ACO Conference 2012: reflections on my return

Wednesday, March 28, 2012 4 Comments

Amazing! Start saving NOW to BE there next year!

I just returned from speaking at the 5th Annual ADHD Coaches Organization [ACO] conference at the at the beautiful Crowne Plaza Hotel in Atlanta.  WHAT an experience!  

Congratulations to 2012 conference chair, Judith Champion, and her conference team, along with my gratitude for a simply stellar experience.  What a banquet!

I have to second Dr. Charles Parker’s comment in the post-conference article on his Corepsychblog, “If you are an ADHD coach and haven’t yet connected with the ACO  . . .  now is the time to get on it and get cracking.”

Silver and Gold

As always, I made new friends as I connected with long-time friends and colleagues. I also had the pleasure of seeing former students “all grown up,” giving those of us who are “old-timers” brand new inspiration.  I am still grinning ear-to-ear now that I am home and [partially] unpacked.

As usual, ADD Coaches came from across the United States and, as expected, many of our Canadian colleagues made the trip.

The surprise was attendance from as far away as Stockholm, Germany and Shanghai, eager to add their voices to the mix and to ask for our help bringing ADD Coaching to their countries.

As the founder of the world’s first ADD-specific coaching curriculum and co-founder of the ADD Coaching field itself, I was and am overwhelmed with gratitude for the beautiful garden that is growing now from seeds I planted decades ago.  I stand amazed at all the “new varieties” being developed all over the world — without my having to lift a single shovel!

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Can This ADDer Be Saved? – Part 4

Wednesday, January 25, 2012 Leave a comment

Finding the Right ADD Coach for YOU
– Ten Points from Katy 

*”Katy,” “Barb,” and the details of this story are a composite of the process and progress of several ADDers working with the author, to honor the confidentiality of the client/coach alignment and to better illustrate a sense of the ADD Coaching process.
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 Click HERE to read PART 3 :” Katy’s Coaching Notebook

Katy suggests you make SURE you can answer yes to each of the following ten points as you interview coaches to work with YOUR precious life. (Barb says, “Interview, schminterview, go with your gut!”).

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Can This ADDer Be Saved? – Part 3

Monday, January 23, 2012 Leave a comment

Keeping Track to Focus Energy


*”Katy,” “Barb,” “Donna,” and the details of this story are a composite of the process and progress of several ADDers working with the author, to honor the confidentiality of the client/coach alignment and to better illustrate a sense of the ADD Coaching process.
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As you learned in Part-2, Katy did something that is still rather unusual in the ADD world:

She called an ADD Coach immediately.

Katy had already learned a lot about ADD listening to her best friend Barb’s process since her diagnosis.  She just never imagined that any of her own struggles might be ADD-related.

She and Barb were so different.  SHE had always been so competent! Barb had always been the maverick. Still, the more Barb talked, that fateful day in the kitchen, the more she could see how similar differences might have different presentations. Besides, Katy was sick and tired of being sick and tired, and was desperate for explanations, if not answers.

If it worked for Barb . . .

Katy could really see the difference in Barb since she started working with Donna, her ADD Coach.  Not only had Barb learned a great deal more about ADD, she had been dreaming about becoming a professional photographer since the day they first met. Only since working with Donna was she finally doing anything besides dreaming about it.

Donna helped Barb figure out what it would take, and then coached her through each of the steps on her road.  Barb hadn’t found her dream job yet, and she certainly isn’t pulling in a six-figure salary, but some of her photos were beginning to show up in print somewhere besides her basement studio.

Katy wanted the kind of focused guidance Barb had received prioritizing her inevitable next steps, without upsetting the tenuous control she exerted over the responsibilities she was juggling already.

Tracking in her Coaching Notebook

Donna, Katy’s ADD Coach (as well as Barb’s), requests that each of her clients immediately set up a coaching notebook: a three ringed binder with tabbed dividers, where they can securely “file” everything coaching-related in one easy-to-locate, easy-to-update, easy-to-grab location.

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Can This ADDer Be Saved? – Part 2

Sunday, January 22, 2012 Leave a comment

Katy Hires an ADD Coach

*”Katy,” “Barb,” “Donna” and the details of this story are a composite of the process and progress of several ADDers working with the author, to honor the confidentiality of the client/coach alignment and to better illustrate a sense of the ADD Coaching process.
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 Click HERE to read PART 1 of this story

You GO Girl!

After that fateful day when Katy finally “hit the wall,” she did something that is still rather unusual in the ADD world: she began looking for an ADD Coach immediately.

She had already learned a lot about ADD listening to her best friend Barb’s process since her diagnosis, and could really see the difference since Barb started working with her Coach.

