In this episode Jane interviews Leonie Dawson, an ADHD mum, bestselling author, and entrepreneur from the Sunshine Coast. Leonie shares her experiences with ADHD and autism, discussing her late diagnosis and how these traits have influenced her life and business success. 

She highlights her work-life balance strategies, managing a thriving business while working only ten hours a week. Emphasising the importance of setting boundaries to prevent burnout, Leonie offers insights into maintaining mental and physical health, and shares practical advice for neurodivergent individuals balancing work and family life.

Interested in Leonie's courses? Visit https://leoniedawson.com/

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Welcome to the ADHD Mums podcast, a safe place for everyday Australian

mums to discuss their struggles with ADHD, motherhood, and life.

Hello, and welcome to the next episode of ADHD Mums.

Today, we have the ADHD mum of the century from the Sunshine Coast, Leonie Dawson.

How are you, Leonie?

Oh Jane, I'm rad.

How are you?

Well, I'm good.

I'm a fellow Sunshine Co Star, so Oh,

bestie, just down the road.

Where are you?

Yes, just down the road.

You don't have to

Make

sure you

give us your full address on the internet.

That'd be great.

I'm going to drop a pin for everybody.

They know exactly where I live with a little video., I'm in Kawana area.

Oh gorgeous.

I'm up near Coolum.

Oh, beautiful.

I love it.

The Sunshine Coast is beautiful, just hands down.

Leonie is a best selling author of 2024 My Brilliant Year workbooks, which used

to be called the Goal Getter workbooks.

They have been sold and used over 500, 000 times, which is pretty fucking awesome.

She is a entrepreneur.

Leonie has generated over 14 million in revenue whilst

only working 10 hours a week.

Get ready, because I'm about to dive into it.

She also has been given many awards.

She lives on the Sunshine Coast.

She has two daughters and she has a husband.

Basically, she's a successful ADHDer.

And she's a mum.

A lot of people don't believe that ADHD or being autistic, because you Leonie?

I am both.

Awesome.

So a lot of people will do say that it's not a superpower and I do tend to agree

I wouldn't say it's like a blessing.

But I do believe that when the stars and the moon aligns with the solar eclipse,

it can be helpful somewhat at times if you can harness it in the right direction.

And I know that Leonie's creative genius would be a part of that if I

could make that assumption, Leonie.

Big time.

That a hundred percent.

That was my take on you watching you online and your success.

I was like, she's actually managed to crack this somewhat.

I can only talk about my own experience.

I get that not everybody feels like it's a superpower, but for me it 100 percent is.

My neurodivergence brings me an enormous amount of joy and purpose.

It's so responsible for a lot of what I've created.

So I love.

what I am.

And I love my brain.

And it's okay if you feel differently about your brain and your experience,

but I can only tell you what's true for me and my experience.

So, Leonie, tell me were you late diagnosed, early diagnosed?

How did that look for you?

Just so we get the lay of the land before we start.

Yeah,

I'm a late diagnosed girlie.

I self diagnosed when I was Early thirties, and it was just because

a whole bunch of my closest female friends got, diagnosed

with autism in the span of a year.

And I was like, this is so weird because these are like the coolest

people I've ever met that I get.

In order to be a good friend, I want to know how to support them.

And they had all publicly talked about the female autism

experience looks very different.

And so I knew that I had to look up female autism checklist.

And so I Googled that and I read the checklist and it was like,

all of my deepest, darkest secrets were like written out and it was

just world shifting at that moment.

I knew instantly, that it was me.

And I was like, how the heck did I like not know?

And also it's really fascinating to me because I grew up in a, I've

especially for its time, a very disability friendly household.

My eldest brother had cerebral palsy.

My mom was a disability support worker who worked with a lot

of children with the Asperger's diagnosis as it was then called.

I got along really, really well with all of her Asperger's clients.

And she was always like, it's so weird.

Like you have such a deep connection with them.

