You Don’t Need to Earn Your Rest with Alyece Smith
Hello all you beautiful people, happy new year. I’m gearing up for 2026 after a few set backs at the end of last year that we’ll get into in a future episode.
But today we’re talking with Alyece Smith, founder of Socially Ausome, a neurodivergent entrepreneur coach, and the host of The ADHD CEO Podcast. She specializes in helping business owners build sustainable systems that actually work for their brains rather than against them.
In our conversation today, we get into why we often feel the need to "earn our rest" and how that can lead to burnout. We also jump into how to systemize your life to save your brainpower for what actually matters. Alyece shares her "DMO" or Daily Method of Operation, and how she uses routine to cut down on daily choices. We also talk about the trap of monetizing every hobby, finding clarity in what actually fulfills us, and why knowing why your brain works the way it does is often more helpful than just trying to force a square peg into a round hole.
If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/264
YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/y835cnrk
William Curb: All right, well, it's so great to have you on the show. Can you tell the honest a little bit about yourself and then we'll kind of figure out where we want to go from there?
Alyece Smith: Yeah, of course. So Alyece Smith, I am a mom of three, most importantly, I work with neurodivergent entrepreneurs. I left my job in 2022 after my somastagnosis with autism spectrum disorder and struggling to manage his therapy schedule and a nine to five. We found after turning down several therapy options, it just wasn't going to work. And so 2022, I left my job, I was doing digital marketing for a very large franchise in the quick service industry. Back then, it just said, I'm going to have to figure it out. My neurodivergent ADHD brain kicked in full speed hyper focus, went and dove deep dive 47 tabs on YouTube. Look, I know all these people I see my tic-tac was full because of the pandemic and that's been kind of, you know, housed for so long. I got from May with tic-tac, I got from May with reels and doing digital marketing at corporate. I'd seen all these people making money online, had no idea how what they were doing.
I didn't care what they were doing. I was going to have to figure it out. And so I started socially awesome, my company in 2022. And that has pivoted a lot. Some of it could be that all or nothing brain that I have where it's, let's pivot, let's pivot every few months. But I truly believe that it was really a tug and a pull of bringing why I started my business personally back full circle. So since 2022, I have done down for you services for social media marketing. That's what I was doing at corporate. That was a initial service package I offered. And then I moved into coaching entrepreneurs because I was growing so quickly. I had a lot of people asking me, what are you doing?
How are you doing it? And then even more so this last 12 months, I've had a lot of people ask me why I do things a certain way. I think we're getting more particular about our content schedule and how we're creating and marketing in general. And so through that, I decided to just fully unmask and share with the world. So now I work specifically with neurodivergent entrepreneurs and started a nonprofit this year to again, bring that just full circle. So I do a lot of things. I have a lot of passions, but most importantly, I'm an advocate for my children first.
And I have three neurodivergent children. So I think it was just so important for that to also be involved. A big part of what I do for work in my career.
William Curb: And there's also one of those things where I know what I'm doing. I always want to make sure that I'm like modeling the kind of behaviors I want to see for my kids.
Alyece Smith: Exactly. And I think in our careers, if you're an entrepreneur or not, we start out with this idea of income driven, right? Whether you go to college, you get out, you want to know how can I make the most money, the fastest, but those loans back or be most successful or climb that ladder. And I think once our kids are here, and you start really understanding that, you know, impact often comes before income, I'm very impact driven. And that's what I want my children to know. Because in my business, I saw success quickly. And it still wasn't fulfilling the way I wanted it to be. So I think being that role model, like you said, is very important to them. And them seeing me being fulfilled and happy and also being able to them be involved in it is a much bigger piece of that.
William Curb: And also, I find there's just especially like working for myself. And I imagine you find that you can always do more work. And it's finding that the limits that you want to put there and being like, okay, I need to create this balance in my life so that I'm not because you know, if I'm doing just all work all the time, I'm going to be a miserable parent, not be showing up how I want to in the world, which is then going to also make the work worse. That's doesn't even make sense to do. But it is always in my head like, Oh, I could also be doing this and I could be doing this and I could be doing this.
