Why Pushing Through Stops Working for ADHD Adults (Dr. Tracey Marks)

0:00 The habits and the things that you do to get you where you want to be are the very things that draw from your capacity in a way that you may not be able to sustain that and keep it up and maintain wherever it is you're trying to get to. So something has to change. Your goalposts need to move out or in, and you have to set reasonable expectations of what you can actually achieve so that you don't lose your sharpness and your edge and end up in a place where you're struggling.

0:26 When you finally got to where you thought you were gonna get, you can't maintain it because you're just so you're out of gas.

0:32 Hello everyone, and welcome to today's episode of the ADHD Skills Lab. Today I'm super excited to be joined by Dr. Tracy Marks, a board-certified psychiatrist, educator, author, and corporate speaker with more than 25 years of clinical experience. Tracy is known for translating the science of stress, attention, and emotional regulation into practice tools that people can actually use in everyday life.

0:59 More than two million people learn from her YouTube channel, and she's also been featured on CNN, ABC's 2020, and the Mel Robbins podcast. She is the author of Why Am I So Anxious? And today we're going to be talking a little bit about that anxiety when it comes to ADHD, the ADHD brain, and particularly focusing on the business owners and professionals in that leadership space we like to talk to so much.

1:22 So welcome, Tracy. It is so great to have you here.

1:25 Thank you. I'm very happy to be here.

1:27 Yeah. Before we get started, for those of you who are listening, just a reminder that our goal is always to support the business owners with ADHD. We know from the research that we struggle with the scaling of things. We're pretty good at the starting, but the scaling can be hard. There can be a lot of stress, there can be a lot of burnout.

1:48 So we want to support you. One of the things we're doing is having the wonderful Tracy on today. But we also have a lot of other supports, both free and paid, depending on what you need. So go ahead, click the link down below, and you'll be able to find the support that you need there. Okay. Tracy, I am super excited to have this conversation with you.

2:06 I speak to so many stressed out people. But let's get started with a little bit of your own journey. So tell me how you came to be in this position.

2:19 The position of being a psychiatrist.

2:22 I would say the position of focusing on ADHD in psychiatry.

2:26 Ah, okay. So my actual focus really is on high performers and helping them stay sharp under pressure. And what's kind of behind that that is related to ADHD is the cognitive load and the effect of your executive function or executive dysfunction under too much strain. And so difficulty with executive functions is shared by people with ADHD, but it's not exclusive to people with ADHD.

2:57 In fact, not everyone with ADHD has executive dysfunction. So it's not synonymous with ADHD. But nonetheless, anyone, given the right amount of pressure, can have areas of their executive function start slipping. But that said, I do treat a lot of people with ADHD as well. And I've never really uh kind of marked it as my specialty, but I think with the popularity of talking about it a lot online, I think I think it's popular to talk about one because of people realizing how some of their deficits have a name, but also the overlap with executive function problems for the person, even without the disorder, is prevalent and pervasive enough that that the whole talk about inadequacies of your ability

3:52 to think, focus, stay motivated, and all of that are something that most people want to talk about or are interested in talking about because it affects many people.

4:01 Yeah, 100%. I'm curious how many business owners have you had in your in your practice?

4:09 Quite a few. So I've had my own practice for 20 years before that I worked in someone else's practice. And I would say probably, eh, if I just had to guess. I mean, I only treat adults. So if I just had to guess, maybe I don't know, 50% are business owners. I mean, quite a few people who work for organizations as well.

4:33 But they're, you know, I've seen my my share of people who work outside of a corporation or organization and and own their own business.

4:43 Yeah. What would you say is the biggest difference between people who are struggling with this stress who are in business versus who are working as part of an organization?

4:54 Hmm, that's a good question. I think people are affected in different ways and to different extents, but I think that one thing that is a strength of the person who doesn't work for an organization or corporation is maybe a greater sense of agency and control over their schedule. That said, though, I mean, you can you can be pretty high up in a corporation and have somewhat limited hours.