Isn't it like so obvious when you look back?

Completely.

For me I definitely struggled with social stuff when I was a kid.

I worked out how to have friends when I was in high school, I

looked around and I was like, boys, they're a simple social creatures.

I'll be friends with them.

my best mates were boys.

So I self diagnosed in my 30s.

I decided to get formally diagnosed a few years later, just because I was speaking

about it publicly and I did get some autism mums come after me for not having

a formal diagnosis because they're very protective over their little diagnoses.

It's

not like, it's like a protected title that only five people can have.

I so respect self diagnosis.

So I went got it and I'm glad I did because I wanted to check if there

was comorbidities, like I wanted to check, do I happen to have bipolar

because I have bipolar in my family.

And even though I don't.

Seem to exhibit symptoms.

I was just like, you know what, let's just check for comorbidities.

And she couldn't find anything apart from, yeah, you're fully autistic.

And also your executive functioning is so shit that you may have ADHD.

And I was that the ADHD was a lot more shocking to me

because I hadn't expected that.

A couple of years after that, then I got formally diagnosed with ADHD.

So I could access medication and test that out.

So ADHD diagnosis is like a couple of years, formally diagnosed now.

it's a sweet trait to be a part of the double duo, the

vast majority of people do.

It's 70 to 80 percent comorbidity.

And, you probably already know this, but new research is coming out that

says that indicates that it may actually be the same brain, just

presenting differently in the world.

So it's a joyful thing for me to be a part of the neurodivergent community.

Wow.

I.

You know what?

I've never actually asked anybody on this podcast ever, whether they would

wave a magic wand and be neurotypical.

And I just love the way that you just slayed that in the first

two minutes because I was like, that is such a great question.

My husband, he admits initially he didn't believe that any of us had ADHD.

I think he just didn't believe it.

He said to me, I think you just see it everywhere.

Everyone you think has ADHD.

And I said to him, but babe, like we all in groups.

So probably everybody around us does have ADHD because it's like both sides

of family and all of our friends.

And then the other day he goes to me, name me one person that you don't, that you

think is neurotypical that we both know.

So I named one person and he goes, yeah, it's because she's boring, isn't it?

And we both avoid her.

And I was like,

Now he says to me, if he finds anyone boring, he goes, they're really

fucking boring they're probably like one of those other people,

like those neurotypical people.

So we talk about the neurotypicals in our house.

The other way around, you probably do the same thing.

Yeah, the normals.

I'm relieved that all three of my kids are neurodivergent because I'm like, what will

I do with this, with a neurotypical child?

I'd also be horrified if I got like a really sporty extroverted child.

It is a contagious diagnosis because It's a genetic thing.

I was the first person in my family to be diagnosed and I'm not the last.

There'll probably be some that choose not to be diagnosed and that's totally okay.

For me as well, I have been in business for a really long time

and I've hired a lot of people.

And now I will only hire neurodivergent people.

I cannot work with neurotypical people.

I do not understand them.

I don't understand their communication because it's

not direct and it's not clear.

And if I have to make assumptions or stories or guess or assume on things, then

that is not going to work well for us.

And so I drive neurotypical people absolutely fucking

batty in a work environment.

I really am looking only at hiring people with autism or ADHD or preferably both.

I need to work with people who are supportive and honoring of who I am

and not dismissive and discriminatory.

And completely befuddled.

Oh, absolutely.

So then in your business, do you look at it and go, I'm terrible at

social media and all the postings and all the tricky stuff and all that.

I'm going to find someone who their hyper focus or their special interest is that

because I know they'll get high quality.

Is that how you do it?

No, I tend to just hire generalists and I only have a very, very tiny team anyway.

I don't want specialists specifically, because, I change my mind all the time.

So like we've gone completely blank on social media for two

years and that was really cool.

I want people who are ready to learn and, ready to run with whatever

I throw at them and know that the business direction is going to change

depending on how I see fit and for them to be really comfortable with that.

