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Women & ADHD

Roberta Dombrowski: Breaking up with burnout

Women & ADHD

Katy Weber

Education, Self-improvement, Health & Fitness, Mental Health

4.9 • 726 Ratings

🗓️ 2 March 2026

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Episode 207 with Roberta Dombrowski


“Work is one of the only socially acceptable forms of addiction. We get rewarded for not having boundaries and for always taking on more and more things.”


Roberta is an executive coach and founder of Learn Mindfully, where she helps leaders and teams thrive from the inside out.


After rising quickly through leadership roles to become a VP in the tech world at age 29, Roberta realized her success was coming at a cost — she found herself burned out, anxious, and physically affected by the pressure to prove herself constantly. On the outside, she was the high‑performing executive. On the inside, she was white‑knuckling her way through burnout, complex trauma, and the isolation of often being the only woman or person of color in the room.


In this conversation, Roberta and I discuss:


  • How her late ADHD diagnosis helped her finally make sense of her childhood and school experience
  • The overlap between ADHD, trauma, and burnout, especially for high‑achieving women, mothers, and entrepreneurs
  • What trauma‑informed leadership actually looks like day‑to‑day (hint: it’s not just more bubble baths)
  • Why work is “one of the only socially acceptable forms of addiction” — and how to step out of that cycle
  • How to start loosening your grip on control, micromanagement, and over‑functioning without letting everything fall apart


If you’ve ever felt like your “success” is built on overfunctioning, perfectionism, and people-pleasing — and you’re desperate to break up with burnout but not sure how — this episode is definitely for you.


Website: learnmindfully.co

Instagram: @learn_mindfully


Links & Resources:

In Her Words (Roberta’s podcast)

Free resource: Leadership Energy Audit

Free resource: Reclamation Journal

Strong Ground: The Lessons of Daring Leadership, the Tenacity of Paradox, and the Wisdom of the Human Spirit by Brené Brown

Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others by Laura van Dernoot Lipsky with Connie Burk


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Episode edited by E Podcast Productions


Find the transcript of this episode at www.womenandadhd.com/transcripts


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Women & ADHD coaching: www.womenandadhd.com/coaching

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Work 1-on-1 with Katy: www.womenandadhd.com/katy

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Order the “Hey, it’s ADHD!” course: www.womenandadhd.com/adhdcourse

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Did you love this episode? Click here to pledge a one-time donation to the podcast!

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If you are a woman who was diagnosed with ADHD and you’d like to apply to be a guest on this podcast, visit womenandadhd.com/podcastguest.


Instagram: @womenandadhdpodcast

Tiktok: @womenandadhdpodcast

Twitter: @womenandadhd

Facebook: @womenandadhd



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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

But a lot of what happens with traumas that it ends up disconnecting us from other people,

0:06.3

we heal in community with others.

0:08.6

So getting the therapist, maybe going to a support group, connecting with other leaders as well,

0:14.9

it really can be life-changing and energy giving.

0:18.5

And you're dismantling the shame that you may have from the traumatic event too.

0:29.6

Hello and welcome to the women and ADHD podcast. I'm your host, Katie Weber. I was diagnosed with ADHD

0:36.6

at the age of 45 and it completely turned my world upside down.

0:41.7

I've been looking back at so much of my life, school, jobs, my relationships, all of it with this

0:48.6

new lens, and it has been nothing short of overwhelming.

0:51.7

I quickly discovered I was not the only woman to have this

0:54.7

experience, and now I interview other women who, like me, discovered in adulthood they have ADHD

1:00.3

and are finally feeling like they understand who they are and how to best lean into their

1:06.6

strengths, both professionally and personally. Hello, hello, hello. Here we are at episode 207,

1:13.8

in which I interview Roberta Dumbrowski. Roberta is an executive coach and founder of Learn

1:20.1

Mindfully, where she helps leaders and teams thrive from the inside out. After rising quickly

1:26.0

through leadership roles to becoming a VP in the tech world at

1:29.0

age 29, Roberta realized her success was coming at a cost. She found herself burnt out, anxious,

1:35.5

and physically impacted by the pressure of constantly proving herself. On the outside, she was the

1:40.5

high-performing executive. On the inside, she was white-knuckling her way through

1:44.5

burnout, complex trauma, and the isolation of often being the only woman or person of color in the

1:50.1

room. In this conversation, Roberta and I dig into how her late ADHD diagnosis helped her

1:55.4

finally make sense of her brain, her childhood, and her experiences at school and work. The overlap between ADHD,

...

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