Welcome to a panel episode of ADHD-ish, where I am joined by fellow business coaches Justine Clay, and Stephanie Wasylyk, who also work with creatives, entrepreneurs and small business owners that identify with ADHD. 

The three of us met in Meg Casebolt’s SEO membership community, The Content Love Lab. 

In this lively and insightful conversation, we explore how ADHD can shape who we are without solely defining us, and offer valuable strategies for creating inclusive, ADHD-friendly environments, both personally and professionally. 

Experimentation, flexibility, the right level of structure and understanding there is not only no one size fits all tools for neurotypicals, there aren’t for those with ADHD tendencies either. 

Finding the right strategies and the right coach means honoring what works for you, not fitting into someone's cookie-cutter program.   

Episode Highlights:

🏡 Creating ADHD-Friendly Spaces: Stephanie highlights the importance of inclusive environments that cater to diverse learning styles.

She shares her experiences in making her coaching practices welcoming for everyone, regardless of neurodivergence. I suggested that Justine, Stephanie and other inclusivity champions are "ADHD enthusiasts."

🎨 Inclusive Coaching Strategies: Justine shares her evolution in ADHD coaching, from niche marketing to a more encompassing approach that considers clients' preferred learning and processing styles.

She includes an optional neurodivergence question in her intake process, ensuring she meets her clients where they are.

🌈 ADHD as a Part of Identity:  We take a close look at how ADHD shapes but doesn't define a person. Diann likens it to a color in a stained glass window—impactful but not the whole picture.

Stephanie cautions against limiting self-perception based solely on ADHD, emphasizing collaboration with a predominantly neurotypical world.

Mentioned during this episode: Voxer walkie talkie app 

Want to connect with our guests? 

• Connect with Justine Clay on LinkedIn or Instagram 
• Justine’s free guide, Pricing Creativity 
• Get in touch with Stephanie Wasylyk on LinkedIn 
• Stephanie’s membership, The Happy Squirrel Collective 

I can’t believe it’s November!  Did you catch my Work With Me proposal at the end of this episode? 

My framework for ADHD-ish solopreneurs, The Boss Up Breakthrough is a 1:1 strategy, coaching and mentorship program that turns your hidden gem into a stand-out, sought-after, profitable business based on your unique brilliance.  

Over the course of 12 weeks, we transform your positioning, packaging, pricing and promoting and remove everything holding you back. 

Want to start NOW, lay the foundation, then take a break for the holidays and pick up again in January?  Schedule a free consultation to see if we’re a fit.

Not ready to work together, but want to share the love?  Rate and Review ADHD-ish and subscribe/follow on your favorite podcast player! 

© 2024 ADHD-ish Podcast. Intro music by Ishan Dincer / Melody Loops  / All rights reserved. Outro music by Vladimir /  Bobi Music / All rights reserved. 

H: So I think what people are probably dying to know before we get into the nitty and the gritty is why in God's name would each of you choose to work with people like us when you are not like us. Who wants to start?

S: I can start, this is Stephanie, so you all recognize my voice on this show. My Canadian accent, you might pick up. I have been a coach for 12 years and over that time, I was just repeatedly having clients tell me that they had ADHD. They suspected they have ADHD or they were looking for a diagnosis or they had recently been diagnosed. And over the past maybe, I would say, 4 or 5 years, I noticed it increasing with more and more people mentioning it. And it just felt like a responsibility to me to learn more about it, to really understand how I could support people better because I have always believed that I'm coaching the person right?

So regardless of what they come to me with, I think it's important that I am just you know working with them whatever they bring but this felt different there were just sometimes when they would have more trouble you know, working on their goals or they would tell me that they had this wonderful, marvelous goal, and then the next week, it would be a different goal. And so it just felt really important to me to understand more about what was going on.

H: That totally makes sense. How about you, Justine?

J: Well, my name is Justine, and you'll recognize me because I have a different accent also. So just for the folks who are not watching, so I came to working with ADHD professionals through a personal thing. I had a child who had ADHD so he is almost 13. And, you know, over the years of being a parent to a kid who just thinks and processes and operates completely differently from me just really put the differences in stark contrast. I think when you're working with a child, a toddler, like, it's all out there. Like, no one's masking, no one's got strategies. It's just all out there.

