What Is Executive Function? A Coach’s Insight into ADHD, Focus & Daily Life

An executive function and ADHD coach for adults, Kate draws on over a decade of experience as an educator to help clients understand how they think, learn, and get things done. Her approach is strengths-based, collaborative, and infused with curiosity and compassion. She’s also passionate about community building and helping adults give themselves more grace in their struggles.

Connect with Kate: SAGE Collective

This episode introduces the concept of executive function coaching, featuring special guest Kate, an experienced executive function coach. The discussion covers the challenges individuals with ADHD face, particularly related to executive function, and how coaching can help overcome these barriers. The host and Kate share personal experiences and insights into the world of ADHD, emphasizing the importance of understanding one’s own needs and finding personalized solutions. Key topics include the role of executive function in daily life, the impact of sensory issues, and strategies for time management and reducing distractions. They also highlight the unique strengths of individuals with ADHD and the importance of building on these strengths for personal growth. The episode concludes with ways to connect with Kate and join her community for further support.

02:35 Meet Kate: Executive Function Coach
03:07 Kate's Journey and Background
09:00 Understanding Executive Function Coaching
10:23 Challenges and Misconceptions of ADHD
17:35 Tools and Strategies for ADHD Management
23:55 The Struggle to Implement Knowledge
24:40 Understanding Highly Sensitive People
27:38 Personal Experiences with Sensitivity
31:26 Music and Emotional Connection
35:38 Coaching and ADHD

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Transcript

0:42

Hey, beautiful people. Welcome back to another episode of organizing an A DHD Brain. I am really excited to introduce you to the guest today. Executive function coaching is not something I even realized was a thing, and that's truly what a DHD coaching is. So many of the deficits that we deal with on a regular basis have to do with executive function.'cause executive function is about how we take action on so many of the things or the inaction we're not taking. In our lives on the organization, on the little things, the things that we know we wanna do, but all of these other things are taking up space in our lives. As I've been reflecting this week it's been interesting'cause we're going through this transitionary period in our lives. We have left Colorado, we sold our home, and we are going to be renting when we end up on the east coast. And right now we're renting as we make our way there. We are traveling with four animals, two kids. It's me and my husband, and we're trying to make the most of our lives while also figuring out what's next. My husband is job searching right now and figuring out what's next in his life. I'm also laying the foundation and doing a lot of educational work for my own coaching abilities and systems that I wanna have in place for the next thing. What's coming up in the fall? I'm super excited to share that with you when it's ready, but as I'm taking my own advice, I'm really sitting with the peace. And starting to notice so many of the things around me, and I'm gonna be honest, at some points, I've really wanted to stop talking about organizing so that I can become a full on expert in the bugs that I am seeing on a regular basis like milli ps and spiders and oh my gosh, and I don't want them around me, but they're fascinating to look at. Just fascinating. And we've done a lot of Google searching on the habits of bugs, and I didn't really realize that we would find so many snails. We are in the woods. We are in a forest right now, and we have found snails everywhere. We've also seen 10 bears so far, possibly the same bears, but multiple times on this trip. The last time I remember seeing a bear was when I was growing up, probably about 20 years ago, and now we've seen them so often. I will tell you so much more about our journey and the exploration. We've done more when I launched season three this fall, but for now, let's go ahead and jump into this episode. i'm so excited to introduce you to my new friend Kate. We met through another guest melissa Snow, she is the surrogate mom to my cat Teddy, who you guys have listened to and all know. but she is this incredible networking queen and connected myself and Kate. And Kate is a executive functioning coach, which you might be thinking, holy crap, I didn't even know that this was a thing. And it freaking is. And it's so amazing. I'm so excited to interview her today and tell you all about what she does. Kate, tell us a little bit about your journey into becoming an executive functioning coach. Sure. Thank you so much for having me, and I love your enthusiasm. so I'm Kate am the owner of sef. Coaching, and I've been doing this for just over two years now, but my background is in education. I have two education degrees. I'm a licensed teacher. I taught in the classroom for 13 years, mostly high school English and the last half of my career I worked in private school for students with diagnosed. Attention issues and or learning differences. We had only four students per classroom, so I really got to know those students. And I worked with such a diversity of learning profiles and I loved it. A couple years ago I was going through a lot of change in my life. separation, eventually a divorce, moving out, thinking I was gonna move states. And I was thinking about. What else I could do with my background. I ended up completing an A DHD coach training program. I opened my own business and I coach mostly local clients here in the triangle, North Carolina. So Durham, Raleigh, chapel Hill area. and I use, my understanding of the process of learning