17 Minutes Podcast — Episode 14
Transcript
Robyn Savage: Hello, hello! Welcome to the 17 Minutes Podcast. I'm your host, Robyn Savage, and this
is a space where entrepreneurs come to build their brands and businesses in a way that doesn't take
Robyn Savage: from them in a way that is authentic, in a way that is true and aligned with
themselves, with their habits, with their patterns, their behaviors, their voice. And if that's you,
and you're looking to build and establish and scale and grow your business to have impact, to
support your lifestyle.
Robyn Savage: And to do that in a way that really works for you, then, hi! Okay, you are in the
right place. Robyn Savage: So, today, we're having a conversation about my personal journey with
ADHD. And ADHD, I got diagnosed, I think it was a year and a half ago-ish, and it's changed my
entire…
Robyn Savage: perspective of entrepreneurship, it's changed how I work within my business, and
honestly, mostly, it's changed the way that I understand myself. Robyn Savage: how I give myself
compassion to move within my business, and it's given me the ability to… sort of… Robyn Savage:
reinvent the way that I work. Robyn Savage: to support myself, to stop holding expectations over my
head, to stop judging myself for not being the way that I was always kind of trying to force myself
to be.
It's allowed me to hit the gas pedal in a lot of ways, and then to also Robyn Savage: sort of
reorient myself. Robyn Savage: and hit the brakes in other ways. And I'm gonna kind of get into
this, but, you know, for a long time, I found myself Robyn Savage: Really beating myself up. Robyn
Savage: And judging myself, and…
I don't know, just really stuck in this negative… self-talk narrative, like, why… Robyn Savage: why
am I the way that I am? Why am I doing this this way? Why is this so hard for me?
Why can't I just execute the way that this person is telling me to execute? Why can't I just, why
can't I? Why can't I? Why don't I?
What's wrong with me? And it created a lot of shame. It created a lot of guilt. And obviously, when
we're operating in shame and guilt, it's hard to be also simultaneously excited and confident.
Robyn Savage: And when you're growing a personal brand, and you are selling services, and you're
helping other people, and you're stuck in that feeling of shame and guilt for having ADHD, and not
knowing how to embrace this part of you that feels really tricky. Robyn Savage: At first. Robyn
Savage: It's, like, holding this really insanely massive polarity of, like, I suck. Robyn Savage:
And I know I'm amazing, but how do I marry these two ideas about myself?
How do I reconcile these ideas about myself? And…
Robyn Savage: Yeah, so if you are on a journey with ADHD, someone, one of you just popped into my
DMs, not recently, or not long ago, and said, hey, I just got diagnosed, it's so liberating for me,
and so freeing for me to know this about myself. Robyn Savage: And to be able to name it, and I all
of a sudden make so much sense to myself. So, if that's you, then I think there's gonna be a lot of
valuable nuggets for you. Robyn Savage: In this conversation.
Maybe you're someone who thinks that you might have ADHD, but you don't have a diagnosis. I think
this conversation is going to be really beneficial for you. Or maybe you're just someone who's
parenting kids with ADHD, or has a lot of friends with ADHD, or is curious about it, or whatever.
You just want to be a part of the conversation.
Robyn Savage: this… Robyn Savage: is one of the most important conversations I think we can be
having as entrepreneurs, because one of the expectations of successful entrepreneurship, I believe,
is that in order to build a business. Robyn Savage: this is who you have to be, right? The extremely
disciplined, the extremely organized, the extremely consistent, the extremely systematic, the
extremely strategic, the extremely logical.
Robyn Savage: person, professional, put together, streamlined, linear, doot, doot, doot, doot,
right? I held this vision for a very long time, and… Robyn Savage: what I'm really seeing, and what
I finally understand for myself, is that Robyn Savage: That version of success is not available to
some people who have neurodivergent Brains, who are operating in… Robyn Savage: brains that don't
actually allow us to function extremely linearly.
So I was finally, when I got my ADHD diagnosis, able to Robyn Savage: stop judging myself, stop
expecting myself to be that version of myself that I had been trying to shapeshift myself into for
so long, because I finally understood, oh my god, that's not me. I'm a spiral, they're a straight
line. I'm like this, they're like that. So, when we can allow ourselves to embrace the spiral, when
we can start to understand it, when we can start to give ourselves tools Robyn Savage: tools to work
with the spiral, rather than trying to change the spiral into a straight line.
