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grade because it was a part of alarger performance and I had no
idea who she was.
Don't get me wrong, but it was apart of my journey.
And because of this journey, Ithought that in order for me to
thrive in life, I needed to bethin, and that would be the only
thing that would get me frompoint A to point B.
And so it became my hyperfocusdieting, not eating, binging.
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There was a lot that went intothis and my whole perception of
who I was as a person.
So instead of focusing onschool, instead of focusing on
my brain and what I was capableof, instead of focusing on
singing, although that'ssomething that I still did and I
continued to perform, I focusedon the way that I looked.
My whole life has been consumedwith the way that I look, and
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it's vulnerable telling you thatnow because as I'm looking at
myself here, I'm like, I'm notperfect, but I love myself and I
love who I've become, and I'mreally proud of all of the work
that I've done to get there.
But it's fascinating to exploresome of what I've gone through
in order to get to where I amright now.
I remember in high school when Iwrote a paper and I loved my
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English and my historyprofessor, even though I had
already decided that I wasmediocre and I was never gonna
be enough.
I loved them so much and Iwanted so much to impress them,
but it didn't necessarily makeme work harder.
But I'll never forget one momentwhen I had written an essay and
both my English and my historyprofessor tracked me down in the
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hallway and I didn't go to avery large school, so it wasn't
very hard to track me down.
But they tracked me down to tellme what an incredible job I had
done on this paper that I hadwritten.
And I remember thinking, oh, Ijust edited it.
Oh my gosh, looking back on thisnow, I like what?
I had edited the paper and theythought it was great.
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Whereas previously I wouldliterally just write it and as
soon as I was done, because Ihad procrastinated, wait until
the last minute, I was so donewith the paper because I didn't
want to do it, that I wouldn'teven look at it again.
So anything I turned in was justa rough draft.
And again, coming back to myparents, my mom is deaf, so
communication in general ispretty difficult for her.
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And then my father had been on aship most of his life, and so
him transitioning back intobeing a father and learning how
to speak to me in a way thatmade sense just wasn't a part of
my life.
So I didn't speak to my parents,I spoke to my friends, but these
weren't regular things that wetalked about as far as our
growth or education or orunderstanding what we're capable
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of.
I think we all had this unsaidcommunication of, you are just
good, or you are just not.
And that's just the way it is.
There's not much that you changewith that.
You just show up as you are, andthat's the way the world accepts
you, and then you just fit in.
It's almost like this powerdynamic that you fit in where
your place is in the world.
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There was this other projectthat I did where I measured
every nook and cranny in myparents' house, my grandfather's
old house, and I had to do a twoscale drawing of it for my
eighth grade history class.
And I remember very specificallymy teacher saying, make sure
when you turn it in, the grassis not scribbled in.
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It needs to be colored inbecause we're gonna be hanging
it on the walls.
It's part of the project, butmost kids will turn it in with
scribbled in grass.
Don't do that.
Guess what?
I spent so much time measuringand making sure that everything
was to scale, and this is a homethat was built in the 18
hundreds.
it has a lot of varying elementsin the home that need to be
accounted for.
So because I had spent so muchtime on those various elements,
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I didn't have enough time tocolor in the grass.
So guess what?
It didn't look good, and I wasso annoyed that it didn't look
good that I didn't turn it in.
I hated the fact that I wasn'tgoing to be delivering on this
one element that they said wasso important for me to be able
to turn it in.
So I didn't, it's fascinatinghow based on this little bit of
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feedback I decided that itwasn't good enough.
So here I am starting tounderstand like this strive for
perfectionism, but I wasn't ableto speak about it.
This wasn't something that I wasable to reason through.
I just accepted that I was nevergoing to be good enough.
But the things that got methrough were eating right.
I got that dopamine hit fromthere.
And music, I was constantlylistening to music.
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And what was cool about my musiceducation growing up is not only
was I listening to the fifties,sixties, and seventies with my
parents in the car, the BeachBoys or Kenny Rogers, because
that's what we would listen toon road trips, but I was also
listening to music from mybrother's era and things that
they really liked.
Or my sister who grew up in theeighties, I was listening to her
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music.