I was just thinking cause if something's not of interest to me, I'm terrible at it.

And so I was just thinking all these neurodivergent people that if it's,

imagine if no one was interested in one area, it was just a complete mess.

Well, that's true.

So for me my people tend to just thrive with just a new project of some kind,

they're like, Oh let's go try that out.

And then we'll do systems behind it in order to work out

how to make it sustainable.

Basically.

Okay, great.

This episode, I obviously wanted to interview you, but I really

wanted to hone in on the one area, which was around work life balance.

I think a lot of us are just chasing the formula, which probably doesn't

exist around, the amount of success that you've had versus work life balance,

burnout, the excitement of it all, but then the actually having to do it, how

do you even start to figure that out?

For me the doing it 10 hours a week, it was just what I needed

to do in order to run a business.

While I was starting my business, I was working for the Australian government

in Canberra and I did that for years while I was building my business up on

the side, and that meant I get to like explore and try all different kinds

of business models and see what worked for me and see what didn't and see

what I love doing, see what I hated.

I'm grateful for that.

And that's why I always try and say to my clients it is so cool to keep

a job while you're building business on the side and that you don't put so

much pressure on yourself to work out what business model works for you.

And then I didn't leave my government job until I was nine months pregnant.

And then I had a kid who didn't sleep and I didn't want to send her to daycare.

So I just could manage to work out 10 hours a week around

the edges of being a mom.

So I got very clear about, okay, what's actually revenue

producing here and what's not.

I think like Tim Ferriss 4 Hour Workweek book has been hugely influential to me.

Over the years, just the idea that there are certain tasks that

create the majority of your income.

20 percent of your tasks create 80 percent of your revenue.

20 percent of your time creates 20 percent of your revenue.

So if you can work out what are those super producers and focus on those

things and then kill off the unimportant ones, then that works much better.

So I've just stuck to that routine of working about 10 hours a week.

And that means that it's something that I can continue doing.

It's very sustainable for me.

I've been, you know, permanent in my business now for 14

years since my first daughter.

Was born, but I've been blogging and selling online since 2002.

So having a reduced work week works really well for me in terms of reducing

burnout and also reducing the wear and tear on my body because I have

hypermobility and my bones lift up.

Dislocate and things like that.

I'm not somebody who could probably manage to do a 40 hour work week anymore.

So how do you go, let's say you've got a new project and

you're really excited about it.

Is it tempting to then work more and then physically and mentally

burn yourself out because of the excitement of the new project?

Or is it easy for you to segment and to continue to hold boundary?

I've got some fairly strong boundaries in my life because I've done massive

burnouts before and also worked so much that, it activates my nervous system

and develops, a low grade anxiety disorder from working from your adrenals.

So over the years I've built in a whole lot of buffers

to stop that from happening.

For example, I have a stop work time.

Every day, my day is kind of full in terms of I spend my mornings with

my husband from about 12 till 2.

I'll do some work.

Then we'll go pick the kids up together.

I'll come home family time.

If at night time, I've got an idea or I just want to get

like, Another thing ticked off.

I'll do that.

It's got to be done by 9 o'clock at night.

Otherwise, I won't sleep.

I need to get like 9 to 10 hours of sleep a night as an autistic person.

Otherwise, I don't function.

Then I don't work on weekends.

So having those buffers, I can get a bit more obsessed with stuff, but there's not

a huge amount of space for it to take up.

So if I get an idea for a project, sure, I'll run with it.

If I decide that's the thing that I'll, that's the right strategy for me to do.

But it's not something that I can like, allocate 10 hours to, if I do, my back is

going to shit itself and I have to spend the next six months with the osteopath.

I'm just like quite aware now we can do it, but it's going to have to just get

done in those condensed blocks of time.

Yeah.

Okay.

You mentioned you're autistic.

Do you have a special interest that you do then outside of work or is

work then your special interest?

Work is one of my special interests.

