Transcript
Episode 35:
Welcome. You are listening to the Play Big Queen podcast.
This is for you if you are a woman who is an entrepreneur, business owner, professional, leader, or someone who is deeply committed to personal growth, self-improvement, transformation, and living authentically.
This is especially for you if you have an invisible disability, whether you are diagnosed, undiagnosed, self-diagnosed, or late diagnosed, and you are working on reclaiming your neurodivergent identity, rebuilding confidence, learning what works for your unique brilliance while breaking free from small, people-pleasing conditioning.
If you are a visionary change maker interested in advancing your leadership and creating success on your terms, and you want to leave a legacy, if you are navigating disability or neurodiversity as an individual or as an ally, and you are looking for a supportive and inclusive environment to thrive, then this is for you.
I am your hostess, Kate Bailey.
I am the Play Big Queen.
My name is my title and a command for all women.
Play Big, Queen.
I invite you to claim this title for yourself and coronate your Play Big self too, if it serves you.
I am a business and embodiment mentor working with women who are ready to rise the fuck up and be your bold, beautiful sexy-ass self, start and grow your big bold vision and claim that you too get to have your boldest desires.
I am the creatrix of Kate Bailey LLC, which provides coaching services, educational courses, products and experiences that promote success in neurodiversity advocacy, women's empowerment, embodiment, entrepreneurship and business to serve women on their transformational journey.
To learn more about my company offerings and to get on my email list, go to xxxkatebailey.com. I
f you would like to learn more about my work, my personal values, my mission and my community, make sure you catch the last five minutes of this episode to go deeper and learn so much more.
On this podcast, sometimes we will have guests, sometimes I'll do solo episodes, but every single time you listen, you will expand.
So get ready.
It's a new era for women on the PlayBig path.
Long may we reign.
--
Hi love, welcome back to PlayBigQueen, the space where we talk about confidence, embodiment, leadership, and what it really takes to live life unapologetically on your terms. I have to tell you today feels extra special.
I am recording this episode out on my back porch under the energy of the lunar eclipse blood moon in Pisces and if you've
been with me for a while, you know that I am a Pisces. So there's something special about sitting here under this sky with this energy moving through that feels like the perfect moment for a play big conversation, a kind of cosmic permission slip reset to let go of old stories and step into something truer, deeper and more expansive.
Which is why today's episode is one of the most personal ones I've recorded. It's called Play Big Confidence, Thriving with Late Diagnosed ADHD. Because if you've been diagnosed with ADHD later in life, maybe in your 30s, 40s, or beyond, or if you're beginning to realize your brain just works differently, then this eclipse moment of endings and beginnings might feel familiar.
Like the story you've lived until now suddenly shifts and a new chapter is just waiting to be written. And that is exactly what we are diving into today.
Let us start with the moment of diagnosis. When I finally got my ADHD diagnosis, it felt like kind of two things at once. It felt like relief because at last there were words to explain why life had always felt harder than it looked for other people. And there was also heartbreak because I realized how much of my life had been shaped by not knowing. And that's a very common experience to have like grief for time lost, for this sense of a loss of potential for not having the resources you needed when you were younger, maybe you know that feeling too.
Whether it's with ADHD or anything, maybe you've looked back at your childhood and seen shame, self-blame, the constant thought of why can't I just get it together like everyone else? Why can't I do it like everyone else? Why don't I understand how everyone else is doing it? And maybe, like me,
You've gone through those waves of grief. Grief for the little girl who thought that she was crazy or lazy, or grief for the woman who thought she just wasn't disciplined enough. But here's what I think matters most. Diagnosis is not your whole identity. It's not even your identity. It's just information. It's a tool.
It's a way to understand how your brain works and how you move through the world and how you can support yourself better in systems that weren't really designed for you in the first place. For some people, diagnosis brings clarity and it can like open doors or resources or make way for medication that might actually be needed. And for others, it's simply a helpful framework to navigate challenges and make sense of.
patterns in your life.
But either way, it doesn't have to define you. It just gives you more choice. It just gives you more compassion, more language to stand in your power, more self-knowledge and self-understanding.
And this diagnosis, or even just the realization that your brain works differently, is not the end of your story. It's the beginning of a chapter where you finally get to live off
authentically and honestly without apology. Now for many of us, confidence was built on a lie. We were taught to fake it. We were taught to mask. We were taught to play small, to be safe, to be accepted. And especially in white Western society, we received the message that if we're right or we're perfect, we're safe.
