How to Harness ADHD, Prevent Burnout and Build a Remote Business | Dr. Julie Causton

with Dr. Julie Causton

Jul 23, 2026 · 00:40:17

Julie, welcome to the podcast. Great to have you here.

Thank you, John. Super excited to meet you.

Likewise. So first question I had for you is, you were a full professor at Syracuse University, and then you left to start your own company, which is not the usual pathway, right? A lot of people maybe leave entrepreneurship, to join a faculty somewhere, but you went the other way. You went from something pretty secure to something just mired with uncertainty. So I would love to get inside your head as you walk through what was going on when you did that.

Yeah. Many of your listeners probably will resonate with this, but I think I'm an entrepreneur at heart. I will go back to when I was 5 years old, I would wake up in the morning and think maybe I could sell perfume to the neighbors, like using our rose bushes or things like that. It's just in my blood. So anyways, yes, I was at a very secure place. place at Syracuse University, tenured. Everything was going well. I love teaching and loved teaching. And I had gotten my PhD and was really happy at Syracuse. I just continued to consult with school systems and then people would ask me to do more and more. And pretty soon I was at this, I don't know if precipice is the right word, but I'm picturing myself straddling 2 huge things. One is full-time work at Syracuse and the other is this consulting work that I was loving doing. And I just had to make a decision or else I break in half essentially, because it was like I was being pulled in too many directions. And I decided to go the unsafe route, the unsecure route of moving away from things like healthcare and those kind of things that are just provided to you in those kind of positions to a lot more uncertainty. And it really paid off in about 1,000 ways.

Oh, that's amazing. Yeah, I actually did the opposite route. So I started my career as an entrepreneur and then when I exited my company, became a faculty member, of course, then got back into the business and I've been doing both for almost 20 years, which seems like a really long time to be doing both. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That's—

so how would you describe your typical day as an entrepreneur compared to being a faculty member?

I like to live by design. So the work that I do, I don't know, it's about 50/50 in terms of designing my dream life and designing my dream career. And so the difference is I don't have office hours. I don't have anyone telling me what I need to do or where I need to be or when classes are and all that stuff. Although, to be honest, to be a faculty member is a pretty sweet gig. I don't want to get that mistaken. It's just I don't have anyone telling me, except me, what to do and who to be and what avenues to go down. I also don't have the pressure to publish in the same way. And I probably publish even more without the pressure because I just enjoy writing. So everything is based on what brings me the most joy. And I can design my days every day with what that is for me. Now, of course, I have meetings and lots of presentations that I need to do, but I get to decide if I'm going to do those presentations and when they're going to be and how I'm going to do them and things like that. And I do a lot less travel than I used to. So. when I had kids at home, I traveled like about 3 different times a week. I would be traveling. So, it was just a ton of travel. And now, now that I'm doing this just on my own and I'm designing my life as I go, I decided to do everything over Zoom and almost no travel related to work. Of course, pleasure, but not work.

I want to talk to you a little bit about how you develop a company with a remote-first culture, right? Or remote-first operations. But before we do that, I wanted to have you talk a little bit about what your business is in the first place.

Oh, okay, yeah. So it's called Inclusive Schooling. So the thing that I'm on fire about, Jon, is making school systems more inclusive. And so when I say the word inclusive, I'm mainly talking about students with disabilities. And so I'm really thinking about all students with all 13 categories of disabilities being included in general education classrooms and then making classrooms places where all students can thrive. So rethinking the traditional classroom of, when we were in school, Jon, it was raise and respond and sit and get and behave and sit still and do the things. And, of course, there's a little bit of that, but so much more is what does it look like to involve student choice? What does it look like to involve movement? What does it look like to involve bodily kinesthetic experiences, etc., so that students have a lot more choice and voice in what they do all day, every day? So, I teach school systems how to make schools more inclusive for all kids, and I really help them close down things like life skills rooms and resource rooms, the old-fashioned special education classrooms that you might remember from the past. We know it's not best practice to just separate and segregate kids with disabilities. Just, I don't know, if you think about Brown versus Board of Education, we learned it wasn't okay to separate people by race, and it's time our schools kind of align in that way. So what I do is help school systems tackle that using mindset, heartset, and skillset.

