Alex Bellitter: Coaching vs. therapy for ADHD

0:27 [SPEAKER_01]: Hello and welcome to the women and ADHD podcast.

0:31 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host, Katie Weber.

0:33 [SPEAKER_01]: I was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 45, and it completely turned my world upside down.

0:39 [SPEAKER_01]: I've been looking back at so much of my life.

0:42 [SPEAKER_01]: School, jobs, my relationships, all of it with this new lens, and it has been nothing short of overwhelming.

0:49 [SPEAKER_01]: I quickly discovered I was not the only woman to have this experience, and now I interview other women who like me discovered in adulthood they have ADHD, and are finally feeling like they understand who they are and how to best lean into their strengths, both professionally and personally.

1:06 [SPEAKER_01]: So before we get started just a quick reminder, after this episode is over, make sure to head over to women in ADHD.com, our education and advocacy help for neurodiverts and adults

1:16 [SPEAKER_01]: At women in ADHD.com, you'll find all the resources you need to help you better understand your brain so you can thrive.

1:23 [SPEAKER_01]: You can book a free consultation with any of our fantastic team of certified ADHD coaches.

1:28 [SPEAKER_01]: At women in ADHD.com, you'll also find tons of free infographics, recommended self-tests.

1:34 [SPEAKER_01]: My self-guided course, hey, it's ADHD and much more.

1:37 [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, here we are in episode 208 in which I interview Alex Belittier.

1:42 [SPEAKER_01]: Alex is the Senior Manager of Coaching at Shimmer, an ADHD community and coaching platform that's redefining what support can look like for ADHD brains.

1:51 [SPEAKER_01]: You might remember Shimmer from when I interviewed their founder Crystal Wang in episode 191.

1:55 [SPEAKER_01]: I'll put a link to that episode in the show notes if you want to hear more about Shimmer.

2:00 [SPEAKER_01]: Now Alex does not have ADHD herself, something she is very open and transparent about.

2:05 [SPEAKER_01]: and we talked about that in this episode.

2:07 [SPEAKER_01]: She has spent years working with neurodiverging kids, adults, and now leading a team of over 50 ADHD coaches at Shimmer.

2:15 [SPEAKER_01]: She brings a background in coaching psychology, clinical psychology, and health and wellness to her work, and she's passionate about delivering strength-based evidence-informed support that actually feels good to ADHDers.

2:26 [SPEAKER_01]: So in this conversation we talk about what coaching psychology is and why it is such a powerful

2:33 [SPEAKER_01]: the difference between therapy, coaching and healing work and how they can all complement each other.

2:39 [SPEAKER_01]: We also talk about why so many of us are misdiagnosed with depression first and how overwhelmed

2:45 [SPEAKER_01]: executive dysfunction and chronic frustration can get mislabeled.

2:49 [SPEAKER_01]: We talk about the MN flow of ADHD symptoms across the lifespan, hormones, menopause, grief, and temporary neurodivergence.

2:57 [SPEAKER_01]: And we talk about how shimmer structures it's coaching, body-wain community, and AI tools to be genuinely ADHD friendly and shame-free.

3:04 [SPEAKER_01]: And we discuss the promises and risks of AI for neurodivergent people and what good guardrails actually look like.

3:12 [SPEAKER_01]: If you've ever wondered whether you're struggling enough for it to count, question what's normal or felt confused about where ADHD ends at the environment hormones and capitalism begins, this episode is for you.

3:24 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, hi, Alex.

3:25 [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for joining me and really excited to have you here.

3:29 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm a big fan of shimmer.

3:30 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so excited to be here.

3:32 [SPEAKER_01]: So I guess it will start with like what got you into ADHD coaching?

3:37 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's actually something that I didn't necessarily see myself going into at the start of my career.

3:42 [SPEAKER_00]: So originally and I think it's pretty common for coaches to

3:48 [SPEAKER_00]: So I started more on the clinical side pursuing that and in the, in the, in the midst of it, I came across the concept of coaching psychology and that's stuck out to me the idea that we focus on the best parts of our self and our potential and not everything has to be a healing journey but just recognizing what means most to us and that's not like everything that I wanted to do.

4:09 [SPEAKER_00]: So I transitioned into more health and wellness and mental health coaching and what I saw in that was a lot of the clients I was seeing had ADHD and sort of fell into this like mental health bucket of I don't know what resources are available to me.

4:24 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't feel like anything speaks well to me.

4:26 [SPEAKER_00]: I sort of feel like I'm grasping at straws here and that's when I decided I wanted transition to ADHD coaching because I feel like I just wasn't doing who I was seeing the best service that I could.

4:38 [SPEAKER_00]: So I started setting ADHD coaching getting supervision for it fully transitioning and I've been here several years now about four years into my ADHD coaching journey and would not go back.

4:50 [SPEAKER_00]: It's been fantastic.

4:52 [SPEAKER_01]: That's amazing.

4:53 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, yeah, as somebody who started coaching before I even knew I had ADHD, and I was actually working as a binge eating recovery coach.

5:02 [SPEAKER_01]: And once I realized the connection between ADHD and binge eating, but also the relationship between ADHD and coaching, and how what a fantastic modality coaching is.

5:14 [SPEAKER_01]: I always, I felt like I wanted to go back to all of my old clients and tell them, we all have ADHD.

5:19 [SPEAKER_01]: Because it is like, like you said, like, I think ADHD and coaching go really, really well together and a lot of my clients had had negative experiences in therapy because, you know, we're so often diagnosed with depression before we're diagnosed with ADHD.

5:36 [SPEAKER_01]: So that's really fascinating.

5:38 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm kind of taking the other route, which is I started out as a coach and now I've gone back to become just to get my license as a mental health counselor to,

5:47 [SPEAKER_01]: be able to kind of incorporate both, right?

5:50 [SPEAKER_01]: To incorporate that healing journey and the like, repairing that a lot of us do with an adult diagnosis with the more practical side of like, well, now what, how am I gonna get stuff done?

6:02 [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, that's really interesting.

6:06 [SPEAKER_01]: Do you find you draw from some of the like clinical side still when you're coaching?

6:13 [SPEAKER_00]: I think in terms of drawing, it's about a different application.

6:16 [SPEAKER_00]: So definitely still using cognitive behavioral coaching.

6:19 [SPEAKER_00]: So rather than cognitive behavioral therapy, it's just applied in a little bit of a different way.

6:23 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure you're well familiar with it, or acceptance and commitment coaching, rather than acceptance and commitment therapy.

6:30 [SPEAKER_00]: So it's drawing on clinical psychology disciplines, but applying it in a different way where it's not that healing modality.

6:37 [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's absolutely beneficial for many ADHDers.