Robyn Savage: All the time, like, beating it with a hammer to try and flatten it out. Robyn Savage:
That's when I think we can really leverage our superpower. That's when we can really say, oh, this
is who I am, let me find a way to work with this, rather than trying to beat it out of me to
constantly insist that I have to be someone that I'm not. Robyn Savage: you know, one of the biggest
conversations that I've had over the last 5 years is that the brand is you, right?
That the most… Robyn Savage: happiness, the most fulfillment, the most success, the most abundance,
the most connection, the most impact is going to come from your most authentic place. And if you are
someone with ADHD who's trying to force yourself to be someone Robyn Savage: without ADHD, well,
you're losing that sense of self. Robyn Savage: You're… you're losing…
And, and sort of… Robyn Savage: shunning and disregarding this part of your magic that really, I
believe, is a superpower in a lot of ways. So, I want to share with you just a little bit of my
journey today, and if this conversation resonates Robyn Savage: If this conversation resonates with
you guys, then we'll keep having these conversations down the road, because obviously, it's a huge
part of my life. Robyn Savage: And if you have ADHD, then it's a huge part of your life, your
identity.
It doesn't need to be all of who you are, but it absolutely is part of who you are, and I want to
start to have these conversations to help all of us accept it, own it, and leverage it. Robyn
Savage: Yeah? Okay. Robyn Savage: So…
I'm gonna talk to you, a little bit about my journey. So, I initially… Robyn Savage: I thought that
I had depression. Honestly, you guys, I was going through this season, this was a couple years ago,
3 years ago probably now.
I was going through this season, I had just had a late… or, sorry, I had just had a miscarriage,
Robyn Savage: And… I was devastated. And this sort of, like… Robyn Savage: Depression, this sort of,
like, these deep, dark thoughts, this journey of feeling really heavy had been…
Robyn Savage: Sort of present for a little while, and then this miscarriage came along, and it just
totally rocked my world. Robyn Savage: And so, I'm gonna fast-forward through a little bit of this,
but that miscarriage led me to seeing a doctor. I had one experience where I was just like, nope,
I'm not… I'm not dealing with this on my own, I'm gonna go talk to a doctor.
So I went to a doctor, and the doctor was like, yeah, you know, was like, yep, check, check, check,
check, you check all these boxes, let's put you on a… on an antidepressant. And I was a little bit
resistant, but honestly, at this point in time. Robyn Savage: I felt like I had lost so much of my
light, and my spark, and like. Robyn Savage: who Robyn is, that I was like, okay, you know what?
I'm willing to try the medication, let's go for it, because… Robyn Savage: I think if you've been at
this moment for yourself, then the optionality of taking a medication that might help you start to
feel like yourself again is just such a blessing, right? Like, a gift, okay? Robyn Savage: So I
started to take the medication, and I immediately hated it.
My body didn't like it, I didn't feel right in my gut, like, my intuition just didn't… I was like,
nope, this is not it. Robyn Savage: So that was extremely short-lived. Robyn Savage: And went off
that medication, and then I was like, okay, I'm glad that I ruled that out.
And I didn't really align with the idea of being depressed, but there was something going on. So I
went back to my doctor, I said, this is not right, but there's still something going on here, and
she… Robyn Savage: started to ask me all these questions, and at that exact same time, I started to
read the book Scattered Minds by Gabrmate. And if you haven't read that book, but you think that you
might have ADHD, what I can tell you is that in the first few pages of Scattered Minds by Gabrmate,
I had literally never felt so seen in my whole entire life.
Robyn Savage: And I was actually reading that book to explore if one of my daughters might have
ADHD, Robyn Savage: And so I was reading it through the lens of a mom, and in those moments, I,
like, remember looking at Dunk being like. Robyn Savage: oh my gosh, this is not at all about her,
this is not about our daughter, this is me. Like, every single thing that Gabrmate, a genius of a
man, is saying in these pages is, like. Robyn Savage: no one's ever described me to me before.
And so, in those first few days of really diving into that book, and having these conversations
simultaneously with my doctor.
Robyn Savage: I was like, oh, I think this is it. I think I thought I had depression, and what was
really happening was I had all of this guilt. Robyn Savage: for not being able to change myself or
become who I wanted to be. I'd also have all of this shame for these…
Robyn Savage: ADHD tendencies and ways of being that I… felt so… Robyn Savage: embarrassed about. So
I was living in this constant state of embarrassment, and shame, and guilt, and distress, and
regret, and just this sort of, like, dislike for myself. So, of course, it felt like depression,
right?