I love that mindset, heartset, and skillset. That's a good way to put it. I don't know if you knew this, but my company, my business, but part of what we do is we run an integrated preschool.

Really?

3 to 5 years old.

Yeah.

It's a special class integrated setting or SCIS in Liverpool. Yeah. And then we have a home health program and outpatient clinics as well. So yeah, I definitely know that world reasonably well.

Yeah. Yeah. Fabulous.

Yeah. And what was the degree or what was your education leading up to that?

So I got a degree in special education K-12 at Madison, Wisconsin, and then I got my master's in special education and then a doctorate. And my doctorate is in education, and I really looked at the paraprofessionals' role in inclusive education. So I had a pretty niche look at what's possible in education when we train paraprofessionals to do more than sit next to kids. Yeah.

And this whole idea of being a remote-first company, right? Not having an office, not having to travel. Walk us through that decision. Was it pretty natural? Was it pretty easy or was there some kind of debate you had to have?

Yeah, a lot of a debate. So I did, I haven't mentioned that my colleague, her name is Dr. Christie Prady-Franczak. So the two of us and I are partners in this business. And I had been on the road, she had been on the road and we joined together around COVID time.

Wow.

And said, hey, let's take a look at doing some of this work remote and see what we can do. Now, she had already run an online doctoral course, so she had all the technical backend skills and more, and I had all the frontend skills and more. And so, we came together and we decided at first to be hybrid. We would do whatever people needed, and then we would be hired in sometimes 6, 7 districts in a week. And as you just simply can't make it happen. And so, we just, out of logistical concerns, and as I age too, I don't know about you, John, but I used to have no problem jumping on a plane, jumping off a plane, doing a keynote, jumping here. And now it's like, whew, I need downtime in between travel a little bit. So, it was a little bit of my energy and a little bit of COVID And then Christy and I just decided to make the plan to say, we're just going to be remote. We have a few exceptions every year, but they're pretty unusual.

I'm with you on the travel. The older I get, the less tolerance I have just for air travel. Even if it's a few extra hours, I'd almost rather drive and just get there on my own terms. And yeah, the sleep disruption, the food, it's just not worth it, seems like.

It's not worth it. And I, we even for a while just were pricing our in-person way outside of what would be a typical price point just to make it so that it wasn't as interesting for people. And then people would still hire us and we were like, like, all right, we just have to make clear rules to say this is what we are doing and this is what we're not doing. And—

Right.

The truth is sometimes I know we've lost potential customers who really want someone on the stage standing there in person, and that's okay. There's enough work to go around. And so this part of my thinking and belief system is just not having a deficit mindset, or I don't mean deficit, I mean like a A lack. Lack mindset, right? There's plenty of work to do, plenty of places to be. And if they don't want exactly what we have, that's okay.

Absolutely. Like you said, there's plenty of work to go around and there's a lot of school districts out there.

So. A lot of school districts. That's right.

Now, did I read this right? Do you, do you have ADHD?

I do. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. All right. Yeah. So we connect on that as well.

Yes.

So I'd love to talk to you a little bit about just growing a business, being neurodivergent. So we know from the research that All the traits that come along with ADHD, especially hyperactive and impulsive ADHD, are hyperfunctional in their early stages of growing a business. The fun, the excitement, the chaos, the dopamine hits, all that is just super functional for early stages. It's later on when you require coherent allocation of resources and policies, procedures, that kind of thing, where it starts to fall apart. So I was wondering just about your experience. Starting a company with ADHD and then how you maintain it and grow it and nurture it going forward.