Alyece Smith: Yes. A Jackie of all trades master of none. That is what I always somewhat labeled myself because I get excited and get interested in a topic and it could be the most random thing ever. But I do believe that it's just part of how our brain operates. A lot of times, we will see something and we see the potential in it before other people do. And so it's that excitement of like, I could run with this. I still get that every day about the most random things and the conversations my husband and I have had to have of like, what if we and he's like, No, you don't need anything else to do right now. It's a challenge because we often will just run with things.
And I see that my kids too, I don't want to kill that fire. But I also know how challenging is been for me to, like you said, have that balance of you could do that, but something has to be given up. You only have so many hours in the day, or you only have much energy to give.
William Curb: I always have to do that with my daughter being like, Okay, you can do after school activities, but we can't do every single one. I remember a couple of years ago with doing that and her just being like, you know, I'm too tired to go to these things now. And I'm like, Yeah, we need to cut back.
Alyece Smith: That's a challenge, right? My 10 year old is on the spectrum. And I'll be honest, he doesn't want to do a lot of things. He wants to be left and he gets home. At the end of the day, he's like, let me be, leave me alone. Don't ask me to do anything. I went to decompress and I totally get that. My daughter is very, I said very ADHD. She and I laugh about being very ADHD together, but she is the just excitement and wants to be involved in everything has severe FOMO.
And so that's her. She's more like, Oh, I want to try basketball. I want to try soccer. Yeah, I want to try this. I want to try that. And I'm like, sister, you don't even like running the bases and softball. I don't think soccer is it like, let's try something else. And so it is a challenge very regularly.
William Curb: Yeah. And you don't want to limit what they're doing, but you don't want to, we don't want kids also experiencing burnout. Right. Right. Which is such an easy place for us to go into when we're just not letting ourselves have that decompression time.
Alyece Smith: One thing that took me too long to learn as a person in general, I very often had this feeling that I had to earn my rest, no matter how much I did, no matter how many hours I worked, no matter how much sleep I lost, I never felt like I earned it. And there are so a lot of days that I have to continue to have the mindset of it is okay to pause, it is okay to rest and build that balance. And it's hard. It's very hard.
William Curb: I find that always hits me when I'm not doing what would be traditionally like business productive tasks. But if I'm like, oh, yeah, I did the dishes today, I did all the laundry and I like changed the sheets and I went grocery shopping and I made dinner and I did all these other things. I'm like, I didn't do anything today. And I'm like, yeah, I kind of did things all day.
Alyece Smith: Yeah. And that's a big piece of what I do in my business with entrepreneurs is the DMO and the prioritizing because I could absolutely stay busy from the moment my eyes open to the moment my eyes close and get a lot done. But a lot of it maybe wasn't things that even needed to be done. Some of them were tasks I probably created that weren't even necessary. That is a struggle. That's a challenge. And I know personally, I have to look at what I'm doing and ask like, am I avoiding doing something else by creating something to do?
But yeah, you're right. As an entrepreneur, it's very easy for us to burn out, whether it be daily tasks or not even just as entrepreneur as a part like in corporate, I did the same thing. I came home. I just didn't have all day to work on that stuff. I would come home and then create things that didn't need to be done just so I could feel productive, so I could feel like I earned my rest.
William Curb: One of the things that was also occurring to me was when you were talking about coming from doing corporate and then working for yourself is I know that's like a, it can be a very hard shift to be like, oh, I now don't have these really hard deadlines anymore. I don't have this structure. Was that something that you struggled with or how did you kind of incorporate that?
Alyece Smith: When I first left corporate and came out, finally decided I was going to build a business, of course, it took me a couple weeks and a lot of crying under my desk and some panicking of what did I do because I put my two weeks down with almost no plan. But in the beginning, I didn't struggle as much with deadlines because when I first launched my business, I was doing social, done for you, social media for other large franchises.