And so we always try to adhere or conform to these so-called norms that are not really healthy. And especially if you're late diagnosed, and I'm talking to my women in perimenopause in your 30s, 40s, maybe even 50s, when ADHD symptoms become amplified because of our hormonal shifts.
If you've been late diagnosed, you might have thought that the only way to feel confident was to keep up with everyone else, to push yourself harder, to try every planner, every perfect morning wake up routine, every system until you finally collapse, burnt out under the weight of it.
But real confidence doesn't come from pretending you're neurotypical. It comes from acceptance. It comes from self-acceptance. It comes from saying, this is my brain, this is my rhythm, and I get to honor it. I get to honor my own timing. I get to value my own unique way.
When I stopped trying to force myself into routines that didn't work for me, and instead built rituals that actually supported my nervous system and make choices that support my nervous system, my energy shifted.
And I'm gonna keep it 100. My energy is not perfect, right? Like I have good days, I have bad days. I'm grappling with like unseen health stuff. I'm going to doctors.
My recovery time is really long and of course some doctors just gaslight me and say, well, you're just getting older and that's why you're like taking longer to heal. so keeping it 100, my energy is not 100, right? And because I allow myself to honor my own timing, it is okay when it's not 100.
Some days,40 % gets to be enough, right? And when I say I stopped trying to force myself into routines that didn't work for me, I also mean work routines. That was really challenging to fully admit a nine to five was not gonna work for me. And I first admitted that when I was working in corporate and I was like, this is horrible. Like I'm staying late. I thought salary was going to be the best thing in the world and then you learn you have to put in extra hours.
I'm like, I don't want this. I don't want to be in an office nine to five. Like it literally feels like it's draining my soul. And the moment I decided that was when I left corporate and I went to go work at the New York City Fire Department was like, let me get on a night schedule because I want my mornings for myself.
I want to have like long, slow mornings and I want to work at night from like 5 to 12. And for a while that was like a great schedule for me until I finally went into going off and starting my own business, right?
But like, it was such a major reclamation to like notice my timing, notice my energy levels and how they ebbed and flow and notice what I need and to say, I am not going to do this. That does not work for me anymore. That's like a bold play big move. And like if you're listening, just I don't recommend jumping without a net, especially if you as a baseline have a tendency to be more impulsive, like set yourself up and like deliberately go to your next step.
But like, if you're feeling the call, like start to entertain like what would it look like if you made a move into a situation where you actually got to honor your own timing. Because when my energy shifted, when I started honoring my own timing and things started feeling less intense and more manageable and I burned out less, confidence started to feel less like a performance and more like a natural state. It wasn't about controlling myself into submission. It was about learning to trust myself again. I say this time and time again.
Confidence is about self-trust. And if you're constantly betraying your own timing and your own needs and your own desires and bypassing all of what you want and need and desire to go work in a system that doesn't work for you, it's very difficult to earn your own self-trust and ultimately become confident.
And I get it, there are systemic issues and challenges at play that feel insurmountable. There are challenges that probably your ancestors and family members have been trying to overcome for generations to get out of just surviving and to start moving into thriving. But if you're listening, you're probably one of those people who is like a pattern breaker, a generational change maker, the one person in the link that wakes up and does things different.
So how do we move from surviving to actually thriving, to growing? Here are some practices that have been really powerful for me and for the women that I work with in my coaching practice who are also navigating late diagnosed ADHD or differently wired brains. First things first is
rituals over routines. And this sounds like it's the same word, but it's not. A routine and a ritual are very different. A rigid checklist never worked for me. What does work for me is checking in with my body each morning, asking myself, do I want to write? Do I want to dance? Do I want to stretch or breathe? And letting it be fluid, it's kind of like, okay, I know what I need and I'm going to give myself an a la carte option every day that meets me where I'm at.
And especially for my ADHDers or people with autism or dyslexia who grapple with demand avoidance, making a rigid checklist for yourself that you have to do, you're going to avoid that shit like the plague. Like if you do a ritual that you are in devotion to, it's a very different energy.
An energy that comes with so much less pressure, which actually creates the environment for you to do the thing that your body needs or that you're being called to do. Another practice that has been powerful for me is to honor my hyper focus. If you have a tendency to drop into deep focus on something you love, let yourself go there.
It is not wrong. It's not a flaw. It is your brilliance, your unique brilliance at work. And just remember to like pause for water and food and notice where you need to take care of your basic needs. I think once I learned how to hyper-focus sprint and pause to like honor what my body was asking for, I started like creating at hyper speed. It was pretty wild.