5:21 Whereas the business person, it's not do a couple things online and then go, you know, sit on your yacht like it looked back in the you know early 2000s. It's it can be a lot of working lots, lots of hours, even more hours than when you were working for an organization. If you decided to leave that and start your own thing, you find that it, you know, it's it's a myth that it's just all passive income and you're just kind of kicking back.

5:47 You can end up working a whole lot more hours. So, but still, it's your decision to do that. And that makes a huge difference in someone's motivation level as well as how drained they feel from the work they do. I think if it's if it's you pushing through and and and self-imposed because you have a goal in mind that you want to reach, it's you can sustain it better than it all just being dumped on you and you really don't have much choice.

6:14 I see. So it's the internal pressure versus the external pressure. Yeah, that's interesting. So when you are talking to somebody who is, you know, running their business, they have this internal sustained pressure. How do you work with that? Because I work with a lot of people who are in that position as well.

6:32 I'm you know, obviously in that position, and so are you to an extent. But how do you work with that? Because there is a lot of but you don't understand I actually have to about this.

6:41 Right. I think you mean so how do they how do they keep it contained?

6:45 Yeah, I guess if you have somebody and they come to you and they say, Look, I have been under massive, massive amounts of pressure. I'm a business owner, I've been out of under extreme amounts of pressure. I have a lot of you know, I'm really stressed out, but you don't understand I have to be this stressed out because of my job or because of the clients or that kind of thing.

7:07 Well, the first step is in even getting a sense from them how they interpret that that pressure. Like, I mean, presumably if they're talking to me, coming to me as psychiatrist, they're coming because there's a problem. They're not coming because, well, I work so much and I just love this, I feel so fulfilled.

7:24 There's a problem somewhere. So if the person is telling me that yes, they're stressed, yes, they're drained, they don't know how long they can sustain this, but I you just don't get it. I have to do this because I'm trying to get to this level by X amount of time. I would say to that, that may be what you want, but your brain gets to make the decision.

7:47 You know, your brain and your body is only gonna be able to sustain so much. And it will still drain down your resources and your capacity over time. And this is kind of what I refer to as the performance paradox. The habits and the things that you do to get you where you want to be are the very things that draw from your capacity in a way that you may not be able to sustain that and keep it up and maintain wherever it is you're trying to get to.

8:18 So um, so something has to change. Your goalposts need to move out or in, and you have to have a you have to set reasonable expectations of what you can actually achieve so that you don't lose your sharpness and your edge and end up in a place where you're struggling. When you finally got to where you thought you were gonna get, you can't maintain it because you're just so you're out of gas.

8:45 Yeah. Describe, like, tell me about a client you've had. Obviously, you can't share any details or anything, where somebody has been out of gas. What does that look like?

8:55 So someone who, and when I say out of gas, so there's kind of I I I think of two things. There's burnout, and that's actually, we can talk about that, but that's not what I'm talking about when I say out of gas. I'm talking about a few steps before being completely burnt out. So the person who's completely burnt out, often there's this overlay of cynicism, exhaustion, and feeling of ineffectiveness to the extent where you just you you just don't even see the purpose in what you're doing.

9:27 And going on a week's vacation to Maui or somewhere lovely doesn't just fix that. It and it can almost feel very physical, like you're physically ill even. And it takes not only a lot of time, physical recovery time, but mental recovery time to flush out that the negative thinking, the cynicism, to feel some sense of meaning and value that you've got to add back in to the work that you do so that you can stay motivated.

9:57 So that's that person. And that that's that's a that's a longer trajectory of recovery. But then the person who just kind of they're they're it's like someone poked their tire and it just kind of just went flat. That person, that person can get back to where they were or several steps ahead by changing the structure of how they do something.

10:21 So some of their habits, how building recovery into uh their system, uh into their their day, being able to get control of how they spend their time and attention. An example of that I'll use for myself. I started feeling out of gas. And I found that one of the hard the hardest days for me were days where I would have lots of meetings.