6:41 [SPEAKER_00]: So we sort of have like this ecosystem of like the clinical side, the coaching side, including medication and that mix, the health and wellness elements.

6:49 [SPEAKER_00]: So I think bringing that all together, like many people benefit from different modalities.

6:54 [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, because coaching psychology is sort of this mix between clinical psychology and organizational psychology, depending on the type of coaching you're doing.

7:04 [SPEAKER_00]: But not a lot of people know within the United States that coaching psychology is a recognized field in other countries, so it's very popular within the UK, Australia, New Zealand.

7:15 [SPEAKER_00]: It has been recognized here, but it is its own discipline with lots of scientific journals and studies on it.

7:22 [SPEAKER_01]: That is really fascinating.

7:24 [SPEAKER_01]: I will be perfectly frank.

7:25 [SPEAKER_01]: I've never heard the term coaching psychology, you know, together until now.

7:30 [SPEAKER_01]: And it makes perfect sense because I've kind of as I've been thinking about my own journey with coaching and, you know, bringing together coaching and therapy, which

7:38 [SPEAKER_01]: from a therapy side, a clinical side, they're like, you know, you can't do that.

7:41 [SPEAKER_01]: You absolutely do not, you know, keep those two hats very, very separate.

7:45 [SPEAKER_01]: And in my head, I'm thinking like, no, those two hats go so well together and thinking about like, how can I incorporate this in an ethical evidence-based way?

7:55 [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and so yeah, I'm like now I have my new hyper focus.

8:00 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to go down a rabbit hole later on coaching psychology.

8:04 [SPEAKER_01]: I remember, well, one of the things I keep talking about, like I said, so many of us are diagnosed with depression long before a diagnosis of ADHD, when we're diagnosed in adulthood, right?

8:14 [SPEAKER_01]: And so often when you're depressed, you go on an, you know, you take any depressive medications, you see at therapists.

8:19 [SPEAKER_01]: It's like that's what you're supposed to do.

8:21 [SPEAKER_01]: And one of the reasons why I think it's been such a negative experience for so many people is that idea of like I'm not necessarily depressed in the clinical DSM way of looking at depression, I'm depressed because I'm overwhelmed and I'm frustrated and I don't know what to do about it right and so I'm like I keep hitting walls and so I've often like even just in my classes in the curriculum like depression is taught in this very it's talked about in this very specific way that's very, very different from my experience of

8:50 [SPEAKER_01]: depression and many of the people I work with as a coach, their experience of depression, which is like no, actually look for the frustration, look for the executive dysfunction, which is a term that nobody ever uses in the curriculum still.

9:02 [SPEAKER_01]: Very few people even still to this day really understand executive functioning in the clinical world from what I'm sure there are many people out there who do, but in terms of the curriculum with mental health counseling, it's not something that's talked about.

9:16 [SPEAKER_01]: So,

9:16 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like coaching psychology, absolutely.

9:19 [SPEAKER_01]: That's super cool.

9:20 [SPEAKER_00]: What you explain is very much what I saw within the mental health coaching space of people just feeling like.

9:26 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't feel like this is an internal thing.

9:28 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to work through.

9:29 [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like I'm trying to navigate my environment and I don't have the tools and education and resources to do it.

9:36 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think this is something that's in my head.

9:39 [SPEAKER_00]: And that was a lot of conversations that we were having and hence why I kind of transitioned of, this type of coaching isn't working for neurodivergent folks.

9:47 [SPEAKER_00]: This actually is not helping them move forward, and getting to learn more about defining ADHD coaching what elements are present and how do you do it well?

9:57 [SPEAKER_00]: And then I saw a huge transformation with my clients of like, this is what I needed.

10:01 [SPEAKER_00]: And that's kind of what we hear at shimmer two is clients.

10:04 [SPEAKER_00]: And our members being like, that this was the missing piece.

10:09 [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

10:09 [SPEAKER_01]: And then I'm actually feeling accomplished and I'm getting stepped on and that's when the depression starts to obey, right?

10:15 [SPEAKER_01]: Which is like, I'm starting to see my view of myself, right?

10:20 [SPEAKER_01]: When myself a steam is increasing, that's where I feel like the real mindset change can start to set in.

10:27 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

10:27 [SPEAKER_00]: And some people, you know, will have a co-curring diagnosis of there.

10:31 [SPEAKER_00]: There's still might be depression or there's still might be anxiety.

10:34 [SPEAKER_00]: We know that it's very common for both to exist, but it's not always the primary diagnosis that's going on.

10:42 [SPEAKER_00]: Getting to address everything that's happening.

10:45 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

10:45 [SPEAKER_01]: So, now my other question is, how do you know you don't have ADHD because I feel like most of the people I talked to who are interested in fascinated by like, you know, working with ADHD brains and just how they work like I feel like we all end up discovering that we have ADHD in the end to like I've, I've, I've lost count of how many teachers I've interviewed where they started out working with neurodivergent kids and then realized that oh, the reason why I love working with them is because I was also in our diversion.

11:14 [SPEAKER_01]: is this a question you ask yourself on the daily?

11:17 [SPEAKER_00]: It is actually not, I know I am the Edbomberly, whenever I share an ADHD code to that doesn't have ADHD.

11:24 [SPEAKER_00]: Everyone has lots of questions.

11:26 [SPEAKER_00]: So what are you doing in this space then?

11:29 [SPEAKER_00]: What I think is really interesting.

11:31 [SPEAKER_00]: So I feel fairly confident I don't have ADHD in the fact that, um,

11:37 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I understand a lot of the symptoms I know what it can look like.

11:41 [SPEAKER_00]: I've lived with an ADHD husband, so we got a neurodiverse relationship of learning to navigate that together of, our love experience is very, very different.

11:49 [SPEAKER_00]: And figuring out how we work on that together, how we make sure that he feels his best I feel my best and like create a life together.

11:56 [SPEAKER_00]: But also, when I started my career, I was actually working with neurodivergent kiddos, ADHD and autistic kids,

12:03 [SPEAKER_00]: I've loved it, but I've been in this space for about eight years, and I just don't think I think I would have seen myself by now, like, wait a minute, that sounds quite familiar to me.

12:13 [SPEAKER_00]: I haven't had that experience yet, well, I can relate to some of those instances of not knowing where your keys are at or feeling like everything's on fire.

12:22 [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's one of the things to talk about is there's a threshold when it comes to getting an ADHD agnostic is

12:30 [SPEAKER_00]: The symptoms are more intense.

12:32 [SPEAKER_00]: They're more frequent.

12:33 [SPEAKER_00]: It's sort of like a perpetual thing that you're experiencing.

12:36 [SPEAKER_00]: And I just haven't had that experience.