And this is how some writers work as well. If you like want to write a book and that's like your play big goal or you want to be an author. Sometimes writers hyper-focus and binge write and other writers wind up like carefully outlining their book and writing that way. there's no right or wrong way to approach your goals as long as you're making sure that you are taking care of yourself in the process.
Because you are the most important thing in all of this and if you're not taking care of yourself then you won't get to A. Enjoy the process and B. Enjoy the fruits of your labor. Another practice that can be very helpful is to work in sprints. Many of us thrive in bursts of creativity or energy followed by rest. So stop expecting yourself to run these marathons when your nervous system is designed maybe for shorter sprints.
One of the most important practices that you can do is to shape your environment. Lighting, sound, sense, textures, the whole landscape of your sensory environment, these all matter so much more than we realize.
Choose spaces that help your brain settle and help your body xxhale ask yourself like what do I want to smell that feels relaxing? Like what kind of lighting do I want like for me? I cannot stand if a light bulb has cool light in it I feel like I'm in a like gym room or something like I have to have warm lighting I could do a combination of a cool warm in one But I cannot just do cool on its own like I will start to feel weird after like 10 minutes
And like it's okay to consider these basic needs or to play with maybe even like being a diva if somebody has some judgment about how you feel like you need to shape your environment. This was particularly challenging for me in my family environment because my husband and I and my stepson, we have very different brains.
Like I said, I grapple with a deficit in visual memory. And so I need things organized so I can locate them without getting stressed throughout the day. At first, I used to think it was OCD and then I realized that like, no, I actually don't have the capacity to visually find the things that I need. If they're in a new place every time, if there's too much clutter around, it makes me get tired and shut down.
The geniuses that I live with are completely the opposite. They can leave something anywhere they want and they know exactly where it was. They can go right back to it. I cannot do that. And so it took me a while to kind of like self advocate and be like, hey, I know this isn't second nature for you guys, but especially in my designated areas and some of the common areas, I have to have things organized or it becomes very taxing and stressful for me to navigate my environment.
And sometimes even people who love you don't fully receive it at first or understand the magnitude of what you're asking, but advocate for yourself, set boundaries, have the conversations. You get to shape an environment that supports you. And this next practice is more of a mindset tweak, and it's a practice that involves you changing the way you relate to productivity.
Practice of redefining productivity is so critical if your brain works differently than the average. Not worse or bad, but just different than the average. For so long, I tied my worth to how much and how fast I could put things out or do things. I really tied my worth to my output. And now, productivity looks like living in alignment with my values, not just checking things off a list, really considering the style and how I want to do things and really valuing my process over actually accomplishing the thing.
It's more important for me now than ever to be in integrity with Kate's way of doing things because nobody can do it like me. Just like nobody can do it like you. And so productivity isn't about just getting the things done when you're talking about playing big and your life's goals and your purpose and the reality that you really want. It also includes redefining our relationship to the style of how we do things and what we call productivity.
And this last practice is my absolute favorite. I literally never get sick of it and it's so fucking important. I cannot overstate this enough. The practice of celebrating the small wins. Now I'm gonna level with you. If you're in a bad mood or a shit mindset, that is gonna sound like the biggest bullshit you've ever heard. Celebrate the small wins, but listen it is so important because our brains naturally default to finding everything that is wrong with our lives and our situations.
And it works like that because our brain's job is to scan the environment for threats and make sure our brain can keep us alive. Just like your heart's job is to pump blood and get that blood out to all of your organs that need oxygen to be healthy and functioning and to survive. Your brain's job
is to constantly be looking for what's wrong.
And that is the default setting. And that is not a setting that is conducive with thriving and growth. That is a setting that's conducive to surviving. And we need that setting sometimes, but having it all the time is not gonna help you play big. So celebrating the small wins is a practice that you must adopt if you want to change how things are going for you if you want to actually get more confident and play big. Whether it's making that phone call that you've been avoiding or opening up the laptop or remembering to take your meds even, like I don't know about you sometimes when I do take medication, I forget it altogether.
Those little micro moments of accomplishment or those little micro wins, when you notice them,
name them, celebrate them, that builds trust within yourself. That gives your brain evidence that you are thriving more than you are just surviving.
And the more you can build the evidence that you're thriving, the more you start to live in the reality where you are actually thriving. And the more you live in a reality where you trust yourself and that trust builds confidence.
If you're listening to this and if you're in this Play Big Queen's audience, I know you've probably spent years making yourself smaller, masking, surviving, maybe doing the work of undoing that conditioning and like there's just layers and layers to peel back every day from learning to break the freeze and boldly use your voice to stand in your views and values to just allowing yourself to do what
comes naturally to you, but thriving?
