Bringing Your Whole Self: Rethinking Professionalism Neurodivergence & Midlife Feat Gretchen Wegner

**Join the Salon to take part in the 100 day experiment: https://kristine.substack.com/subscribe** In this episode of *Surfing Your Edge*, Kristine Goad talks with Gretchen Wegner, founder of the Anti-Boring Learning Lab, about what it means to bring your whole self into your work and your life. They explore authenticity, vulnerability, neurodivergence, changing needs in midlife, and the freedom that comes from questioning traditional ideas of professionalism. Gretchen shares her evolving understanding of ADHD, her willingness to learn in public, and the personal experiments she is embracing as she asks a powerful midlife question: Do I want the rest of my life to look the way it looks right now? From business and identity to relationships and belonging, this conversation is an honest look at what it means to keep growing, experimenting, and surfing your edge. **Highlights:** This episode explores late-life ADHD awareness, executive function challenges, rejection sensitivity, and how hormonal and life changes can make old coping strategies less effective. - Bringing your whole self to work - Neurodivergence and ADHD in midlife - Learning and experimenting in public - Questioning the life you’ve built - Vulnerability in relationships and new possibilities **About the Guest:** Gretchen Wegner is a former teacher turned academic coach…and is now the founder of the Anti-Boring Learning Lab, an online community for coaches, tutors, and other educators who obsess about student success. Gretchen’s most known for her Anti-Boring Toolkit, an evidence-based collection of creative learning strategies based in brain science, executive function, and self-regulation to make learning more engaging and equitable for all kinds of brains. Gretchen’s fancy credentials include being a Fulbright Fellow and having a Master’s in Curriculum and Instruction, but more importantly, she is a proponent of “playful rigor” which she infuses into both her professional and personal pursuits. She is also an improviser, dancer, bungee fitness enthusiast, and proud resident of Oakland, CA. **Connect with Gretchen Wegner:** Website: https://antiboringlearninglab.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gretchen-wegner/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@AntiBoringLab Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2626897 **Gretchen’s Gift for you: Anti-Boring Learning Lab Free Resource Library** The Anti-Boring Learning Lab’s free Visitor’s Center gives educators and coaches practical tools to help neurodiverse students study, stay motivated, and manage cognitive overload. It also includes free live Office Hours with Gretchen and guidance for building a coaching practice you love. **Claim your gift:** https://antiboringlearninglab.com/resources **Visit our GIFT VAULT - updated weekly** for more gifts from other guests on this podcast and other podcasts in our network. https://network.inspiredspeakernetwork.com/vault **About the Host:** Kristine Goad is endlessly curious about the moment when “I could never” becomes “What if I tried?” As the Surfing Your Edge Coach, she helps people transform their relationship with fear, trust themselves more deeply, and create lives that feel bigger, bolder, and more fully their own. Her approach blends coaching, adventure, experimentation, and wonder—shaped by experiences that include participating in the largest cross-country bicycle event in U.S. history, writing a memoir, building a business, and taking surf lessons to face her fear of open water in her late 40s. She is less interested in fearless living than in what becomes possible when we get curious about the things that scare us. **Connect with Kristine:** Join me for a Possibility Party: https://calendar.app.google/DsMvD6Atvdprf49U9 Substack: https://kristine.substack.com Website: https://kristinegoad.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kristinegoad YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@KristineGoad LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinegoad Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kristine.goad **Kristine’s gift for you:** Surf Your Edge: From Fear to Freedom This complete chapter from Confident You: The Raw Conversations traces two adventures, twenty years apart, and explores fear, identity, and why the real work of a life-changing experience begins after you come home. **Claim your gift:** https://tinyurl.com/SYEgift The Surfing Your Edge Podcast is proud to be on the **Inspired Speaker Network**. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Don’t forget to follow, rate & review. It helps us reach more people who want to create positive change in the world, like you. **Check out More Shows** from the Network at https://inspiredspeakernetwork.com Music from #Uppbeat https://uppbeat.io/t/dan-phillipson/moments License code: 5YJ8DYBGGEBGSXMY Music from #Uppbeat https://uppbeat.io/t/kurtz-martin/a-better-world License code: 68OSWEGXI8YJBDMR