Like, this constant state of not liking who you are. Robyn Savage: And so, I got… I went through the
full testing for ADHD, Robyn Savage: the testing actually took a few weeks, like, I remember going
through the process, and finally, when they called and said, yeah, you know, you have ADHD, at this
point, I was like, yeah, you think? Like, thank you so much, I know, now what do we do about it?
So they presented me with some options. Robyn Savage: I went on the meds. Robyn Savage: I decided to
give them a try. We started off with a… what I thought was, like, a low amount, and, you know, part
of the thing that they'll tell you when… if you choose to explore this, and, like, obviously have
these conversations with your own doctor and whatever, but in my case, it was like, yeah, you want
to…
Robyn Savage: titrate, right? Like, you want to try a little bit, then go back a bit, then try a
little bit more. You want to try and find your right amount for the medication. So, I went through
that process for almost a year.
Robyn Savage: And in this year, there were months where I was taking a certain amount of a certain
type, that didn't feel good, went off it, took a break, tried another type. Robyn Savage: at a lower
amount, tried that for a little bit, realized that that didn't feel good, went off of it, took a
break, and then I found my flow, and I found the medication, and I found the amount that felt good
for me, and I stayed on it for a while, and there were no real negative Robyn Savage: side effects
or symptoms that I… that made me not want to be on it. And in fact, when I found my flow with the
medication, I was like, oh my gosh, I felt normal for the first time. I feel…
Robyn Savage: I felt like… Robyn Savage: all of the shame, the guilt, the embarrassment, the wanting
to try and fix myself, the wanting to be normal to be able to function in the world the way that
other people seem to be able to function in the world, all of those things were solved. And for a
little while, it was like this. Robyn Savage: like, thank God, you know?
Like, I fit in. I can stay here. I can manage here. I got this.
Robyn Savage: And… Robyn Savage: Over time, you know, my productivity was through the roof, I was
laser-focused, I was able to complete tasks and jobs and projects that would have taken me Robyn
Savage: you know, a month in 3 days. And there was so many of these positive moments of feeling like
I was finally someone I could be proud of. Robyn Savage: And what happened in that kind of, Robyn
Savage: like, an experience of heightened pride was that I didn't notice what was happening to my
personality.
And it wasn't until probably… I'm gonna say close to a year, I'm really bad with timelines, you
guys, but let's say it was about a year of me sort of then realizing, like. Robyn Savage: Okay, my
productivity is through the roof, I can focus, all of these things are really good, and also, like.
Robyn Savage: How do I feel?
Robyn Savage: like, do I really feel like myself? There were things that I started to notice were
sort of not happening anymore. I wasn't dancing as often. I wasn't having these really…
Robyn Savage: yummy, insightful, ideas, or, like, creative… Fluxes come in. Robyn Savage: as
normally as they would have for me, which I understand can be a positive, because creativity can
sort of interrupt a plan, right? So, I do think that that sort of bordering of my creativity was
Robyn Savage: Helping me stay in my loan of… in my lane of productivity.
Robyn Savage: But, over time, I really started missing that creative part of me. And I started to
ask myself these questions, like, why am I not dancing in the kitchen? Robyn Savage: Like, what's
going on? You know?
Or, like, why am I not just spontaneously laughing at funny things? Like, these were side effects
Robyn Savage: Of me taking the medication that helped me be productive, and in this sort of… Robyn
Savage: alchemy of this in my body, in my brain, I started to lose parts of my personality. This,
like…
Robyn Savage: these magic pieces of me that I never identified in magic because they had always been
so disruptive, right? They had always been the reason that I wasn't able to be who I thought I had
to be in order to be successful. Robyn Savage: And then suddenly, as they started to go away, as I
stayed consistent on the ADHD meds, I was like, wait a minute. Robyn Savage: Yes, I'm being
productive.
Robyn Savage: And yes, I'm moving forward with a lot of goals, and I'm checking a lot of things off
the list, but who am I now without those parts of me that make me almost entirely who I am? Who am I
without the creative ideas? Who am I without the spontaneous laughter? Who am I without the dance
parties?
Who am I without the ability to drop into my feelings? Robyn Savage: who am I without the ability to
deeply relate or have extreme compassion for another human being at any given time? Because what
happened to me, and I'm not saying this is gonna happen to you or to anyone else, this experience
might be completely different for you, but for me, it was like I would get Robyn Savage: into this,
honestly, zone of, like, being a robot, and all I wanted to do was produce. All I wanted to do was
work.