10:45 Sometimes those were patient appointments, but more so like these what I, you know, intrusion meetings. I thought of them as, you know, look, can we just jump on a quick call for this? And the more I had of that kind of stuff, the more irritated I felt at the end of the day. And I thought, why is this making me so angry?

11:03 All of these stop starts. And it was because it was because of the constant shifting of my attention, wore me down more than I realized it was wearing me down. I'm like, how hard is it to go, you know, you got this meeting? Okay, then you got this meeting, okay. Then you got so what's what's the big deal, Tracy?

11:23 With ADHD, we know from the research, it's a really big deal.

11:27 It is a huge deal. And I knew that at some level intellectually, but but experiencing it, it still just didn't click to me that that's what the problem was. I mean, I I kind of know it, but anyway, I let it happen. The the the the long and the short of it is I let it happen. I I do have more control over my schedule.

11:46 I don't work for a corporation where there's all these meetings. I can choose when I have meetings. And I wasn't doing that. Someone says, oh, can we jump on this quick call or can we can we meet about this? I would just look at my schedule and see when I had space rather than protecting my calendar and protecting thinking time.

12:06 And another thing, and and I'll let you jump back in, another thing that I did strategically when it comes to this time management thing was I now reserve my hardest work for my freshest brain, which for me and and a lot of people who are on a kind of regular circadian rhythm kind of thing, that's controlled by sunlight and sunset.

12:28 Most people, it's in the morning, early morning or late morning, or sorry, mid-morning. So instead, I would what I was doing is I'd wake up and you know, and I would come sit down at my computer. And before I would start, say, appointments, patient appointments, or start work, let me get these little emails out of the way, or let me let me check my voicemail because I don't want someone who I didn't get them the message yesterday now seeing it as urgent, and I start getting urgent phone calls.

12:55 So let me just knock these things out of the way. And I'd burn through an hour of low-level work. So by the time I start the high-level work, I'm already like, you know, my battery's already down 30%. Yeah. That you know, so that was just so little things like that of changing how you structure your day and and protecting how you spend your attention are some of the things that you could do to get from the out of gas to, you know, filling the tank back up.

13:24 Yeah, no, I really appreciate that. I think that's so important. And I have met some people, because we do energy checks, you know, with people, I have met a few people who love an afternoon that does exist. But yes, most people it's that morning, that morning time that's good for them. If you are the business owner who is growing, your operations and delivery are growing, and you're starting to feel pretty overwhelmed, like you're not getting enough time, you're struggling with consistency, and you really like somebody else to get it all out of your head and project manage it before you, that's what we do.

13:55 We are fractional operators for your business designed for ADHD. Symptoms, we take it out of your head, we set it all up before you, and we just kind of watch it. Click the link down below, and if you're interested, you can call with me. So I wanna I wanna get a sense from you then. I want you to imagine somebody comes into your office and you're working with them, they're clearly tired, they're clearly stressed, and they say to you, Tracy, I just need a lock-in.

14:23 I just need a lock-in, this is what I have to do. How do you work with somebody who's in that mindset of like, no, this is just a try harder situation?

14:33 Yeah, that's also a fallacy that just pushing through is is all it takes. And and it can work, which then reinforces that behavior of this has worked for me. I I know I can get through this, we just got this, I just, you know, we got this deliverable, and after that, then I'll make some changes, but you never do because then there's the next thing.

14:55 What I would do, you know, rather than just if I were talking to this person, rather than just jumping in and saying, no, this is what you need to do. It from a, so I'm a psychiatrist, you know, I'm I, you know, and therapist. If I'm, you know, if I'm working with a client who's not my patient, I would still be approaching it from let me help them see the problem more accurately.

15:19 They see it as simple as, I just need more time or I just need to keep going. I'm having trouble keeping going, so I need something for energy, give me some Adderall. I hate that request. But I try and help them say, okay, well, show me where the pain point is. Where are you struggling? Is the struggle attention related and focus related?