Yeah, I think everything you said is pretty correct in terms of the dopamine hits around the novelty, the fun, the excitement, the sort of design your own schedule, design your own life, design your own paycheck. Everything about that really just thrills me, right? Just, it's just a perfect match. And then when it is the day-to-day or the long to-do lists or those kinds of things, I have so many strategies, John, that both I teach educators to use with kids with ADHD, but I use them in my own life more than daily, just minute by minute. I use every possible strategy I can to make every day as successful as I can, but it takes more and more effort than it used to. I don't know, I don't even know who came up with the spoons theory, John, about ADHD, that you get 8 spoons a day. Have you ever heard this idea?

I have, yeah.

And that, yeah, there's a Someone knows much more about it and is going to be more articulate about it, but essentially just the day-to-day right now takes about 4 of my spoons, right? Just, it's a lot.

Mm-hmm.

I also hire anything that I'm not excellent at. So I have someone who manages my schedule, manages my day, manages my travel when I do travel. And then my colleague that I already mentioned, Dr. Kristi Priddy-Frontczak, happens to be a ninja at executive functioning. And so having her do the tasks that require that type of thinking, that type of skill set is critical. And then I do a lot more of the big picture or the more creative thinking over here. And so what we try to do is divide things up based on our strengths and we try to defer things out based on our deficits. And that has been a magical combination. And it's still a lot. ADHD is a Absolute superpower. It's, it's such a fabulous attribute to have, and it's exhausting living in this head some days. And so it's this balance of both, and I try to harness the good and reduce the challenge through all kinds of supports that I put in for myself.

I look at it as 2 sides of the coin, right? Because in the context of entrepreneurship, some traits of ADHD are highly functional, while they're not, right? So if you're unmanaged, Then it gets really dysfunctional. Just hyperactivity, for example. If you've got that hyperactivity, you can get a lot done on any single day, but you can also drive your team crazy and you can exhaust yourself and you could be in fight or flight all the time, right? Or this lack of premeditation, or you don't have to overthink things, could be really good because you can come to quick decisions. You can follow up on opportunities before anybody even notices them, but you could also jump before you really think about it, right? So I'm wondering how you manage that or how you see the other side of those superpowers. superpowers. Does it ever affect you? Do you have like systems in place or practices that you have to manage those?

Yeah, I'll kind of share like a cautionary tale. So before I had Liz, who was supporting me all the time as an administrative assistant, I, for example, was hired somewhere around Syracuse, and I have both time challenges and space challenges. So it's either now or it's not now. That's— those are how I roll, right? And I'm literally finding places without a GPS Forget about it. Yeah. An example was I was hired to do a presentation and it was 2 hours away and I went the wrong way on the thruway for 2 hours. Right. And then was at the wrong place. And then they called and then I was 4 hours from the presentation. Right. And those things happen to me all the time. It's so interesting to just see how these things come to be in a real fast-paced life. And it's just some epic fails, right? Just epic fails like that. And it was then those kinds So those are the kinds of things where I just, I'm always thinking about how can I have a system in place to support double-checking? How can I have a system in place? So even just my email, I'll just say that, for example, I manage my own email for the most part, but every night Liz double-checks through everything to make sure I haven't missed a date, haven't missed something, and she puts it in. And I would say she probably would say I'm about 90% accurate. 90% is pretty good unless you're one of the 10% of the presentations that I didn't show up to, right? So I have to have a lot of backup supports related most to my time and space. I don't know if blindness is the right phrase, but struggles with time and space. Yeah.

Yeah. I've done that before too. So I've booked flights for the right day of the week, but the wrong month, or booked hotel rooms for a month out when I thought it was now. Completely missed things because my calendar mismanagement is epic. So I can completely relate to that.

Yeah, so I really treat myself as both the CEO of this company and somebody who needs significant supports. And I just, it's true, both things are true. And I'm not really shy about it either. I'll even explain to people that I'm working with, I'm really open about my ADHD and often talk about it in my presentations. But I will explain, here's Liz. The reason she's copied on everything is she's double-checking every detail, every aspect so that I will be there on time so that I will have a rental car or that I will have— yeah. I've even gotten to the airport to go to Canada without a passport before, right before a huge keynote. You know, the, you know, the terror of those experiences and just how let down you feel. I have a really good self-esteem in general, but when those things happen, It's like, no, like, how can this be? It can really throw me for a loop when a mistake is made like that. And so for me, it's about just systems of backup. Yeah.