And then of course I wasdeveloping my own love for music
myself.
And I also remember one of mybest friends, her mom used to
listen to country music.
So not only was I listening topop, but rap, r and b, classic
rock, you name it.
I was also listening to countrymusic and I developed a love for
Each and every one of the genresAnd then of course, classical
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music or Beethoven and all ofthese different symphonies,
because that was a part of whatI did in singing.
I would learn how to sing musicin different languages so that I
could learn how to expressmyself.
So that never went anywhere.
As I continued to accept that Ijust would never be enough, and
I was mediocre.
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In addition to that, I have beena rule follower my whole life.
And so when I went to schoolright at 18.
I was two blocks away fromFenway Park when the Red Sox won
the World Series for the firsttime since 1918.
And it was a magical experience,but I didn't know what I wanted
to do.
So by the time I was in mysophomore year of college, I was
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already$60,000 in student loandebt, and I still had no idea
what I wanted to pursue.
I wanted to pursue music thatwas definitely on my radar as it
has been a common theme in myentire life.
But my parents advised me thatwasn't a good choice because I
would never be able to makeenough money to be able to pay
these student loans back.
So I didn't pursue my passion.
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In fact, I left school after mysophomore year because I
realized that this is definitelynot something that I wanna
continue to accrue debt with,especially if I didn't know
exactly what I wanted to doafter college, and I thought you
had to have it figured out.
I was so envious of the peoplewho had everything figured out
for school that again, I justchalked it up to there being
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something wrong with me, andthat my brain was so scattered I
couldn't focus on one thing.
And then of course, the onething that I did decide was
important enough to me, wasn'tthe thing that anyone in my
family had supported.
So I constantly relied on peopleoutside of me to give me the
validation I needed to pursuethe things that I wanted to.
What's funny is, as a podcasthost right now, I also remember
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in high school I used to be theco-host with one of my best
friends on the morning show.
We had a television studio inour high school, and I was the
co-host with my best friend.
In addition to that, I had aradio show with one of my other
best friends in college where wewould play some of our favorite
emo and other rock music so thatpeople could see how cool we
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were.
We still reminisce about thattime.
To this day, I've always wantedto speak my mind, but I've never
truly known how to do it in away where I could accept myself.
And I think that's what's reallyinteresting now about this
podcast is that it's okay thatit's just me that believes in
me.
Because anyone who thisresonates with will show up and
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if this podcast does notresonate with you, that's okay
too.
So as far as a DHD goes, I seethis in my scattered brain in
wanting to do so much.
And truthfully, I wanted to doeverything.
There were so many things that Igot excited about that I could
do them.
I was a key holder at apharmacy, at the age of 18.
So all of the pharmacists that Iworked with were encouraging me
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to go to pharmacy school,especially being in Boston Sure
that's absolutely something Icould have done.
It just didn't feel exciting tome.
I wanted life to feel moreexciting.
And in addition to this, Ithought for sure that the only
way that I could show my worthwas to get married.
And so I married one of my veryfirst boyfriends at the age of
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23.
And he was in the military andhe wrote love letters to me and
I thought it was perfect.
I thought that this is exactlywhat I needed to do and who I
needed to be.
It wasn't until I made anincredibly powerful decision and
the right decision for me, todivorce that man at the age of
26 because he was not going tohelp me get to the life that I
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wanted to live.
And he didn't bring out any ofthe qualities in me that I
wanted to portray in this world.
So at the age of 26, I was stillgetting my degree and I had
decided to get my degree inpolitical science.
I was still trying to findmyself in the world, and I just
recently went back and read someof my old journals from around
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that time, and I started to seethis spark in myself where I was
actually believing in who Icould be versus just trying to
make everyone around me happy.
So instead of making my parentshappy and staying married to the
same man miserably for the restof my life, I got a divorce.
and I won't tell you the reasonswhy we got a divorce because
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that is a whole nother story,It's also not necessarily my
full story to share.
With that in mind, I started tofind myself, but not
immediately.
This was the beginning of awhole nother journey.
But during this whole time, Iwas still singing.
It never left my life.
I was in the acapella group inmy college.
