From Chaos to Clarity: Jennifer Chou's ADHD Journey to 80K Followers And Owning Her Brain

Welcome back to Autistic Techie.

If you are anything like me, you've probably been trying to figure out how do I get my life together as a neurodivergent person, whether you're autistic, ADHD, dyslexic, or even

a normal person who pretends to have their stuff together but doesn't.

Jennifer Chou is the unhinged life tracking person behind Vegan Tech Nomad with 80,000 Instagram followers.

I am so impressed and in awe of her incredible social media presence.

The reason she's built up to that audience is by helping ADHDers just like you figure out their life, organize their systems, take control of the things that are in their life, the

things that are flying off the rails or staying right in the fast lane.

And I have followed her for a long time on social media.

I'm sure many of you probably follow her too.

And now I get a chance to talk to her, learn a bit more about her brain and give her a chance to share some.

tips, tricks, and things that maybe you've seen on her socials and maybe some behind the scenes scoops.

So Jennifer, welcome to Autistic Techie.

Yeah, I'm super excited to be here.

I feel like that intro was like, it made me out to be this super professional person, but I just feel like a normal person who like, you know, the other day I was scrolling on

Reddit in bed because I got sucked into those stories for like six hours, I forgot to eat and drink.

So like, I'm still dealing with like fixing my life as well.

And everyone's in different stages of that.

Like, we're normal people.

Some of us have different strengths.

Some of us have support needs in areas where we like to indulge.

I am also a doom scroller.

My favorite subreddit these days is oops, Millennium Falcon, where people will take very elaborate Lego sets and reconstruct the Millennium Falcon out of them.

That is my new binge habit for subreddits.

so cool I have to check that out.

I've been like into the stories because the stories always get me and usually when people ask me about my backstory and where vegan tech nomad comes from I actually have like a bit

of a dramatic story behind it if you want me to share.

Go ahead.

Okay, so.

This like I have no bad feelings between me and my ex but he really did not like my username.

Like it was supposed to be a project we worked on together and he told me like vegan tech nomad is not great because like there's people who might get upset by the word vegan and

then like they might not know what tech or nomad was.

That actually turned out to be true because some people were upset by that and then some people thought my username was vegan tech nomad and they're like why are you mad?

Interesting.

yeah, so my ex was like really against it and he was like, you need to change this username.

It's like bad for your brand.

This is when I had like 200 followers by the way, like years and years ago.

And I was like, I'm not changing this.

And then we got into a big fight over it.

And then he was like, well, I don't know.

Like we should just break up.

And I'm not saying we broke up because of the username, but shortly after that we did break up.

So that's the backstory.

I think you showed them 80,000 followers later and you also had an episode of your own show come out recently with Eugene Yao who has a million followers, gonna plug in his

program as well for also an incredible program for ADHD life hacks and getting your act together.

We were just talking about that before.

Yeah.

It's called dopamine mastery.

think.

And me and my current boyfriend were talking about it now.

Cause I was like, I feel like my brain chemistry has changed.

Like I'm always itching for scrolling or like to grab my phone while I'm in the middle of working.

So I had to put my phone a few steps away cause I was like, I can't keep doing this.

Maybe I need a dopamine detox like Eugene or ADHD founder keeps saying.

And how do you find that your ADHD influences that need for the dopamine hit?

Because I feel that with autism a little bit.

What is that like from your perspective being ADHD?

Yeah, I think.

Okay, so when I was in university and school, I was like, there's no way I have ADHD because I get good grades.

everybody was like, no, you have ADHD traits.

But I was like, there's no way.

And I was in denial for so long until I made my Instagram account.

then like suddenly all my comments were like, this is ADHD.

Like I can censor it.

And I was like, wait, what's going on?

But in university, I had all these study hacks that I thought were hacks, but it turned out to be like an ADHD coping thing.

So for example, I didn't

like we had recorded lectures, so we had to listen to them on our own.

And I could not just sit down and listen to them.

I asked my boyfriend once and he was like, I just listened to podcasts by like sitting there and I was like, and doing nothing else.

And he's like, yeah, I just listened.

And I'm like, excuse me, this feels like fake.

listen.

Yeah, like I can't do that.