Yeah. So talk more about those systems. So I know you've got lots of systems, lots of frameworks that you use every day. You may not really get to talk about them much, but here's a great opportunity.

Okay. This will be in no particular order. I'll just share a few. Okay. I would say the first one is rest like it's your job.

I love that one.

And so when you have a brain like we have, it's fun to be inside this brain. It's a good time. I enjoy it immensely. And then I'm face down. So I have 2 modes, 90 miles an hour and zero, and those are my options. And I've had to build in rest in brand new ways. And I'm always thinking about deepening rest. So yin yoga and different kinds of meditations and things that get me to a better resting state when I'm awake. And then very careful sleep hygiene so that I am getting sometimes 12 hours a night.

Nice. What are some of your best sleep hygiene tips?

Okay, so the things that I do: lavender scent, shower before bed, no phones in the bedroom. I give myself a half hour to stretch just my body. And then I just lay there and read, or my wife reads to me. We— it's very cute. Like, we're reading books together. So one of us reads and the other one listens. And then I just Off to sleep I go. But all those things have to be in place in order to get that maximum sleep that I need.

Yeah. And then it's important for executive function. I love that you said rest like it's your job, because so many times entrepreneurs treat rest as just something incidental or almost like a weakness, right? Sleep when you're dead, push through it, pull all-nighters. But I'm glad to hear you say that. It's important for people to hear that rest has to be prioritized in order to perform at your best. And in an entrepreneurial context, that is key.

That is key. And I don't know if you've experienced absolute burnout, but I would say I have experienced absolute burnout. And so it's like also when you visit that place called burnout and you probably have lived there for a couple years without knowing it almost, it's just not, it's just not a place you wanna visit again. So not just about productivity, but for me, just mental health-wise, it's just not, it's just not pretty. It's not where I wanna be.

Mm-hmm.

And luckily now my kids are grown like yours and outta the house. And so, you really can prioritize sleep in a different way than when you were parenting. Yeah. So my first thought would be that. My second is I have these morning setup routines. Oh yeah, we are recording. I'll show you. This will just be every day is a journal page like this. So I'm just—

Yeah, I love that too. Very visual, very tangible.

Yeah. Like this is today, just here it is. And so if you're just listening, all I'm doing is showing a book of very colorful, lots of washi tape, Lots of stickers. And then there's a method to that, an absolute method. So I journal from my inner wise self every morning. So meaning if you're not, if that's woo to you, to your listeners, it's just simply getting calm enough and listening and asking a question in writing is the best way I can say it.

Mm-hmm.

Just to set the tone for the day. And then I have my to-do list and then I divide my day into 15-minute increments. And I have a timer and I follow that timer all day long. Of course, I build in rest into those 15-minute increments, but I find with time blindness, it is, if I can see the day and see all that's possible, I'm just thrilled, right? It's just, look at all these 15-minute blocks that I could do something amazing with. And so I'll take the brain dump over here and I'll put it into my 15-minute increments and then I'll make sure I build in as silly as it sounds, I have to make sure to build in breakfast, lunch, and dinner, or I'll forget.

Mm-hmm.

I have to remember to put in water or I'll forget. And I have to put in rest. And then the other thing I do, there's a lot of other things I do, but I segment intend. So I call it segment intending, which means like for this podcast today, in my segment, I wanted to be open, connected, and present. That, that's what I'm intending to do, to be, so that I'm not distracted or thinking about other things. And so there's an intention that's set for each time block with about 5 minutes between each time block, because what I used to do is just time block with nothing in between. And I don't know if it's because I'm older or wiser, but I realize I have to transition out of a time block and into the next time block.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm similar with that. It's hard just to Stop one thing and then the very next second go into the other, right?