my knowledge of neurodiversity and my training as coach to work with adults. That's incredible. How cool. Thank you. I love it. I love what I do. I bet it's such a rewarding experience. And can you share with us if you have a DHD? Yeah, that's a really interesting question. So I, for a long time thought, oh no, not me. Because of all of the reasons that I think women in particular are denied a diagnosis, I. Did well in school. I loved school. of course there were subjects and classes that I struggled with, but I didn't have a hard time keeping up with homework. got good grades and I haven't struggled to hold down a job. Like I've heard so many people with stories of oh, I to get a diagnosis, but my doctor said, you work full time, I've told myself all those stories too. But the more I learn about folks with A DHD and the more I learn about the way, female presenting people mask a DHD symptoms, and the more I learn about my clients and how things show up for them, I think, you know what? I think that probably is true. So I'm not diagnosed. I was saying to you before we started recording. The highly sensitive person profile definitely fits me. that's of course not a psychological diagnosis, but it's a profile that I really resonate with strongly and for so long, that was how I explained the things about myself, that didn't seem like, things other people did, but now I'm starting to see myself through a different kind of lens. Yeah. That helps me relate to clients. so often clients say something that I think, wow, I have never put that together before, but that actually fits me too. Oh, that's fascinating. And I wanna, first, I just wanna highlight the fact that so many of the people listening are either late diagnosed, then diagnosed their whole lives, or at least as a young child, or they're in the middle. They either don't know how to seek a diagnosis or they're like getting close to it, but it's too expensive. All those other things. Yes. Or just exploring what it means to have a DHD and I. I just wanna highlight that it's okay to be wherever you need to be in this journey. Especially with social media right now, I've seen videos coming up about this is what real A DHD is, and if you don't have this, then you don't have real A DHD. And I was like, oh my gosh, all of us are trying to figure this shit out and we don't need someone else coming in here and telling us what we should and shouldn't think about ourselves because right at the end of the day, it's so individualistic it. pursue or avoid getting diagnoses for very individual, unique reasons. It's a long process. It's an expensive process. in some cases, having the diagnosis can make people feel a little more limited. But yeah, it's a framework through which you can understand yourself, but it doesn't explain everything about. The layered and beautiful human being that you are. we all, I don't think the goal for anybody should be to explain everything about themselves through any kind of diagnosis or label because so much of what we do and the way we think and move through the world is just who we are, and it's helpful. It can be helpful, again to have like frameworks, archetypes, templates. It can't explain everything about who you are, and no one person can explain the holistic view of somebody else. So yeah, people having the audacity to say oh, you don't do fill in the blank. You can't have adhd, especially when it's medical and mental health professionals who are denying people their lived experience, that's, that can be really harmful. And I see that in clients too. Absolutely. And that's so frustrating. And so if you're listening to this and you are struggling with that, just want you to know that you're accepted here no matter where you are on this journey. Back to you. Tell us what the heck is executive function coaching? Yes. I'm sighing a little bit because, just going behind the scenes of marketing yourself as a coach. Sometimes ends up being more of a full-time job than coaching itself. I wish there was a succinct, clear way to explain what I do, because I am an executive function coach. That's the term for the types of skills that I help people with. But if you don't know what that means, executive functioning actually is the set of cognitive skills that help us execute functions. So it's the skills that help us get things done in everyday life. we tend to talk about it in academic and work context, but it's so much more than that. A metaphor that I've heard is it's like air traffic control for your brain. So in the same way that air traffic control agents don't actually mechanically fly and land the plane themselves, but they set up the conditions so that things happen in the right order. thinking a couple steps ahead, making a plan, setting priorities, managing time, avoiding distractions, saying this isn't. Important right now. I'll come back to that later. It's all of those skills that help us set up the conditions so that we can get things done in everyday life. Wow. So why do people with A DHD struggle with executive function? It's a really good question, and I also think it's important for people to know you don't. Either diagnosed or suspected to struggle with executive functioning. and not all of my clients do have a DH ADHD or even suspect that they have a DH adhd. But I would say the reason that humans in general struggle with executive functioning is because we have to continue that air traffic control metaphor. We have so much on our radar at all times. And you were mentioning like preparing for moving. I mean there's so much that goes with that life change that's on your radar and in the background all the time. And so no matter who you are, you have a limited amount of that cognitive energy per day to use. And if you are sleep deprived and anxious and. Chronically stressed or dealing with chronic pain, if you have unresolved emotional