Thriving really means taking that mask off and it can be fucking scary. It means letting yourself exist without explanation or apology, without constant comparison, without the voice in your head saying, you should be more disciplined or you should be more like them or if you just...
did what they did or journaled how they journaled like you could get on, right?
But confidence is so not about being perfect. It is about being whole. You do not need to keep proving your worth through productivity or perfection or accolades or accomplishments. You get to live and work and lead in a way that
actually feels good to you. And when you do that, that is when you start to honor your own unique wiring instead of fighting it. You step into the fullest version of yourself. You allow yourself to be there and present and expressed fully.
That is where confidence lives.
That is where thriving begins. So as you start to like, go through your week or depending on when you listen to this podcast, maybe like as you go into your weekend, but I want you to think about this one question. Where are you still forcing yourself to be quote unquote normal? And what would it look like to honor the way you actually thrive instead? That's a big question that could have you looking at some big shifts. And you don't have to force anything, but it's so important that you know that you do not need to earn your worth.
Sure, there may be days where it just feels harder to be you, maybe harder than it is for other people to be themselves. Maybe you're even listening to this being like, I have no idea how to be myself.
But I want you to know that you were always brilliant.
And I say that with complete trust, knowing, and confidence because I truly believe that everyone has their own brilliance about them and that you get to live that brilliance out loud. So the next time you feel yourself anxious or overwhelmed or frantic trying to force yourself to keep up with an image or a way of being that just is not match what you feel naturally called to be or do. Just let it go and release and let yourself be who you are, how you want to be in the style that you want to be or need to be on any given day. Because it's enough and you're enough and you've always been enough.
If this was the pick me up that you needed today or you found some juice in this episode, share it with somebody else who might need it.
And if you think you want to go deeper in exploring the work of getting confident, owning your brilliance, becoming fully expressed, letting go of the bullshit, being supported in a massive pivot where you get to do things your way, then head on over to xxxkatebailey.com navigate over to work with Kate, and take a look at my private coaching session packages available because they are literally life changing.
It is life changing when any woman has the support of someone else when she is working towards thriving. When you have my support, it is a whole nother level and I would be truly honored to support you and bust my butt to make sure that you fully step into your brilliance and you get to have, do, and be everything that you are meant to in this world.
--
Okay, that's it for this episode of the Play Big Queen podcast. Thank you so much for sharing your time with me.
As always, eat the fruit, spit out the seeds, take what nourished you, keep what resonated for you, and leave the rest because ultimately, you know best.
This episode is over until next time, we can keep this thing going.
Go to xxxkatebailey.com, scroll to the bottom where it says, join our community, and get on the email list to get all the juicy details about all my offerings and where Play Big Queens play together online, on social media, and in person.
We've got a tight community of women claiming their boldest desires, celebrating wins, playing all out, fiercely standing for each other and going higher together.
Go to xxxkatebailey.com, put in your email address and confirm your subscription.
Once you're in, you'll get all the juicy guides, tips and inspirations and you'll get notified first about all the offers we have for all the big stuff we're doing over here. Go to xxxkatebailey.com to stay in the loop.
That's xxxkatebailey.com.
If you like what you heard in this podcast, subscribe, share it with your friends, and if you got something from this, I would appreciate some reviews and ratings. When you take the time to review the podcast, it helps our podcast get out to more women who need it.
If you haven't already, head over to iTunes and Spotify and show Play Big Queen some love.
Also, I want you to know that my door is always open and I will always make space for you to be heard and to honor your experience.
The views expressed in this podcast are through the lens of my personal identity and my own lived experience.
I am a European mix Mediterranean mutt who is an Italian Sicilian, cis heterosexual woman born in New York, experiencing the world in a white body as a multiply neurodivergent who lives in a neurodiverse and racially blended family.
And like everyone else, my one single perspective comes with its own limitations.
I have done personal and professional work around anti-racism, diversity, equity, equality, and inclusion.
I am not a therapist or doctor, and any coaching or advice cannot take the place of professional medical, mental health, or healing help.
However, that being said, what happens in my work is often a very powerful additional supplemental or alternative way to heal around identity work, mindset and emotional wellness.
Although I am not a licensed therapist, it is worth noting that in addition to being a mentor, I am trained and certified in emergency medicine and response. I have rendered care to over 20,000 patients in the course of my career.
I have taught over 15,000 students, many of which had learning disabilities that were undiagnosed and came from diverse cultural backgrounds.