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I continued to sing andparticipate in talent shows at
UMass Boston where I eventuallygot my degree in political
science.
I also co-founded an acapellagroup in Boston and they're
still semi-professional to thisday, so shout out to sound off
acapella.
I was only there for a yearbefore I decided to move across
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the country to Colorado andstart.
A whole new adventure.
This is a pretty common theme inmy life.
I see now that I love to startnew adventures.
I love to do something new toexpand my brain, and I now
understand that this is what Ido to allow myself to grow, to
put myself into uncomfortable,positions so that I can see I am
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able to grow.
I used to work at the CheesecakeFactory.
It was a really super fast-pacedenvironment, the way I was able
to function under high stressand really fast paced
environments made me thrive.
I loved being in what we callhell well, And making drinks for
the entire restaurant and theentire bar where I was not only
creating relationships andhaving conversations with
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people, but creating thesedrinks that had rules behind
them that I had to follow in avery strategic manner.
I had to come up with newsystems and new ways to make
sure that everything got doneBut working at the Cheesecake
Factory gave me a lot of insightinto what I could do.
I had decided that we should doa flash mob.
I always wanted to do a flashmob, and I thought it would be
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so cool, just like to bring joyand elevate people's lives.
one of the women that we workedwith was a choreographer and we
planned it all out whereeveryone was gonna be, what the
music was gonna be, and peoplewould show up for rehearsals and
we were figuring it out and whatthe dance was gonna be.
we had posters up all over theplace so that you could join and
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you could know where everythingwas.
this was my baby, I was incharge of all of this.
One day, one of the higher upsfrom the company came visiting
and I noticed that all of theposters had been taken down.
And when I asked someone aboutit, They said that our general
manager was not very excitedabout the flash mob, and he was
a little embarrassed about it.
So he took down all the postersso that the higher ups wouldn't
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see it.
And in that moment, I never saidone thing about it again, and I
let it fizzle out and diebecause I was so embarrassed
that I didn't have someonebelieving in me.
And so I didn't ask questions.
I just took that one person'sword for it and went on with my
life.
And I think back on it because Iwas like, we were so ready to
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make it happen.
And I wanted so much to make itwork.
But because one person didn'tthink that it was realistic, I
decided to let it die.
I look back on that with a lotof shame now because I feel like
I was so capable of making thesethings happen and showing up in
the world.
But I look at that as thisunfinished project.
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I had gotten so excited aboutit, and then one person didn't
believe in me and so I let itgo.
I think even talking about itright now, I'm starting to
realize a little bit more aboutmy personality then and how I've
evolved to who I am now.
But a common theme as I'mcontinuing to work through this
whole process is I kept thinkingthat in the event I could change
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my outward appearance,everything in the world would be
better.
And that was the thing that,constantly consumed me from
sunup to sundown that if Ilooked better, my whole entire
existence was defined by the waythat I look.
After I got my degree inpolitical science, I decided to
move across the country.
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I moved into my brother'sbasement.
I had no money to my name.
I think I had$300.
In fact, I ended up opening up achecking account at a local bank
because they would give you$250just for signing up.
I also did a job for about amonth.
I sold DirecTV out of the backof Walmart.
If you've ever been stopped byone of those people, I'm so
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sorry.
It was me.
I did that and it was awful.
It was one of the worst thingsI've ever done.
but as I was discovering myself,I did find a job at USAA.
So if you're not familiar, thiscompany is, an insurance company
that has been around for over ahundred years, and it's an
incredible company.
I started working for them as aninsurance agent, selling
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insurance in all 50 states, andI loved it.
I thrived at it.
I learned how to talk to people.
I learned how to ask questionsso that I could truly understand
the differences in how peopleshow up because everyone in the
United States is so incrediblydifferent.
Talking to someone from New Yorkversus California versus Oregon
is gonna be totally differentthan talking to someone in
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Mississippi or in Texas or inAlabama.
It's fascinating, and I learnedhow to speak to people in a way
that they understood that I waslistening.
And so that was the start of myjourney into the corporate
world.
And as I worked my way up intoleadership, originally when I
started coaching, I thought Ijust needed to tell people what
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to do and then they would beable to do it.