conflicts that are on your radar, all of that stuff takes away from that cognitive energy. And there's a common misconception that if you have a DHD, you don't have as much attention, capacity as other people do. Which is not true. It just means you struggle to control where that attention goes. So for folks with A DHD, if they're already naturally struggling to attend to things, to hold things in their working memory, a lot of it is decision fatigue too. Trying to prioritize takes a lot of decision making energy, and so just having your energy put in so many different places all the time, of course, it's hard to manage your time and to set priorities and to break a big plan into steps. No, that's huge. I think when I first got diagnosed with A-D-H-D-I. Just naturally thought, oh cool. I just can't focus on things. And I went through this denial period and I'm like, maybe I don't have adhd. And they were wrong. And I've actually talked to so many other people and they're like, I went through the same thing. It's just this weird thing where you don't even realize that you are in denial and you think you just know so much more. But one thing I didn't realize were how many. Aspects of A-D-H-D-I didn't understand, I just thought that A DHD meant oh, hyperactive, but how does that relate to me? And when it comes to executive function, I have this all or nothing mentality, and I still do, I still have this all or nothing mentality, but because I'm aware of my executive dysfunction, I understand that it's hard for me to go at something. And break it up into small steps. But when I remember that, when I say, oh, I want all or nothing, but I know that there's certain things that I have to do first. Yes. What's one thing I could do right now? I love that it helps me break it down into the smallest thing I could possibly do. Yes. So like I know that's something that we address in coaching. For organizing, right? When it comes to executive function coaching, what do people typically reach out to you for? what is their struggle? What are they trying to achieve, and what kind of transformations do you help them achieve? Yeah, that's a great question. It's a great multi-part question that, yeah, you might have to remind me of some of the later parts. It's interesting too, because. People reach out to me for so many different reasons and it's often what they think they want to work on is not what we actually end up working on. Which is really, I love that. I love that. Like I love that organic process of coaching and just seeing what emerges. But I would say I could name some typical patterns when people reach out to. Formed relationships with three different library systems in the area here. And I hold events and give presentations about executive functioning at those libraries. So often people will come to that because they'll see keywords like time management or procrastination, things where they think oh, I know what that looks like for me. I wanna go hear more about this and myself. And that's often how people learn the term executive functioning. So often people come to presentations and then they hear, oh, that's me. That's the thing I do. That's the thing I need help with. And they'll reach out after they have heard me give a presentation. So that's one. another one is I think often people expressed needs for themselves, come out of like quarterly meetings with supervisors at work because they'll use very corporate language about I need help with my time management and productivity, or, I need help managing my progress through long term tasks. Like often there's a work oriented. Productivity need that people come to me for. And then I also have people who often have gotten a recent A DH ADHD diagnosis or, have started to suspect it about themselves and they feel like it often the language is I need help getting that under control. which is always. Interest in a coaching relationship to help somebody break down. what does that actually mean for you to have your ADHD under control? Where is that messaging coming from? Is this actually something that's necessary or is it something you've been told is necessary? there's so much to unravel there. so I would say those are probably three common patterns that people come to me for. But again, I think there are like undercurrents of needs beneath those things that often come out. I'll just, give a not specific enough to be personal example from a client that I worked with. So there was somebody who came to me because he was getting distracted during the day and he thought he needed help avoiding distractions. So that was like what he told me he needed a coach for and after, really coaching, it's a lot of conversation. it's uncovering patterns and helping people figure out what they know about themselves. that client and I figured out that really what he needed help with was figuring out what was useful about that. Kind of distraction, because if we do something over and over again, it's usually serving some kind of purpose. So figuring out what was useful about that and validating that need, not shutting it off and avoiding it, but finding healthy, balanced ways to engage with what was the very real need underneath that. That's a good example of often people say, I need help with, fill in the blank. There's so much more underneath that, and I love helping people figure that out. Ooh, I like that a lot. And I, what's beautiful about that is when it comes to A DHD, a lot of the times we're trying to find solutions that are a neurotypical solution. with time management, I need to have a perfect schedule that I follow to a t every single day. And if I fail, then I'm a failure, right? Yes. But you're gonna help me do that. Help me find this perfect schedule. Yeah. I will adhere to every day, when in reality it's about finding what works for you specifically. Absolutely. And I think on top of