And so I was just I felt like I was on this quest constantly to try and kind of be a I'll put it in air quotes, a better mom because I was so aware of the frustration and friction that I felt didn't necessarily need to be there, while it was understandable. So I started looking, I had a client, and she had ADHD. And she said, oh, I have an ADHD coach and I was like, oh, that's great. So I thought, well, maybe I'll hire an ADHD coach to help me figure out what strategies would be helpful for my kid, and I can kind of implement them at home. Well, I started to look around hit this chap's website, and I started to sort of have aha this moment of she's not the only client I have who has ADHD.

And, you know, and in fact, once I sort of kind of tally it up, it was probably at least a third of them, who either had it or they suspected they had it or I suspected maybe they had it with this, like, sort of, like, knowledge I was starting to get into all from all of my reading and research. And so I started looking at this chap's website and I thought, you know what? Instead of paying to be coached by someone, what about if I paid to become a certified ADHD coach so that I could really be of more value to my clients. Because like Stephanie, you know, my clients weren't complaining or seeming like they weren't getting value, but there was a part of me that was just like this I'm sure there's ways I could be serving them better and that there would be tools and levels of understanding that I just don't have that would really help.

H: So I really appreciate that because we all know that the world of coaching is still the wild, wild west, and you're not required to do a damn thing. You can market yourself to anybody. You can claim any kind of expertise. And as long as you've got a good marketing shtick, you can get clients. And what I've certainly experienced and heard many, many horror stories about is when clients don't get the desired result, they typically get blamed or gaslit even in a subtle way by the coach because nobody wants negative feedback. So I really respect that you've both taken, the time and energy and effort and commitment. I wanna go back to something that, Stephanie said a moment ago, which is when people were sharing with you that I have ADHD or I think I have ADHD or I'm in the process of getting diagnosed. And I know there are probably a variety of different circumstances, but what would you say in general, what was the context for that? Why did they feel the need to disclose that to you within the context of your coaching relationship with them?

S: Oh, that's a really good question. If I remember, it typically happened in, like, a moment of fluster when they're like, oh, I have this project, that project, and, it's just my ADHD or something like that. Or they would sometimes it would be part of the intake process where they would they would kind of disclose it, I guess, as part of why they've struggled or what they're hoping to achieve, but then that might get in the way. It kinda comes out in all different ways. Sometimes someone would tell me, you know, 10 sessions in and other times people would only find out, you know, a year later. Sometimes they would know right away or they were or were not even interested in a diagnosis.

So it was I think really unique but specifically over the last few years, I've noticed people just disclosing it more often. I think it's more common for people to talk about it now than certainly than it was 10 years ago or 12 years ago when I started. I like, no one mentioned it then but I also I have to admit too that I think sometimes people disclose it to me because my approach is very structured and, organized, and I call myself the solid oak tree. And I think people disclose that to me because they want to be held in that way, and they want me to hold those structures for them that they sometimes have trouble holding for themselves.

H: Yeah, I often refer to structure as the other s word because as a person with ADHD, as a self employed person with ADHD, and as a person who helps other self employed people with ADHD, structure is something that, you know, we talk about a lot. And most of us have a love hate relationship with it. We love many of us to think of ourselves as, you know, creatives and free spirits, and we thrive in chaos and yada yada yada. I don't need to repeat the stuff you've already heard ad nauseam. But when we are in our moments of frustration or in our moments of self reflection and introspection. I don't know anyone with ADHD who can't admit, even if they resent the hell out of it, that we need the structure and we need supports, and sometimes we even need supervision. So I'm wondering if you have some thoughts on this as well, Justine.

J: I do and, you know, like Stephanie, I'm also just naturally, I'm neurotypical. I'm also a Virgo rising, I'm a Pisces. Like, so I'm very sort of connected to the creative piece of it, but I'm also I love processes and systems and structures. And I love, like, it's almost like a game of, like, how can we lay out this process and how can we remove this and how can we streamline things and not think about those things. And, like, it's like a fun game for me so I think to Stephanie's point, my clients like that about me. When I was in the ADHD coach training program, everyone else in my cohort had ADHD. And I could understand why a creative with ADHD would love to be coached by someone with ADHD because I think that there's a lot of the gaslighting and things that they're gonna be less exposed to right?