Yeah, it's difficult. And then things get missed, I think, John, is the other issue, right? You know that when you finish a meeting, there's now 10 new things that you've thought about or ideas you brought up, and it's, let me gather that so that I can— when AI is super helpful in lots of things, but let me gather it in one place and make decisions right now about what of those things are we going to take on and what of those things were just fun ideas that we can come back to later. Yeah. Yeah.

Good. So that's, I think, 3. What else do you do? Yeah.

So I, in the morning, I call it morning magic, but on the right-hand side of my journal page, I reflect on the day before. So this is the first thing I do. I set up my day. So I sit down, open page. So it's 2 8.5 by 11 white pieces of thick paper. It's a very tactile experience. And then over on the right-hand side, I write morning magic. And what I do for that is I reflect on the day before and I just think about all the beautiful conversations I had or tiny things that happened in the day that made me thrilled or excited. And I just set that there to remember that anything is possible during this next day. And it keeps me in that mind of gratitude. But I also often think during the day, ooh, I'm gonna put that on my magic tomorrow. That's gonna definitely make the list for tomorrow. So it keeps me in like the positive, the positive emotional attractor versus the negative emotional attractor.

Yeah.

It keeps me in a brain of the PEA versus the NEA as much as I can. And then I sometimes visit that magic throughout the day just to go, let me remember what yesterday was. If today starts to tank in some way, I kind of go back as a touchpoint and look at that. I was gonna also say with timers, I gamify things. So I know that I need a lot of What's the chemical that you need? Not dopamine, maybe adrenaline. I need a lot of invented chemicals that I can create to make the day work. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

And when I don't wanna do something and it's on my task list, I'll take a minute and just sit with the fact that I don't wanna do it. No thanks. It seems terrible. And then I'll ask myself, can I delegate it? Can't delegate it. Let's imagine. All right, I wonder how much time it's going to take. And I'll be like, I bet I could do it in 8 minutes. I bet you anything I can do it in 8 minutes. So I'll do these little sprints that give me enough adrenaline. Now it's just me versus me by myself in my office, nothing exciting.

Yeah.

But to me, it's enough to trick my brain into going, let's do this, right? And when I'm done, I feel great because I didn't want to do it and I beat the timer, let's say, or it took me 11 minutes. But I don't feel like that's a loss because it's done. You know what I mean?

Yeah, no, that, that's great architecture, right? Because we know our brains, we need extreme interest or high urgency to get something done, right? And you're just baking in the urgency. You're saying, all right, I gotta get this done in 8 minutes. It's an artificial deadline, but it gives you that urgency that we need, right? Especially if you're not interested in it.

When I'm not interested in a task, it's just, it's, it's becoming harder and harder to do those things because when you have a company and there are fewer things that are urgent. And so it, I don't know, it just becomes, I have to manufacture it.

Yeah.

And another hack I have is if it's in a chart, I will do it. So I make all these, I have a money chart that every month I have a money challenge and I'm literally just filling in boxes of thousands. And whenever we make a deal or whatever, I'm just like, oh my gosh, I get to get out my colored pencils and color in $8,000. 8 boxes or whatever it is. And it delights me to have the visual of that. And I'll share one more thing, which is I do something called a 90-day challenge. So every 90 days, I review my last 90 days in my journals and I write down all the lessons I learned. And then I, I write what I'm bringing forward. And then I have a single page that's posted over here on my wall. That's my goals for the 90 days. And then I take them and make them into 30-day So lots of— involves lots of colored pencils, charts, stickers, washi tape, but it's kind of whatever keeps me performing at this level and enjoying life. I just enjoy all of that.

Yeah, that's so important too, right? Because what's the point if you're not? So you mentioned a few things. You were talking a little bit about the negative emotion, positive emotion. So it strikes me as a little bit of manifestations, right? You mentioned the woo a little bit. And actually, my viewers and listeners, I do sprinkle in a little woo from time to time. Yeah, I personally love that. So if you're comfortable going there, I'd love to hear your thoughts on how you incorporate any of that into your professional or personal life. It speaks to spiritual health.