12:37 [SPEAKER_00]: And I know sometimes to my client, they feel a little frustrated when someone who is neurotypical or not meeting that threshold for ADHD says, well, I do that too of it's not the same experience.

12:47 [SPEAKER_00]: And I never pretend like just because I've experienced that every now and then that I understand.

12:52 [SPEAKER_00]: fully what it means to go through life, trying to navigate those executive function challenges.

12:57 [SPEAKER_00]: While I'm skilled and being able to support you and being able to do it and being a subject matter expert on ADHD, there's still that barrier of lived experience and I always want to recognize that and be honest with my clients about it of.

13:10 [SPEAKER_00]: I will not fully understand, but I know I can fully support you and a lot of my clients resonate with that and appreciate a provider saying that because sometimes they do hear it from their loved ones.

13:20 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, oh, I do that too, and it's like, you just, you don't get it, that's not the same thing.

13:26 [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

13:26 [SPEAKER_01]: And one of those is very deeply invalidating in terms of experience as opposed to the other way, where it's like, I may not understand what you're talking about, but I support you.

13:37 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's something we talk about on this podcast too, a lot which is the you know what is clinically significant and what isn't when it comes to struggle because we can be our own biggest gas lighters when it comes to how much am I actually struggling or even you know oftentimes I feel like for me before my diagnosis, I didn't even have time to gauge the struggle because I wasn't such a state of overwhelm and so oftentimes it's like only when we are.

14:05 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, beginning to see our life through this new lens, can we even determine, like, oh, this is not normal circle right or this is, you know, this is a lot more than other people are going through it's one of those questions we so often have, which is like, what is, you know, quote, quote, normal level of stress and what is a normal level of, you know, nervous system load and and.

14:26 [SPEAKER_01]: Or am I just, you know, a whiner or as a doctor say, do I just need a better night's sleep or do I need you know to eat more vegetables or go for a run or whatever you know all the things that were told in our life that are going to help us.

14:39 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so, and you know, and I think also to that point, I think ADHD intensity can like Evan flow throughout our life too, right?

14:49 [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's sometimes like as, you know, when I was really struggling when I was diagnosed, I always joke like nobody gets their ADHD diagnosis because their life is going great and they're like, hey, I need a name for this.

15:00 [SPEAKER_01]: But also like my life is in a considerably better place now because I have the tools and the support and I've been able to change my viewpoint and all of that so I sort of often wonder like well when does it stop being ADHD if it's like isn't still clinically significant if you're able to manage it then what do we call it like is ADHD really just.

15:23 [SPEAKER_01]: how we are labeling or diagnosing a level of distress in a human being, as opposed to, are we diagnosing and labeling a neurodivergent brain that is inherently dopamine-deficient and working on like interest-based structures?

15:41 [SPEAKER_00]: So that ends up being a really interesting conversation because those that are neurotypical in a neurodevelopmental sense

15:52 [SPEAKER_00]: Followed a relatively average timeline, not a normal time when we're going to say average amongst the population because a lot of times when it comes to like ADHD or autism people say a delayed development.

16:04 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think that's the right language to be using by any means.

16:07 [SPEAKER_00]: It is a different development.

16:08 [SPEAKER_00]: It is not delayed.

16:09 [SPEAKER_00]: It is developing in a certain way for a certain reason.

16:12 [SPEAKER_00]: But it is different than the average.

16:14 [SPEAKER_00]: You can actually cross into a threshold where you're considered neurodivergent for a little bit.

16:18 [SPEAKER_00]: But it's not an neurodevelopmental sense.

16:20 [SPEAKER_00]: So a lot of women going through menopause will experience executive dysfunction.

16:25 [SPEAKER_00]: And previously, they were neurotypical, but during that phase, the hormonal levels and executive function challenge has changed to where they're actually tipping into neurodivergent of their different than the average in the population now, or period of intense grief.

16:40 [SPEAKER_00]: You may go into a level of distress that would categorize you as temporarily neurodivergent, but it's not a neurodevelopmental thing.

16:47 [SPEAKER_00]: So we know with autism, ADHD, dyslexia, that's not something that you're going to outgrow.

16:52 [SPEAKER_00]: Most people are going to see symptoms that are at their entire life range, but there are periods of, and I talk to this with my clients as well, of sometimes I hear people say 80 HD feels worse right now.

17:04 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure why.

17:05 [SPEAKER_00]: It just feels different.

17:06 [SPEAKER_00]: And we'll talk about hormone changes, especially women on their cycle.

17:09 [SPEAKER_00]: or going into like perimenopause, menopause, postmenopause, what that looks like, those going through grief were really big life changes, were the systems that were supporting them and helping compensate for some of those challenges no longer work because the environment's change and it feels like they have to reset it up in all of some of these things that were supporting and structuring their environment.

17:30 [SPEAKER_00]: aren't able to do that.

17:31 [SPEAKER_00]: So it feels like everything's just gotten worse, and it's because the supports have now changed.

17:37 [SPEAKER_00]: So it is interesting to talk to you about the evidence, like the non-linear nature of it.

17:42 [SPEAKER_00]: For those that have a neurodevelopmental diagnosis, versus those that might be very temporary and they're not neurodivergent, but they're presenting as it because of the level of stress or hormone changes.

17:54 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I really appreciate that distinction because I think it addresses a lot of the questions we tend.

17:59 [SPEAKER_01]: I certainly asked all the time, which is, you know, those questions of like, is this ADHD or am I an angry feminist living in a capitalist society?

18:08 [SPEAKER_01]: And you know, menopausal and all the things where it's like who knows, right?

18:14 [SPEAKER_01]: Like it just feels like this morass of factors that it could never parse.

18:19 [SPEAKER_01]: And so I like that in thinking about the event and flow, thinking about it in terms of like, not whether or not my brain is ADHD or not, but like, where do I fall in the neurodevelopmental spectrum right now?

18:34 [SPEAKER_01]: Based on my interaction with my environment.

18:37 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, we also know that within one ADHD, there's going to be evidence flow of feeling more intense or less intense in certain periods or

18:45 [SPEAKER_00]: Two ADHDers are going to experience ADHD fairly differently.

18:49 [SPEAKER_00]: Of course there is commonalities of there is a symptom list of.

18:53 [SPEAKER_00]: Most people are going to relate to those different clusters of inattention or high-brake activity or impulsivity, but where they're feeling the intensity might be a little bit different.

19:01 [SPEAKER_00]: One person might be.

19:03 [SPEAKER_00]: And this is a controversial word, but a lot of my clients will use it feel impaired by their ADHD of this is actually a huge limitation and some people are going to feel like, hey, this actually works really well for me.

19:13 [SPEAKER_00]: I love my ADHD brain and have very different perceptions of what it means.