All I wanted to do was keep checking the boxes, because all of a sudden, I was like, oh my god, I
can do this, and my Robyn Savage: my brain went from one extreme to the other. Like, let's be a
complete feeler, impulsive, spontaneous, creative, empathetic, compassionate, vulnerable. Robyn
Savage: goof who has so much energy and nowhere to put it, or everywhere to put it, but often ends
up in these weird spots, or… Robyn Savage: Do we want to be this highly functional, next-level,
productive… high…
Robyn Savage: velocity output robotic human being who looks like the All-Star, who feels proud to be
the All-Star, but ultimately is, like, for me, it just felt like I was, like, missing out on this
whole… Robyn Savage: magic… side of being human. And…
Robyn Savage: it was interesting, because ultimately, I ended up making the decision to take a break
from the meds. So, it's been over, like, 2 months since I really stopped taking them, but just over
a month since I haven't, like, I haven't… Robyn Savage: Refilled my prescription, I haven't
whatever, and I'm not saying that I never will again, but what's really interesting is having these
two perspectives of yourself. Having the…
Robyn Savage: understanding that, wow, I can be that person if I want to be. I can find a way to
normalize these… Robyn Savage: things about myself that I have deemed as so disruptive and
destructive for so long. I can get rid of them.
I can shove them under a rug, I can take a pill that makes that all go away, and though… Robyn
Savage: What is the result of that, truly? Robyn Savage: And what I've felt, and what I realized for
myself in this season is that the cost of treating my ADHD with medication is that I lose all the
magic of who I am. Robyn Savage: And I don't know if you know me.
Robyn Savage: But that kind of goes against everything that I believe in, you know? Because who you
are… Robyn Savage: How you are, your ideas, your ability to relate, your stories, your… Robyn
Savage: Intuitive nudges, your creative inspiration, the way that you're able to offer different
perspectives, and look Robyn Savage: from these different views and angles at something, to connect
with people in a different way, or to share ideas, or to express yourself, or to really put yourself
in a moment, and to be able to feel it, that, to me, is what makes each of us so uniquely awesome.
And…
Robyn Savage: Powerful, like, that's the magic sauce. Robyn Savage: And so, all of these years, I
yearned to be so highly productive, and just, like, to function as a normal human in my life and in
my business, and when I finally got that, I was really, Robyn Savage: Yeah, I missed who I am. Robyn
Savage: So… the journey, I think, for me, has been… Robyn Savage: really all about self-acceptance
with ADHD, to be honest with you.
If I look back to even the beginning, when this started as a, you know, a really short-lived… Robyn
Savage: diagnosis of depression. Robyn Savage: That was even this inability, or this… Robyn Savage:
lack of self-acceptance, right?
This layer of shame, this layer of guilt, embarrassment, regret, like, what is wrong with me? Why
can't I do anything normally? What… why am I, like, you know, why am I the way that I am? And then…
Robyn Savage: correcting that, like doing a complete 180 to become the version of myself that I
thought would make me so proud, that I thought would get me where I wanted to go, and then actually
being able to see, wait a minute, I just wanted to change myself because I couldn't accept myself. I
needed to become someone else in order to Robyn Savage: love myself in order to really respect
myself, but actually, I don't like this version of myself. This version of myself, who I thought
would be the version of me that was, you know, 10 out of 10, all-star, whatever, is actually Robyn
Savage: lacking or incapable of feeling and expressing all of the things that I love in the world.
Robyn Savage: And…
Robyn Savage: That's where I'm kind of at right now with my ADHD. I'm not on meds, taking a good
long break. Robyn Savage: And really working on that acceptance of, like, yeah, this is me, and now
being able to see these parts of myself for the true magic that they are. Robyn Savage: Rather than
judging, shaming, regretting, denying, you know, and feeling embarrassment about them, now I am
like, oh my gosh, hi!
You… Robyn Savage: creative impulse, you idea, you magic, you little feeling, like, I love you so
much, and I missed you. You know, now I'm having dance parties all over the place, because I'm,
like, my body can feel again. I'm not stuck in my brain all the time.
I'm not an energizer bunny of productivity Robyn Savage: from the moment I wake up to the moment the
meds wear off. Now I'm, like, this feeling being again, which I don't ever want to surrender, I
don't ever want to block out or let go. And, though. Robyn Savage: we gotta… we gotta learn how to
work with that being in order to bring in, in order to balance it, to stay productive.