that, our culture is I don't know how to say it, but it's, this common cultural messaging of if you find the right product coach planner thing to throw money at. Problem. And so I think I see that in coaching too. I see people who think this is gonna be the thing that if I spend money on a coaching package, it's gonna fix it and I'm never gonna have any problems. But helping people realize, like it's so much more complicated than that, but we're taught that if we just find the thing to throw money at, that's going to fix it. and part of it is just We know we need tools to survive. Yes. There's so many incredible tools out there. Yes. But there's no one tool that's gonna solve everything for us. It's about making a decision to change too, and knowing that it can't happen overnight. And breaking it down and figuring out like, what's one step that I can take toward this future? I wanna live. Yes. I love that. And I think too, we're using tools. It's an interactive relationship because it's not just about the tool, it's about the person who's using it. And we have to understand both how the tool works, but what do we know about ourselves that makes that tool the right fit for us? Just applying a tool without understanding our own needs it, it might work for a couple days and it might be interesting, but it's not really going to be sustainable if you don't understand your relationship with. The tool and like the bigger need. Yeah. What is really interesting, so I have a community. I think you have a community too, don't you? yes. I definitely wanna talk about that. Yeah.'cause my goal for this podcast isn't for you to just fall in love with me and work with only me. It's really just, if you're listening to this, I want you to find the right person for you. If I'm your person, I'm credible, but if Kate's your person. Also incredible because I can't serve the world. Kate can't serve the world. It's about listening and figuring out who speaks to you so that you can now take the next steps towards figuring out your A DHD. So case in point, in my community this month, we are talking about the tools that we've used and then have gone to the tool graveyard, right? Like it's the planner that we started using and then it like goes and lives in the corner. that was in the month of June. So as I'm going through all of my stuff in my home, I found my Fitbit and I was like, why did I stop using this? So I put it on my right hand and I was like, oh my gosh, I hate the way that it feels. That's why I stopped using it. So then my husband was like, put it on your left hand. Maybe that'll be better for you. And I was like, sure. I guess I'll try that. But I put it on my left hand and I was like, still hate it, hate this feeling. But I wanted to try it because I liked like the aspect of it. Just this tracking thing. Yeah. Where I didn't have to bring my phone everywhere. I had something. So then I watched a video real quick because it was doing some sort of scan on my body and I'm like, this is cool. I watched the video, it showed me where to put it on my wrist, and it wasn't where I had it. So I had been wearing it on the wrong space on my wrist the whole time. So after watching this video, a cute little how to video, that took me 30 seconds. I've now figured out how to use my Fitbit in a way that works amazing for me. Knowing that I've had a Fitbit, I probably would've never gone out and bought one again, but I found it. I decided to try to use it. Then I watched a video to show me how, and that made all the difference in the world. And so for me, like a lot of the times when it comes to tools, it's that dopamine hit. I get this dopamine hit right away. I am so excited about it. Yes. And when I go back to it or when I try, or like sometimes I'll just forget about it and that's okay too. But if you do have a tool that you've left and you wanna come back to it, you can. That's available to you. So anyways, I had to highlight that. Yeah. I was like, holy crap, this whole time, yes. I've been just wearing it wrong. yes. Can I say something about that actually, yes, please do. Yeah. So something that my coaching brain is attending to is, it sounds like the way you had been wearing it before, it sounds like there may have been a sensory issue underneath that. I see this with clients too, like there's often a sensory and or processing need underneath a tool not working for you. Like an example that comes to mind is people who put reminders on their digital calendar and they get the popups. But if you're not a strong visual processor, all of those alerts just fade into the background. It's like noise. So you're following advice that works for a lot of people, and that is something that I think calendar reminders can work for both neurotypical and neuro divergent people, but it might not work with your individual processing and sensory profile. So that's an example where if you keep forcing yourself to keep up with. Appointments in exactly that way because you tell yourself it should work because it works for quote unquote everybody else. But if there's a very real reason why that doesn't work for you, you're not honoring yourself and it's not gonna stick. And working with a coach allows them to say what's not working and why? What's the barrier there? yes. Yeah. help me understand the barrier, because there's something that's making you not wanna go back to that. I love that. Yeah. I love the coaching question of what has almost worked for you in the past, woo. That tells you so much as a coach. Oh my gosh, that's such a good question. Yes. I love it. Feel free to steal and share. That's a great one. Oh my God. Because I don't even remember where I heard that. I think probably on a podcast. And I think also having people name what doesn't work for you is really useful. But what almost worked for you? I think that's really cool. It's so interesting