Because and that you know, just to go back to that point where you mentioned that earlier, Diann, that was also a big sort of reason why I went to go and get this certification was because I was so worried I would unwittingly cause harm. And because when you grow up in a world that was built for you, like, you're causing all kinds of harm because you've got all kinds of biases about what's the right way to do something and all of this kind of stuff. And I am very organized, which can kinda slide into controlling tendencies and all of those things. You know, if I'm not careful, not in my work, but in my family for sure because I'm the organizer right?

So it's a double edged sword and I wanted to be sure that, like, I was using my skills for good and not for harm. So it's finding that balance of structure and that freedom of flexibility, but not sort of approaching it with the client, in my practice anyway, of like, you're creative and all over the place and everything else, and I'm gonna be like the container for it all. It's like, let's bring my creativity and your creativity and the structures and the strategies and all the things that you've been building up until now because I know you have been with mine, and let's build something together that probably works better for you right? Because we've just got 2 heads working on the on the problem. So I think I've strayed from probably your initial question.

H: Well, that's something I'm quite familiar and comfortable with, so not a problem.

S: I wanna ask though, while we're on this topic, because I mean, you guys must notice this too right? Everyone comes with these, like, I've tried this system and that system. They've tried 85,000,000 systems. They have stacks of unused notebooks or, like, one page is used and all the stationary supplies and all of this. It's I don't think it's that they don't want the structure. Some people some people for sure really don't want structure, they resist it. And that's just, I think, across the board, people have different personalities right? But it's this they look to a structure to make sense of their experience or to, like, help organize their experience. And it's never about the tool itself, I don't think.

There's no one right tool or structure. It's not like I have this magical structure solution and neither do you, Justine. I'm sure that's like, here's the one right way that everyone should organize their life in business that, like, does not exist. My philosophy is like a process of experimentation. All of those things you've tried before. What about it worked? What didn't work? What about the fancy pens really helps you stay focused? What about the notebook versus the project management system? Like, let's talk about those and figure out like, really understand yourself rather than the tool. Like, you could spend hours trying to figure out the tool, but let's spend that time trying to figure out yourself.

H: It's so, so true. And as a matter of fact, you're speaking directly to a concept that I teach. And most people cringe when I explain it because they're like, I know like, we know, okay? We know but it's this notion. I call it the magic pill and initially, when I first started talking about it, I was actually referring to the actual pill. Because a lot of people who struggle with ADHD tendencies, they finally decide, okay, fuck it. I'm gonna get diagnosed. I'm gonna get the diagnosis. I'm gonna get the fucking medication. I'm gonna take it, and then everything is going to change. No, it won't. For the record, the medication does one thing, and it does it really well. It reduces distractibility, which means you can stay focused longer at whatever you're focused on. But if what you're focused on is TikTok, or Netflix, or video games, you're gonna just waste more of your day.

So there's no magic pill. You could go I went through several different ones before we settled on the right one for me, and I'm still a 100% ADHD. I still need structure. I still need systems. I still need supports. And to your point, Stephanie, I still need a way of crafting for me, and I do this for my clients as well, systems and supports that hit the sweet spot for that specific client between structure and flexibility, between, having limits that I call intentional constraint, and having a sense of freedom. Because, you know, one of the things I do with my clients is the strengths finder assessment. And a lot of people find they have strengths in the area of risk taking and experimentation and innovation. And we do a values assessment and almost all of them say adventure is one of their top values.

Well, guess what? Innovation and adventure don't usually like to be constrained. So I think it's like finding that sweet spot. And when you partner together with someone, whether you are like minded and like brained or you're like minded in each of your cases. You're like minded, which is that you and your client want the same thing for them. You want them to feel better and you want them to function better. And you're going to help them craft the systems and the structures and the supports that allow them to feel better and function better.

