Press Pause for Energy: Jenica Norris on Managing Your Mind, Not Your Minutes

In this episode of Time to Press Pause, host Ellen Williams sits down with Jenica Norris, ADHD entrepreneur, systems strategist, and CEO of Strategic Sound Consulting, for a powerful conversation about what it really means to pause when your brain works differently. 

Jenica shares how navigating neurodivergence reshaped not only her career path but also the way she approaches energy, focus, and leadership. Instead of forcing herself into rigid productivity systems that never fit, she built a structure that supports how her mind actually works and now teaches others to do the same. 

This episode dives into the truth many high performers quietly face:

Your success is not determined by how many minutes you manage, but by how well you understand and support your mind. 

🎙 In this conversation, you’ll learn:

 • Why traditional productivity systems fail neurodivergent leaders
 • How to spot when your energy, not your schedule, is telling you to pause
 • The difference between bandwidth and capacity
 • How small, intentional pauses prevent burnout and expand your effectiveness
 • Practical ways to build systems that support your brain, not drain it.

Whether you’re neurodivergent, managing a neurodiverse team, or simply tired of productivity advice that doesn’t work in real life, this conversation will help you approach your work with more clarity, compassion, and sustainable energy. 

🌐 Learn more about Ellen: https://thesalientstrategist.com 

🌐 Learn more about Jenica: https://www.strategicsoundconsulting.com 

Transcript

 When I'm out with my friends and I say, hey, I'm at red, I need to either get away from this situation, get away from this environment because I'm overstimulated, I'm going to go step away. I'm going to go make this choice myself. Welcome to Time to Press Pause, real-life stories from the C-suite. 

I'm your host, Ellen Williams, CEO of The Salient Strategist, and today we're talking about how neurodivergent professionals manage through both big pauses and the small ones. My guest today is Jennica Norris, and she's CEO of Strategic Sound Consulting and a certified ADHD business coach and consultant. She has over 12 years of Fortune 500 experience at Microsoft, Zillow, Gates Ventures, and T-Mobile, plus an MBA, PMP certification, Six Sigma black belt, and change management credentials. 

Jennica brings enterprise-level expertise to entrepreneurs ready to break the mold. As a legally blind ADHD entrepreneur herself, Jennica understands the unique challenges of building a business with a neurodivergent brain. She specializes in ADHD business coaching and consulting, helping entrepreneurs leverage their unique wiring as a competitive advantage while also providing strategic business operations. 

Her philosophy is, your brain isn't broken, the system is. Let's fix the system. Welcome, Jennica, to this episode of Time to Press Pause. 

Thank you for having me. I'm so glad to have you here today. You and I connected a few months ago, and we've finally gotten to schedule your podcast, so please share with us your press pause story. 

Yeah, I started out about a year ago with my press pause situation, and so I was working in corporate for about 12 years, and one of the things I felt was really missing in my story, in my kind of continued motivation, was getting some of that extra dopamine, that continued success from the different situations that I was facing in my roles. I've had a lot of different roles, primarily in the operations administration areas, and so chief of staff, admin, and so those type of roles were super important to me, and one of the things that I really noticed was that a lot of my strategic understanding was going misplaced, and so the kind of main reason I decided to step away from the corporate life and having a job in corporate was really understanding how my brain worked in business and how I could use that strategically, and last July, I actually stepped away full-time and put some time for myself to really evaluate what I wanted to do with my life, how I wanted to provide my energy, my experience back into that space. In early September of last year, I decided to start my own consulting firm and also do some coaching on the side as well. 

My primarily two focuses are in ADHD business consulting and coaching, also business operations consulting and coaching as well. I wanted to take some time and really flesh out how I wanted to build that business, and so very much understanding that I want to be as specific as possible but be as accessible to as many people as well, and I felt like there was a big gap, especially in the small to medium-sized business space. I feel like a lot of people that I meet and I can network with, a lot of their gripes or issues tend to go around operations and how that is really set up and really being strategic about it, and on the other end of the spectrum is that I also do have ADHD and I have autism as well. 