too because a lot of people come to me, they've read all the books, they've listened to all the podcasts, they almost know more about organizing than I do, and I'm like, yeah, they subscribe to all the YouTube channels. Yeah. I'm like, whoa, you guys are fans of this organizing stuff. But so far they haven't been able to get anything to stick. And that's when you need a coach to drive the action, there's something missing between The knowledge point and the action piece. That's where a lot of us get hung up to is we've done all the research and we know what to do. We're so incredibly intelligent and we've not only gained the knowledge, but now we've created all of these new neuro pathways to create all of these other beautiful and brilliant ways to accomplish something. But now we don't know where to start I wanted to ask you, you had talked about being a highly sensitive person earlier. Can you tell us a little bit more about. What that actually looks like, because I've heard a lot of therapists talk about it and like I've, you tell me I'm highly sensitive, Yeah. Uhhuh. Uhhuh, yes. Yeah. So what does it mean to be a highly sensitive person? Ooh, that's a good question. And I will admit this is not something I have Read up on recently, Do you wanna Google it? Okay, let's do it. While you do that, I'm gonna talk a little bit too and say I do think, I feel a weird pressure to cite my sources as I talk about things. And it's a balance between, I wanna give credit to the people. Who have come with the ideas, but I think there's also this weird fear of I don't want people to think that. I think I came up with this idea because I know I didn't. I think that's a really interesting point that you bring up because when I first entered the organizing world, I thought I had to come up with my own method, my own way of doing things. And everything had to be unique, this is where my political science degree comes into play, is that all of these ancient philosophers literally learned from one another. Plato? To Socrates, to Aristotle. It's a legacy. They learned from one another and as they learned. Their brains created this new way of thinking and this evolved way of thinking to this point that yes, now we are inundated with so much information. And yes, there are some unique and beautiful ideas out there, but we're living in this day and age where there's actually not a ton of unique ideas anymore. We're all getting ideas from one another. And it's more just about supporting one another and like just by you and I having a conversation, Kate, I already have new coaching questions to ask and like I love it. We're literally learning from one another.. Yeah, cite the sources, cite the information, the studies, the deliciousness, and yep. There's so much to be said from gaining this information from reliable sources and moving on and sharing it and Letting that be what we gain from it. But I feel you on that so much. Yeah. Thank you for that. So a highly sensitive person. I just Googled this. This is literally the AI overview on Google. So a highly sensitive person is someone with a heightened sensitivity to physical, emotional, and social stimuli. This trait, also known as sensory processing sensitivity affects about 15 to 20% of the population. HSPs experience the world more deeply leading to both challenges and strengths. Key characteristics are heightened sensory awareness, easily overwhelmed by loud noises, bright lights, strong smells and crowded places. Deep emotional processing, empathy and intuition. Intricate inner life. So they tend to be thoughtful. Reflective. Have a rich inner world. Creativity and appreciation for beauty. They have a deep appreciation for art, music, and other forms of beauty. My husband took me to a show last week. We went to see Ann Juliet in Denver, and it was. So good. And I'm sitting there imagining myself up on stage, singing and dancing and I'm a part of it all. And yeah, like that is, that's me to a tee. Thanks for that overview. That kind of helped jog my memory of, when you know something about yourself so deeply, you almost forget how to define it to other people because you're so up here and you have to verbalize it. Oh my, yeah. Most of us have only one brain our whole lives, and you don't know what it's like in somebody else's brain. For me it shows up in a couple different ways. I do think I have felt, I've realized that something that is just true at the core of my being is a deep emotional connection to music. and we'll see if I can talk about this without getting choked up, but it's okay if I do. Mom tells me when I was really young in church. Before I could really talk much like I would cry silently, just like tears coming down my face at the somber sad music in church. And she said she just picked up on I could emotionally feel music before I could talk about it. And I have just always felt so much solace in listening to music. I don't play music. I went through a. For a while, which we don't wanna talk about that. But I just remember feeling not consistently throughout childhood, but there were definitely periods, particularly in middle school, where I felt lonely and misunderstood and music helped me feel comforted. I've always had a love of deeply listening to music and picking apart the layers and noticing things. So I think I pick up on things that other people wouldn't. I also feel like I'm one of those people who notices subtle shifts in other people's body language and tone of voice and mood. Which can be helpful coaching for sure. I read people well, on subtle levels. I'm definitely distracted by noises one of the worst is if I hear like a squeaking or a buzzing or a beeping in the background, and I don't know where it's coming from. It's really hard for me to focus on anything else until I figure out what that noise is. I feel weather changes in my body. I often get really