H: I am not surprised to hear from both of you that clients disclose at different times for different reasons, simply because of how each of us has integrated ADHD or ADHD tendencies into our identity. And for some people, it is front and center like, they are gonna tell you straight up, hey, listen. In terms of, setting expectations, you should be warned. I have ADHD right? And you're like, okay. It's almost like I wanna make sure that you know ahead of time that I may be a challenge. And a lot of that can be self awareness and self acceptance. It can also be internalized self hatred because of all the negative feedback that they've gotten over a lifetime.

S: Or like reject me now. No, it's gonna be hard right?

H: Can we just say the, the rejection sensitivity? It and for some people, it's just not that big a deal. A lot of people with ADHD go into sales. A lot of people with ADHD are really good at marketing their business. And they're almost, like, performers in that respect. And, of course, a lot of people with ADHD go into the performing arts right? And go into all kinds of creative fields. So it's not a big deal for me personally to market myself or to sell my services. I think it's actually kind of enjoyable and fun. But for a lot of people with ADHD, probably some that you work with, this idea that, oh, shit. Like, I wanted to have my own business because I didn't wanna have a boss. But that means I have 2 problems, I have to be the boss of myself.

Oops, didn't think about that. And I have to quote unquote put myself out there, which is a challenge for many of us, partly because of rejection sensitivity, but also because we have literally been fed a steady diet of there's something wrong with you our entire lives. And so flipping that around and embracing this notion that, well, actually, I have something important to share. I have something positive to contribute. I have a gift or a talent or a skill, and I want people to pay me money or hire me for that thing. For some of us, that requires quite a few recalibrations of our identity. And I'm sure you both see this in the clients you work with.

S: Well, I think it's important that ADHD is just part of the discussion right? Like often women feel that way about running a business. Often caregivers feel that way about running a business. It's that we have many parts of us that make up our identity and ADHD can be a bigger or smaller or not a part of that identity for somebody and how they approach their business and their philosophies about life. If they're a people pleaser or, you know, me, I was like the good girl right? The oldest daughter kind of situation and I think it's important to remember, at least I really try and remember when I'm working with a client that it's not just one thing. We're not coaching one thing.

We're coaching the entire person, which sounds so lame in the coaching world right? We're always saying, oh, coach the person, not the problem, all of that. But, like, it's so important to me that my client feels safe and, like, they can tell me the truth, that they're not trying to just please me or do things to make me happy. It's so, so important to me that I can be their thought partner, not someone, like, telling them what to do. And another person that's making them feel bad about what they're doing or, worried or, I don't know any of those feelings right? So I forget why I'm telling you all of this now. I forget their train of thought.

H: Oh, that's so fascinating. See, actually, actually, this is you're making the point without even realizing you're making the point okay? And by the way, what I'm doing right now, this is a skill that many people with ADHD have, pattern recognition. Like, you're talking about how ADHD can be a big part of their identity, a small part of their identity, no part of their identity, and you are coaching the person, not their ADHD. And by the way, people lose their train of thought mid sentence, mid topic. People walk into a room and, like, what the hell am I doing here? People are late. People are forgetful. People are disorganized.

People change their mind. People have trouble with start, follow through, and finish. And they forget what they're talking about in the middle of the sentence even though they don't have ADHD, which is exactly why I think ADHD, it's not that it's not important. It is important. It absolutely affects everything about me and is equally responsible for my strengths and my struggles. And even though I talk about ADHD all the time and I exclusively coach people who are neurodivergent, I still don't think it's the most interesting thing about me. And it certainly isn't the only thing about me. I actually think about it as one of the colors in the stained glass window that is who I am as a person.

It's a facet you know? And so many times this is one of my biggest beefs. I promise to keep this tangent short. Maybe it isn't. Maybe it's already long. But I just think when we make too much of our ADHD, we do a great disservice to ourselves. And one of the ways we do a disservice to ourselves is by making too much of it. We're distancing ourselves from the rest of humanity. And guess what, 90% of humanity is neurotypical. Do we really want to push ourselves out into an ADHD only island that only neurodivergent people inhabit, I think that would be disastrous.