I also really love reading books, so I read between 100 and 400 books a

year and it's a combination of non fiction and Bridgerton like books.

I also really like painting and creating and journaling and all of those things.

I find it really difficult to have any kind of off switch.

So I was like, trying to figure out.

The reason that you can turn off the work, that you've done it before,

you've seen the results, and then you're like, I'm not doing that again?

Yeah, it

is.

Because I know there's an economic cost to the burnout as well.

And this is like peak autism, but I have the economic cost of burnout

calculator in my early days of starting a business pre kids, I, just went

full throttle and I was working.

Working full time and I'd come home and I'd quickly eat dinner and then

I'd be on the laptop until midnight.

And then I'd sleep for 5 hours and then I'd wake up at 5am because

I read some stupid douche book that was like, wake up time.

You'll be more productive.

And eventually I just collapsed from exhaustion and I was

pretty burnt out for 3 months.

And so I couldn't really work on my business during that time.

I was just, in a heap . I knew that burnout took 3 months.

I was earning about 5, 000 a month from my business.

It was like 15, 000 was the cost of that burnout.

So now I know if there's anything that I can do to prevent burnout,

that's going to be less than 15, 000, it is going to be of benefit.

If I burnt out now, it would probably take me about a month to recover, but

in that month, I could have pulled off a hundred thousand dollar launch because

of that's where my business is at now.

So my burnout calculator is around the 100, 000 mark.

And I know that whatever, uh, self care I can put into place, whatever

I can invest in and also having those boundaries in place to prevent

it, then that's a good investment of my time and energy and money.

That calculator, something that you've made yourself Oh, it is.

Okay.

Clever.

Yeah.

That's very

clever.

It's just a nerd thing that I've done.

Yeah.

So all you have to do is work out , how long would it take me to recover from it?

And how much would be my lost income during that

period?

That's the kind of like practical thinking that I think would

actually be really relevant.

I've never really thought of it that way.

Before you knew you were autistic, did you go through big burnout periods

and what did you think they were before you knew you were autistic?

Oh, I just

thought it was burnout.

I think it was just autistic burnout, just thought it was standard burnout,

just like work related burnout.

Things make more sense now, but I was like, Oh, this is weird.

But I have been working a lot, so this

is where we've ended up.

Did you think though is it weird that I have more burnouts than other people

or were all your friends autistic so they were all in burnouts too?

And you were like, Oh, this is normal.

No, I just thought it was

part of being a creative.

I had friends who weren't like as hyper creative and hyper focused as I was.

And so I just thought that was the speed at which I ran life and I've

always been somebody who's ambitious and goal setting that kind of stuff.

Even when I was.

It's a teenager and so I'd go like my year five report card says

Leone sets very ambitious goals for herself and is bitterly disappointed

when she doesn't reach them.

That's a

really intense statement, isn't it?

That's actually quite aware.

Usually report cards are like, I feel like they're all generic.

That's actually quite spot on.

the other day on Instagram.

It was something about like, I was probably bullied more

as a child than I realized.

And I was like, that's probably true.

the other thing I was going to ask you in regards to, running a large

business and, being so successful, but also managing, the work life balance.

Do you rely a fair bit on automations or like, how do you

do if you're running the courses?

Is it taxing on you personally, that you're the face of it?

No because of

the way that I've set things up.

If I just ran with general knowledge and belief that I should be everything

to everyone, then that would absolutely suck the life and soul out of me.

If I believe that I needed to personally respond to every single person then

that's not going to work for me, like on, on social media or even in my students.

What I want to do is create a whole bunch, like a massive body of work that people

can then access and use all the stuff.

I've done over 200 courses now.

And that works way better for me.

So with those, I batch.

The way that I can teach them one, I make sure that the

courses are really comprehensive.

So they shouldn't have any questions.

It's the same question keeps coming up by students.

Then I add things into that course to answer those questions.

And then I have an open office hour.