I very quickly understood that Ihad to ask people questions to
understand what made them work,what made them tick, and what
helped them understand theirpathway forward and how some
people didn't wanna moveforward.
They saw themselves stayingexactly where they were, and I
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had to respect that because itwasn't my choice to make them
move forward.
Whereas I had these other peoplethat wanted to conquer the world
and I was able to guide them tothat place.
And help them, believe inthemselves in a way that helped
them understand that they coulddo that too.
I loved my leadership role, andI loved Brene Brown.
I read Simon Sinek.
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I immersed myself in leadershipbooks.
I loved the art of conversationsand learning how to listen, to
understand instead of listeningto respond.
I dove into the corporate worldin a way that helped me thrive.
And as I started to dabble inthe project management world,
one of my mentors asked me,what's one of the most important
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things that you wanna gain fromthis experience?
And I said, presenting.
there was this one director whopresented in a way that people
actually wanted to listen toher.
And I was like, oh, I want to dothat.
I wanna be able to speak in away that people want to listen.
And I think this has been mygoal my whole life.
I wanted my family to listen tome.
I wanted my friends to listen tome, and I wanted to be able to
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be heard in a way that peopleactually wanted to listen to
what I had to say.
And so I would attribute a lotof my success today to the
experiences I had in thecorporate world because I was
really able to put myself intouncomfortable positions to allow
myself to grow things that Ihated because it allowed me to
be bigger than I was before Itried it.
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it was during this time towardsthe end of my career that I had
made some huge decisions that Ithought would change my life.
First I got bariatric surgery,so I had bariatric surgery
because I thought that finally Iwas going to be able to lose
weight, and this would help meconquer the world in a whole new
way.
And I think in some ways, yes,losing weight has been such a
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key to me, understanding myselfin a whole new way.
But it didn't change anythingfor me.
I still had to conquer the waythat I was speaking to myself,
the way that I thought that Ihad to show up in the world.
I had to speak to myself in away that was kinder in a way
that I was able to love myselfno matter what size I was at,
because it didn't matter howmuch weight I lost, it mattered
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the way I spoke to myself.
Pretty shortly after that,probably about a year after
that, I realized that I wantedto quit drinking.
I didn't want drinking to be apart of my life anymore because
it became a hobby.
It was like, what do you do onthe weekends?
I drink, right?
Instead of doing the deep workthat I really wanted to do to
expand my horizons and mydreams, I was working so much
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that I was exhausted and inorder to quiet my brain at
night, I would drink wine, andthat was just something that
allowed me to feel like I wassane again.
But I knew that I didn't wantthat to be a part of my life.
And honestly, back when I hadmoved to Colorado about nine
years prior, I wanted to quitdrinking then, and I just never
made it a priority.
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So as I made it a priority, Ithought everything would be
perfect, but then I was nolonger drinking and I was
depressed.
I didn't have this one thingthat I had gone to, to quiet my
mind for so long, and now mymind was on.
And so not only was I talking tomyself in a negative way, but I
was also so depressed and nothappy in what I was doing
anymore.
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I loved my team, but then therewere so many changes that were
happening in the corporate worldat that time that I didn't feel
seen or heard in the same waythat I had before.
the leader I had at the time hetold me that I got too excited
about things or would takecredit when I was trying to
advocate for a certain team inour department.
it was just such a strangetransition because I had always
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had leaders that supported mewholeheartedly and helped me
grow to where I was and Istopped growing and I didn't
like that it was too stagnantand so I needed something new.
But during this time I was alsodiagnosed with A DHD and I was
in complete denial.
I remember my therapist tellingme that not everyone's brain
works the way that mine does andshe used the example of me
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procrastinating and waitinguntil the last minute to do
things because I was getting mymaster's degree in project
management at the time, and Iwas so overwhelmed with trying
to get everything done and alsomanaging a family and also
managing this corporate career.
It felt overwhelming and Ididn't know how to structure my
time in a way that made sense.
And so she advised me to go geta diagnosis.
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And when I met with thepsychiatrist, our diagnosis took
about two hours.