So I knew that there had to be some kind of deadline. I basically took what I was doing in corporate and just kind of copy pasted it and was doing it at a level that I had a lot more control over and could produce a better result. That I didn't struggle with as much. But once I pivoted away from a done for you service where I have to deliver a deliverable and went more into coaching to where I am the deliverable, me showing up and being the deliverable.
Yes, absolutely. I would say I struggled more with boundaries in the beginning when I first came out and started my business with wanting to always deliver 150% exceed all expectations. I would struggle with working way more hours on a project than even needed to me because I just wanted to constantly achieve and impress my clients even to a point where I'm answering emails at the restaurant with my kids and my family because I had this fear of rejection, this fear that if I didn't get back to them immediately, I had no office hours. I had no boundaries as far as my free time doesn't necessarily mean free time. I struggled a lot with that.
William Curb: Yeah, I've always struggled with being like, okay, I'm going to take this day off. But what does that actually mean? What does that mean? Refusing to work? Or is that me being like, well, I'll check my email and if there's something I can respond to real quickly, I'll do that.
Alyece Smith: Right. I wish I had days off. Even when I have days off, I'm at the softball field, my daughter plays travel ball, or I'm finally catching up on housework. But I absolutely can relate because there are times at, let's say the softball tournaments where they're 12 hours and we might have four hours between the games. And my daughter's, like I said, she's the social butterfly.
She does not want to be around me or my husband. So we're sitting there in our lawn chairs looking at each other like, what are we supposed to do here for the next four hours? And I'll open my phone or check, you know, check emails or notifications. And I might make myself a list of things that need to be executed on Monday, but I try really hard not to plug in because once I plug in and start working for the day, it's very hard for me to contact switch and shift gears back into game mode.
And so, like you said, I'll kind of scam for priorities or things that maybe I need to put first thing on Monday morning or whatever that looks like. But I struggled a lot with setting those boundaries in the beginning and it's still a daily practice.
William Curb: Yeah, because it is often feels like I'll just do this for a minute. And but I think what you're saying there about the context switching is really important too. Because often it's this idea that I'm going to be multitasking. And that's kind of the time when I'm like, that's where I'm going to get overly frustrated with things. That's where I'm not going to make the best decisions. And I'm going to be just trying to rush through things.
Alyece Smith: I love to, I talk about this in my flow process, but I love to voice memo voice memo is for me, my brain just runs way faster than my fingers can type. And so I very often will, to help me prevent the context switching, I will brain dump everything into just a voice memo. And my phone, I use specific app called voice pin. Absolutely incredible because it transcribes it for me. It will make action items, all the things is the best app I've ever had.
I know everybody has way too many apps, but seriously, it's the best one. And I will brain dump everything when I'm having a spiral moment, or I feel like too many things are coming at me. And from there, I will, you know, categorize things. It's a little neurotic, but I will categorize them. And like, these are calls that have to be made. These are emails that need to be responded to, these are errands that need to be ran.
And I've categorized them. And I think sometimes just getting control over my to-do list or my task list. And it helps me plug back in or not switch between tasks because I'm like, okay, well, now that it's out of my brain and it's documented, I can schedule when I'm going to do that. And so I'll stop stressing so much about forgetting to do that. I do that almost every morning, because we know our best ideas come to us in the shower when we're not available to actually do them.
And so I will, as soon as I get out of the shower, I do like a, it's usually like a 60 second brain dump. And it is the most random. It wouldn't make sense to anyone else, you know, socks on chicken. I mean, it could be the weirdest thing, but it just helps me get it out. And so that I can be more clear.
And then I'll look at it. It's I have to make five phone calls, which I hate making phone calls. And if I have to, I will, I know that I got to, I'll be in the car for an hour traveling softball practice this afternoon. Perfect time to make those calls. I don't need to do that right now. I could do it then. I try to prioritize that way.
William Curb: Because yeah, you want to be spending your best thinking hours doing the most important work you're doing, not making the, I have to just call this place and tell them, hey, that bill's wrong.