Katy knew right away that she, too, wanted help identifying and prioritizing each of the inevitable next steps.  She didn’t have time to agonize over how to proceed without upsetting the tenuous control she exerted over the responsibilities she was already juggling.

But which coach?

Although she liked Barb’s Coach Donna immediately, felt she could trust her, and could tell that Donna had a lot of information about ADD, she was initially concerned that the sessions would take place over the telephone.

Katy was also dubious that she needed a Coach and a therapist, and more than a little ambivalent about the possibility of medication — even though she was ready to embrace any diagnosis that would offer an explanation for her feeling that she was always “swimming against the current, swept backwards every time she missed a single stroke!”

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Can This ADDer be Saved?

Sunday, January 22, 2012 2 Comments

A Coaching Story - Part 1

*”Katy,” “Barb,” “Donna” and the details of this story are a composite of the process and progress of several ADDers working with the author, to honor the confidentiality of the client/coach alignment and to better illustrate a sense of the ADD Coaching process.
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Like many of us, Katy Nolan was a full time homemaker with a full-time job.

She adored her husband Paul, a terrific father, but not really much help around the house: not really much help with anything having  anything to DO with running a household, actually.

Sometimes she joked that she had three kids — Mary, her second-grader, Tom her big fourth-grader, and Paul, the baby! Fortunately, Katy was one of the most organized women anyone knew, so she managed somehow to keep the homefires burning along with the demands of  a high-stress job.

Most days she felt on top of things, but she went to bed exhausted every night and woke up every morning dreading the day.  She loved her job, her kids, her marriage, and their newly remodeled home — but deep in her heart she hated her life.

“What’s wrong with me?” she often wondered.

THE DAY THE WORLD CHANGED

The words that started Katy’s day were about the worst she could possibly imagine, “Mommy, I don’t feel very good!”

“Not today!” she complained under her breath, feeling guilty for the thought.
“Please let her be well enough to go to school today and I promise I’ll be Florence Nightingale tomorrow!”

Her upcoming week was booked solid with urgent work to-dos and a million errands related to the upcoming Easter holiday. She had taken the day off to work on an important report due Friday — without the distractions of the office.

For some reason, she just couldn’t manage to get her thoughts on paper with the constant ringing of the telephone and chatting of her office-mates, along with the frequent interruptions of her new boss, the micro-manager’s micro-manager. Her recent memo about the “slippage” of the quality of Katy’s reports was scathing.

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Trusting YOUR Instincts about FIT – Part 4

Friday, December 30, 2011 Leave a comment

You CAN Trust Your Instincts

Listen with an Open Heart and an Open Mind

Listen to the coaches you interview with an open mind.  Expect them each to have certain procedures and standards you will be requested  to agree to follow if you coach with them.

A coach for whom “anything goes” will probably not be the best coach for you in the long run.  Listen to why they feel their procedures are important and what they are designed to accomplish.

THEN listen to your heart and instincts. 

Although NO relationship with another will ever be “perfect,” keep looking until you find a situation you can relax into, *especially* if you get the sense that you are being talked into something you’re not sure you want.

Don’t forget that you don’t have to be *right* about your instincts to keep looking. 

It’s enough that you don’t *feel* right.  Part of the process of coaching involves getting in touch with the truth of the fact that you CAN trust your instincts and that you CAN trust another to listen to some of the “dumb” things you do without making you feel, well, DUMB.

Nowhere is trusting your instincts more important than in the process of selecting a coach you will be trusting with your LIFE! 

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Coaches, Dentists, and FIT – Part 3

Thursday, December 29, 2011 Leave a comment

Coaches, Dentists, and FIT

Every Coach is Unique

No two coaches will work in exactly the same way –

just as each dentist goes about things
a bit differently from the rest of his colleagues,

and just as there are specializations
within the field of dentistry.

For example:

  • Not all dentists are qualified to do root canals.
  • Some don’t specialize in them, so haven’t performed
    very many as a result.
  • For some, root canals are a practice focus.
  • Still others do root canals for other dentists.

I know which ones I’d interview about doing MY root canal!

What does THAT have to do with ADD Coaching?

ADD Coaching is a specialized skill requiring a LOT of knowledge beyond the basic coaching skill set.

If you are dealing with ADD, make *sure* any coach you hire is an ADD COACH, not just “a coach who knows about ADD” –

and certainly not a coach who knows little to NOTHING about ADD! 

  • The difference between an ADD Coach and any other kind is specialized training in Attentional Spectrum issues.
  • There IS no FIT if your coach knows little more about ADD than YOU do!

THEN you want to find the “right” ADD Coach.  You’ll check out their training, knowledge, and experience of course, but the main thing that will make a particular coach right for YOU is what we call “fit” in the coaching world.