15:42 Like I was talking about with myself of getting to the end of the day and being irritable. You know, in that scenario, in my scenario, just what I was doing is the stuff that I didn't get done because my thoughts and focus was so fragmented all day long, I would, after dinner, let me hop back on my laptop and and push through.

16:03 And that wasn't working because it just kept wearing me down. So that's what I mean by helping. They they need to give me some more information about where the pain point is, where they're struggling, to then kind of craft what the intervention needs to be.

16:17 Yeah, because I think a lot of times, especially when you're working with somebody who is in that sort of exhausted, out-of-gas space, there is a sense that they just want to keep pushing on the pedal of the car. They're like, no, we're not out of gas. There's some gas in there somewhere. Can you just give me like a little quick juice up?

16:34 I need to get, I'm going somewhere. I don't want to have to stop and engage with the reality that I might be out of gas.

16:40 That's right. And, you know, an important point with that, the out of gas thing, is not all recovery recovers you, or not all rest is what you you need to match the recovery with the type of drain that you're experiencing. So if you have the kind of job where you're you're in lots of meetings, you're talking to people all the time, it could be that by the end of the day, your exhaustion is more about social exhaustion.

17:07 You're just peopled out. So going home and hanging out with your family and watching a movie, that might help a little bit, but it may not restore the peopled out thing, because really what may you what you may need in that scenario is just some alone time to recharge your battery. Similarly, if it's a cognitive, if you're cognitively drained or or strained from too many decisions that you had to make all day long and things like that, lots of heavy problem solving, going home and watching Netflix, or even reading a book for that matter, may not restore you because you can think, well, I'm just tired.

17:52 So I'll sitting down, I'm sitting down watching television. What's the problem? Well, it's still input, especially if it's an exciting show or something that you know makes you think. It's more of similar things that you were doing as far as your mind processing that you're just doing in the comfort of your home.

18:11 But since you were already worn out that way, it's not very helpful. So, here's an example for me. I've experienced that as well.

18:18 I had a we're just experiencing things and talking about them at the end of the day.

18:22 I know, right? You know, this is all about me. I was I had a busy day and I said, I need to read more. I'm not a good reader as it is, but I wanted to, I want to read more. And so I said, I want to read with my daughter. She needs to read more too. She has ADHD and is also a terrible reader. And so it was the end of the day.

18:40 It was probably like 7 p.m., eight o'clock. I was like, okay, I'm gonna go down, basement, and let's sit together and read. And I was sitting there with the book open and just my brain felt just tight. Like I just I felt like I was gonna get a headache, like I was forcing something just trying to read.

18:56 And I realized, wait a minute, it's because I'm already like cognitively drained and full. I mean my brain is already full. I need to rest my brain, not process more by reading. So I just closed my eyes and with no stimulation, like also a temptation would be to go listen to a podcast and relax. No, because that's still more processing.

19:17 I closed my eyes and did nothing. And about 10 minutes later, it was like my head just opened up and I actually started drifting off to sleep. I was so relaxed. And I thought, wow, this really does work. I know it, but it's still you know, to actually experience it. It's like, wow, just giving my my my mind a break was that helpful.

19:39 And I think that is the interesting part is that we all go ahead and um experience these things in in very different ways. We experience like our um, you know, some people might be like, I need to be around people, some people like I need to go outside. I know for myself, me, myself and my husband both have ADHD.

19:58 He needs to be inside, I need to be outside. Like we both recharge in different ways, and it's it is interesting, I guess, if you are working with somebody and they are in that like I'm building something, I need to focus on it, I need to build it. I have many, many jobs and many, many hats to wear and running a business.

20:21 But I am out of gas and I need to figure out how to refill my gas tank and continue to grow and not burn out. It's like these three things. You're like, I want to grow, but I don't want to burn out because if I burn out, then I'm not gonna stop. I I stopped my mouth, I burned out at the end of my master's thesis, and I took an entire year off academia before I started a PhD.