Yeah, no, I think it's— I, I'm deeply committed to a pretty significant life of woo. And although I didn't start telling you about that, the next layer of my journals every morning is pulling a card, like an angel card, not a tarot card. All my cards are positive, like nothing bad's going to happen, but I pull a color card or an angel card, or I have a huge basket of cards right here and I'll just pull one and reflect on it and think about how do I work that into my day. And probably, Jon, if you're a kind of woo-woo type person, it won't surprise you that it is nearly magical every day. So the things that I'm looking for or the things that I need are provided for me in such cool serendipity. So yeah, like yesterday, serendipity was my card, and it was about just look for all the serendipity in your life. And about 3 different things happened that were very serendipitous. And my favorite thing that happens is when someone, like at the coffee shop yesterday, says, oh my gosh, it's so serendipitous that I ran into you, when they use the actual word. Yeah, that I was like looking for throughout the day. So I think even though I use the word woo-woo and I am careful because it's still not really acceptable in lots of places, I think that all drives my work every day. So I manifest my day on the page and then manifest my day in life.

Mm-hmm.

I set up my 90 days. It's not just goals. Dreams and manifestations and visions about what I want for the future, and then I go about it. So I see it both ways. When I say go about it, I also made a little chopping motion with my hand, which is like, it's like it takes some executive functioning to go from dream to how to get there. And so that's— I have— I don't need systems for the dreaming because I'm pretty good at it, but I need the systems for the achieving. And when you draw it, write it, create it, it comes true.

I believe that too. And I think especially the students that I work with, more and more of them are starting to feel like it's acceptable even to accept that or even talk about it. Right. But, and the science is catching up, right? We're able— our brains really don't know the difference between something that we imagined and something that actually happened. It's all the same up there. There's a real I guess there's a real basis for that. So, you know, visualization has been used by athletes forever, by artists. So yeah, it's natural that you would do it in business and in life as well.

That's right. And so I'll even visualize how many presentations I want over the next 90 days, how many dollars I want over the next 90 days. And it's not just those kinds of things. If I'm talking about dollars or abundance, I'm also talking about an abundant life and what that looks like for me and feels like for me. At the beginning of our conversation, John, you had said, what does a day look like for you? And it's just the— like, for me, abundance is freedom, the freedom to choose most of my day and how it unfolds. And if I'm not careful, I'll work 24/7. So a lot of these— and because I love the work, so a lot of these strategies are keeping me thinking about rest, making sure I eat, making sure I take care of myself. I'm literally having to study what would a hobby be? Because I don't understand the concept of hobbies in general. And so, because my work has always been my life outside of my children and my family. So I'm like being very intellectual about what's a hobby. And I've decided I might need to have a hobby business, John, like a hobby that makes money. Yeah.

Yeah. I was actually reading a book I think Arthur Brooks wrote it, The Meaning of Your Life. Okay. Recently. And he was talking about hobbies and how important those are, or some, at least some sort of passion outside of your work. Right. Because when we talk about work-life balance, obviously we know that's a false dichotomy. It's just life.

Life.

Balance. But yeah, having something that really lights you up and fires you up is helpful just to kind of balance out the work side as well. Yeah.

That's right. So I'm learning. I'm not going to say that I've succeeded in understanding what a hobby is or what it's for, but I've attempted a lot of trials of things that I'm still not into, but I'm going to keep trying. Yeah. Yeah.

So any other tips or tricks or even just like for your own spiritual practices? What does, what does that look like for you?

Yeah. So I've never really put it into words, but I would say it's gratitude, starting the day with gratitude. It's ending the day with gratitude and it's thinking about the magic. I call it magic, but all the magic in the day, just keeping track of it in some way. Because like you said, related to the NEA or the PEA, the positive or negative emotional attractor, every day it is a choice. You can tell 3,000 stories about your life, about every moment. You could look at it from every direction and tell a different story. And what I realize is, the more you're looking for what's working, what's amazing, what's beautiful, what's joyful and blissful, the more it's occurring.