So my study hack was to take the lectures on a walk with me and then every time I had an exam I would picture myself walking around my neighborhood and then the location would

like spark a memory from the lecture.

If there was no lecture recording I would...

Yeah, that's what I thought.

was like, I'm such a genius for these study hacks.

And then people are like, well, I don't have recorded lectures.

And I was like, well, I record myself going through all of my notes and then I listen to my own recording.

And that's also how I got over listening to the sound of my own voice and why I'm more comfortable on video now.

And I was like, okay, these are study hacks.

But everybody was like, wow, this is so creative.

And then now I'm like, maybe this is an ADHD thing because like I can't sit still and study.

Did you get a formal diagnosis?

Are you self-diagnosed?

What is your thought process on that?

Yeah, I'd love to talk about this too because...

I recently, I've been like, my gosh, I need to like get medication or something because my life feels so chaotic.

But the issue with like ADHD is like you have to go through all of this admin work, all the paperwork, all the research in order to get diagnosed.

And then you have to pay for it as well.

So what I did was I went to therapy and it was like a few hundred for me.

And my therapist made me fill out some very, I think, informal forms.

And then every week she just had me fill

this out and then she was like okay yeah you definitely have ADHD but I didn't pay for anything outside the therapy so I feel like that was not an official diagnosis.

Mm-hmm.

to get medication now and then somebody like I didn't want to do all the admin work.

It's so wild how you have to like do the admin work to get the medication that you need to do the admin work.

So I was kind of suffering with that for like a long time but then yesterday somebody we were just like talking as friends and then somebody told me about like you should use the

software and I might do that now but we'll see.

software for diagnosis or software to help you with the admin?

for diagnosis and then like once I get that I can get the medication but I tried checking if my insurance covered it and I gave up on that because the admin work and I was like

okay I'll come back to this later and then to recover from that admin work I had to like lay on bed and then like scroll my phone and then like two hours were gone and I was like

my god this is like an endless cycle

The admin work feels very anti ADHD.

It's the exact opposite of what you need.

Like you need the medication to be able to do the admin work, but you the admin work to do the medication.

like chicken before the egg, that just feels so anti neurodiversity.

Yeah, but the thing is like I know I can do it.

It's just like I have to do all these things to trick my brain and to like, you know, bait myself into doing it, like rewarding myself later or like thinking, okay, I'm doing this

for somebody else because it's the admin work itself.

I'm like, okay, this is fine.

I can do it, but it's like getting started.

That's really hard.

And I hear this from a lot of my ADHD friends.

It's like you get overwhelmed and that's why you procrastinate because you don't want to get started.

But as soon as you're like, I'm doing this for a friend.

Like if I have to do admin work or cleaning

I'm like, okay, I'm doing it right away.

Because it's the helping other people that gives me the dopamine.

One of my favorite things that I've seen is a group of neurodivergent people who will go clean each other's houses and do each other's executive functioning work because they

don't want to do it themselves, but they are far more motivated and passionate to do it when it's for a friend and someone they care about.

And honestly, I kind of want to do that.

I don't like cleaning my own house, but if I went into someone else's apartment and I'd be like, damn, you live like this, I would be far more motivated to actually do something

about it.

And as I say this out loud, I actually realize I have done this before when I've like...

Staying with my previous friends who were neurodivergent, I'm like, wow, you live like this?

And like, I cleaned up a lot of their house while I was there.

I think I've like raked their lawn once.

And I'm like, yeah, like you could get an HOA violation if you don't rake your lawn.

So here's the rake, rake it next time.

And they didn't, but I hope they didn't get a HOA fine.

I love that.

actually recently cleaned up my room because, okay, the first time I tried cleaning it, my partner helped me break down the tasks and he was like, you can just sort things into

boxes for now.

Like you don't have to worry about cleaning and like taking pictures of everything because I get distracted with the memories.

And then I also tried like filming a time lapse of myself to keep myself off my phone.

But then I also have that reward of watching the time lapse video, which is very satisfying.

So like you see, have to go through all these hacks, right?

But then somebody, I saw somebody post that

needed donations of stuff like clothes, toys, etc.

for charity or something like that.

And I was like, I'm gonna get my stuff in and they set a deadline and now my room is clean, I guess, because it's for charity.