bad headaches when a pressure changes coming, and that's been true for me as long as I can remember. I also think I'm more, in tune with my body than some people are. I usually know when I'm getting sick really early. I used to get a sinus infection every year without fail really. And I would go to urgent care and I would know that I had a sinus infection too early for it to show up in the test. I remember a couple times, like having to come back in two days and then they said, oh, you have a sinus infection. yes, I've known this for two or three days. but again, and some of those things I feel like I'm always picking up on, like environmental stimuli. Is that highly sensitive? Is that a DHD? Is that anxiety, like I wanna know what's gonna happen. So I'm scanning my environment. there's so much overlap between those things and it's interesting but complicated. I feel that so much and yeah. How does it show up for you? what's really interesting is the labels we feel like we need to put on it, but also. It just is like that is my lived experience. It's your lived experience. Music is huge for me, so I have sang my whole life and what's really powerful, I went to school for music and then my dad told me that I would never make any money in music, and so I switched to a business major and then didn't know what I wanted to do. Finally switched to a political science major, but music. Is something I've always come back to. Like in my community, one of the first things I did was create playlists. I was like, oh, use these to declutter too, because it's so important you get that dopamine hit. Even now in the world, I'm seeing all these new creators come up with the sounds that they're creating with their voices. It's nothing like I've ever heard before. Just like our world is evolving in thought and organization and understanding who we are as people more, I also see this evolution in music and the artists that are out there. I wanna sing, but I'm like, oh my, I don't think there's a place for me out there anymore, but I love singing so much that I do it regardless. that's gonna happen. Good, good. Yes. But there's something more about it. It is really deeply emotional for me as well, when you were talking, it reminded me about when I was younger, I made so many mixed CDs. I would make them for my sister, I would make them for my friends, and they would be called all the most ridiculous things. And yeah, that was such a fun way for me to say these are all my favorite songs right now. I think that they should be your favorite songs too. That was my love language of giving music, I was really into the glee soundtracks and musicals and things like that. And some of my friends would make fun of me for it. And then I thought, I was like, oh, these aren't things that I should be like, that's not as cool, right? So I need to stop liking that as much. I should like these things. I think that's something that we recognize is that. Oh, I see that you don't necessarily like that about me. I don't have to like something just because the world expects me to like something, I don't have to say something just because the world accepts me to say this because I'm actually not gonna please everyone around me, in fact, I'm never going to be able to make everyone happy, so I should just make myself happy. because when I'm happy, everyone else around me gets to be happy too. It's infectious. But that's a beautiful thing and that is something that is Just beautiful. I keep coming back to that word about whether it's high sensitivity or neurodivergence or just who you are as a person, but like the ability to be vulnerable by showing your own enthusiasm and helping other people bring that out in themselves, I think is just, it's so beautiful. But that you're right. Like in the end, if I enjoy it. That's something that I really, I have figured out about myself now that I've gotten a divorce and I'm living by myself for the first time as an adult, but like really getting to figure out like what is important to me and what do I enjoy when I'm by myself and learning to, I love my own company. Love the same things that you do. that's just, it's a gift, it's a bonus. And it's not necessary to have people who like the same things that you do. But man, it's fun when you find that. my partner also really loves music and he plays music. And it's been cool because he understands how music is made and. The way songs are composed, but we love making song chains, so what we do is we make a shared playlist. I thought of this when you said making playlists earlier, but like one of us will pick a song to start and then the other one will pick a song that's similar to it in some way. oh, like the tone of the guitars is really similar in this second song. Or the baseline reminds me of this song, or. This song is about whatever the topic is. Here's another one about that. Yeah. And we'll just build a chain and take turns picking the songs. But then it's a cool thing like then when we're driving around to listen back to these song chains that we have made. And it's just, it's so much fun. It's such a cool way to engage with music and I love it. That's my new favorite thing. Great. That's so cool. When it comes to coaching and what we do. I know that. When I'm working with someone, they're so buried in stuff and executive dysfunction impulsivity that it's hard to truly embrace how a DHD could be a positive thing and how it can be something that you can thrive with. Right? Which is why like that whole superpower, non superpower, our whole argument exists with coaching. What I've noticed is that by letting go and uncovering how to work with your brain, you get to discover some of these incredible things that either you did have previously or new things now that, I don't have as much stuff in my home. My future is so much more clear because I'm not holding on to my past. It's