20:45 I was like, maybe this is not even gonna happen. Like that. That can, you know, we can really hit a wall. Tell me how you walk someone through how to build a process that sort of manages and creates some balance for these three things.

21:01 I'm hesitating because it's uh it's not a quick answer.

21:06 No, it's probably very different depending on the person.

21:09 Exactly. It's different depending on the person. So I would need to like get more information about, again, what what their pain points are, what their typical, what are the activities that they're doing, what's what's the most, what feels the most demanding, and what they usually do for recovery, because often the person who's pushing through because they've got a lot to do, they don't have the time to stop, doesn't sees recovery as a reward instead of something that needs to be built into the system.

21:44 And so, you know, an analogy is we all are so dependent on our phones. Well, you know, if your phone battery is down to 10% and it's saying, you know, put on low battery mode, and you know you can't do what you need to do on low battery mode. Well, no. That's it. You can put it in on low battery mode, but then not have access to certain apps.

22:04 And then it takes you twice as long to get it stuff done. Or you can just shut the phone off for a half an hour and plug it in. And then you'll have so much more charge. Now you can get the work done faster. And so it's a similar thing. Drag it, you know, trying to cross the finish line with one leg dragging behind you, you're not going to get there very fast.

22:25 Versus you take care of yourself, you know, you do the things to recover. Now you can sprint across the finish line. And some of those basic things that are just necessary regardless of the person's situation, because I said, you know, it depends on what the person, you know, what's going on with them.

22:41 But we all need kind of the basics sleep, diet, and movement. And those are not, you know, fresh tricks and all that, you know, none none of that is exciting, but it's foundational stuff that you build upon. So if you're not prioritizing sleep, which is easy to see that as expendable when you're busy, you have to prioritize sleep.

23:08 And what does prioritize sleep look like? It means setting a bedtime that you stick to, not falling asleep when the work is done or when you're tired or whatever, but setting a bedtime. I've always said, sleep has always been a big deal to me. I've always said that sleep preparation starts in the morning because what you do all day matters for how easy or hard it is for you to fall asleep that night.

23:32 So you should be thinking about bedtime when you wake up, actually. And then diet trying to, you know, there's all different kinds of diets up there. I'm not necessarily going to promote one over the other, but kind of I think a general consensus among many of them is removing or eliminating, minimizing processed foods.

23:52 That's probably one of the first things you could do, regardless whether you're vegetarian, carnivore, however you eat. And then movement, I say movement instead of exercise. Movement is important if you look at it more broadly over the course of the day. We sit a lot more than we did, say 10 or 15 years ago, especially with now remote work and everything.

24:14 So exercise is important. And the, I know you're in New Zealand, but the American Heart Association recommendation for kind of basic amount of exercise. I was gonna say minimum amount of exercise, but basic amount of exercise for everyone is 150 minutes of moderate activity a week. That could be divided up in 30 minutes, five days a week, and two days a week of resistance training.

24:43 So that's exercise that builds brain capacity over time, but then over it over the course of your day, having movement breaks during the day can also be a reset for you to increase your capacity as well, similar to turning your phone off and plugging it in.

25:03 100%. Um I'm lucky enough to be able to design my own life, and so yeah, we wake up, do a workout in the middle of the day, right after this, actually go out, go get a coffee, and then later in the day it's like a third walk just to kind of debrief and talk about how things have gone, and that's been a really nice kind of opportunity for us to have a day that feels like a lot of movement.

25:29 I'm curious then for you. You know, you've spent so much time talking about this, you've spent so much time building these kinds of systems. What does your sleep morning walk routine look like right now?

25:42 Sure, yeah. So I I'll start with bedtime since I'm I'm hooked on that. I I aim for a bedtime of between 10 and 11 o'clock. I have been wearing blue light blackened glasses probably for 20 years. So I I put my glasses on two hours before I want to go to bed. So usually I'm putting them on like eight o'clock and then watch television or whatever I do in the evening.

