Escaping the Doer Trap with Katy McFee

Hacking Your ADHD

William Curb

Mental Health, Health & Fitness

4.7 • 779 Ratings

🗓️ 16 February 2026

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Hey Team!

Most of us with ADHD have fallen into the trap of thinking that if we just work a little harder or do a few more things, we'll finally feel like we have our lives under control. But it turns out that "doing" and "leading" are two very different skill sets, and being a world-class "doer" can actually keep you stuck in place. Today, I'm talking with Katy McFee, an executive coach and the founder of Insights to Action. Katy reached the highest levels of corporate leadership before realizing that her success was built on a "doer" mentality that was no longer serving her, especially after her later in life ADHD diagnosis.

In our conversation today, we're looking at why that "doer identity" can be such a common pitfall for ADHD brains and how it can lead to burnout instead of progress. We talk about Katy's journey with a late-in-life diagnosis and how that shift in perspective allowed her to stop masking and start building systems that actually worked for her Combined-Type ADHD. Whether you're running a household, a small business, or a massive department, the way Katy frames the transition from tactical "doing" to strategic "being" is something we can all use.

If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/273

YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/y835cnrk

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HackingYourADHD

This Episode's Top Tips

1. Recognize when you are trying to "outwork" your ADHD by doing more tasks. We don't always have to be the person doing everything; instead, we can focus on thinking strategically about what needs to be done and focus on doing those most important things.
2. Give yourself explicit permission to stop pretending you work like a neurotypical person. You can reduce your cognitive load from "faking it" and free up energy for actually doing things the way they work for your brain.
3. Instead of just using a calendar, use systems that visualize the passage of time and the weight of your commitments. Often time blindness can hit us not only in the moment, but also while were in the planning phase, when we don't realize how much we're really taking on.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD.
0:05.1	I'm your host, William Kerb, and I have ADHD.
0:08.2	On this podcast, I dig into the tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain.
0:14.8	Hey, team, most of us with ADHD have fallen into the trap of thinking that if we just worked a little harder or do a
0:21.5	few more things, we'll finally feel like we have our lives under control. But it turns out that
0:26.7	doing and leading are two very different skill sets and that being a world-class doer can actually
0:32.2	keep you stuck in place. Today I'm talking with Katie McPhee, an executive coach and the founder of Insight to Action.
0:39.7	Katie reached the highest levels of corporate leadership before realizing that her success was built on a doer mentality that was no longer serving her, especially after her later in life ADHD diagnosis.
0:50.2	In our conversation today, we're looking at why that doer identity can be such a common pitfall for ADHD brains and how it can lead to burnout instead of progress.
1:00.0	We talk about Katie's journey with a late in life diagnosis and how that shift in perspective allowed her to stop masking and start building systems that actually worked for her combined type ADHD.
1:12.2	Whether you're running a household, a small business, or a master's department, the way Katie frames the transition from
1:17.2	tactical doing to strategic being is something that we can all follow. If you'd like to follow
1:23.1	along on the show notes page, you can find that at hackingradayhd.com slash 273.
1:29.6	All right, keep on listening to find out how to drop the mask and still keep your seat at the
1:34.1	table.
1:39.4	Tell me a little bit about yourself and like how you got here.
1:42.9	I'm Katie.
1:43.7	So right now what I do is I help
1:45.4	women become VPs. That's my big like mission in the world. I'm very passionate about closing the
1:51.1	gender gap. But I had an 18 year corporate career. So I was a former exec myself. I was a director of VP and
1:56.8	EVP. And I would say like my journey to the top was not a straight line. It was definitely
2:03.5	not like a rocket chip to the top. There's a lot of struggles. I got stuck as a manager.
	...

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