Alyece Smith: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so we often, as entrepreneurs, especially ADHD entrepreneurs, say that a 12 hour hyper focus session where we haven't gotten up to eat or pee is a great working session. It's usually not your brain is probably fried after like three hours, mass. And so being able to, again, get control of what you're doing and then context switch when needed, not, not because your ideas are just flowing and you're feeling creative is, is ultimately the best thing to do.
William Curb: Yeah, it's too easy to think that locking in is actually like, and sometimes, yeah, you can do a ton of work in a short amount of time with falling into that hyper focus hole and stuff. And I'm like, but I'm pulling for my future self. I'm using too many things. Kids are going to get home and I'm going to be too exhausted to do anything. And that's, I want to be, be there for them when they get home or, you know, I still need to work tomorrow too.
Alyece Smith: So yeah. And so part of my flow process that F is buying your spark times. And so we know that your brain has natural energy peaks, not everyone. Some people are night owls. Some people are better in the morning. And if we don't get control of those tasks or those ideas, because a lot of times it's not just a to do list someone gave us, it's we had an idea or we, like you said, had a passion, like your daughter wanting to try everything. And our brains are all or nothing, we got to do it now, or we're never going to do it. And so a lot of times we get distracted by those low energy tasks or the non important things during our spark time.
And so then when you actually have to work on something creative or important or a money making task for your business or a deadline for your boss or whatever that looks like, we're already depleted by the time we get to that. And so that's another reason that the prioritizing your it's not just prioritizing your tasks by deadline, it's prioritizing them by energy. How much energy is this going to take to do? And when is the best time to do that? And it's, it's hard to daily, daily challenge to be able to induce that flow state so you can, you could produce your best work and still have energy for the most important things like your kids.
William Curb: And also make sure that you're doing things like eating.
Alyece Smith: This is my lunch almost every day a protein shake, but it's easy to get consider on my desk and it at least ensures I got some protein in today, because I can't I can get locked in on something and not get up until it's time to leave or go somewhere or bed.
William Curb: And I can see, you know, like, being like, oh, this is just what I'm going to do for lunch. It's going to cut down on my decisions. It's going to be good enough. That's often such a hard thing for ADHD is to be like, yeah, I'm going to do this one thing and it's going to be good enough. It's not going to be perfect, but I'm going to be happy with it.
Alyece Smith: I do absolutely anything I can in my daily life to remove decisions. decisions. Remove decision for sale. Take my ADHD away from it. As a mom, a business owner, a nonprofit founder, a wife, a taxpayer, I have a lot of decisions already. And so, not to mention all the additional things on top of that. So, I have a ton of shirts that I have my logo put on. That is my uniform every day.
You're never probably not going to see me in just a logo shirt. I eat the same thing almost every single day for lunch. I have removed as many decisions as I can every single day. And I always am looking for more ways to remove more decisions because we avoid making decisions if there's too many. Yeah, it's the analysis paralysis.
William Curb: The two things that have been hitting me while we were talking about low priority tasks that hit, but also how... Because that can be the same thing too. Earlier this week, I was like, I really need to get new podcast lights so that I have a little bit more lighting in here because in the summer, my window was open and it was nice and bright and now it is not. And it just glued me in. I'm like, oh, I'm very dark now.
I need to get some new lights in here. I was like, okay, I need to make so many decisions about this and how this is going to happen. But it's doing a lot of research. And I'm like, this is also taking away from time. I want to be doing other stuff. And it's one of those things where I'm like, both it's not that important because I can get by with this, but I also don't want to completely ignore it either.
Alyece Smith: Yeah, yeah. It is a daily challenge with all of the decisions. And then when there has to be research put behind it, because obviously you don't want to order junk, you want to order some of this quality and you want to order something you're not going to have to return. And so the research behind it too can just open so many rabbit holes on a regular basis. And so I usually will delegate my research. I'll tell my husband, look, this is what I need to buy. And I need you to figure out which one's the best one for the best price.