26:06 I in the mornings, I'm usually up probably around between 6, 6:30 a.m. And then I get up and I go to the gym. Now we do have workout equipment in my home. My husband got us an exercise bike. I don't like the exercise bike, so I go to the gym so that I could use the elliptical machine as well as just kind of have the structure of needing to get out of my house and drive somewhere, and the gym isn't far.

26:34 If I slept too late, like I laid in bed and said, I don't want to do this, which happens a lot, and and I didn't have enough time to make it to the gym to get back in time to start my day, then I'll walk around my neighborhood. And that's usually about a half hour walk. Um, at the gym, I'll do a half hour on the on the elliptical machine, and then I'll pick one body part, usually like upper arms versus or arms versus legs, and do strength training on some area of my body.

27:03 And so I'm usually at the gym for about an hour, and I do that Monday through Friday, and so that I can feel good about not working out on the weekends because I got in my five days.

27:14 Nice, that's awesome. And how like how have you what do you think has been the thing that has knocked you off course the most through in this routine as you've been building it?

27:26 Actually, sometimes work. So if I let's say I want to do some writing, I so I script my YouTube videos, and so I need deep focus for that. I've sometimes I'll find that if I go to the gym and by the time I kind of get back, my shower, blah, blah, blah, it may be like 10 o'clock that I'm starting, and that just feels like I'm starting so late.

27:51 I actually, if on a day where I need to write, which is hard work for me, I feel like I just need to like get out of the bed, wash my face, like do the bare minimum stuff, and then just go sit down and work. And on those days, and I found this when I was writing my book too, the days where I like sit at my computer by around 8 a.m.

28:12 or even 7 a.m. for that matter, I get so much more done than if I get that 11 o'clock start. So there are some days where yes, I will let work get in the way of my exercise routine. And I don't like that. Like I don't like myself for that, but then afterwards, but I'm like, but I'm glad I got those, you know, three scripts written, kind of thing.

28:33 So that's pretty much the main thing that will get in the way of me working out.

28:38 Yeah, I'm glad you you shared that. I really appreciate you sharing all of this because I feel like sometimes we we think that it's going to be the oh, it's gonna be candy or it's gonna be TV or something like that. But our brains are like way more advanced than that. Usually it's a bit more of a subtle justification.

28:58 And sometimes it's the right thing, like you said, and there needs to be an adjustment there. But it is always funny to me how how often people are like, Yeah, but I got distracted by something that was like morally you know, put that in quotation marks, acceptable.

29:12 Yeah, exactly. I'm like, well, I need to do this work and I got more work done if I don't go to the gym. Okay, so that that made it all right.

29:20 Yeah, yeah, it's really funny the little loops that our brains can go on around around that, and they're like, Well, look, I'm not doing the like just say no kind of um, you know, storyline in my head, so this must be fine.

29:33 That's right, that's right.

29:34 Awesome. Well, I really appreciate you kind of going through this process with us. Is there anything that we haven't really covered from your book that you feel would be really useful here? Because obviously you wrote such an interesting book.

29:48 Yeah, it's it's um it's hard to pull from it because I wrote it, it's almost like an encyclopedia almost. I kind of it's very dense. I didn't intend it to be that dense, but there it is. That's what we have. So it's it's hard to extract like a couple of thoughts from it. I tried, though, to make it easily skimmable in the sense of these sections.

30:09 So, you know, mental things that you could do or caught mental cognitive things you could do for anxiety versus behavioral things that you could do for anxiety, like kind of break it up so that someone just wants to skip a step or skip a section, they could. I think though, probably a key takeaway, and I I think I said this in the book a few times, is there are bunches of tools, and I go through bunches of tools, you know, 20 something or so, tools for anxiety.

30:40 Or that, and it's even more than that. I just chose those. But the key is to find what works for you and keep those at the ready. I've had patients tell me, Well, I know all that stuff, and none of it works. I was like, none? Okay, let's go through the list of everything you've tried. It's like three things.