Yes, you've done a thing, but it has a specific end purpose.

It's not just for yourself.

It is for something else, for someone else.

And it's for charity.

What's to complain about that?

Yeah, exactly.

You were talking before about like recording your own voice, about using location to spark your interest and memory, and a lot about using technology to help you.

Have you been messing around with any sort of AI to help replace some of this manual process as part of your ADHD hacks?

Have you done anything with like notebook LLM, or chat GPT to help you or not quite yet?

Yeah, actually.

this is like the hack that blew people's minds every time I talk about it.

Because first of all, I journal every single day for like 10 years.

So people see that they're like, how can you do that?

How can you stay consistent?

Because I travel a lot.

you know, some days are like every day it's like really busy.

So people are like, how can you still stay consistent?

Like you must be so disciplined.

And I'm like, no, I'm so lazy.

What I do have is systems.

So whenever I'm traveling, let's say something

interesting happens.

I want to remember, like I say hi to a new friend on the street, then I will quickly write that down in my messenger.

Like I'll message it to myself.

Like, okay, this is the friend's name.

This is what we talked about.

And that's like after the conversation.

So immediately I write it down because otherwise I'm going to forget.

And then I also track my time 24 seven.

So like, you know, if I'm walking down the street, I'll type it as like walk so I can look back on it every night when I'm about to journal.

So it's like the point form notes throughout the day, the time tracking, which is like, you know, if you're going to the bathroom,

you take your phone with you anyway, it takes a few seconds to change the timer.

And then I also sometimes I write like one sentence and that's enough, but then I'll go back and like fill it out more in more detail when I'm on a plane ride or something where

I'm not as busy.

And then now what I do is to speed it up even more because my typing speed is already fast, but my speaking speed is even faster.

I feel like sometimes I speak at two times speed, but anyway.

I actually speak to Chatty PT and I use the voice thing on my phone because like I'll be in bed and because like I'm not gonna be like on my laptop journaling when I'm about to

sleep at the end of the day so I'm like in bed yapping to Chatty PT and like okay this is what happened today this is how I felt and then sometimes the journaling will like help me

close out the day because it'll make me remember I forgot to follow up on this thing so it makes me like more organized and then yeah

follow up.

Yeah, exactly.

Like there were some people in my course who I showed this process to and they said that ever since they tried the system, their day doesn't feel complete until they actually

reflect on it.

Because otherwise they're just going to go day by day and then like kind of forget everything.

But once they intentionally reflect, they're like, okay, I actually feel proud of myself today.

Like today was a complete day.

So then when I yap to chat GPT, I'll have this prompt where it's like, please clean up this transcript.

Because the transcript is like full of filler words.

and like random stuff so I'm like okay add paragraph breaks and like make take out anything that yeah yeah exactly so like it something that actually makes sense and then it

cleans everything up that I said and then I copy paste it to my journal

And your journal is digital then, it's not pen and paper.

Yeah, that would take way too long.

It used to be pen and paper in like 2017 when I went to Belgium because I didn't have a laptop with me so I couldn't type it all up and we didn't have AI back then so I actually

just caught up on all those journal entries yesterday because I finished cleaning my room and I just took pictures because the reason why I procrastinated so long was like I have

to transcribe the handwritten stuff that's so boring but I'm like wait with AI now I'm just like taking pictures of the handwritten journals and then like getting AI to

transcribe it so

did that yesterday and it took like hours because I got distracted with other stuff but it's done from like 2017.

Thank you I'm really proud of that.

and talk about your course a little bit, you're alluding to it.

Tell people about that.

What should people expect from that?

Yeah, so this course is like my ultimate life tracking course.

It's got, okay, so the first week or module has all about like your goals because I find that I don't get things done until I'm very clear about the outcome or the goal or the

reward that I want from it.

And the second week is all about tracking your habits 24-7 time tracking, but that part is optional because it might be too much for some people.

And then it's about organization and then living life without feeling distracted by everything.

And the reason why a lot of ADHDers like it is because everybody talks about the sound that it makes when there's like...

when you complete a task, first of all the tasks are broken down so it's like duplicate this notion template.

So it's like very easy and then when you click the complete button there's like this very satisfying sound that happens and everybody loves it so much they're like okay every day

I'm going to come back and complete my easy tasks to hear that sound.