The right fit will make all the difference.

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Shopper’s Syndrome and FIT – Part 2 of a Series

Tuesday, December 27, 2011 Leave a comment

Fit-based Coaching

Finding the RIGHT Coach for you

Dear Madelyn,

There is a lot of talk right now about how
important finding the right coach can be
to an ADDer’s overall success. 

How will I know what to look for?

And how will I be able to tell when
I’ve found the right coach?

Thanks,

 J.R. (Cleveland)

Dear J.R.,

How wonderful to see that ADD Coaching is no longer at the stage where the questions we receive are, “What is ADD Coaching?”  and beyond, even,
“How can ADD Coaching help ME?”

Questions about finding the right coach and how to work best within the coaching arrangement are EXACTLY the ones that need to be answered!

First of all, there is more than one “right” coach for everyone.

Most comprehensively-schooled coaches have been trained to listen for FIT in the initial interview, and to refer clients who would be better served by another style. You aren’t in any real danger of ending up with the “wrong” coach, as long as you make sure the one you are considering has substantially more than a weekend’s worth of training.

However, your comfort with the interview process is important for your development within the coaching process, so it’s a great question for that reason alone.

The short answer:  The “right” coach is any comprehensively trained coach who is a good match with YOUR communication style, values and vision.**


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A Bunch of Words about FIT – Part 1

Monday, December 26, 2011 Leave a comment

I Don’t Tweet, Don’t Ask Me

You can’t Tweet a novel.

Neither can you expand on a concept effectively when you are limited to a handful of characters barely greater than the number of tiles you might draw in the average game of Scrabble!

Since “profound relating” is at the very top of my personal list of Core Values, I find “Twitter expectations” more than a little unsettling — especially when they are shoved down my throat as THE way to reach your clients (or anyone else!)

I have been accused of a lot of things in my life,
but “brief” was never one of them.

As a result, most of MY students and clients are more likely to appreciate something with a little meat on its bones than to extol the virtues of “The Cliff Notes approach to idea dissemination.”

Some of us LIKE words.  Most of us who like words really don’t care much for “brief.”  It’s a matter of perspective and personal preference, not an addendum to Robert’s Rules of Order.  So when I hear apologies for the length of a post on blog after blog, I want to weep.

For those of us in love with language, LESS is simply … well, less!

It’s a matter of FIT.  And whether you are coach, client, or both, the concept of FIT is probably THE single most important coaching concept underlying coaching success.

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Distinctions: Coaching vs.Therapy

Friday, November 4, 2011 3 Comments

Some of the DIFFERENCES between
 The THERAPIST and The COACH

Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, A.C.T., MCC, SCAC
Dr. Lee Smith, CTP, MCC  ©1994, ’95, ’02, ’11

Obviously, the well-being of the client is the context for this discussion, and determining what kind of assistance is appropriate is an important question.  Why?

Because most coaches are not trained therapists and most therapists are not trained coaches.  


•  For potential clients: the question is, Which do I choose and how do I decide?

•  For helping professionals: the issue becomes when, what, and to which professional to refer.

•  When ADD is part of the picture, the differences between an ADD Coach and any other kind of coach becomes important as well.

Let’s begin the process of differentiating therapy and coaching by focusing only on the items in common with allcoaches, without regard to specialties.

At the end of this article are some links that will help you understand some key differences that only well-trained ADD Coaches understand.  In a future article I will address the issue ADD Coaching differences more directly.

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Distinguishing Distractibility

Monday, October 31, 2011 2 Comments

Distractions! What are they anyway?


A distraction is an involuntary diversion of attention in response to a stimulus – beyond our control.

Distractions have a negative impact on our ability to focus on an intended object and sustain that focus – in other words, a distraction is an intrusion into our attempt to concentrate on the task at hand.

Distractions can be external (nagging at any one of our five senses), or internal (“interruptions” from our own brain wiring or emotional states).

They can be subtle or overt, compelling or mildy irritating, important or trivial, but they ALL pull us off task, despite our best intentions.

ADD or not, ALL distractions reduce our ability to place our full attention where WE choose to concentrate.

• Can you fully concentrate on calculating your tax liability with repeated visits from your young daughter pleading with you to come outside to watch her ride her brand new bicycle?

• Are you able to take complicated directions over the phone while your spouse attempts to impart, in your other ear, something s/he deems important for you to hear RIGHT NOW?

• Are you able to drive through a blinding rain while your young children squabble in the back seat and your young teen blares the latest “Listen, this is so cool!” rap song?

Not really, right? ALL distractions have a negative impact on our ability to focus on the intended stimulus, and sustain the focus, the first two of the three Dynamics of Attending.