Hmm.

And I can't quite tell you, if you're thinking about Joe Dispenza or all the folks that are studying the way that this is studiable in some regards, it's true that the science is catching up to it, but I'll tell you just from my own life experience is that every day is really miraculous if you choose to see it that way. And the more I choose to see it that way, the more it ends up being so.

Yeah. And it's just a, it's just a practice of being able to spot it or pick it up, right? Because there is, there are miracles everywhere. There is beauty everywhere. And it's just your observational bias, right? Whether or not you see it.

That's true.

Because 2 people can be sitting there doing the exact same thing. One could be super frustrated. The other could just see the humor or the beauty or the love in it. So no, I totally agree with that. It's a, it's just a way of looking at it.

I'll use that example with crows. So I'm, I will say that I've been successful at starting a birdwatching hobby in my backyard.

All right. That's, that actually is a pretty cool contemplative practice, I think.

Yeah. It's pretty amazing. And then I just learned about this app where you can be downloading the, all the sounds of the birds and it shows you. So I'm pretty into it. So yesterday, Ellen, my wife and I were sitting out back and watching the birds and listening. And Ellen was devising a plan about the crows, right? She was like, the crows, they're just taking all the food from the songbirds, and it's just a problem. And I was like, oh my goodness, I love the crows. I really love the crows. They're just bigger, and they need more food and different food, but I'm so happy that we have the crows. And Ellen goes, I'm going to change my thinking about crows. And I was like, yeah. And then I started to tell her about this particular bird that I Learned about on TikTok and how brilliant it was and how it brought gifts to the owner and all this kind of stuff. And we just had such a lovely discussion about crows, but 5 minutes before she was thinking, can you poison crows? Literally, she was like, she was having quite a reaction. She's a New Yorker by nature. So she was like, I gotta get rid of these crows. I was like, what are you talking about? So same bird, same backyard, same experience. It's just what you choose to see. Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah. And we can do that throughout our lives, right? Business, personal, family, anything. Yeah.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. So like every presentation that I'm about to do, I segment intend it. I write down what I expect to hear afterwards, what's gonna— and just literally 9 times out of 10, someone says the exact phrase, the exact thing that I was hoping to hear afterwards. And it just, it's such validation that this universe is a lot more powerful than we give it credit for. And there's just a lot of other forces at work all day long that you can harness if you choose to.

Yeah, no, I agree with that. The phrase that the universe is conspiring in your favor, right? I've always thought of that. And I use that like if I've set a goal or I really want something and it doesn't happen, that just happens in entrepreneurship, in business, in life. reframed my thought process where I don't necessarily— I do set goals, of course, right? But I don't have anything big in my life where I've got to do this, I've got to accomplish that, or this has to happen for me to be happy, right? But I think, yeah, this would be cool if this happened, but if not that, then something better, right? Because that, that, that's just what happens to me. And I— that's like a little mantra I have is that, yeah, only good shit happens to me.

Only good shit happens.

It's always true. That's what I try to think, right?

But even in retrospect, even the bad things, it's, oh, I can still look back. The things that are just really hard, no matter how you look at it, And there were lots of gifts that came out of those experiences. And it's not being Pollyanna. It's just true. It's just true. If you can look at every experience and say, what's the lesson here? What did I learn here? What's the gold here? And it's always there.

Yeah. You know, you don't get the job that you're hoping for, the promotion or the deal you wanted, but guess what? That opened up time for the next thing that was actually even better or cooler or more profitable or more interesting. So yeah, there's a lot of that kind of, I guess, synergy or serendipity or some sort of combination of those.