And there's also a community which people said helps them stay consistent.

And some of them said that it was like the first 30 day course online that they've ever completed because of the community.

And it was like structured in a cohort.

So everybody was going through it at the same time.

So you kind of also feel that pressure.

What I'm hearing from like the sound, do you find that people use that as that dopamine rush that hit when they complete something and is that intentional?

Yeah, yeah, I specifically chose a platform where it was like very engaging and fun.

So I think that's part of why people keep coming back and they're like, I look forward to my daily lesson.

And they like watching the videos, which are only like three to five minutes long as well.

So it's like very short and manageable.

And the number one thing is like the community though, cause like when you have other people there, you kind of also feel pressured to continue cause like everybody else is

continuing with the course.

So that's

most people said was like the number one key factor to getting them to complete the course.

is the camaraderie, is the sense of like, I have people around me here in similar boats doing similar things, and we all want close to the same outcome.

Yeah, exactly.

Like a lot of them said that, well, usually I used to do a meetup at the end.

So they have a final presentation.

that's the, we wrote it at the end of the course throughout the four weeks of the course, they're putting little bits and pieces into this presentation.

the presentation is honestly so like, it's like literally a blank Google slide.

So like, it doesn't have to be professional.

And I have that template and people said like, it takes a lot of the pressure off of making the presentation look super nice.

And a lot of them present just like this.

plain white background, black text, and then they just type their stuff.

And people love these presentations.

Like we had to go over time because people just love them so much.

then because they spent the last four weeks reading each other's public journal posts in the community, basically, like sharing details about their lives, their accomplishments,

their failures and learnings.

They feel like they know each other, even though it's like our first time meeting and presenting stuff.

And it's just such a nice community.

So I should bring this back because I stopped

because I was traveling and my life was too chaotic.

When you think about the chaos in your life, how do you engage in your own community?

Or are you a moderator or do you also participate in it not as running it, if that makes sense?

Yeah, so usually people will ask questions or they'll say something about the homework assignment from that day.

And what I'll do is I'll go in and leave my thoughts and insights.

And a lot of people said that they didn't expect me to be as active and to be so fast with giving detailed stories and insights for my life.

And that's one of the things they appreciated about the community.

But the issue with that is like, we can talk about like the more business side of things if you want, because like I also track

and have like so many spreadsheets on the business side.

I'm only active if there's people posting in the community.

So like, if there's like one person posting, yes, I'll reply to them, but it doesn't feel like a community, you know?

And that did happen once.

There was like one cohort that not a lot of people were active in the community, because it's a completely optional thing.

Most people just did the course on their own, but...

there's one person who posted without fail every day and I actually hopped on a call with her after and she was like yeah this course was really great I just wish the community was

more active so you can feel that sense of I guess community with other people but she still really found it helpful and she told me that she feels like she has more time to

work on her own business so like it was only me engaging with her post so it didn't feel as fun I guess but

you know, she's still got a lot of value out of it and said that she wants to start her own business with the new time that she's found thanks to the course.

I'm really thrilled and happy that you have this community that not only other people really thrive and participate in, but that you get a chance to engage in too.

And I think it's really interesting how it varies based on a cohort and it varies based off of individuals because You get out of it.

what you put into it.

And I think that's a really powerful thing for all neurodivergent folks, like autistic ADHD dyslexic.

When you think about your own personal systems, you've talked about journaling, you've talked about going for walks, you've talked a little bit about technology, what are some

things you've found that really don't work well for you?

Because you have a lot of things that you've really found make you thrive and are successful, but what are some things where you're like, eh, no, this actually isn't

working?

Yeah, so this is a bit of a hot take, but something that I didn't, that didn't really work was time blocking.

Cause what happens is I would like block off parts of my calendar.

Like this time I'm going to work on this or this, but then like, just can't work with my brain because I'm like, I need structure, but that's like too much structure.

know, like I, if I fall behind on one thing, like suddenly everything is messed up and then it gets like pushed to another day and now I have to do

like double the work on another day and it's like overwhelming.

I don't do it.

And then it just keeps getting pushed off.

So I'm like, okay, this is too much.

I don't like this.

So I came up with two different systems that have worked very well for my students as well.