It was hilarious, she was like,yep, there's absolutely no doubt
in my mind that you have a DHD.
And I walked away and I was incomplete denial.
'cause a DHD for me meant likethese little boys who can't
focus and are hyperactive, butthat's not me.
I followed rules and I was quietand I held it all in.
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And my brain never stoppedworking.
but I was never necessarilyhyperactive.
In fact, I learned how to stayincredibly small I was taught
how to be small.
I was taught how to play smallbecause that was safe.
And so that's what I continuedto do.
So when I was trying to leavethe corporate world, I hired a
career coach because I was like,something's gotta give, I've
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gotta figure out what's going onhere.
And I wanted to get back intothe creative space of my brain
that I knew.
Like I've always been a goodartist.
I've always had an eye fordesign, and I thought maybe I'd
be an interior designer becauseI love making spaces look really
beautiful.
But during this time, I had alsobeen letting go of a ton of
stuff in my home.
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I had been selling stuff onFacebook marketplace.
I had been learning how to letgo and bringing things to
Goodwill.
I have been trying to teach myparents how to let go in their
homes so they wouldn't have asmuch to have to go through on a
regular basis.
So I decided that I wanted tobecome a professional organizer.
And of course I had watched theMarie Kondo shows and the home
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edit and all of this stufflooked so pretty and it looked
so cool.
And I wanted to create Pinterestperfect pantries and tell
everyone about the perfectproducts to buy and figure out
exactly how to make your lifefeel easy again.
And I hadn't necessarily createdall these spaces for myself, but
I knew I was capable of doingit.
So that's what I decided to do.
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But of course, after I had quitmy job, I took my family on
vacation and then signed tobecome certified in
manifestation.
So I did that.
I also signed up to take apodcasting course so I would
understand how I could do that.
And I started a business at thesame time.
And then of course After livinghere for only three years, the
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floors were cracking, so I hadto advocate for our floors to
get replaced.
And then my brother-in-law gotdiagnosed with cancer and so my
sister needed me to show up.
So here I am trying to juggleall of these things at once and
looking back on it now, I can'teven believe that was something
that I was capable of doing.
It feels so overwhelming to eventhink of what I was going
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through at that time.
I was trying to start thisbusiness, but in no way, shape
or form was I capable offocusing on one thing at a time.
'cause there were so manycompeting priorities trying to
take me in all of thesedifferent directions.
It wasn't until I startedreading books on a DHD that I
started to feel seen and heardfor the first time that I really
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started to understand my brainin a way that made sense for me
and made me feel like I wasn'tbroken.
I was just different.
And as I started to approachthings in this way,
understanding my brain, Istarted to understand why
organizing was such a difficultthing for people with a DHD, our
executive function and our timeblindness and our impulsivity
and our nervous systemregulation.
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All of these things played sucha huge role.
And then of course, consumerismand buying so much and trying to
seek external validation for theway that we felt internally.
There's so much that goes intowhy we have so much and all of
that, but it helped meunderstand how to work with
people a little bit differently.
So while I was originally doingin-person organizing pretty
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regularly, I started to dabblein coaching because in-person
organizing is awesome if youhire someone to work with you in
this space, and I encourage youto work with them one-on-one.
It's amazing.
You start to learn like what youdon't need anymore and how you
could function in creatingsystems.
It's beautiful, but there'sstill so much to accomplish from
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coaching because if you hiredsomeone to professionally
organize your whole home, it's alot of money.
That is a whole lot of money,and if you have the money,
incredible.
But I really wanted to helppeople understand their brains
in a way that they knew thatlike you're capable of doing
this on your own and you don'thave to actually stop your life
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to do it, but you do have tochange.
You've gotta change yourmindset.
You've gotta understand whatbeliefs you have that are
keeping you stuck in this samecyclical pattern time after
time.
After I started the podcast, Iwanted it to be solely around
organizing.
But the first year of podcastingfor me was really just learning
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so much about my own brain andthe way that other people have
managed their brainunderstanding people's diagnosis
stories, understanding howpeople show up with their
clutter, and how they attacktheir clutter, and how there's
so many similarities with theway that we respond to clutter.