I was also a private health college adjunct professor who was responsible for training medical professionals on how to respond to trauma and behavioral emergencies. If you approach me with any concern, you will be met with professionalism, compassion, understanding, support, and a readiness and a willingness to advocate for your needs.
That being said, sometimes I just get it wrong.
I am a human being on my own growth journey after all.
When I mess up, I'm always available for courageous and crucial conversation that makes way for growth and healing. Your experience and voice matters to me. I sincerely welcome any feedback you feel called to share.
You can email your comments or concerns to info at playbigqueen.com knowing that I am open to having any and all crucial conversations needed. Okay.
Remember, you are brilliant. Celebrate yourself. Value your own unique way and honor your own timing.
Because you can totally create a life and business that feels good and is successful on your terms.
Remember to release expectations of what you think your Play Big process should look like and be willing to do the work that needs to be done to Play Big.
But most of all, when you come face to face with your boldest desires, remember to trust yourself and Play Big Queen.
--
Hi, queen.
I see you're in it for the long game.
If you reach this part of the podcast episode, it means you're interested in learning more about my work, my values, my mission, and my community.
So let's go deeper together.
I am here to activate neurodivergent women to play bigger and to show you that you are so capable of doing big things and that if you value your own unique way and honor your own timing, you will learn to receive your boldest desires and so much more.
In my world, what makes you different is valued, celebrated, honored, and welcome. I welcome all who identify as female and non-binary folk in my Play Big Queens community.
We believe in and support LGBTQIA plus 2S, Black Lives Matter, women's and pro-choice rights, and obviously intersectional identities, including disabilities, neurodivergence, and religious beliefs.
Personally, I am pro sex worker rights, pro-Palestinian liberation, against Islamophobia, and against anti-Semitism, and I'm also against any cult-like religions that use beliefs as an excuse to indoctrinate people into abusive, autocratic systems.
Like many neurodivergent people, we have big hearts and a strong sense of social justice around here. You are encouraged to stay and play in our Play Big Queen community if you share these values. For those who find the word queen does not resonate.
Perhaps because of imperial associations, the Play Big self archetype can take any form and the invitation and activation remains the same. To learn to embody your Play Big self, to operate from love instead of fear, to go on a Play Big journey in community because you know that no Play Big queen can truly Play Big alone.
To decide to cultivate the courage to use your voice, unmask, reclaim, embrace and embody your brilliance and create a life and business that works with the unique way that you work. Through this work, you will come to know the truth of your brilliance deeply.
And as you come to know your authentic self, more and more will begin to open up for you. Knowing your unique brilliance will lead to great success and true belonging. In this world, we take the pressure off and learn to step off the traditional path so you can blaze your own trail.
My mission is to get you motivated, inspired, and equipped to get into massive action and go on your very own Play Big journey. My mission is to empower at least 10,000 women to fully step into their Play Big self by offering healing, transformative, inclusive, and neurodiverse-affirming coaching and content.
Through innovative coaching programs, courses, and master classes, we provide the tools, support, sustainability, and community needed to help each woman embrace her unique path to confidence, success, and meaningful impact.
If just 10,000 women with invisible disabilities and their allies were empowered with neurodiverse affirming and inclusive communication to express their unique brilliance, step into their authority and autonomy and lead,
the world would experience a profound shift towards inclusivity, innovation, and empathy. These women would break through societal limitations, modeling resilience, creativity, and strength of diversity.
Their voices and perspectives, often shaped by unique experiences with challenges and perseverance, would redefine business leadership, inspire systemic change, and create spaces where diverse ways of thinking are not just accepted, but celebrated.
Industries and communities would become more accessible and inclusive with practices that honor varied ways of working, communicating, and achieving. This change would ripple into every area of life and society.
Workplaces would become more adaptable, offering a culture of respect for individual strengths.
Health care and education systems would improve centering accessibility and compassion in their approaches and policies would evolve to better support those with invisible challenges benefiting society as a whole.
So many women with so much potential are shrinking in the face of their own brilliance, just sitting on the sidelines waiting for permission instead of getting in the game.
The activation of the latent potential in these women, their empowerment, making them visible would inspire others, reduce stigma around invisible disabilities, and encourage everyone to lead authentically.
Their successes will light the way for countless more women to rise, creating a culture of true diversity where every person feels valued, included, and emboldened to contribute their brilliance and lead with it.
If you know you are ready for more clarity, confidence, and you want to embody your play big self and be supported around creating the big vision for your life and business, then send me an email at info at playbigqueen.com telling me why this work is so important for you and we can explore opportunities to work together and make your Play Big dreams a reality.