19:19 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, and I was actually just talking to a client yesterday about like operating outside of my current capacity right and understanding that my

19:29 [SPEAKER_01]: Capacity is going to change and so am I operating within my capacity right now as opposed to like thinking about this version of yourself that existed 20 years ago or two two weeks ago That was able to do something you don't feel able to do right now and how can we like reframe that in a way that feels like you're operating from a place of wisdom and intuition as opposed to a place of failure.

19:52 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and it's hard to stop and be able to get that reflection.

19:55 [SPEAKER_00]: because a lot of times it feels like there's things to address now, but even asking yourself what is my capacity can be a huge difference, but it's so hard to stop and think that's the question and I need to ask myself, right?

20:06 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

20:07 [SPEAKER_01]: Which is why it's always nice to have a coach to have those conversations with.

20:10 [SPEAKER_00]: It is.

20:11 [SPEAKER_00]: That's what is your capacity and someone goes, oh.

20:15 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, let's start there.

20:17 [SPEAKER_00]: But before we look at what's on your list, let's start with what you feel capable of or your energies at.

20:24 [SPEAKER_00]: And doing energy management of sometimes you're doing a lot of things that drain you and there is nothing sustaining you.

20:29 [SPEAKER_00]: There is no self-care.

20:30 [SPEAKER_00]: And then that also starts addressing one of the problems of, oh, I'm just depleting myself.

20:35 [SPEAKER_00]: No wonder I'm so exhausted of, we have to take care of ourselves too.

20:40 [SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes it's hard to stop and even notice you're not taking care of yourself.

20:44 [SPEAKER_01]: Hmm, right?

20:45 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I call that whack-a-mole mode or just like the training water, right?

20:50 [SPEAKER_01]: Like if I'm training water, I'm not even able to ask myself strategic questions like, what am I going to do next?

20:56 [SPEAKER_01]: Or, you know,

20:57 [SPEAKER_01]: What am I going to tackle?

20:59 [SPEAKER_01]: Like I absolutely present mode reaction mode.

21:02 [SPEAKER_01]: And so I'll often think to myself like if I'm asking myself questions about like where do I want my business to go next or do I want like those are questions that come from at least a base level of regulation.

21:14 [SPEAKER_01]: So I can at least applaud that as a reminder of like, okay, I wouldn't be asking these questions if I wasn't in a better state than I might have been at another time.

21:27 [SPEAKER_01]: So how did you end up working with shimmer and heading this team of how many coaches are there now?

21:32 [SPEAKER_00]: Do you know there's 51 right now?

21:34 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so a good amount and I do want to shout out all of our coaches in this so we do have a kind of long vetting process and our hiring process about only 3.4% of people who apply will actually become a shimmer coach.

21:48 [SPEAKER_00]: So we have a very, very talented team.

21:50 [SPEAKER_00]: We're really excited to be able to show 80 HD coaching can be.

21:54 [SPEAKER_00]: But for my personal journey, I joined shortly before the launch.

21:57 [SPEAKER_00]: So I joined shimmer in July 2022, starting as an ADHD coach.

22:02 [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't move into management until

22:04 [SPEAKER_00]: about May 2023.

22:05 [SPEAKER_00]: So I was with them for eight or nine months before kind of moving up a little bit and not just being more kind of light, coach supportive of that questions about policies, how to handle some smaller client situations and transition full time at the beginning of 2024 where I overtook the hiring and quality assurance processes and the coach mentoring.

22:26 [SPEAKER_00]: So anytime there's a difficult case consultation or I just I don't know if I have the skill

22:33 [SPEAKER_00]: So that's been almost two years.

22:35 [SPEAKER_00]: I've been more managing the care and coaching department, which has been so great to be able to see the inner workings of it.

22:44 [SPEAKER_00]: But I would say it was kind of like a slow incremental process, which is almost exactly what you would want to see of slowly being able to develop new skills over time.

22:54 [SPEAKER_01]: Right?

22:55 [SPEAKER_01]: Which is often something we're not

22:56 [SPEAKER_01]: very capable of on our own with the DHT, right now.

23:01 [SPEAKER_00]: I would say how I might trajectory within shimmer went was fantastic of being able to make sure I was competent at each level and had really wonderful people helping me get there.

23:12 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's one of the things that I wish the coaching field had more of, which is pure support and supervision, right, which is like it really does, you know, I think one of the complaints about the coaching world is that it's the Wild West and there's so many different certifications, we don't know who's, you know, certified and what and oftentimes people will just like.

23:35 [SPEAKER_01]: wake up one day and say, I'm a coach and there's not really any kind of vetting, but there's also not a lot of like community among coaches to unless you create it yourself.

23:46 [SPEAKER_01]: So I love that shimmer is offering that there's the client side, but then there's also the professional coach side too.

23:52 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.

23:53 [SPEAKER_00]: Mondays we have round tables that coaches can come ask questions, learn what their peers are working on, anything that they're noticing in their sessions.

24:01 [SPEAKER_00]: We have monthly trainings, we have open office hours that the co-founders, we do try to make sure that everyone feels really supported, because like you said, wild west of even within certification certifications are not created equally of

24:16 [SPEAKER_00]: There are, so one of the most popular coaching credentials is the ICF credential.

24:20 [SPEAKER_00]: I am an ICF certified coach.

24:22 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm a professional certified coach with them, but there are different training programs within it.

24:28 [SPEAKER_00]: And someone who has a PCC and another person has a PCC can have an entirely different background of what their coaching education looks like.

24:36 [SPEAKER_00]: So it is really hard to navigate when you're a client.

24:39 [SPEAKER_00]: That's something that I've seen from a lot of my members is I like shimmer because I don't have to guess what the credential means or what they know of like someone else has figured this out for me.

24:49 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's sort of an uphill battle for private practitioners is how do I differentiate myself from other people who are just calling themselves the coach?

24:57 [SPEAKER_00]: Or I know that their background isn't as robust as mine, but we have the same credential of how do I really get to articulate that?

25:04 [SPEAKER_00]: You get stuck as a coach a little bit of like shoot.

25:06 [SPEAKER_00]: There's so many acronyms.

25:08 [SPEAKER_00]: How is the member or how is the person I'm trying to track the post and know what I'm saying?

25:14 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

25:14 [SPEAKER_01]: Good point.

25:15 [SPEAKER_01]: I will admit like that was one of the biggest motivations for me to take the clinical side, which was like, I will feel a lot better with the structure and the, you know, licensing and also just, you know, having those letters behind my name.

25:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, 100% out of their year to entry signals to other people, like you put in a lot of work.

25:37 [SPEAKER_00]: Of course, there's like access issues with trying to get it, but

25:41 [SPEAKER_00]: When it comes to licensure, it is kind of one of those gold standards of this person met a certain criteria and coaching is missing that in a lot of cases.