That's right. Yeah, no, agreed. I agree. And I think when something happens, I was just thinking about, we stopped working with this district that was using a lot of our time and energy and it was awesome and we loved them. And then because of the word inclusion, they decided not to work with us anymore. And I was devastated at first and thought, here we go, now it's going to be a thing. And it took me a minute to say, well, you don't know what's going to happen because of that. I ended up just getting a book contract just for that next month. And it was just like so fun to write this book and I wouldn't have done it without it. And it's just every single time something better happens.

Yeah. So why is it instead of why is this happening to me? Why is it happening for me? And if not that, something better. Those I think are really great mantras or words to keep you going.

I'm so glad you're teaching young entrepreneurs this thinking and this thought process because If it's not part of who they are. Just lovely to hear that you're teaching that work at the university level. It's awesome.

Thank you for that. Yeah, I think 10 years ago probably wouldn't have had as positive a response, but I think now it's, especially at Whitman, it's— they place a lot of value on student mental health. And because we've seen our students become more anxious, feeling less connected, and so on. So I think really understanding who these humans are that we're preparing to go out into the business world is really important. And I'm really proud of the school for taking that stance and prioritizing that.

That is amazing to be in a place where that can be— you can shine the light on the importance of it, but also like all of your students learning from a young age to balance their life in meaningful ways is just really powerful because many of us had to burn out to learn a lot of those Yeah, no, I was there too.

And my burnout just looked like a radical deterioration of my health on almost every meaningful metric, right? Until I had to bring it back. And that's really the— it's almost selfish in a way, is that you're prioritizing your own mental, physical, and spiritual health so you can enjoy the fruits of all your labor deeper into your life, right? So you're not dealing with chronic disease that could have been prevented 20 years ago. You've done all the things that you needed to do. So you're just living a happier, more productive, more fulfilled life. And I think that resonates with students.

I think compared to say like generations of our parents' age, it was just like you work until you retire. And as you would just see people at retirement age and they didn't have much left in the tank or didn't have much health left or any vitality left to enjoy life. And it was just such a cliff to fall off of, right? And so this time in life is pretty interesting. I could retire if I wanted, but I just love having all that health and energy and being able to enjoy life and try to learn how to make a balanced life every day.

Yeah. And you mentioned before, you mentioned just your time independence and place independence. That's a major driver for me too. Academic settings are uniquely cool in that way, as you get a lot of— you have to be in class certain times of the week and that kind of thing. But beyond that, you've got a lot of leeway. Just like running your own business, you've got flexibility. And I think that is a driving force. And I see a lot of my students discounting the older ethos, right, of you work for 40 or 50 years, you get the gold watch and you go play shuffleboard for a few years until you finally die. Right.

Yeah.

I think they're realizing that there's definitely got to be more to this whole thing we're doing here than that.

Yeah. Did you read the— it's an old book, The 4-Hour Workweek. Is it Tim Ferriss?

Yeah.

I read that a long time ago and I was like, that, that is it. That is the thing called if you can just design your life and balance it from the start, if you're lucky enough to be able to do that, that's it.

It's about intention, right? And I really admire that you do that. So what's next for your business? Like, where do you see this going?

Yeah, it's so funny. Christie and I, we have a 5-year plan all the time, which is, yeah, in 5 years we're going to talk about off-ramping, those kinds of things. And then we just never do because we're both so on fire about every new opportunity that comes our way. So, at the moment, we're just going to keep it at— in drive, I would say, and we're just having a blast teaching schools how to do things differently. And the joy I get from working with school administrators and students and educators all over the world is just— there's nothing like it still for me. So, we'll just keep doing that until I make a new decision, but I don't know when that will be. But I will try to learn to have a hobby besides birds watching.

Yeah, and even that would be good enough, right? As long as it keeps you fired up.

Yeah.

So where could people find more about your company and your work and what you do?

Yeah, so you could just go to inclusiveschooling.com and you can find our website there. We do workshops and trainings for school districts all over the world and all over the country, and we have lots of books and lots of of on-demand professional development that's really powerful.

Amazing. Julie, thank you so much for generously giving of your time to share your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Thank you, John. It was my pleasure.