And this second year, I havereally honed in to understanding
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how different we all are and howthere's not one podcast I could
do to make the world ofdifference in your life.
But I am gonna keep showing upbecause this stuff is so much
more complicated than justputting stuff in places.
And another thing that reallyhelped me understand the
importance of organizing is justthe amount of stuff that we've
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accumulated over the years.
And part of it stems from likethe greatest generation and
going through the GreatDepression and not being able to
let anything go because it's ascarcity mindset is that, oh,
how could I possibly let thisgo?
What if I'm never able to get itagain?
But now we're in the day and agewhere you can simply order
(35:22):
something on Amazon and it showsup on your doorstep two days
later.
And so it's so very easy to beprepared for literally anything
in your life.
Not only are we getting excitedabout all of these things that
we wanna do in our life, butit's so easy for us to start a
new project or for us to dosomething different because
while things continue to getmore expensive, they're also
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very cheap.
There's cheaply made stuff thatwe can get, and so we can always
be starting a new project ordoing something new or let our
brains go to the next mostexciting thing.
I just realized there was somuch more to life than creating
Pinterest, perfect pantries thanbuying the perfect product
because you'll very rarely seeme suggesting products because I
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don't want it to be anotherunfinished project sitting in
your garage.
But what you will hear me talkabout is mindset and how, while
our brains are so good at takingus down a rabbit hole of doom
and gloom.
We can also get in front ofthat, and we can bring ourselves
to a place where we can believethat we can do literally
anything in this world.
(36:26):
I read the book, the 5:00 AMClub, a couple years ago now,
and I said to myself, oh, Icould wake up at five.
This sounds doable.
This sounds like something Iwant to do.
So I did it, but it was also apain in the butt.
I hated it.
I hated waking up early.
My brain constantly tried totalk me out of it.
In fact, sometimes it would win.
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A lot of the times it would win.
I was very inconsistent.
I didn't do it every day, and Iwould always find a way to sleep
in a little bit more.
But after the first year, it goteasier.
After the second year, it goteasier, and now I can't even
sleep in anymore.
My body is so ready to get upand conquer the day I still try
(37:09):
to sleep in, but it's notsomething that I'm capable of.
I also still love to stay up atnight.
I used to stay up all night.
I used to love doing projects inthe middle of the night, and
someone described it asprocrastinating the next day
because it's so overwhelming tohave seen everything that you've
done.
How could I possibly go tosleep?
Although sleep is what makes ourbrain function a little bit
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better.
I literally could go on and onabout the way that I see myself
now versus the way that I sawmyself growing up and the way
that I even saw myself.
Through my family's eyes as theyoungest in the family, as the
one who never knew how to tellthe right jokes or never felt
comfortable enough speaking hermind because I was always told
that I wasn't mature enough or Ididn't have the right things to
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say.
I think what's cool about thisjourney and finding my voice on
the podcast is I'm starting tounderstand that it doesn't
matter what anyone else thinksabout me.
It only matters what I thinkabout myself and the things that
I know I'm capable of doing.
And now I also think thatcommunity is so valuable in this
because I would never have beenable to get to where I am right
(38:16):
now without the support of myincredible podcast community
that I meet with every singleweek.
I also have this really coolnetworking group that I'm a part
of it's full of previouscorporate girlies, but also
incredible women that are tryingto make something of themselves
outside of this nine to fivetrap that we sometimes fall
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into.
And not to say that they're notgreat because who doesn't love a
consistent paycheck.
or my incredible husband oranyone else who has listened to
the podcast and just said thatmy voice is great, or one thing
or the other?
Your words that you send mewhenever you sign up for the
dopamine menu are so fun.
So thank you for continuouslysending those.
But it has been a journey to gethere, and the community aspect
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and the support that I've gottenhas been incredible.
And the reason why I keepshowing up is because I believe
in myself, because I've beenallowed to believe in myself.
I've been allowed to believethat I'm not mediocre.
And while I don't necessarilythink that there's anything
super special about me, becauseI don't think in general anyone
(39:20):
is special outwardly, I thinkwe're all equal, right?
We're all just trying to make itin this world.
But we all have a voice toshare, and our voice is meant to
be shared with the world.