S: Well, that's why I use the terminology like ADHD friendly or ADHD informed because I see so many courses and teachers and stuff out there that do things one way. It's designed for a neurotypical audience or frankly designed for not even neurotypical, probably like the most organized people, the most receptive people to whatever it is that they're teaching right? But then I want to make sure that the space that I create, whether it's my community or coaching or just my way of being in the world is friendly to more than just people like me right? And that's it's just about a value of inclusivity that I'm pretty sure we all share

H: Yes.

S: Of making sure that we're just being the best humans we can be. And so for now, that means me calling out that my space is ADHD friendly because I'm noticing a lot of people with ADHD in my world, in business, as entrepreneurs. I wanna know that I want them to know that they're welcome.

H: In fact, I'm gonna offer you a new term. You can decide to reject it if you like, but I have actually referred to the 2 of you as ADHD enthusiasts because it's true. ADHD friendly is kind of a come as you are. Like, you know, like, if you're different, that's cool. But you too go out of your way to make the world a better place for people like me and to signal in all the ways that you do that you're not only open and receptive. Like, you choose to welcome clients like me into your world. You don't have to do that. I mean, while it is true that the majority of, entrepreneurs and the studies change. Some say 30%, which is not a majority. Some say 70%, which clearly is a majority. Somewhere between 30 70% of people who have the audacity to go out on their own have these traits or tendencies even if they fall short of meeting criteria for a diagnosis. So to me, it's smart if you wanna work with self employed people to be ADHD friendly. But I would say the 2 of you have gone well beyond that.

S: Can I ask a question, Diann?

H: Of course.

S: I wanna know from Justine how, like, how do you just for my own knowledge, like, how and maybe you too, Diann. Like, how do you make your practice and your work more inclusive in this way? What like, what things do you guys do? Maybe I'll, like, steal some ideas and implement them. I'm happy to share too, but I think it's a good I don't know. I'd love to know.

J: So, yeah, to go back to the context of the previous questions and Diann's reflections is the reason I was in the SEO program was that I got so excited when I sort of, like, became an ADHD coach, and I was just like, I put it all over my website. And all my messaging was ADHD and creative pressures even though the intention was that it would always be like an added string to my bow right? To me, it was, I'm gonna say the thing, but I can back it up. I did the work, I have credentials now in this area. So to me, it was only ever meant to be another string to the bow. But what happened was my organic search results kinda tanked because folks were coming there and they were saying, oh, I don't identify as ADHD. It was written on the home page. So, you know and so what we realized working with Meg, who also has ADHD, and I know she's open about that so it's okay to say yeah.

She was really helpful because she kind of reinforced what my web developer had said and other people, my husband who also has ADHD said, was to say, I think this needs to be contained. And so what we did is we rewrote all of the website and just kind of basically kind of made it what it was what it was before, just mentioning it in certain places and making an ADHD coaching page. So that, like, if someone was typing in ADHD coach for creatives, they would come to that page. But if it was people who maybe had some of the traits like you say or didn't have the diagnosis or didn't feel like that was the big part of their identity, they weren't turned off by it. So that's context so to come back to Stephanie's, you know, idea or her question is, I feel now that I have a bigger and better toolbox.

And to your point of like coaching the person on the problem, if I was coaching the problem then the business model canvas would be the tool for everybody right? But if I'm coaching the person, I've got different ways that we can talk about business model design. Different ways in which they can engage with the information. Different ways where it can be communicated and shared and done together. Sometimes I'll do it with them and will turn it into a working session right? So I feel like there's just a whole lot more flexibility and lots more tools and understanding of different processing and implementation styles of, like, what might pair.

So a couple of, like, tangible things I've done is that in my pre kickoff questionnaire, the first before the first session, I have a lot more questions now about how do you process? You know, are you visual? Are you auditory? Like, you know, whatever. Like, how do you prefer to get feedback? Do you prefer to, like, co work on things? Or do you wanna go away and work on it? How do you fill out worksheets? You know, so a whole bunch more questions of, like, gives me a lot more insights before we even start of what might be a way that they like to learn and feel more able to learn and implement. Because learning is only learning. If they can't do anything with the information, it's just more information right? And then even I've even gone to the so far as to put a question in that thing that says, do you identify as neurodivergent? Yes, no. I don't know. I prefer not to answer that.