It's 1 hour a month where people can call in and ask me questions directly.

And that's the way that they can.

Connect with me.

Otherwise, if they've got questions, one, they can email in and my staff will

point them at the course or workshop, or they'll tell them, jump on the open

office hour call and ask Loony yourself.

Everybody just has to send in their question in like a chat line.

They have to simplify and think through their question to send me,

and then I'll give them the answer.

And that works so much better for me.

And it also means that I can get through 50 questions an hour.

I can just go bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

And it's way less of an energy cost to me.

That is really clever.

That's like obvious when you say it, but then actually it's not obvious at all.

I've been in plenty of the Zoom calls.

I think I went on one on Sunday night and it had 40 people and

not everybody was muted, which

I understand, mistakes happen, right?

Like I have ADHD, it happens.

But it was like really overwhelming.

And then people with their hand up and then everybody like they then had to give

the context, I just couldn't stand it.

I was really frustrated.

People can't unmute themselves because I don't allow that function.

Oh, you know what, Leonie?

You know what I'm getting from this?

I think that you've obviously think through that stuff.

Cause I would not think that.

I would run as a group and then think, oh, people need to share.

So when you think of an idea, do you try and figure out what you are not going to

be able to do in it or you're not wanting to want to do or what will be taxing

and then you just don't do it that way?

There's part of that.

And then also if I'm doing something one way and it really shits me, then

we work out a system to fix that.

Like I do a couple of podcast interviews a week and one thing that really

shit me was when people would turn up like 15 minutes late or not at

all and then be like, Oh, I forgot.

Let's reschedule.

Like, especially like there's one that's really painful.

It happens to me all the time.

It's so painful.

I told my assistant about it and we're like let's work out a rule for this.

So people have to apply in order to interview me.

We clarify with people that if you do not give us 24 hours notice, then you

forfeit any capacity to interview Leone and she will not be rescheduling with you.

We do an automated booking system, so it goes straight into their calendar

as well, based on their time zone.

We use Calendly and we also send reminder emails 24 hours in advance.

We automate that process as much as possible to fix.

That issue, and so now I don't think we've even had 1 person in the last year

forget to turn out for a call and it used to be just completely prevalent.

I think maybe I've got a boundary issue because then I would then

go and feel bad for that person.

I'm really hearing some strong systems and strong boundaries.

If you let yourself be driven around by other people's needs, you will burn out

and your business will not be sustainable and you'll have to pack up shop because

it's just too much to cope with.

So even emails, people know that if they email in to ask me a question,

they're not going to get me.

I, um, Used to get DMs you would imagine the amount, right?

You would have had more than that.

So it's interesting because I end up putting a thing on there.

I can't get back.

Please.

Can you join this Facebook group?

I will answer every question publicly in a group or you can post anonymously.

But if I'm answering the same question one to one and then there's

all these follow up questions, like I'm spending my entire day on the

DMs answering the same questions.

I get a lot less DMs because people don't expect me to answer anymore.

Exactly.

I used to get those kinds of DMs constantly.

My response for a lot of it was.

Something that you can talk to me about in a session.

So you can just book a one to one session with me here.

Has it taken you a long time to figure out the systems or has it been a

learning process or do you think that might be part of your genius zone,

just coming up with good systems?

No it's definitely like part of the learning period.

I was so floppy and no frigging clue and tried all the things.

And then I was like, why do I feel like absolute garbage and want to quit?

I never work out the systems beforehand.

Basically, it's just like, when things shit me, then I work out the

solution to that and build that in.

Yeah.

Nice.

Okay.

I'm learning a lot from this, Leonia.

I've actually got some serious things to work on within my systems and boundaries.

Clearly.

I feel like I'm going to have to think on this for a few days.

You need to just remember as well the only way that you can help more people is

by keeping your energy good and strong.

And if your business is constantly taxing you and taking too much from

you, then you won't be able to do that.