We all need to be saying what wehave to say confidently.
And if someone tries to knock usdown because they don't like
what we have to say, what abummer for them, because I think
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in general they're afraid to saywhat they really need to say
too.
I realized pretty fast as I wasbuilding my business that I was
meant for so much more than justorganizing.
And it's not to say thatorganizing out there, like
anyone who's creating thosespaces for you, freaking amazing
'cause that's a whole notherjourney.
(40:02):
But I wanted to use my brain andwhat I've always been working on
as far as coaching goes toreally help people understand
what they're capable of.
And then because I know so muchabout decluttering, organizing
and A DHD to be able to supportyou in finding your real
brilliance because you arebrilliant under that craziness
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of a brain that you have, it hasallowed me to support people in
finding who they truly are.
And I'm really proud of that.
Like so proud of that because byworking with so many people with
A DHD and seeing how freakingbrilliant they are and how so
much fun they are and how veryuniquely different they are,
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it's helped remind me howbrilliant I am as well.
You hear me say these things onthe podcast on a regular basis,
but something I like to do whenI'm going into a spiral or I
feel yucky because it stillhappens and I wanna give up.
In fact, two weeks ago I wantedto quit the podcast altogether.
It still happens guys, my A DHDhasn't gone away just because
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I'm organized.
It's still a real thing that Ihave to manage on a regular
basis.
I'm just better at managing itnow than I used to be.
But some of the things I tellmyself on a regular basis is if
everything is important, thennothing is important.
So if I'm trying to doeverything and I'm not focused
on just a few things, or I don'treaffirm what my priorities are,
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then I'm going to get lost in acycle of burnout.
And I know that I recognize thepatterns.
I can see that now.
So I use each time that I'mlooking at something that feels
uncomfortable with new eyes tosay, what is the world trying to
teach me right now?
And if I could go back to thatyounger self, like seriously in
life, I don't have any regretsbecause if I did it wouldn't
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allow me to be the person I amright now.
I don't have any regrets becauseI've done the things I've done
that have given me the lessonsand the life understandings to
be where I am right now, and I'mgonna continue to grow from
that.
But if I were to look at myyounger self right now, I would
try to help her understand thatshe's so worthy, she's so worthy
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of love, and she's easy to love.
She's so worthy of feeling safe,and it's okay to tell yourself
that you're safe.
And she's so worthy of believingin herself no matter what she
wants to do, because ultimatelywe're big dreamers and when we
take action on those dreams, wecan achieve gigantic things on
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the other side.
What I've learned to accept thisyear, as I have said before, is
that it's okay that it's me andmy family that I've built and my
friends who support me.
It's okay to do the work becausedoing the work and understanding
what you need to let go ofallows you to show up more
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authentically as yourself as youcontinue to grow in this world I
am in right now, my Find YourVoice era.
Although I've had this podcastfor almost a year and a half now
I'm finding my voice and I'mlearning what it looks like to
not only show up authenticallyas I speak to you about A DHD.
(43:14):
And how we can understand ourbrains a little bit differently
as we tackle the differentorganizational projects that we
have in our house.
But it also allows me to show upauthentically as who I am and
you might like some aspects ofme and you might not like some
aspects of me, and I just wantyou to know that's totally okay.
I'm not offended by it, and I'mproud to be able to say that out
(43:36):
loud.
So thank you so much for tuningin.
Thanks for supporting thepodcast.
Next week, we're gonna be backto some regularly scheduled
programming with anotherinterview, another solo episode.
I'm trying to alternate themeach week.
So it's an interview and then asolo episode, and we'll continue
to have some really cool andexciting things coming up.
So don't forget to join the bodydoubling session we have coming
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up here on Thursday the 17th.
We're all gonna be declutteringtogether, so get an idea of
where you wanna start, becausewe're all gonna be doing it.
And honestly, it's very hard notto do things when you are in a
group of people who also have aDHD, who also wanna get things
done.
Come learn a little bit moreabout how community can support
you.
And if you are ready to startyour coaching journey, book a
(44:20):
call with me in the show notesbelow.
Have an incredible week and I'llsee you next week.