25:49 [SPEAKER_01]: Right, and, you know, my coaching background was not an ADHD coaching, and so I felt like I came to, even though I pivoted and worked with a lot of ADHD women because of my podcast.

26:00 [SPEAKER_01]: And they, you know, I feel like my podcast is like five years of phenomenological evidence of my work with clients.

26:08 [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, that has to stand for something, even though I don't have an ICF certification.

26:13 [SPEAKER_01]: But,

26:13 [SPEAKER_01]: also like having that imposter syndrome all the time which was like I have to go back and relearn a lot of this stuff that I've already independently learned through my own interest.

26:24 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think a lot of ADHD people experience that like that like I go but I go by my own interest but I don't necessarily like fit in an academic environment, right?

26:33 [SPEAKER_01]: And so we have like all of these weird random

26:36 [SPEAKER_01]: expertise.

26:38 [SPEAKER_01]: I, you know, I like color the patchwork quilt of various backgrounds and certifications of things that we've done based on our interest, but at the same time, like understanding and appreciating, like you said that barrier to entry, that's like the official way that proves like I've done this work.

26:55 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I think within kind of going back to like the difference of what we're seeing other parts of the world and the U.S. that's encouraging is so there

27:06 [SPEAKER_00]: within the UK, it exists within the British psychological society.

27:10 [SPEAKER_00]: So that's kind of their gold standard of saying, you have to be able to meet certain educational experience requirements to have this chartered psychologist title.

27:19 [SPEAKER_00]: We don't have it within the US.

27:21 [SPEAKER_00]: So it's one of those things where it's really hard to become aware of what does exist and how to be able to access that because, again, it's just not publicized of what can coaches become or what wrapped or they're available.

27:33 [SPEAKER_00]: I think there's a very popular routes

27:36 [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, well, that's interesting too, right?

27:38 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.

27:40 [SPEAKER_01]: But I do love the fact that shimmer does that work for you as somebody who's like, could be very easily get overwhelmed by the research.

27:47 [SPEAKER_00]: It's that weeks and weeks looking at different people of which one makes more sense, right?

27:52 [SPEAKER_01]: So walk me through the process a little bit when if somebody is signing up for shimmer care, it's not just the one on one coaching, right?

28:00 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, there's the whole app and support system as well.

28:05 [SPEAKER_00]: So, we actually have two tiers I'll talk about the coaching first, where those that are ready and wanting human support, if I would love to meet someone on a weekly basis that really understands me, understands what I'm trying to talk about, and really develop a personal plan.

28:20 [SPEAKER_00]: So, there's the weekly coaching, but in addition to it, we have daily body doubling sessions for those that are not familiar.

28:25 [SPEAKER_00]: I imagine your listeners are familiar with that, but it's kind of like virtual co-working, but being able to do different tasks, but it might not be

28:36 [SPEAKER_00]: or responding to the emails you don't want to be responding to, but you're doing it because other people are in it.

28:40 [SPEAKER_00]: We have a bunch of people in our community, so you get to be able to meet other shimmer members who are on their ADHD journey too.

28:48 [SPEAKER_00]: And people that understand what you're working on is hard of like, yeah, no, I don't want to do my laundry.

28:52 [SPEAKER_00]: So there's multiple times a day, you can come together with other people.

28:56 [SPEAKER_00]: We have weekly workshops on different topics.

28:59 [SPEAKER_00]: So just last week, we had Dr. Sharon Saline.

29:02 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I've had her on this podcast.

29:04 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm sure you have it and surprise me.

29:06 [SPEAKER_01]: She was actually another one who did not have ADHD.

29:09 [SPEAKER_01]: I think she may be was the first like non ADHD guest I ever had, but she has since been diagnosed with it.

29:15 [SPEAKER_01]: I think I thought she did have ADHD.

29:18 [SPEAKER_01]: She was diagnosed like relatively recently within the last few years, but at the time, she was still questioning.

29:24 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so we had her in talking about ADHD and the winter blues of feeling maybe a little more emotional during the winter time, less sun, less being out, not wanting to be in the cold weather, or maybe the pressures of the holidays and the side effects or consequences of those, we have authors come in for ADHD books where, you know, like Jesse Anderson, who wrote extra focus, will have him come in and people can ask questions about the book or his journey.

29:49 [SPEAKER_00]: So there's weekly ways to meet other leaders in the ADHD space, people that are advocates, and actually build more personal relationships with them, which is really lovely.

29:59 [SPEAKER_00]: We have independent learning journeys.

30:02 [SPEAKER_00]: So some people might call them modules.

30:05 [SPEAKER_00]: They're not meant to be teaching lessons or someone's talking at you.

30:07 [SPEAKER_00]: It's meant to be a lot of reflection.

30:09 [SPEAKER_00]: You can do on your own of what are my strengths?

30:12 [SPEAKER_00]: How do I think about strengths?

30:13 [SPEAKER_00]: So rather than just reading a book about strengths, it's asking you questions to kind of pull that out of yourself and it's meant to be able to be done in 10 to 15 minutes.

30:21 [SPEAKER_00]: So really just trying to find a way that we can

30:24 [SPEAKER_00]: Support everyone, whether you want to be in a call with someone, whether you want to do something on your own time right before bed and you're like, hey, I just want to spend like five minutes doing something for myself.

30:33 [SPEAKER_00]: And we also have a new app called India.

30:36 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if you're familiar with it yet, but it's a bunch of different modules to be able to support.

30:43 [SPEAKER_00]: So like, hey, I need help with solving a problem.

30:45 [SPEAKER_00]: It'll actually go through the compi model of the behavior change.

30:48 [SPEAKER_00]: So learning about your capabilities, the opportunities and motivation to help you break down a problem strategically to find the next step.

30:55 [SPEAKER_00]: How do I reflect on my day to learn more insights about what I've experienced?

30:59 [SPEAKER_00]: So we're really trying to build it out in ways that are like low friction, high demand, how intense do you want your learning to be and make sure everyone feels like they can create customized support?

31:12 [SPEAKER_01]: I love all of that.

31:13 [SPEAKER_01]: That is amazing.

31:14 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, at

31:15 [SPEAKER_01]: one of the things you were talking about with the coworking and the body doubling is just the like the shame free space that I love as well, right?

31:22 [SPEAKER_01]: Like you said, nobody's going to question the fact that I have to show up to a body doubling session in order to fold my laundry, right?

31:29 [SPEAKER_01]: Like not at all.

31:30 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, nobody's going to say just do it.

31:33 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

31:33 [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think like the shame free elements to all of this support, right?

31:38 [SPEAKER_01]: And not questioning like why you might need this.