Thank you. But that's not always the case. But he is also neurodivergent. And we are two totally different types of ADHD. And so I am the quick decision maker. And so I would end up just picking one, it would be total junk and it would break in a month. And my husband's more about like, I want to research, I want to find the right one, why it's best, what size it needs to be, why it fits this plug, whatever. And I'm like, you do your rest work. And then let me know what one to buy. But yeah, it's a challenge. It just adds fatigue and analysis paralysis. And then it would be weeks before I would get something ordered.
William Curb: Well, yeah, like I did like, you know, four or five hours of research, and I'm like, I don't have a decision yet. This is no back burner. And I'm like, this is terrible. This is a terrible way to do this too. I should just make a decision.
Alyece Smith: Yes, I do. I also use AI a lot for those types of tasks too, when possible. And I will tell it exactly, look, this is the deal. I need this light. I need it. You know, this is why I need it. Here's a picture of my office so you can see what angle it's going to be at. I don't want to pay more than this amount. I want something with five star reviews. Find it for me. And that is one of my favorite ways to use AI.
William Curb: I often let and then I often love doing the adding on like the problems of like, hey, and where did you find this information? Like what? Like what can you give me references here so that I can go back and like, click through and be like, Oh, yeah, you didn't just hallucinate this one.
Alyece Smith: Yeah, yeah. And I have that also in my settings of my GPT is, you know, site references when possible, especially for if you're quoting someone or there's some research somewhere, because I think there's good and bad ways to use AI. But doing the Google searching for me, that's one of my favorite.
William Curb: Yeah, there's definitely the good and bad. I'm doing a presentation on executive function and AI is coming up in a couple of weeks. And it's one of those things where I'm like, Yeah, there's really great ways to use this. And there's also really awful things. So let's try and balance this fairly.
Alyece Smith: Yeah, agreed. Agreed. And well, I was at TEDx last week. And I did TEDx last Wednesday in Missouri. But there was multiple conversations there and multiple TEDx is there about AI all different angles, obviously. But like, one of my favorite ones was just how it is, people are almost losing the gift of thinking and creativity, because AI is just doing it for them. And I mean, we've had that conversation so many times in my business and in my programs with my students and how it's a very beautiful tool to use that can help you. But it cannot be, it cannot be your only brain. And if that's the case, you're not going to be a business very long. I will have to make sure I plug into that for sure.
William Curb: Yeah, it's one of those things where I see a lot of people that like, this is a really cool thing from AI. And I'm like, that's not really, you know, like, they're like, look at this thing that it wrote, and I'm like, that's really bad writing. And they're like, Oh, how can you tell that it's better? Because I do a lot of writing. That's how I know it's bad. And a lot of people are trying to get the AI to do things for them that they don't know how to do. And so then they don't know when it's bad.
Alyece Smith: Yeah, when it's incorrect. And I tell my 19 year old this all the time. But because I mean, of course, he and a lot of these college students were trying to use it for this and that. I mean, I told him when he started, I was like, look, you'll get cited and kicked out quick if you're using it to do all of your work. But you could do it to help you with research. You know, because I mean, we used to Google things back then, if I had to do a research capable on something I knew nothing about, I have to find the information somewhere. But we had that conversation of how, one, you need to be fact checking it. And two, it's only as good as the information you asked for, or the person who programmed it to begin with.
And so, you know, we know that GPT is pulling from the internet while there's conflicting and contradicting information all over the internet. So which one's correct? You know, which one's factually correct? And so that's a challenge to I have regularly with entrepreneurs that are using it. I'm like, you've got to it's only as good as the information you put into it and what you're asking for. And if you don't know any better, you might think it's the best answer in the world. So don't lose your creativity, depending upon it so much, don't lose your current sense, depending on it so much.
William Curb: There's this idea in video games that people will optimize the fun out of playing the game. If they're able to, if they can get like a better result. And I'm like, don't do that with AI, like I can absolutely see people being like, I'm going this, this thing can do all this stuff for my work. And I can make it so that my work is super miserable, because I'm not doing anything I enjoy anymore.
