I'm Liz Wootton, the creator of Work.Life.Smarts...
I help entrepreneurs and business owners with ADHD build a way of working – and a way of living – that actually fits how their brain works. Not someone else’s system. Their own.
Here’s how I got here…
My story
Long before I was a coach, I was an actor.
I was drawn to it for a few reasons. I had a fascination with the human condition and how people behave, and a need to be creative, that traditional academia was never going to satisfy. There was a lot of pressure at home to go to university and follow a conventional path. I resisted it (purely going on instinct) knowing subconsciously perhaps, that I’d fail at something I was intelligent enough to do but didn’t have the drive and the passion for. I didn’t have language for why at the time. I do now: that was ADHD talking. I’m grateful I trusted that instinct instead of doing what everyone expected of me.
Acting school is also where I first encountered the idea that would eventually become the foundation of my coaching: noticing without judgement.
It came through Alexander Technique, which looks at the physical habits we hold without realising it, the tension we carry in our muscles that limits our range and gets in the way of transforming into a character, or blocks real emotional connection. Learning to simply notice those patterns, without judging them, was a revelation to me. Before that, I’d spent my whole life judging myself without even knowing I was doing it.
Noticing my physical patterns without judgement made me realize that I could notice other patterns without judgement too. If I found myself thinking or behaving a certain way just out of habit, judging myself for it was no longer compulsory. I could give myself permission to simply notice, and choose an alternative instead.
Professional theatre itself was a tough life. It’s poorly paid, with a lot of time away from home. Looking back, there’s something almost funny about a person with Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria choosing a career built on constant rejection. After a while, I stepped away from it to pursue other things.
But in my 40s, I came back to acting, just for the love of it. It’s given me a creative outlet I’d missed, and a new perspective on what actually matters to me. It reminded me how much I need to protect space for the parts of me that are purely, unapologetically ADHD. Acting gives me dopamine, I get to play, I get a chance to just let that part of myself happen. That’s not indulgence. It’s part of my own whole life balance, and I make sure to prioritize it.
Acting also has also given me something I use every single day in my coaching: empathy, as a practiced skill, not just a feeling. Acting taught me how to understand and connect with people’s experiences even when I haven’t lived them myself.
That’s at the heart of how I work with clients.
When I left professional theatre, I did try the “conventional” employment route for a while, taking a 9-to-5 job in a business. Because the company was small, I ended up learning a huge amount about how a business actually runs day to day, knowledge that’s stayed with me ever since. But it didn’t take long to realise that a 9-to-5 just wasn’t my jam. It was the university decision all over again: everyone expects you to want a certain kind of life, and I had to be honest with myself that I didn’t.
So in 2005 I launched Diamond Star Halo, making accessories for weddings and special occasions. It was just me: making, marketing, selling, and running every part of it myself. That led, in 2007, to the opening of Aliya Rose, a bridal retail business, and this time I was leading a team in an environment where the customers (understandably, given what’s at stake) could be incredibly demanding.
It was also genuinely rewarding. Bridal retail sits at this interesting intersection of creativity and people skills. I loved finding exactly the right outfit for each bride, and making sure she had an amazing experience along the way. Aliya Rose went on to win industry awards, and running it taught me more about business and leadership than anything I could have learned at school. It’s also what set me on the path toward coaching other business owners. I’d lived the highs and the chaos of entrepreneurship myself, long before I started helping others navigate it.
How Work.Life.Smarts came to be
I’ve been coaching since 2013 with my company Human Nature Development, and from day one my approach was the same: work with your brain, not against it.
I never bought into the standard entrepreneurship narrative – the hustle, the 5am starts, the idea that success is just a matter of pushing harder and sacrificing all the other parts of your life. I didn’t believe that then, and running my own business since 2005 while also navigating parenthood, only confirmed it. The original Work.Life.Smarts program launched in 2020. It was my pandemic project (something I finally got around to doing after years of wanting to but not quite being able to start).
What I didn’t understand for a long time was why my approach seemed to resonate so deeply with a particular kind of client. I kept noticing that a striking number of the entrepreneurs I worked with (both in Human Nature Development and in the OG Work.Life.Smarts program) had ADHD, usually diagnosed late, often after years of quietly wondering why conventional advice never quite stuck for them.
It wasn’t until my adult son was diagnosed with ADHD that the picture started coming into focus for me. I began recognizing the same patterns in myself that I’d spent over a decade helping other people work with. When I was officially diagnosed, it was almost a relief. It certainly made a lot of things make sense.
The new Work.Life.Smarts has grown out of that realisation. I tweaked it and adapted it. I looked at all the pieces and built this program specifically for the clients who’d been finding their way to me all along: entrepreneurs with ADHD who needed an approach designed for their brain, not adapted from someone else’s.
What I believe...
- Habits are hard to change, and that’s not a personal failing. Especially for ADHD brains. The goal isn’t to force consistency; it’s to understand what you’re actually working with.
- Noticing without judgement is the real skill. Long before I coached anyone else, this idea changed how I related to myself. It’s still the starting point for everything I do.
- Self-awareness, not willpower, drives change. You can’t build a system around your brain until you understand how it works.
- There’s no single “right” way to run a business or a life. There’s only the way that works for you, built deliberately, not borrowed from someone else’s playbook.
- Energy and empathy matter as much as strategy in business. Protecting what fuels you isn’t a luxury. Empathy for yourself is everything. It’s not separate from the work, it’s part of the work.
The Four Pillars
Who I work with today
I work with entrepreneurs and business owners with ADHD, whether that’s an official diagnosis, a self-diagnosis, or simply a strong sense of recognition in everything written on this page. Many of my clients come to me having spent years wondering why the standard advice never worked for them. Some are newly diagnosed. Some aren’t diagnosed at all.
Whatever brought you here, if you’re tired of trying to force yourself into systems that are supposed to work for businesses and wondering why you can’t make them work for you, you’re exactly who this is for.
Ready to find your own best way of working?
That’s exactly what The Starting Point is for.
This is a free, low pressure conversation with Liz where we talk through where you are right now, where you are trying to go, what’s working, what isn’t, and what you actually need.
Take our fun quiz!
Your first Noticing Without Judgement assignment awaits! Find out your ADHD Entrepreneur Type and the business blocker that goes with it.
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