31:41 [SPEAKER_01]: I think

31:42 [SPEAKER_01]: refreshing place to be, you know, that it's not a matter of like we're going to solve this and fix you and send you off on your way, that there's like these, you know, we're trying to make the supports and structures as easy as possible and as available as possible, right?

31:56 [SPEAKER_01]: So that you don't feel like you have to spend any time questioning should I or shouldn't I even use this, right?

32:01 [SPEAKER_01]: Like do I deserve to use this or should I work harder?

32:11 [SPEAKER_01]: And obviously a house cleaner is cost money, so there's a certain level of privilege just to hire somebody, but they will often have to like explain to me the arduous decision-making process that got them to hiring a cleaner and I have kids and I work full time and like the millions of reasons and I'm always like, you don't need a reason.

32:29 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, you just don't like it and that's totally fine, right?

32:33 [SPEAKER_01]: Why would I don't understand people who do like it?

32:35 [SPEAKER_01]: So, but yeah, like I think a lot of the time we spend so much unrecognized energy justifying why we might need structure and support as opposed to just like being an environment where that's second nature.

32:49 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, 100 is fine.

32:53 [SPEAKER_01]: Right?

32:54 [SPEAKER_01]: Now, I'm curious,

32:57 [SPEAKER_01]: popular in terms of like shame-free support for a lot of neurodivergent people is shimmer incorporating AI in any kind of way or what are what if your thoughts been about the increase in using AI to kind of develop structure spores.

33:15 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so shimmer doesn't incorporate AI so we do that in different ways.

33:19 [SPEAKER_00]: Within the coaching session, we have AI note taking.

33:22 [SPEAKER_00]: You have to, you have the opt-in, so it's never gonna happen automatically.

33:25 [SPEAKER_00]: We are 100% respect your privacy, and we have a lot of things in place to make sure your information goes nowhere.

33:31 [SPEAKER_00]: It stays in our closed ecosystem, and it's de-identified.

33:34 [SPEAKER_00]: But we also know it's hard to remember what happened during the coaching session three days later.

33:38 [SPEAKER_00]: It feels really great during it.

33:39 [SPEAKER_00]: You feel really motivated and three days of it, or I am not sure what we talked about.

33:44 [SPEAKER_00]: So it's really nice to have the notes available for you right afterwards.

33:47 [SPEAKER_00]: So that's one of the way that shimmer integrates AI.

33:50 [SPEAKER_00]: And then our indie app, which is a free resource, is predominantly an AI resource, but we're not using generic.

33:58 [SPEAKER_00]: I almost, I don't know if I should call out companies there.

34:01 [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, we're not using generic AI.

34:03 [SPEAKER_00]: We're actually creating the different agents, and we're putting in ADHD education, scientific models, into the reasoning.

34:10 [SPEAKER_00]: So when you're talking with it, it can explain the science of ADHD, or can explain combat, or can explain a hierarchy it means.

34:16 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's not generating random things and making guesses.

34:21 [SPEAKER_00]: We have kind of those strict guard rails of, this is when you say, I don't know, this is what you pull from, this is what you don't make conclusions about.

34:28 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think with AI, there is a lot of potential, absolutely a lot of potential because it can reduce a lot of things that are, I would say, executively, not necessary.

34:41 [SPEAKER_00]: So for example, if you're going into leadership and you're trying to figure out ADHD and leadership and who are people that you'd like to emulate who do you see doing well, maybe you want to redo your LinkedIn background.

34:53 [SPEAKER_00]: The two hours looking at different LinkedIns for people that match your job description, that's actually not helping you move forward.

35:01 [SPEAKER_00]: Someone being able to scrape it and saying here are four for you to look at and then you finding the patterns, that's actually what's gonna help you move forward.

35:09 [SPEAKER_00]: knowing that you need XYZ planner with these different capabilities, spending the three hours looking for it is actually not helpful.

35:17 [SPEAKER_00]: Having options presented for you to choose from is helpful.

35:21 [SPEAKER_00]: So ownership still stays with the person I think where we go into, really questionable territories when people don't feel autonomous in their decision.

35:29 [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't feel like they're developing skills.

35:31 [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's bad A I use.

35:34 [SPEAKER_00]: But there are ways that I can offload and kind of equal the playing field of this doesn't need to be done by me, but I still hold the authority of it.

35:43 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think most AI machines or organizations right now.

35:49 [SPEAKER_00]: or particularly neurodivered and friendly, I think they actually can do a lot of harm from what I've seen.

35:53 [SPEAKER_00]: I think we all have seen the new stories where, unfortunately, because mental health support is not super accessible, ADHD support is not super accessible.

36:02 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a free option of course you're going to go to it, and I never want to demonize people using AI for support.

36:08 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm done it too, but there are kind of,

36:11 [SPEAKER_00]: trade-offs with it.

36:12 [SPEAKER_00]: There are some perils that you have to be aware of and it's really hard to know when it's going into a dangerous territory.

36:17 [SPEAKER_00]: So that's sort of what we're hoping to do if India's create is safe space where it has very hard guardrails and says this is something that we can help offload, whether it's looking at resumes or thinking strategically through problem, but we feel pretty strongly mental health support to stay with mental health practitioners that can hold the space for the person in the room.

36:37 [SPEAKER_00]: And

36:39 [SPEAKER_00]: just making sure we do that with as much duty of care as possible.

36:42 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, it's fascinating to landscape right now.

36:45 [SPEAKER_00]: And changing every single day, you think you have an opinion one day and then something comes out within two weeks and you're like, I have to rethink this whole thing of how do I see that working within my discipline?

36:58 [SPEAKER_01]: Right, absolutely.

36:59 [SPEAKER_01]: And who are the adults in the room, too?

37:01 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, knowing that shimmer is creating these guardrails would be

37:05 [SPEAKER_01]: really reassuring for somebody who also is feeling like this is a super helpful tool and I'm using it a lot, but I also don't know, you know, everybody's telling me it's bad and I don't know if I should trust it.

37:17 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm, you know, where do I follow on this?

37:19 [SPEAKER_01]: And so having having meaningful conversations about

37:23 [SPEAKER_01]: the pros and cons, I think is important, as opposed to just being like, A, I bad, or A, I good, right?

37:31 [SPEAKER_01]: Which seems to be where we're polarizing nowadays.

37:34 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I don't think it's categorical.

37:36 [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's the way that we use it, which one we're using, it can even come down to the prompting behind it of how good is the prompt that whether it generates a hallucination,

37:49 [SPEAKER_00]: I think right now we're at a place where a lot of it falls to a user to have to know those things.

37:54 [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't think that's fair.

37:56 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think the average person is going to know.

37:58 [SPEAKER_00]: If you had told me two years ago that I would do AI prompting, I would have laughed.

38:03 [SPEAKER_00]: I would have been like, I don't know anything about it.