30:58 So, but it can feel like that, like you tried this, you tried that, and breathing works for this. You know, people talk about breathing, but that doesn't work for me, and and blah, blah, blah. And so you can just give up and just feel like, well, nothing works. But the but I wanted to expose people to a vast array of interventions or or things that you can do to manage anxiety so that you could find something that jives with you and have that be an easy thing to to fall back on.

31:28 Because if you've got a if it takes too much work to like, okay, wait, um, what's that cognitive distortion? Let me pull out this list, and that then it's not gonna work. You know, it's not practical.

31:38 Yeah, you've got the encyclopedia, but you also need the quick lookup, you know, the the cheat sheet.

31:45 Yes, that's right, in your back pocket.

31:48 Yeah, yeah. Have you ever thought about providing a PDF of like little printouts for different versions? I feel like people would love that.

31:55 You know, I didn't so this was traditionally published, so I don't have any control over uh derivative works of it.

32:02 I've seen those contracts, yeah.

32:04 Yes, yeah. So I'm just you know, whatever they want to do. But I did create, it's called Essential Tools Card Deck, which has some of the things that I talk about in like a card form to make it easy to just carry a couple of cards with you. And so, and that was the and and actually I created that card deck as I was marketing the book as a way to just kind of make tools easier to access.

32:31 But there's you know, the literal having something on a card, a cheat sheet, and then there's the figurative having a couple of things that are easy go-tos for you because they not only do they work for you, but they're easy for you to remember because they work. So there's not a lot of friction to do it.

32:50 So something like splashing cold water on your face, for example, well, that may that may be an easy go-to if you're at home or somewhere where it's easy to access water, but like if you're at work and there's just the sink that's in the middle of the, you know, the office and you don't want to mess up your makeup, that's not gonna work.

33:08 You know, it might work splashing it on your chest, not your face. But so, you know, so the long and the short of it is that I think with there's different ways that you can address anxiety symptoms. Not all anxiety symptoms are a disorder. We anxiety is also a reaction and an emotion that we all are going to experience.

33:29 It is a a default of our brains to to enter into protection mode under certain under perceived threats. So, for people who do have an anxiety disorder, I will tell patients, you know, we gotta make sure we have the right expectations here. The goal is to is not to never feel anxious because you will.

33:53 It's to have it not take over your life, keep you from functioning, and those sorts of things. So, so yeah, it's it the presence of anxiety isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's how long it lasts and how much it impacts you and and you know changes your behavior and decisions.

34:12 Yeah, no, I love that. I think that's super important. Well, I want to ask you a couple of questions that we ask everybody who comes on our podcast. So tell me about what you consider to be your biggest professional achievement.

34:26 I would say my biggest professional achievement is my YouTube channel. I have been, when I started it consistently in 2018, it was to increase mental health literacy and take some of the shame out of the discussion of mental health, educate people in a way that they could better take care of themselves because the more you know, the better you're able to apply what you know and then improve the quality of your life.

34:53 So it was not very well received before I started going consistently, uh, which was in 2018. But before that, just kind of the whole like there's a lot of anti-psychiatry thinking, and then there still is some of that. So I kept with it, and it really has turned into a real asset and resource for people, and that and and so the body of work on my channel is something that I'm proud of because of the effect it has on people.

35:24 I love that. I love that, and I love that you said that because I think it's it's the one that maybe people don't always think of because they might say, Oh, it's the book, which is obviously really great as well. But I think having those resources that are that are there that people sort of uh find uh against their will, but when they need it, sometimes it like comes up, you're like, Oh, Tracy, what's she doing?

35:48 It can be such a big shift, and it's nice to have that really good advice when there when you need it. So I love that. On the other side, can you tell me a professional failure or embarrassment that you've had and how you've dealt with that?

36:02 Sure. So I don't have a big embarrassment, thank goodness. You know, in medicine, there's not a lot of latitude for doctors to make mistakes or say things that are incorrect without there there being a problem and disciplinary actions behind it and all of that. But as far as something where I feel like I failed, and that's maybe too strong of a judgment, but really, I hate to say it, is my book in the sense that I am not a good salesperson.