Alyece Smith: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And if you're that removed from depending on what you do business wise, if you're that far removed from your brand and from your business, where it is the only brain running the operation, it's not going to be fulfilling. And that's kind of what I talked about earlier. In the beginning of my business, I had six figures in less than six months, very quickly, because I knew what I was doing in marketing, I had the experience, I had the credibility to a certain extent. But I wasn't fulfilled. I was, I was like, is this it? Is this all of it? You know? And so really coming back to your business as a whole, being fulfilling, and if AI is the entire brain behind it, how can you be fulfilled that way?
William Curb: Yeah. So I guess that that is also a thing to hit back on is like, how do people find these things that they find fulfilling? Because it is, I know a lot of people are like, Oh, yeah, we can monetize our hobbies. And that I feel like is a route to hating what you do, you hate your hobby, then, because now it's like, this is I only do this for work. I know people that do that with art and all sorts of creative pursuits. How do you kind of find this pursuit to fulfillment?
Alyece Smith: I mean, a lot of journaling, a lot of, I voice my own journal because I'm lazy, but a lot of journaling and, and searching for clarity. You know, searching for clarity, I am very much a gut led decision maker. I let my brain make all the decisions that would talk myself out of just about everything. So I'm very good at playing devil's advocate.
So I'll have the angel in the double over here and I'm like, I better air on the side of caution or whatnot. But I'm a very gut led person. But the biggest, I guess you could say symptoms of it. I mean, just being excited about what you do. If you get up and you sit at your desk, you know, like, I, I don't want to do this today. Okay, well, sometimes we have bad days. But if that happens multiple days in a row, where you are just, just bored, I mean, that's very common with us with ADHD, right? Most of the time we're not distracted.
We're bored. You are constantly avoiding it. So again, that's another very common symptom, avoiding, doing the important things. If you're avoiding your business, or you're avoiding your job, or whatever that that is, there's a reason. And so that may be overwhelmed. It may be that you just don't enjoy it. And so it's clarity searching. And it's hard. It's not easy. I tell this to people in my programs all the time I've had students I've been working with for well over a year.
And, you know, a lot of times the first time the conversation comes up, where it's like, is this really what you want to be doing? Do you feel like, do you enjoy this? Does this make you happy? Do you go to bed going, Oh my gosh, about anymore to plug in tomorrow? Or do you go to bed going, I can't wait to do XYZ. Sometimes the first time it comes up, it's, it's a hard conversation because they don't want to pivot or they're worried about pivoting. And that's fear.
There's fear of unknown fear of not knowing what the other option looks like for them. But when they do get that clarity and they do make that pivot, it's very often just a totally different outlook on where their business is going. And they step more into that vision role of, I could see this happening, and I could see this happening. And I could see that and it's all aligned versus, well, I'm going to go try this new thing because this isn't working or I'm going to try this new thing because this is the bouncing because they're looking for something that they enjoy. Stopamine somewhere else because they're not getting it from their daily life. So it's just looking for clarity and I'm a gut led person.
William Curb: I think with ADHD, we often have a good internal sense of what we want and what we don't want, but we, it's hard for us to pin down why it's that way. And so then at least a lot of people like, well, I feel this way, but I don't know why. So maybe I'm wrong here.
Alyece Smith: And I have done so much research over the last three or four years, especially in the beginning when I was diagnosed way back when it was like, oh, I'm just scattered, you know, and I just, I kind of used it almost like my excuse. If I did something wrong, I messed something up. It was like, oh, it's my ADHD. Okay, cool. Well, then a corporate and working in corporate, I would get results. I had, you know, supervisors that called me the golden goose because I was almost a perfectionist to a fault. I was going to work through the nail to make sure I delivered the best product yet.
You know, it was going, I gave it my all. I was always very passionate about it. But on the flip side of that, it always felt like, oh, that's my job. That's what I get paid to do. It wasn't me understanding that. That's just how I operate as a person. That's just how my brain thinks. And that I had gifts that maybe other employees didn't or didn't know how to tap into. And it wasn't until I became an entrepreneur that I'm like, oh, not everyone gives 150%. Not everyone operates this way. It really wasn't until I got out on my own and I didn't have a supervisor or someone managing me, so to speak, that I understood, okay, maybe I need to know a little bit more about my ADHD and how my brain works.