I've been able to harness some of those superpowers, those extra strengths that my brain has allowed me to have and really fully understand how to help others navigate difficult situations in their business, whether it comes down to time management, whether it comes to energy management, executive functioning, and really harnessing that as a superpower, as a good thing, as a benefit, rather than seeing it as the disability. It is also a disability, of course, but also using that as a strength rather than a weakness, and so I really have been enjoying this time where I felt like I could actually sit down, reflect on who I am as a professional, and better understand the ways that I can also not only help others but help myself continue to grow, continue to develop, and really understand it in these times where we do start a new chapter in our life, whether it's professional, whether it's personal, really reflecting on that because you get to have that space and it is your own, and really reflecting on who you want others to see you as, but also where you see your value, where you see your ability to move into those spaces that give you passion, that give you drive, and we can't do that if we're running on empty, and we can't do that if we're not really giving our energy, our body, our brains that sustenance that they need to have in order to be running at that best possible capacity. All right, you packed a full amount of information into your story. 

Thank you so much. You said a couple things that I absolutely love and I definitely want to unpack. First, a lot of people talk about time management and you mentioned that, but then you really talked about energy management, which I think really hits home better because it is how you spend your energy. 

Can you talk a little bit about your approach to energy management? Yeah, so for me, one of the things I work with my clients on is doing an energy slash business audit to begin with. I find that super important. A lot of people don't actually know how much time they're spending on things, and one of the things that I have been super blessed and grateful for is I just started to have a marketing assistant about a week and a half ago that is doing a lot of my social media, is doing a lot of my SEO, things like that, and I love doing that for my business, but it wasn't something that was giving me the energy that I needed to continue working on my business. 

And so I feel like I know for me, I tend to be very productive in the morning and I know that others aren't that way at all. So really harnessing and understanding when you do have that best energy. Is it the early morning block? Is it the mid-afternoon or is it even evening as well? And really using that to your benefit because if we're not 100% there, we don't have to be 100% there all the time. 

But if you don't have that consistent energy, you're not going to get it back in the ways that you might think you will. Another big thing is I'm a really big believer in having either a bullet journal or a list that you really can go through and brainstorm all of the things that you have either accomplished or need to accomplish as well. I know that there's so many different apps these days that you can really take that to the next level, but I'm someone that because of how my brain works, I need to write it down first so that it's on a piece of paper and then I can move it to an app or somewhere else. 

But then for me, my brain better understands that is something that I do need to get done versus when I'm typing it, it just runs in my brain a little bit differently. I think the last thing that I really love to talk about is taking that reflection moment. If we're not really reflecting on what we're going through, both professionally and personally, we're not going to show up for ourselves. 

And that is so important, especially as entrepreneurs that if we're not fully showing up for our business, for ourselves, even sometimes for other people, then that can deplete a lot faster than you might think it might. You have to give back to yourself before you can give back to other people. I totally agree with that. 

And I love that you said that you took your pause because you want to be able to help others and to help yourself. So your new business really does a little bit of both. You're tapping into the experiences you have and then continuing to learn through the experiences you're having now with your clients. 

And I do the exact same thing. It just piles up. The what you learned last year, what you learned this year. 

And I love that approach. I do want to chat with you about your superpower. And I love how you express that. 

And I think that's valuable for everyone to have that kind of mindset as far as when you're contemplating your strengths and weaknesses, how you can look at what you self-identify as a weakness. And potentially it's not, it might be something unique or in your words, a superpower if you turn it on its side. So I love that you talked about it as your superpower, but are you also helping people that have the same ADHD and or autism? Yeah, that's the main niche that I've been really diving into, especially lately. 

One of the things that I learned from my own mental performance coaching was the stoplight method. And it really resonated with me because it was a visual representation of how your body does feel and how your brain feels. And so obviously green, you're running at all cylinders, you know exactly what you're doing, your brain and your body and your kind of overall self is working at its best. 

And then you have your yellow where you could be doing better, but you're trying to navigate either situations or issues or things that are going on in your life that you might need to take a minute to reflect and pause and better understand how you can take those next steps. And then red is when you really need to put the brakes on and understand that if you're giving the energy to the wrong type of people, the wrong type of environments, that it's just not going to come back to you the way that you want it to. And that just really resonated with me because as also as someone that has really better understand that I'm an introvert, but I have extroverted tendencies, it really helps me tell that story of when I'm out with my friends and I say, Hey, I'm at red, I need to either get away from this situation, get away from this environment because I'm overstimulated. 