It's the TTL list or today, tomorrow, later.

And this is something that came about because I was reading this ADHD workbook with my therapist and they had it in like A, B and C, but that didn't make any sense to me because

I was like, what do these letters even mean?

So I changed it to today.

way.

Yeah, cause like you can't really plan.

Well, I can't plan further than today and tomorrow.

So I don't want to see the calendar piling up with tasks when I forget to do something or I don't feel like doing something.

So I just have today, tomorrow, later.

The today actually has a section that says one big thing.

So like as long as I complete that one thing, which could be something as simple as like get out of bed, then I'm like, I feel accomplished for the day.

And then the today, I think it should have like less than five things on it.

And then if you miss a few things, that's

because tomorrow is the new today so you just leave it there it's fine and then everything else just gets put into tomorrow or later and then you know like every week I'll go

through the later and then move it up to tomorrow or today and that's like helped me so much and then on top of that I have this template day where I laid out like all the hours

of the day and I'm like okay this is what like the theme of the hour or like what I would like to be doing here so like I can do it because like otherwise if I don't

have like a structure like that I'm just gonna be scrolling on my phone because if I see a blank calendar I'm just gonna be like I'm overwhelmed I don't know what to do and then I

go scroll so I have this template day where it's like okay I don't know what to do I look at the template day I'm like okay this is what I said I wanted to do I can use that as a

cue to do that or pick something else from that list and then every single week I have like a theme of the week and it's like a project that I want to get done so like the last

two weeks theme were cleaning my room and I've done that before the deadline and like I need these deadlines

as well.

The theme for next week is working on some birthday presents because I usually handmade birthday presents for my friends and that is like you know it's for somebody else so like

I'll do it for them but I won't make scrapbooks for myself.

I love that.

First off, again, I love the motivation you have for other people, but then also turning it back upon yourself to say, this is what I know helps me, and this is also structured

that I need to get to a goal, to get to an outcome.

And I think I'm gonna have to borrow some lessons from this as well.

My wife journals all the time and she talks about it and I'm like, eh, I don't know if that's for me, but as you talk about it, I'm like, maybe I should start journaling.

go ahead.

simple as like every single week.

you do is, okay, people love these weekly reflections.

Every week you can just write down your wins and your learnings.

And I noticed last month in May, I was like, this is a horrible month.

got nothing done, which is like pretty much impossible.

This is like all or nothing thinking.

And I was really beating myself up because I was like, I did this thing that I didn't like.

This whole month is like a waste.

But then I realized I didn't do those weekly reflections, which

by the way, I can't remember what happened during the week so I have to look through my daily journaling and to do the daily journaling I have to look at my 24-7 time tracking.

So it's like all built up upon each other and then so at the end of the month I have to do my monthly reflections but then that's when I realized that I didn't do any of my weekly

reflections for May and I was like no wonder it was such a horrible month because all I remembered was the bad stuff but once I filled it out I realized like I actually had so

many wins in May that I completely forgot about so when I look back on all of my

retroactively filled out weekly reflections.

I was like, wait, this is actually a good month.

Like I got a lot done.

I did a lot of things that align with my goals, you know, hung out with a lot of friends.

Like this is actually pretty fun.

So it's a way to vibe check yourself.

And I was able to remember the good parts more instead of having my brain sabotage myself.

So I felt like the reality was more accurate.

And then I also had a question prompt, like what did you learn from your failures?

So instead of beating myself up, like I did this thing and I really didn't like

it, I literally forced myself to write down like, okay, I didn't like it, but what did I learn from it?

And then what can I apply next time?

So then that forces me to reframe all the failures.

It's like, okay, it wasn't that bad because now I know how to prevent it in the future.

You found mechanisms that help provide feedback and say, okay, I know when this is working, we're gonna pull this lever.

And when it's not working, I'm gonna do something else and kind of tweak it.

And can I also say you're really articulate about this.

I sense the talking fast and I'm also a fast talker, so I totally appreciate that.

How have you found the confidence to have as big a following as you do in social media?

What has helped you become more clear?

when you're on social media, or just have the confidence kept there in the first place.

Yeah, I'm so glad you asked that because you will never believe what I was like when I was like eight years old because okay, this is a story I wrote about this in the past, but my

classmate literally thought I was like an alien or something because I would never speak in class like English is not my first language.