So that people can disclose if they want to, and they don't have to if they don't want to. So a combination of messaging, content, newsletters, and things that some of them are very specific towards ADHD and some are just like, I'm just for creatives and you may have ADHD. No biggie right? We're all good. And then some things are more specific that are gonna just not only give me more information, but will help them immediately feel like, oh, she's on it right? Like, she's thinking about these things. I can be safe with her. When I've had people tell me things that other coaches did or, like, to your point, Diann, the therapists, you know, that did harm you know? So, again, long answer to a short question.

H: But every word of it was necessary and important. And when I think what's most fascinating to me is that many of the things you do to create a more ADHD friendly space and many of the things that I know Stephanie also does to create a more ADHD friendly space are the same as what I do.

So one of the ways I make working with me more ADHD friendly is making sure that I do a really good screening. And I turn down as many people as I accept because I really get up in their bishes. Like, I get intimately involved in their business and also in them as a business owner because I personally believe the business can only be as successful as the business owner is healthy in the way they run their business, in their reasons for having a business, in and their boundaries or lack of them with clients, pricing, all of that stuff.

I think the ADHD, and frankly, if you're a woman, all of those things factor in. So the in addition to that, what Justine mentioned about kind of the choose your own adventure approach, you know, like, some people are all about the worksheets. I've got over a 100 different worksheets, and I don't give the same ones to everyone. I choose exactly which ones and when and in what order based on what they're dealing with and what they're motivated to address at a specific time. So while I have a signature framework that I work through, everybody kind of goes through it differently.

Some people just they get everything they need from the coaching calls. Other people are like, give me more. Give me more. Give me more. Give me the worksheets. Give me the podcast to listen to. Like and as long as you're taking action and making progress and you're in momentum in your business and you're not just indulging your love of learning and getting ready to do stuff, then I'll give you everything you want. I make a lot of use of the Voxer walkie talkie app.

S: I love that.

H: Me too. Freaking love it because many of us are verbal processors. Some of my clients never use it. Some of them use it extensively to speak through their thoughts so that they can make decisions. And some all I ask is if you're gonna ramble just for the sake of rambling because you need to verbally process, just tell me at the top I listen to everyone. But at the top of the message, I want you to say, whether you want my feedback or whether you just want me to hold space for you to process this decision. Because sometimes you give feedback and they're like, yo, bitch, I just wanted to, like, just wanted to talk it out. Like, I know what I'm doing, it's like, okay. I don't assume. I don't guess. I ask a ton of questions because I wanna get really specific and really granular.

And I recently added a Voxer only, option to work with me because some people would rather stick a fork in their eye than sit in front of a Zoom screen once a week even if it's with me. So, yeah, I think the choose your own adventure, and I'm sure you both do different versions of that. Just because you may work with people with ADHD, there is as much diversity within their neurodiversity than there is outside. And they're not most of them are not used to being asked, what do you want? What are your needs? What are your wishes? What are your preferences? What are your priorities? How would you like to collaborate with me? How would you like this partnership to look? Some people cry when you ask that question because they've never been asked that question.

J: Yeah. It's really true.

H: If you could go all the way back to the beginning. Is there anything that you would have done differently if you had known then what you have learned since with respect to serving entrepreneurs and creatives with these traits?

S: I would have done it way sooner because I spent a huge part of my business just kind of being a business coach. I would have declared it and learned way sooner. I think I would have been far less, hard on myself when clients weren't, like, getting the results that they wanted or that I thought they wanted. I would have learned more about ADHD sooner and implemented all of this sooner. I would have started my community much sooner, because I'm loving having the community inspire each other. People in the community inspire each other so that they can see that anything is possible. They can see that they can do business their own way. They don't have to follow this cookie cutter thing and I was doing that before.

I always believed that. But hearing it from other people going through the same journey, the same but very different journey, is magical. Whenever I do a group call, I ask, you know, what was valuable, and I almost always somebody says, I'm so glad to know I'm not alone. I also spent a lot of time fretting, partly why I delayed was because I don't have ADHD. And so I was like, who am I? Who am I to declare that I can help people with ADHD? And the resounding feedback that I've gotten in my research, my interviews with people, with my discussion with clients is they say, I'm so glad you don't have ADHD because I know that you can hold this space for me. And I think that's probably just based on the person.