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The ADD-ADHD Coachablity Index™

Wednesday, October 26, 2011 Leave a comment

ADD Coachability

In early 1994, to better suit the needs and reflect the brain-based realities of individuals with Attention Deficit Disorder, Madelyn Griffith-Haynie requested and received permission from Thomas J. Leonard to adapt the Coachability Index© that he developed for Coach-U.

The language of The ADD Coachability Index™ reflects the impact of the challenges of Executive Functioning Disorders on learning and accomplishment: brain-based struggles with short-term memory deficits, focus & decision-making, planning & follow-through, sequencing & prioritizing; activation & motivation, mood lability, time-sense & transition-facility chief among them.

©Adaptions and/or duplication must credit both parties

How Coachable are YOU?

Although the magic of ADD Coaching is a product of the
coaching relationship and it’s ability to compensate for
unreliable executive functioning, it only works if and when
clients are ready, willing and able.

Are you READY and WILLING:

  • to take the actions that will be necessary?
  • to make the changes that will be necessary?
  • to step,  with power and ownership, into the life you were destined to live?

Heck yea!  Seriously, who says no to that?
Certainly not an ADDer! We’re always ready (for that last one, anyway)

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Filed under A1a. Executive Functioning Disorders, ADD | ADHD | Attention Deficit Disorder, B. Coaching Concerns, B1. ADDCoach Terms & Tools, B2. Working with an ADD Coach, D. Coaching with MGH, H. Brain Based Coaching/Training Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Reframing

Wednesday, October 12, 2011 6 Comments

Stuff series: Part 3

Escaping the Frame Changes the View

*attribution below

Changing the context

• Framing (adding perspective)
• Reframing (changing perspective)

Reframing is  a well-worn tool in a number of helping professions.  The fields that seem to advocate it most are Neuro-Linguistic Programming [NLP], therapy, and Coaching (especially ADD Coaching).

Reframing is on the Optimal Functioning Institute™ list as one of the Ten Basic Coaching Skills used Most Often with ADDers.  

Including Reframing on this particular list underscores the importance of of the two most important ADD Coaching skills, normalizing (ADD affect) and endorsing (client actions, perspectives and talents).

But what IS Reframing?

In the coaching field, reframing is one of the Languaging skills that refers to a particular manner of speaking that allows an individual to escape black and white thinking boundaries so that a different conclusion can be drawn from the same set of facts.

That, in turn, changes the way the situation “seems,” in a manner similar to the way that reframing a picture impacts the look of the picture itself.

In other words, changing the context puts a statement or point of view into a different frame of reference; a “seeding” skill that fosters a shift, (paradigm shift, in some fields).
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Change Requests & SuperSensitives

Sunday, September 25, 2011 5 Comments

Bradshaw’s Change Model and Hypersensitivity
Guest blogger: Glen Hogard

Hypersensitivity: Anything from not being able to tolerate tight clothing or labels in clothing that irritate our skin, to light, temperature, or sound sensitivity, to heightened emotional sensitivity, we often have to find ways to cut down on our reaction or “over reaction” to a stimulus.

While heightened sensitivity can be a valuable benefit in certain areas of life as in jobs such as EMS technician, doctor, fireman, and even a writer, when it is extra emotional sensitivity it can make interpersonal relationships, especially intimate relationships, difficult if not balanced with ways to sooth our hypersensitive emotions.

While it’s easy to see how it affects us, it’s not so easy to temper.

In the 1980’s, before I knew about ADD/ADHD, I was taught a tool by John Bradshaw, a famous family systems therapist, while working with his first satellite center outside of his California facility in Miami. I worked then, as I have done for ADDA, as the volunteer coordinator for his then yearly or semi-yearly seminars hosted by a great therapist Joan E. Childs.

I’m sure there are other variations of this method in practice, but this is how it was taught to me. So here it is: The Change Model

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Check out Peer Coaching

Saturday, September 24, 2011 2 Comments

Need A Little More Help to really SHINE?

Graphic of confused man surrounded by words representing choices and procedures.

Do you need a little bit of ADD Coaching assistance to get to the point where you can afford ADD Coaching assistance?

  • Are you currently Peer Coaching and wish it could serve you BETTER?
  • Are you TRAINING to become an ADD Coach yourself — and you’re not sure how to really USE the required Peer-Partner sessions?
  • Are you currently using the services of a professional ADDCoach, but you’d like coaching support more often than you can afford?  

 NEW Peer Coaching TeleClass
– Enrolling NOW –
Welcome  Session: Thursday, October 6th, 2011
First “Official” on-syllabus class: Thursday, October 13th, 2011

Click through for more about this training
AND
the genesis of a brand new, first ever
PEER COACHING CENTER!

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