And I don't… you guys, like, I'm… I don't think I really struggle with productivity, you know? Like,
I do a lot in a day, I get projects done, and what I'm really starting to recognize and realize is
there are ways that I work and ways that I don't. Robyn Savage: I work well with deadlines.
I work well with time blocks. I work well with body doubles. I work well with consequences. I work
well with challenges, right?
So I'm really starting to understand how I need to set myself up for success. Robyn Savage: as an
entrepreneur with ADHD, as a mom with ADHD, as a friend, partner, human being in the world with
ADHD, Robyn Savage: And, it's been a really amazing process to sort of allow myself to start to
accept this part about myself, and to love it into wholeness, rather than continually trying to
change it. Robyn Savage: And get rid of it. Robyn Savage: And, that's been the most liberating
thing.
So, if you're on a journey with ADHD, I just want you to know that I see you. I'd love to know where
you're at with it. This has been… like I said, I wish I knew. I think it's been 3 years.
I can't… I'm… yeah, I'm pretty sure it's been about 3 years. Robyn Savage: And it's just… I've just
allowed the process to happen.
You can't force it. You've gotta allow yourself to make choices that feel right for you. You have to
wait the length of time between doctor's appointments, and we're in Canada, and honestly, there
would be some times where I would, like, take a test, or have a doctor's appointment, and then there
would be a month that went by. So, it does require patience, which is not…
Robyn Savage: often a strength of people with ADHD, but there was so many of these moments Robyn
Savage: through this process, it was like, Robyn, just wait. Robyn Savage: Robyn just trust. Robyn
just see. Robyn just let go.
Robyn just… right? And so, moving through this process, has been really, really…
Robyn Savage: eye-opening for me, and I'm curious how it's been for you, and… Robyn Savage: if I can
take anything away from it, it's really this. Set yourself up with the best systems.
Robyn Savage: as possible for how you work, right? So, I told you what some of these are for me,
but, like, time blocks, constant alarms on my phone, reminders, deadlines. Robyn Savage: body
doubles, that means, like, hanging out with my team on the… on Zoom while I'm working on something.
That means keeping…
Robyn Savage: you know, my kid right beside me while I'm working so that we're both working on
something at the same time. That means going to a coffee shop where there's a bunch of people
working on computers so that I'm working on a computer, not like, you know, choreographing a TikTok
dance routine in my office when I'm left to my own devices. Just kidding, I don't have TikTok, but
do you know what I mean, right? Or I do have TikTok, but we don't do the dance, and…
Robyn Savage: Okay, so this is where… this is where we get to… Robyn Savage: First accept ourselves,
own it, notice the magic, and then say, okay. Robyn Savage: this is who I am, and… Robyn Savage:
this is what I want, what are the best ways for me to get there?
And systems that support you, strategies that feel like you. Robyn Savage: calendars that allow you
to stay consistent in a way that works for you. Like, it is all personalized. This is why I just…
I cannot get behind the idea that one person's strategy, or one person's Robyn Savage: methodology
or one person's framework is gonna work for everyone in the world. You need to use a level of
discernment when you're choosing who to listen to, when you're choosing what strategies or systems
to put in place, because it's gonna be so different for each of you. Robyn Savage: I think that's
it. Robyn Savage: I could talk about this forever, but I wanna see…
Yeah, I wanna know, like. Robyn Savage: does this conversation land with you? If you are someone
with ADHD, what do you do to support yourself? You know, how has your journey been?
So please contact me, send me a DM on Instagram, and let's have a conversation about it. And if you
want to keep going deeper into the ADHD chats, let's do it. But for today, let's leave it there.
Robyn Savage: Please know that I love you, and there's no right or wrong way for your own journey to
look.
And this conversation is really just to… to… Robyn Savage: give you an idea of what one other person
with ADHD, you know, one other person moving through the world with ADHD, Robyn Savage: like, how
I'm living with it, and how I'm operating with it, and how I'm ebbing and flowing with it. And, I
hope that it offers you some insight, and also some permission to let yourself move through your
journey with ADHD in whatever way feels right for you, in whatever way works for you. And then maybe
I'll do an episode, in the next couple weeks about Robyn Savage: the… some of the more specific
tools that I'm using to really implement, the structures and systems that support me to, like, stay
productive and to achieve these big goals with ADHD.
But for now, that's my story. I love you. Let me know if you have any questions. Robyn Savage: And
follow along on the podcast, hit subscribe.
Robyn Savage: And I will see you soon. Okay, love you. Ciao.