been really cool to see that in so many of my clients. And so as you see people discovering how they can get a hold of their future, what have you noticed for them? Yeah, that's a great question. I was thinking too about all or nothing thinking patterns which show up so often for people with a DHD. And about how it's natural to. Throughout your lifetime. Yeah, but sometimes people who are in those all or nothing thinking patterns, forget that. So they think either this is a lifelong hobby or if I take a break from it, I'm never gonna do it again. And of course that's not true. What do you see when people start to get a hold of how to work with their own brain? What kind of transformations do you see? And how do you see that? Opening up their own possibilities of how they can live their life to the fullest, listening to more music or like discovering a new hobby, things like that. I would definitely consider myself a strengths based coach. so helping people build on their strengths. And when people. Hear that oh, capitalize on your strengths. Build on your strengths. It can sometimes be received in like a participation trophy kind of way of that's just something that a coach does to make me feel better about myself. But it's not, you're right that A DHD does present individual strengths for people. So one example is that people who have DHD are often good at recognizing patterns. If people don't already know that about themselves, helping them realize that and then seeing how they can use that as a way to continue learning about themselves. So like they know that they hate the paperwork that they have to do at work, but getting them to pick that apart and figure out like, what does that. That particular dreaded task, what pattern exists there that shows up in other places in your life and then getting a new lens to understand things like, it's not about the paperwork, it's that I have to do it in isolation, or, somebody else dictates the timeline. I have to get that done, whatever it is, like helping people use their strengths to figure out what is true about them. Then gives them a pathway to move forward. And just that question of like when people struggle, helping them not ask themselves What is wrong with me? Or why can't I do this? But what do I know about myself that is making this hard right now? That is such an empowering way to think of your life, to be able to think of. What is true about me, not what is wrong with me, but what is true about me that makes this hard. Figuring that out for themselves can be just really empowering. Yeah, and also to that point, what is true about me? based on what I have believed about myself for so long. But how can I change that belief to create a new truth? Yeah. And what does that look like? What kind of action steps can I take in that direction? Like one of my first coaching clients ever told me I can't be organized, so why would I even try? And it's'cause she thought that once she got organized, she wasn't gonna be able to sustain it. And so of course if you believe that, that will be your truth. Of course, if you believe that you're always gonna be playing catch up and always going to be in this zone of like constantly go, go, go. Or on the flip side, constantly immobile trying to just figure out what's next, but not being able to actually take action on it, then that's gonna be your truth. I love having a podcast'cause it just allows us to not only talk about what we do, but Genuinely how we approach the world and the things that we truly love about what we do, and of course how we live our lives. So tell us a little bit about how people can work with you and how people can get in touch with you. Sure. Yeah. And I wanted to say earlier,'cause I don't think I named it, I really appreciate that you said, you want people to find the right person for them. Yeah. And I really appreciate that and that's important in my work too. like sometimes we have realized. There's actually a different type of coach that they need, or therapy is more of a priority than working on executive function coaching. But yeah, it's really important for people to find what they need in the moment. my website is stage BF. and that's a great place to learn about the two main coaching packages that I offer. there is also a place to learn about the events, the virtual and in-person events, including my library events that I hold. And I also have a pretty new. Discord, accountability community called the Sage Collective. And there's information about that on my website as well. But, I have a couple different levels of membership. I have text-based only support, and we've got channels for. Resource. We have a hive mind channel where we do group troubleshooting. of course we've got memes and a pets channel and a tangents channel and stuff like that too. But we also have, body doubling, virtual coworking that we do. There's a two hour block every week. But also the option to set up your own coworking session at any time. I have office hours where people can drop in for help, and I have a once a month open house event, which anybody who's interested in the community can join. And I call that my monthly plan and prep event, where we look ahead to the next month and talk about things that might be on our calendars, how to plan for them. Birthdays we need to buy cards for. if you've got vacation planning in time to get ready for that. Anything like that. Really just group brainstorming, planning to get ready for the month ahead. it's still pretty new, but I'm really proud of it and I've been getting great feedback about it. It's so cool. Oh my gosh. I love so many of those ideas. Yeah. That's so awesome. Thank you. Kate, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. I'm so excited to share you with my audience and I hope you have a great day. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed re-listening to that episode. There were so many nuggets of really great information and I learned so much from Kate just speaking with her. Kate and I were talking at one point learning how to work with your brain, and when it comes to the perfect schedule, I had talked about. This is the schedule I'm gonna work with every single day, and it's going to be perfect. We expect perfection from ourselves because let's be honest, there are some days where we show up and it's absolutely incredible. But part of our neurodivergent brain is that we exist in a different capacity as we show up on a regular basis. We're gonna show up some days and we're gonna be ready to conquer the world, and we're gonna show up some days and we can't understand why we can't do the damn thing that we put on our to-do list to do that day. Sometimes it's just one thing and we're like, oh my gosh, why can't I possibly execute this? Understanding that about ourselves allows us to figure out the type of schedule that works for us, the type of tool that works for us. Because what's also interesting about this is that just because you know something works for one A DHD brain doesn't mean that it's gonna work for yours. That's why when it comes to coaching, it's not a one size fits all. It's not about knowing the exact process. It's about understanding the person that you're working with so that you can help them find the solutions that are gonna work for them. So often people come to me and they're like, well, what do you do? How do you do this? And how do you do that? And I'll provide suggestions, absolutely. But when I write myself help book, it's going to be about. Asking yourself the question, how could this work for me? Or based on the way that I learn things, how might this not work for me? Could I still give it a try? Knowing what I know and understanding who I am so that I can make the next best decision for myself? I find this really interesting and I didn't truly get into the weeds with this, but I wanted to get into a little bit of the weeds as I summarized this because it is really important when you're trying to understand what works for you because you know it might work that you wake up super early and it might work that you sleep until 9:00 AM. It just depends on who you are and what your needs are, and you get to decide. What works for you and let that be your success. I also loved when Kate pointed out that I had a sensory issue with my Fitbit. I did have a sensory issue and honestly, I stopped using it all together. Actually, in one of my webinars that I looked at it and I was like, and honestly I don't even like it. I tried it again. I don't like it. I've examined it, I've asked the questions. It's just not something that's gonna work for me. But I gave it a really good try. There's aspects of it that I do really like, but sensory things, especially on my wrists, I've noticed are very important. I can't wear things on my wrist. That's not the case for everyone, but I now know that about myself, and it could be that I find something that works a little bit differently. That's okay too. What's interesting about organizing and coaching in the A DHD is that the more I learn, the more I realize how much there is to learn how much information is out there to help people and guide them and to support them in what works for them. Coming back to what I had said earlier about some of my clients that come to me and know everything there is to know about organizing, but nothing works for them. A lot of the times we do all this research and we're like, oh my gosh, I don't know where to start. I don't know how to do this. I don't know which method I'm gonna start with, and therefore I don't know what I'm going to try first. It's almost better that you go into it with a blank slate because knowing too much can prevent you from taking those next steps. But once you start, you start to understand what could work for you, what could make sense, and then you get to ask those questions of what I like what Kate was saying. What's something that's almost worked for you in the past and identifying the barrier to making that become something that could work so much more. Also wasn't Kate's idea of the song chain, the coolest idea in the entire world. I am gonna go to my Spotify, create a new playlist, and start this with my husband immediately. He loves music. I love music, and it's something that we bonded over when we first met, I hope you all go and check out Kate and just understand that there's options for you out there. I will say coaching is not always the most affordable solution, but it gives you some really awesome updates on how to have some guidance for the future, and if coaching is not right for you financially. Check out some of these communities that are out there, whether it's mine, whether it's Kate's, there's so many, i've had Russ from the A DHD, big Brother on here. He's got an awesome community. Find other people who have brains that work like yours because you will find that those people will help lift you up and help you understand yourself, help you celebrate yourself in a way that you never thought possible. And we thrive when we have praise. It's important to recognize the positive, as I have been mentioning, I'm not currently taking on any new coaching clients as I'm focusing on supporting the amazing women and men I'm already working with right now. And while the A DHD organizing community is closed to new members for now. It will reopen in the fall. If you would like to be the first to know when spots open, you can join the wait list for coaching or the community at organizing an ADHD brain.com/community. I'll be keeping you up to date with anything and everything that's going to be coming up this fall. Just remember that no matter where you are, the perfect place to start is exactly where you are. On that note, I'll see you next week.