So there was that I am also hard of hearing.

So like if I can't hear somebody I was just like nod and smile.

So that was also not great.

So I was like a very quiet child and somebody was like helping me clean up.

toys in class once and I said thank you to him and he looked at me like so shocked like I still remember this clear as day his name is Alex and he was like what the hell this girl

can talk and so like I went from that

to like, you know, I was the convocation speaker at my university speaking in front of like thousands of people.

And okay, that was really scary, but still like the growth from that, not talking at all to like, you know, now audience of 80K was wild.

And the way that I got there was I think a lot of encouragement and the part about helping other people.

So when I got to university, I wanted straight A's and I knew like I needed extracurriculars.

Like I wanted to maximize my experience there.

my motivation and that was a reward.

And when I joined this mentorship program, I was supposed to get all this extra help with my school, like helping with citations and stuff.

And after that year, people were like, okay, since you were a mentee here, do you want to also try being a mentor?

And I was like, okay, I am not a leader.

Like, I can't do this.

Like, let me just, you know, do my own thing in school and like focus on my grades.

But

This one thing that somebody told me, he was a staff member, I think that was his job, but like it really stuck with me.

He said, Jennifer, you are already a leader because a leader is not somebody who just tells other people what to do.

A leader is somebody people look up to and then you help empower others.

And then when he said that I was already a leader by like helping my other classmates with some of their work, I was like, my gosh, maybe I should go for this.

So then I became a mentor for like the rest of my university years.

But when you open yourself up to those

people start asking you like, hey, we really need help with this thing.

Like, can you help with that?

So I signed up for like public speaking stuff.

I was like talking to all the new people in university.

I joined a bunch of clubs, started my own club, which I was like, I can't do this.

I don't know what's going on, but turns out nobody knows what's going on.

So I started it anyway.

I was in student politics.

Like I had to put my face like everywhere on campus is scary.

But then I was like, wait, nobody really cares.

When I ran for student politics, I asked them if my name on the ballot could be meme queen, because I put meme posters around campus.

they literally were like, OK, sure, you can do that.

So when people were voting for me, it literally said like Jennifer and then bracket meme queen.

And so I won.

Yeah, I was like, I can't believe they just let me do this.

Like, you can just do anything you want here.

And like, nobody really cares.

And then that's why I started posting more and more because I got a job because of my involvement in university.

And that job made me post on TikTok and my first TikToks are so bad.

you would not believe like it was so stiff and not natural and then after so many TikToks exactly that's why I'm telling everybody like if you want to start your own content

business don't overthink it just like post one video every day if you can and the video doesn't have to be super complicated because when I was posting for my previous jobs

TikTok it was just a video of like half my face for two seconds and then some text on the screen and I was able to pump out like five videos per day and then once I got more

confident seeing myself

on camera I started doing the speaking videos where I could also talk and also show my face and then our TikTok popped off and I think we have like 80k followers on TikTok and I

was like dang I should have done this for my personal brand so then I did and now here we are

Now here you are, podcasting, Instagramming, TikToking, you're doing it all.

How have you, how have you been able to find a balance in accomplishing all of these goals?

Cause there's a lot of different things you gotta do.

How do you find that you keep yourself at peace and you're able to do it all?

Yeah, I think a good support network is like number one thing.

what I was saying about the course community, like community is so important because recently I think I don't think I got canceled, but there are a lot of haters under my post

on threads because I posted like I blurred out the company name and everything, but I got a really lowball offer on like a sponsor video and I was like, dude, this is barely

minimum wage.

Like what is going on?

And a lot of people were commenting like I get paid nothing for this.

I'm like,

Okay, just because you get paid nothing doesn't mean everybody should get paid nothing.

Like we should be advocating for ourselves to get paid what we're worth.

But whatever, like most of the comments were like that.

And I was like, okay, if I was not there applies and knew that these comments don't reflect my worth.

And if I did not have a good community of other content creators who also understood like this is low balling and I shouldn't be okay with that, then I would have just like been in

shambles.

So the fact that I was like secure in myself and

because a lot of the things that people were posting that thread was just straight up wrong.

Like you can tell that they're not really in the industry because they said stuff like, influencing is not a real job.