Some people would prefer to work with someone who does or doesn't have ADHD, but the people who are coming to me are feeling like I can hold them really securely. The major thing that helped me was having a coaching supervisor. I'm a supervised coach. So anytime I have these insecurities or doubts or clients that are tricky, you know, I bring it to my coaching supervisor and we work through it in a safe space. You would know about this as a therapist. Most coaches do not know about that nor even if they do know, they don't really understand the value and the support that it brings to a coach. And my supervisor was who really helped me understand, like, what makes me unique as a coach and what my skills are and how I can bring those to my clients and where my gaps are right? And where I shouldn't be, working.

H: That's a good supervisor because as you know, being a therapist, there's countertransference and transference. That is something that we are trained to monitor and to manage. And because that's really hard to see your own biases and blind spots, you have, supervisors if you're unlicensed. And I was part of a collective for years of licensed therapists in private practice who held each other accountable by meeting monthly to discuss our most difficult cases. And what made them difficult was they pushed our buttons, which is a it shows that, you know, you're having transference or countertransference issues. Coaches don't have that.

J: Initially, I would have said the same answer, like, I would have done it sooner. But I think hindsight is, you know, a beautiful thing, and we all wish we had done anything good sooner. Like, we wish we started saving for retirement sooner. We wish we had, like, whatever sooner right? And I think that for me, it all happened when it was supposed to happen. And I think for me, things have to get to a point where I'm just like, goddamn it, I can't figure this out myself. No number of books are gonna, like, do this for me. I've got to find the people who know to do all of the things. Teach me, hold me accountable, all of those things.

I think what I would have done sooner is I would have been more compassionate to myself about all of the good things that I am able to do and less critical of the places I fall short. I can tell you 12,000 ways I fell short yesterday. And but I won't think about all of the good things right? So and this that's a part of this process too. So I think that it's I don't really have any regrets of how it unfolded because I think it unfolded as it was supposed to and is continuing to unfold as it's supposed to. And I think just finding that space in, you know, where you fit as a neurotypical person working with and I would say I work with a neurodiverse community, meaning neurotypicals, neurodivergence of all, you know, types and stripes right?

I'm constantly learning and just so always that recalibration of, like, where do I fit in here? What's mine to own? What's not mine to own? What's mine to hold space for? I don't have to fix anybody. And I think if I had learned maybe that's the thing. If I had learned sooner that it's not my job to fix somebody, boy, I would have saved myself a lot of self recrimination and, waking up in the middle of the night.

H: Oh, that's so good. And, you know, I wasn't planning on chiming in on this. But I think to wrap up our conversation, I would say, I don't like to have regrets because it's just a colossal waste of time to feel any sort of way about something that's already happened and you can't change. But I think I one of the reasons why I like to help people younger than me, most of my clients are young enough to be my kids, actually, same age as my kids, is I love the idea of using what I've learned to help people get farther faster. And one of the most important ways to help them do that is to encourage them to adopt the belief, there's nothing wrong with me.

I am not broken, and I am definitely not alone. And, I also like the philosophy that I now say quite a bit, and I wish I had started saying a lot sooner. I actually believe what makes us different makes us special, and that the world needs people who think differently because, clearly, business as usual is all kinds of messy. And people who think differently and those who choose to help them spread their work in the world. I think I truly believe the 3 of us are helping the world be a better place by supporting people who think differently. And I wish I had done that sooner.

J: Yes, that's beautiful. Can I actually just share the mantra that they had or the guiding principle that they had in the coach program, which was you are creative, resourceful, and whole. And I loved that, it's something that I think is just applicable to everybody. And, you know, I always say I'm on a mission to dispel the broken creative myth because people are either thinking they're broke because they don't have the right or the ability to earn good money, or they are broken because something is fundamentally wrong with them. And so to even just come at it from that place of you are creative, resourceful, and whole as you are, and we're gonna move forward from there is a beautiful starting point, I think, for any relationship.

H: I think you've just given me the inspo for my next tattoo.