38:06 [SPEAKER_00]: And then I have immersed myself in it, because that's what the community means.

38:09 [SPEAKER_00]: And that's what my role is changing in a ball begin to.

38:12 [SPEAKER_00]: And I've become aware of how hard it is to know how to do it.

38:16 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think more organizations should take ownership of what do we do on the back end to protect the user.

38:21 [SPEAKER_01]: What are the things that like fascinates me too about the human brain of the capacity of the human brain, right?

38:26 [SPEAKER_01]: Because I always argue that like the more we use AI for the mundane executive tasks, it frees us up for higher learning, right?

38:33 [SPEAKER_01]: Whereas there are certain MIT studies that suggest that the more we use AI, the Dummer we're getting.

38:38 [SPEAKER_01]: completely disagree.

38:39 [SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, one of the things I love about the human brain is our capacity to adapt and like, you know, thinking about the very first film, the great train robbery, people were running from the theater because they thought the train was coming for them, right?

38:52 [SPEAKER_01]: And I feel that way about AI, like, already we have begun to recognize, like, what is AI Slop?

38:59 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, whereas, like, a year ago, I would have thought, well, that's really compelling.

39:03 [SPEAKER_01]: How did this person know this about me or something?

39:05 [SPEAKER_01]: And now it's like we're getting much better at recognizing AI slot.

39:09 [SPEAKER_01]: I am very worried about like photorealistic videos and images, but I do think, you know, I feel like I have to trust that we are going to get better at recognizing that stuff the more we're exposed to it because you can already tell when there's an AI photograph of somebody.

39:25 [SPEAKER_01]: Like I feel like we are adapting very quickly to a lot of this stuff too.

39:30 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I do hope to see regulation change of what legislature says to that company's can or can't do or consequences for doing things that are intended with AI.

39:40 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

39:41 [SPEAKER_00]: As much as I'd love for that to emerge first, and then AI evolved, that's not going to be the case.

39:45 [SPEAKER_00]: And we've seen that in other industries, too.

39:47 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not just with an AI.

39:48 [SPEAKER_00]: This might feel like a bit of an archaic example, but like when it came to, like

39:53 [SPEAKER_00]: child movie actors.

39:55 [SPEAKER_00]: There was no regulations, and unfortunately it took a decade or two for people, but hey, we have to put something in place here.

40:01 [SPEAKER_00]: I think with AI we're catching that very quickly over seeing different infrastructure starting to come out with recommended usage and guidelines in the APA making, uh, so the American psychological association, making recommendations for the youth.

40:16 [SPEAKER_00]: So I think the industry is

40:23 [SPEAKER_00]: legalities around this, which I'm excited to see.

40:28 [SPEAKER_01]: Back to shimmer and coaching and your journey, like what, I guess, you know, what are some of the things you love about working with ADHD clients?

40:37 [SPEAKER_00]: Big question.

40:39 [SPEAKER_00]: Many things.

40:40 [SPEAKER_00]: The first is, I, you know, I want to be cautious here that I don't want to make a statement about every ADHD or in this.

40:47 [SPEAKER_00]: Um,

40:48 [SPEAKER_00]: But what I've seen is an incredible level of resilience of, hey, I've had these really negative experiences.

40:55 [SPEAKER_00]: I attribute a lot of it to not knowing about my ADHD, not feeling supported in my environment.

41:01 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it could be very easy to get stuck in that of feel it was unfair, because it absolutely was.

41:08 [SPEAKER_00]: It absolutely was, but you hear people say, I know I can be better.

41:13 [SPEAKER_00]: I know that wasn't right.

41:14 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to do this.

41:18 [SPEAKER_00]: ownership and capacity and agency of I'm not going to let anybody get in my way and even myself I'm not going to limit myself of I'm angry and I'm going to do this or I'm sad and I'm going to do this I think that's one of the most beautiful things I see in a lot of sessions and it doesn't always start that way sometimes there is like confusion and grief at the beginning of I don't know what this means for me and especially with the confusion is.

41:42 [SPEAKER_00]: At least what I've heard from a lot of my clients and other coaching clients is they were given the diagnosis and they were shown the DSM and they can see the symptoms and like okay that sounds like me but it's not shown how it applies to their life of what is ADHDM finance looks like.

41:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my impulse of spending is related to my ADHD mind blowing and if someone had helped them make that connection or provided that education it would have changed how they were

42:13 [SPEAKER_00]: And so I think that's part of what you see in the ADHD coaching space as well of now that those things have been linked together, they're approaching it and taking ownership of it of like well if I had known this and then they're coming up with their own ideas so it felt like sometimes there wasn't hope of I don't know why this is happening well now I know why and now I'm going to try something and people come back and I think that I feel like I'm getting excited to talk about there's a lot of energy.

42:40 [SPEAKER_00]: of people feeling like it's almost like a puzzle that they're falling.

42:43 [SPEAKER_00]: It's an emotional puzzle, really emotional, but you can tell like there's resilience and creativity.

42:48 [SPEAKER_00]: And there is a deep community, even though the coaching session is me and that person.

42:54 [SPEAKER_00]: You can hear how they talk about being in the ADHD community.

42:58 [SPEAKER_00]: They talk about themselves, but they talk about those that have a similar experience.

43:02 [SPEAKER_00]: And there's just like this inherent belonging or connection, which is also, I think, a really beautiful thing to see.

43:09 [SPEAKER_00]: And I see a workshops too of people who don't know each other saying, hey, me too, you got this, like, that's beautiful to share what a win.

43:18 [SPEAKER_00]: People are genuinely rooting for each other.

43:20 [SPEAKER_00]: And with that, I don't think we see in the general population, I think sometimes the world can be a little bit competitive and isolated.

43:28 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't see that in the shimmer community at all, as it's people saying, hey, we're in this together, let's go.

43:32 [SPEAKER_00]: And they've never met before, but I think that's one of my favorite things to do.

43:36 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, here here are to all of that.

43:38 [SPEAKER_01]: Like I totally agree with the grit element too of that.

43:42 [SPEAKER_01]: And I often feel like that pick yourself up by the bootstraps mentality starts very young with a lot of barriers that you have to figure out how to get past and you do become really good at problem solving and making the most of situations.

43:56 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think the flip side of that is then becoming incredibly self-reliant and feeling like you should be able to do things without health.

44:03 [SPEAKER_01]: And having a very

44:04 [SPEAKER_01]: Problematic relationship with support as though it's like it's failure, right?

44:09 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's a lot of the things we have to unlearn in ourselves with as people with ADHD, especially diagnosed with adulthood.

44:15 [SPEAKER_01]: But you know, I'm working with children right now and the adolescents who and many of them, almost all of them are diagnosed with ADHD and childhood.