You won't be able to help the maximum amount of people and you won't be able

to do this for a longer period of time.

So whatever.

You can do to protect yourself, your energy, your genius, your

time, that is the greatest gift that you can give to the world.

You always hear about neurodivergent people, particularly starting a

new business or a new interest.

And they like go so hard for so intensely and they become so good at it so quickly.

And then you ask them, Oh, how's your, florist shop going?

And they're like, Flowers are dead to me.

I sold the shop.

I hate all of it.

And it's like, done.

They have six months off and then they start something completely different.

I love that this business, like, gives me the freedom to do all sorts of shit.

Like I can do Live events, if I want to create products, I can create products.

If I want to talk about something, I can I've created a business that allows

me like an enormous amount of freedom.

it gives me the money structure as well, which is really beautiful, but I know that

I need to have really good boundaries.

In order to make it happen.

I need to keep it as a small team in order for it to be manageable to me.

I've had a really large team.

I had 20 plus staff.

It was not a good fit for me as a person.

No, it'd be awful.

It was huge burnout and was just not cute.

I give myself 100 percent permission to do that and to keep it working

in a way that's beautiful for me.

Okay.

Before we finish up, I wanted to ask you one more kind of general question.

What message would you give to women who were trying to, balance the

life work or the work life balance?

Firstly, you cannot be everything to everybody.

You need to prioritize protecting your time, your sanity, your energy in order

to keep doing this, especially as mums.

It is my job to keep myself out of burnout and, depressive episodes and

adrenal freakouts as much as I can.

Obviously, I can't prevent it all, but anything I can do to protect myself

from that, that's really, really important so I can keep doing my job

as a mom and as a business owner.

It's not about being the nicest person that says yes to everybody.

I have only been able to build a business that's been able to help so many people

by having a really strong no list.

there's so many things I say no to.

I say no to people going, Oh, let's catch up for coffee.

And can I pick your brain?

Let's do all of the after school activities with the kids and, have

such a full calendar that you're exhausted every single week.

That's not for me.

I'm going to opt out of that system.

I'm going to craft a life and a business that works truly for me.

And I'm going to be smart about it, and it's okay if it turns off some people

because at the end of the day, I'll have created a good life for myself and my

family and a good business that is able to help people for a really long time.

Yeah.

Wow.

I, don't think I've ever spoken to anybody who's actually, come

up with a really strong formula that's works in this area.

So It's really refreshing because a lot of the time, these calls, it's

something I haven't mastered yet.

I've just coming out of a burnout.

I've learned this now, but I'm still battling.

There's some really strong messages around that because obviously being a

mum, you don't just have the business, which is one whole thing in itself.

You also have one or two multiples of children that you need to

look after, plus everything else that goes on with being an adult.

You can see why it's cumulative, the burnout, but congratulations.

I think you've built such a incredible business, and well done.

I mean, it's nice to talk to somebody who's successful and can

actually , take the learnings from the burnout and then put things

in place to not do that anymore.

It's really amazing.

thank you.

that's really nice.

reflection to hear that.

I always feel a little bit like a red hot mess careening from one situation to

the next going, yo, whoa, no, thank you.

Jesus Christ.

But you're right.

there's less shit.

I try and learn from each shit thing and have less shit going forward.

You've clearly not prioritized yourself in the past.

You've actually learned.

Whereas a lot of us just continue on with the same path and you're

at the definition of insanity.

The same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.

It's really refreshing.

I'm going to go away and probably re listen to this unedited, I

think, just to get some takeaways.

There's a lot I need to learn in this.

So thank you so much for your time.

I really appreciate it.

I'm so

glad that it's helpful.

And we'll put all the links in the episode notes so no one needs to

go back and listen to the words.

I'll put it all in the, in the notes and we will tag Leonie.

Thank you so much for your time.

You're a babe, Jane.

Thank you.

The key message here is you are not alone.

Thank you for listening.

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neurodiversity in females looks like.