I hope you lose all your followers.

I was accused of buying followers.

I know, but I was like, okay, this doesn't really bother me because like I'm secure in my own stuff because I've been to therapy.

Like other people's, it's more like a reflection of their own insecurities and instead of me.

So the people who did comment nice things, I was

like nice to them back I was like we should support each other there's a creator who is like okay if you don't accept this offer like I would like it so I try to refer her as

well like you know I want to support people but a lot of the comments were like you know this sucks you should get paid nothing like get a real job and all of that stuff and I was

like okay

this would have gotten to me if I didn't have the security in myself and like the self-awareness and a community because I reached out to some people being like, hey, am I

like wrong for this?

And they're like, no, you're completely in the right.

then that validated me a little bit.

And I was like, okay, I'm so glad to have a supportive community.

And the same thing happened to my friend where he was trying to post so many videos as a beginner content creator.

And he asked me for feedback.

And I said, like, just be yourself, your natural energy, which

seems like such generic advice, but it unlocked something in him and he was like, you know what?

Content creation doesn't have to be boring.

I shouldn't dread talking on camera all the time.

Like I need to be more myself.

So he looked at the content he likes and then he made more of that type of content.

It was like funny running memes and stuff.

And his video got like 5 million views.

And he's like, I had so much fun now.

And then he pumped out like 10 videos in one day because it was so fun when before he was struggling so hard to put one video every single day because it was not something that he

enjoyed.

But once I told him to be himself, he was like, okay, this is so fun now.

And then he was like pumping out all these videos and then some of them got millions of views.

That's why transitioned to the podcasting, because I enjoy podcasting.

I love talking to people like you.

And I find that the cost to doing this is low and my enjoyment of it is very high.

And that is definitely a ADHD hack, neurodiversity hack, because why would you do it if there's such an upfront cost or expense?

Yeah, like literally I cannot with numbers.

Like people look at me as the spreadsheet girl, the girl who's super organized, but I'm like, I see some numbers and I'm going to panic a little bit.

And they're like, how is this possible that you have so many spreadsheets, like you track your finances and all of that stuff.

But the reality is I did not track my finances because I was scared of the numbers until I made it enjoyable for me.

So I was doing all the number crunching because I wanted that beautiful finance dashboard with all

the pretty graphs in pastel colors, all the fun emojis, and that was my reward.

So by making it fun for me and giving myself that reward, knowing what I like and dislike, I was able to basically reach my goals.

You made it more interesting for yourself and you gave yourself something to look forward to.

A finish line, the power up in Mario.

You gave yourself a goal.

Yeah, because if I don't track something, then I'm not going to know where to start.

I'm not going to know what's happening with it because like my memory is just so fickle.

people are like, why don't you automate this?

Why do you have to do spend all this time doing it manually?

I'm like, well, first of all, I enjoy doing it manually.

Second of all, if I don't do it manually, I'm going to forget about it.

And this is something I don't want to forget about.

I love all of this advice and insight.

I'm learning a lot and I don't think I have ADHD, but there's certainly a lot of overlap in the autistic part of my brain that applies to ADHD.

Jennifer, this has been an incredible conversation and I've learned so much from this.

If people wanna find you on all your social media platforms, where can they find you?

Yeah, so I actually have so many.

I think I started all these different ones because I was like hyper fixated on this thing and I gave up on it.

then I, you know, I go back and forth, but I have a newsletter called Vegan Tech Nomad.

That's my main brand.

You can find me on Vegan Tech Nomad on all socials.

And I also have a separate newsletter and brand called Chaotic Creator.

And that's where I share all the spreadsheets about like how much I make as a content creator and like all the sponsorship details and

business stuff is there.

And then I also have a podcast called ADHD content creator.

That's where I talk to Eugene or ADHD founder.

And that's on my vegan tech nomad YouTube channel as well as its own separate show on Spotify.

So like a lot of these things are messy, but I'm just rolling with it.

Everybody's willing with it in general.

Some people have it more together than others, and it's just a matter of how it looks.

I'll make sure that all of your amazing socials are in the show notes for this episode.

Jennifer, this has been an awesome time.

Thank you so much for being an Autistic Techie.

Thanks so much for having me.