And of course, over the last couple of years, I think since the pandemic in general, people have been more interested in learning about it. The last several years I've done just so much research on the different types of ADHD and how it affects us and the executive dysfunction that rejection sensitivity and all these different things that you're right, it's hard to pinpoint why. But I do think that it's gotten easier the more I've learned about my ADHD rather than just saying, well, I don't know. It's just my ADHD. I know, okay, this is happening because my brain is looking for dopamine or this is happening because I'm scared of rejection. When I can name it, it becomes a lot easier to make those decisions or move past it.
William Curb: Yeah, it's definitely really funny to be like, oh, yeah, this is what pop culture ADHD is. And that's been in your head for such a long time. And even if it's not something, it's still, you know, like I have all the stuff doing this for so long and being like, oh, yeah, there's still like remnants of squirrel and that kind of thing in my head.
Alyece Smith: I said earlier, my husband's also ADHD, but we're different types. And we have very different symptoms. We work very differently. Like, it's just how it's been for 41 years. And I start the educating, which is definitely one of one of the things people probably are like, please stop doing, you know, they're probably like, please stop telling us the why behind it. And he's like, yeah, I didn't need to know any of that. I just know I've been doing this for 41 years, and that's how it works. But I'm like, well, if you knew more about it, you could, he's like, I'm not going to fix it.
It's been 40 years. Like, stop. You know, so we're two totally different types of people, but I try to help him pinpoint maybe why things are happening or why he feels that way sometimes. And he's like, I'd rather not know.
William Curb: Amazing. Yeah, I go, oh, if there's a I can find something out, I'm not find it out.
Alyece Smith: Yes. And he's, you know, and he'll even ask me it's hilarious, because he will even ask me just random. So we're watching a TV show, right? And he loves the history channel. It was all thing history. And so this happened in 19, whatever. And I'm like, ah, I didn't know that. He's like, I wonder why they did this. And I'm like, okay, and I'm the one getting my phone off the nightstand so I could figure out why they did this.
And he's like, yeah, I didn't really care. I'm just curious. I'm like, I'm curious enough to worry if I don't get an answer to it, I'm not going to sleep tonight. And he's like, no, I just had a thought. And now it's gone. And so we're two totally different types of people. But it is, yeah, I'm very much in the research rabbit hole. Like, like maybe you are,
William Curb: I mean, my wife will do things where we're just like talking about like, oh, like, what's the etymology of this word? And then we're ending up like looking up like, oh, this is why it came from this. And it's like, and then I'll like tell someone else about them. They're like, really interesting. Well, anyway, exactly, exactly.
Alyece Smith: And, you know, we also on the same kind of aspect of that, I learned this information, these new things that I look up, but I don't always retain them. I'm very often don't retain them. Whereas he can remember anything and everything in every person's name and every actor in every movie. And he's like, Oh, that's that maybe Scott so and so in it. And who's that?
And he's like, for the movie we watch called this. Yeah, I remember. Did we watch that together? We watched that together? You know, and so he remembers everything. And he's like, that's why I remember stuff because I don't fill my brain with useless job. I'm like, history channel. That's all I had to say. Like, there's enough. There's so much stuff on there.
William Curb: I read a, I was working with a coach once and I was like, talk describing this like difficulty I had in their life. Wait, I got something for that you. And he's like, check out this podcast episode. I'm sure you're going to love it. And it was one of my own episodes. And I was like, you are such a jerk.
Alyece Smith: Good to remember it. Yep.
William Curb: Oh, I'm like, I definitely talked about this, but man, I do not remember writing that.
Alyece Smith: Yes. And it's on how that happens too. Because I say he remembers everything. I am more likely to remember something that happened a decade ago. We were, you know, at this place, he said this thing, I was wearing a certain outfit. Yes. What happened yesterday or that I said I was going to do something yesterday? No, I do not remember that thing. He is the flip. He's like, no, we did this. He asked your gang, a decade ago, he's like, how do you remember that?