I'm going to go step away, I'm going to go make this choice myself. And then it's just been super useful because a lot of the vernacular around those type of experiences can be very complicated. But pretty much everyone knows about a stoplight, they understand that energy flow and how that really works. 

And so that's been something that I've taken with me so far. But I love working with people that are on the spectrum that have neurodivergence because it is a superpower. And it does take a lot of work to better understand what that looks like. 

But it also helps you grow as a person, it helps you better support other people and also yourself at the same time. It is something that you have to continue to benefit from for your whole life. And so the sooner that you understand going through some of those experiences, I think is more worthwhile. 

And I just have been really enjoying this experience because I get to do the things that I love every single day and help people from all different industries, all different parts of the world really enhance their experience in their business or as they're starting their business and really take a hold on that. I really like the stoplight analogy or methodology. And you're right, everyone understands red, yellow, green. 

And what I took away from the way you explained it is when you're in red, it's not just how you're feeling, but it's identifying if you're surrounding yourself with the wrong people. And I think that's so important. A lot of times we focus on how we're feeling and how we're doing and self-talk can be debilitating in some ways. 

But if it's not me, hey, it's not me. You know what? I'm not with the right people. I'm not where I need to be. 

I think that's a really important distinction. And one other thing you said was you don't have to be there 100% all the time. And for leaders, I think that's amazing advice because many leaders feel like they have to have all the answers and they have to be there and they have to lead through everything, but they have their red, yellow, green moments. 

Everyone does. I really appreciate the fact that you laid it on the line. No one has to be there 100% of the time, all the time. 

So one last question for you, Jenica, what advice do you have for other leaders as to when they would identify it's time to press pause? I actually would like this question. I think for me, the best piece of advice is if you're feeling to get overwhelmed to the point where you are experiencing excessive anxiety, like excessive almost anger, reach out to support, reach out to your network and really take a hold of that. I experienced that a little bit where I felt like I was drowning, especially the first six months of starting my business, because I felt like I couldn't ask for help. 

Not because I didn't want to, but I just felt like I only had a certain amount of resources, a certain amount of time, money, energy, and all of that. And so for me, it's when you feel like you need help and you feel that little extra tick in your brain to really harness that. And I know that a lot of leaders would be more than happy to have even a coffee chat or even just have a conversation about how they would go through that situation or go through that decision. 

Because we all were there at some point in our journey, and we will always have those different experiences as we continue to grow, as we continue to scale, and really know that business leaders and entrepreneurs and people like us that have that mindset, we will be more than happy to support, guide, network in those fashions, because we've all been there. And it is hard. It is difficult. 

We chose the path of less resistance, but also sometimes more resistance when you think about it. And so I think asking for help and being okay with asking for that help, I think is vital. And I think the other thing too is networking within your own energy. 

So if there's days where you feel like you don't want to network, if you don't want to do those coffee chats or go to those networking events, take time for yourself and figure out why you're feeling that way, because that might be a part of a bigger issue, but get out there nonetheless, and really do it at your own pace at your own energy speed. But I'm still really getting into the room of networking myself, I know what kind of situations I want to be in. And I know which ones that just take too much of my energy for me to get to that capacity, that capability of wanting to continue to talk with people. 

So I think honestly, ask for support when you feel like you are drowning, or when you feel like you might need it. And then also network at your own energy pace, and just know that there are always people there to support you. I think that's really great advice. 

So when you're feeling overwhelmed, like you said, some leaders are hesitant to ask for help. But I think one point you made is that we, as entrepreneurs and leaders, we've been there. And there are a lot of people really willing to have those conversations. 

So even if it's outside your current circle of resources, there is an opportunity to reach out on a very genuine level and say, Hey, I'm having a feeling these kinds of things that you have that as well. And people do love to talk about themselves. So it's a piece of advice and help is out there. 

So I agree. Jenica, this was terrific. I loved your story. 

And thank you so much for sharing it with us. Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure. 

Thank you for listening to this episode of time to press pause. If you're interested in learning more about Jenica, visit strategic sound consulting.com. If you're interested in learning more about me, visit the salient strategist.com. And to learn more about my upcoming book, called creating time, join my mailing list from my website. And join us again, wherever you listen to your podcasts.