44:23 [SPEAKER_01]: And they don't look at it with a strike space lens at all.

44:26 [SPEAKER_01]: No, please talk to them about it through a strike space lens.

44:28 [SPEAKER_01]: So they're looking at it as like ADHD is the reason why I'm so bad at playing.

44:32 [SPEAKER_01]: Right?

44:33 [SPEAKER_01]: And that's kind of their understanding of ADHD is that ADHD is the barrier as opposed to what are the barriers that are standing in the way of me and my greatness right I'm the last person to call ADHD a superpower but I also like I feel like you know so much of what makes us amazing is thanks to our ADHD brains it's just the the barriers that get in the way so yeah and I think that's something that.

45:00 [SPEAKER_00]: We also see as a whole when it comes to ADHD cares as practitioners, we all know a strength based lens is more effective than a deficit based lens of being able to leverage and build on your strengths to achieve your goals and overcome barriers is a better experience for everyone.

45:20 [SPEAKER_00]: everyone's on board with that.

45:21 [SPEAKER_00]: But as soon as it comes to like ADHD and someone comes to the room, and of course they haven't done coaching yet.

45:27 [SPEAKER_00]: They don't know necessarily what it's going to be like.

45:29 [SPEAKER_00]: And they say, I want to be less impulsive.

45:31 [SPEAKER_00]: I want to be more organized and you can tell like, I want to fix these deficits.

45:36 [SPEAKER_00]: And the practitioner says, yes, we'll work on that.

45:39 [SPEAKER_00]: All of a sudden, now we're doing a deficit-focused coaching rather than strengths-based coaching.

45:44 [SPEAKER_00]: And part of the the coaches role is to do education around that of like we absolutely can bridge those gaps, we can learn skills, we can do executive function coaching, but we're also going to learn what you're really good at and we're also going to see your best experience and what you've already accomplished and learn lessons from those, but there's something about when it comes to ADHD coaching.

46:06 [SPEAKER_00]: that a switch clips and also becomes very deficit focused very quickly even though as practitioners, we know strengths are stronger.

46:15 [SPEAKER_00]: So that's something I think is the whole like we all have to get better at is just because you're coming in with symptoms that you're trying to navigate does not mean you're targeting those symptoms.

46:24 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you're acknowledging and creating structures around that to get to whatever your goal is.

46:29 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.

46:30 [SPEAKER_01]: I think of them as like side dishes, right?

46:34 [SPEAKER_01]: They're kind of an inevitable result of the barriers that might be placing your way.

46:39 [SPEAKER_01]: So, but absolutely not anything to be to define your life by.

46:45 [SPEAKER_01]: And

46:47 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, I think there's, I think there's a whole other interesting conversation there that I'm not going to get into about like toxic positivity in the coaching world versus strength space and kind of what that looks like.

46:59 [SPEAKER_00]: So, yes, they are not the same.

47:01 [SPEAKER_00]: Anyone listening there not the same.

47:03 [SPEAKER_00]: Do not be deterred by a strength-based approach.

47:06 [SPEAKER_00]: It is not the same as toxic positivity where we don't acknowledge the challenges that would be a disservice, right?

47:14 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's amazing.

47:15 [SPEAKER_01]: I love you guys and I think Shimmer is such a great, especially, you know, like you said, there are, you know, coaching is not related to insurance.

47:24 [SPEAKER_01]: It's a cost prohibitive for a lot of people.

47:26 [SPEAKER_01]: And so having more accessible price points.

47:30 [SPEAKER_01]: I think is wonderful.

47:32 [SPEAKER_01]: And I just, I think Shimmer does such a great job.

47:35 [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm

47:36 [SPEAKER_01]: So glad you guys exist.

47:37 [SPEAKER_01]: So well, thank you so much for talking to me.

47:39 [SPEAKER_01]: So people want to find you or reach out to you is there.

47:43 [SPEAKER_01]: What's the best way to do that?

47:45 [SPEAKER_00]: LinkedIn.

47:46 [SPEAKER_00]: I know, maybe the more unpopular way to reach people, but LinkedIn, Alex Bellettier, I am very responsive on there.

47:53 [SPEAKER_00]: You can always reach me through Shimmer.

47:55 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, Shimmer.care.

47:57 [SPEAKER_00]: You can always reach me through the support channel there, my email, Alex at Shimmer.care.

48:02 [SPEAKER_00]: I have an Instagram, but I don't really post a lot.

48:05 [SPEAKER_00]: So LinkedIn is the best way to reach me.

48:06 [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

48:07 [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like more and more people myself included are jumping ship landing at LinkedIn

48:14 [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's place to do this online.

48:18 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, no, I'll put it all of the, I'll put links to your LinkedIn profile with your permission in the, in the show notes, but very fascinating.

48:26 [SPEAKER_01]: I got, I love coaching psychology.

48:27 [SPEAKER_01]: Like I said, I am gonna go off and do my own research on this now because it sounds like, you know, one of those things where it's like, I've been looking for the word for that, for whatever it is, I'm really super interested in and have never really been able to put my finger on it and sounds like I just did.

48:41 [SPEAKER_01]: So that's super cool.

48:45 [SPEAKER_01]: coming on and sharing a little bit about your background and your journey and what you do.

48:49 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah it's been great the past 45 minutes of flown by.

48:54 [SPEAKER_00]: We talked so long but if you great I'd love to be back sometime.

48:58 [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks Alex.

49:04 [SPEAKER_01]: There you have it!

49:05 [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening and I really hope you enjoyed this episode of the Women and ADHD podcast.

49:10 [SPEAKER_01]: If you'd like to find out more about me and my coaching programs, head over to women and ADHD.com.

49:15 [SPEAKER_01]: If you're a woman who was diagnosed with ADHD and you'd like to apply to be a guest on this podcast, visit women and ADHD.com slash podcast guest and you can find that link in the episode's show notes.

49:26 [SPEAKER_01]: Also you know we ADHD are brave feedback.

49:29 [SPEAKER_01]: And I would really appreciate hearing from you, the listener.

49:32 [SPEAKER_01]: Please take a moment to leave me a review on Apple podcasts or audible.

49:36 [SPEAKER_01]: And if that feels like too much and I totally get it, please just take a few seconds right now to give me a five-star rating.

49:42 [SPEAKER_01]: Or share this episode on your own social media to help reach more women who maybe have yet to discover and lean into this gift of neurodivergency.

49:51 [SPEAKER_01]: And they may be struggling and they don't even know why.

49:53 [SPEAKER_01]: I'll see you next time when I interview another amazing woman who discovered she's not lazy or crazy or broken but she has ADHD and she's now on the path to understanding her neurodivergent mind and finally using this gift to her advantage.

50:07 [SPEAKER_01]: Take care till then!