I'm like, I don't know. I have a long term. I think my brain reached a capacity of what it can remember a decade ago. And so now my memories are all from, you know, 2005, I don't know, 2015.
William Curb: So it's hilarious how you're just like, yeah, I remember the most random things and then things I feel like I should absolutely have remembered from yesterday. I do not.
Alyece Smith: Yeah, I know every lyric to actually, I haven't been in the Girl Scouts in probably 30 years, but I remember the Girl Scout honor. I know that entire pledge. Can I tell you my kid's teacher's names this year? Probably not.
William Curb: Then now I'm trying to look, oh, I can.
Alyece Smith: I know the names, but I might not know what kid they go to. I think I've mastered the names by now, but I don't know that I know what kid they go to.
William Curb: So I know, I definitely gone into the officer like what class are they in? I'm like, they're in, no, that was a teacher last year. This year there if.
Alyece Smith: Yeah, exactly. Same. And then when they get in high school, they have like five teachers. I'm not even going to try. I screenshot the schedule and I put it in my notes on my phone. I'm like, I am not even going to try. I'm not very good with names. I'm very good with numbers. Very good with numbers. I'm not very good with numbers. Very bad numbers. Not.
Oh, no, I know. I know more security numbers than I probably should by law, but I also, with that being said, I have three kids, a husband. I helped my grandmother with all of her paperwork. I memorized, you know, my parents back in college when I had to sign forms and put their, you know, all those things. So like, I probably know more than I should know, but it's still there from two decades ago.
William Curb: All right. So I was wondering if you have any final thoughts you want to leave the audience with other than how to fake people's identities with social security numbers.
Alyece Smith: I won't be surprised if I don't get some DMs about that. I swear, I don't know any RANDOS. They're all related to me and it's for a good cause. I really just want to, oh, first and foremost, thank you for having me. Thank you for everyone listened and plugged in today. You know, final thoughts would be, I challenge you to learn more about how your brain operates and even some of the science behind it that could be a little scary. And I've been listening to hacking your ADHD is one of the best places to learn. I know even myself, someone who has been, you know, researching and going down the science rabbit holes for the last couple of years, I learned something every time I plug into an episode because sometimes we might know the science behind it, but we might not know how it shows up in our daily life or what those symptoms of it actually look like until we hear it in someone else's story.
And so I just challenge everyone to learn more about your, how your brain works and what you are passionate about. As ADHD people, we often have passions, usually multi-passionate, but find a way to work with your passions. You know, if you can find a way to live your life, make an income, and enjoy what you do on a regular basis, something that is regularly fulfilling to you, go to it, you know, go do it. Life is short and a lot of times our own ways of talking yourself out of doing it is just fear of rejection, fear of failure and name that. If there's something that's been on your heart or in your gut to do, I challenge you to take the first step towards doing it. Awesome.
William Curb: Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm sure people really enjoy this conversation.
Alyece Smith: Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me.
This Episode's Top Tips
Try using Voice Memos to prevent context switching. When you feel a spiral coming on or have too many ideas, use a voice-to-text app (Alyece recommends "Voice Pen") to brain dump everything immediately. This allows you to get the thoughts out without stopping your current workflow.
Once you have a brain dump, categorize items by the "mode" required to complete them (e.g., calls to make while driving, emails to answer at your desk, errands to run). This helps you batch tasks based on where you are, rather than just creating a deadline.
Track your natural energy peaks to identify your "Spark Times." Save your high-value creative or money-making tasks for these windows, rather than wasting that high energy on low-priority admin work.
Work on identifying "Fake" productivity. Be honest with yourself about whether you are creating tasks just to feel busy or "earn" your rest. If you are inventing work to avoid important tasks or to feel productive, it’s a sign you need to pause and figure out what’s really a priority in that moment (hint: it’s usually taking care of one of your basic needs).