36:36 And and as things go with publishing, especially back, I think when my book was published in 22, around that time, it was popular for publishers to go find creators to write books and sell to their audiences. And that makes sense, but again, I'm not a salesman. So you if you go watch my videos, it's you know, every video I'm not saying buy my book, buy my book, buy my book.

36:58 And so I felt like I wouldn't call it a failure as far as like, I mean, the I think it's a great, I I think I did a I think I did a great job. I mean, I think it's a great book, but I felt like it did not sell. It sold well, but it didn't sell as well as some when I compare myself to some of the other creators similarly situated as me who also published books at the time.

37:22 And I saw the failing on my part of just not marketing it well enough on my own. The other part of that that I'm now just kind of realizing is that I felt like, oh, okay, well, it didn't, you know, sell a hundred thousand copies like someone else's books uh in the first couple of years. So, oh well, it's over now.

37:43 And that's the wrong thinking. I mean, people talk about marketing and selling their books for a decade. And especially an evergreen book like mine is it's not, it's, you know, it the information is still relevant today. So it's on me now to get back in the game of promoting the book and not, and I think my lack of promotion now or or recently has been because I felt like I didn't do a good enough job marketing it the first time.

38:12 So, and it shouldn't even be the first time. Like what I do now is a continuation. It's not this, you know, first year didn't happen, you know, you didn't make the New York Times bestseller bestseller list, then it's a failure. Like that's just way too yeah, you know, I mean, it's just way too uh rigid thinking.

38:32 Yeah, yeah, 100%. I really appreciate you sharing that. I actually think I've talked about books on air and off air with a lot of people, and I feel like a lot of people are gonna relate to this. So I really appreciate you sharing that. And then on the other side, like if you had a quote, something you'd like to say to others, to yourself, that kind of guides you through life, what would that quote be?

38:52 Yeah, this quote is something that uh I've leaned on for years. It's Maya Angelos uh saying, she said, I've learned that people will forget what you say, people will forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel. And from that, my own words would be to people after that is so, do you want to be right or do you want to have relationships?

39:19 Because at the end of the day, if you shame someone or make someone feel bad about themselves, that's all they're gonna remember. They're not gonna remember how smart you were because of what you said. So, um, so yeah, I love that quote from her.

39:32 Yeah, that's such a great one. That's such a great one. Amazing. Well, Tracy, please tell everybody where they can find you and what you do.

39:41 Great. So my main hub is my website, Mark Psychiatry, M-A-R-K-S, and then the word psychiatry, you gotta spell it right, dot com. That has blog articles. I it talks, it, you know, it introduces you to me, it uh has my socials. My main social channels are both are YouTube first and then Instagram secondarily, and my handles for both of those are at Dr.

40:09 Tracy Marks with DR, Tracy Marks, and Tracy with an EY. But yes, I'm a psychiatrist, and I started out focusing on general mental health topics, educating people on mental health, and I've since evolved to focusing on helping high performers stay sharp under pressure, primarily because I've experienced that decline myself and see the need for helping people stay in the game and and and recover better from all the work that they're doing.

40:42 I I really appreciate that, and it's been so wonderful having you on. Thank you so much, Tracy, for being here.

40:48 Thank you, Sky, for inviting me, and this was a great talk.

40:52 Yeah, no worries. And for everybody else, please go and check out everything she has. They're so great. Read the book. It's dense, but it's good. And um and then if you are a business owner and you're thinking I need some help with my systems, with my strategies, we've got those links down below. You can do it.

41:11 Like Tracy says, high performance. Let's get let's get into it. Um and let's do it in a in a balanced and super healthy way. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the ADHD Skills Lab. If you liked it, leave us a five star review. It helps other people learn more about us. And thank you so much to our wonderful team for making it sound good, look good.

41:30 Couldn't do it without you.