ADDing in the Spirit

Tuesday, April 24, 2012 Leave a comment

ADDing in the Spirit to Allow Success to Emerge

with Peggy Ramundo,
content of the ACO conference binder, from
joint presentation at the 5th Annual ACO convention

The ADD Coach’s Dilemma . . .

“How do I manage strengths-based coaching when I’m dealing with deficits?”

With the necessity of time spent on “functional pragmatics” and ADD/ADHD information in our niche, ADD coaches often struggle to find a way to implement what is often referred to as “whole person coaching.”

Whole Person Coaching:

Partnering with clients to facilitate the process of designing a life of power, beauty and fulfillment: aligned with client standards and values, meeting client needs, and maintaining client-appropriate boundaries;

Championing growth and development as clients move from goal to goal to fashion an experience of living that is an increasingly greater expression of the client’s life purpose.
—————-
from OFI’s ADD Coach Training Program reference materials, written by founder
Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CMC, MCC, SCAC; ©1994, 2006, 2011, all rights reserved.

 And the Solution  .  .  .   

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Filed under ADD | ADHD | Attention Deficit Disorder, C4. Class Materials, D3a. Groups for Coaches Tagged with , , , , , ,

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.
———————————————————————————————

 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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Filed under ADD | ADHD | Attention Deficit Disorder, B2. Working with an ADD Coach, D1. Private Coaching Tagged with , , , ,

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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Filed under B. Coaching Concerns, B2. Working with an ADD Coach, D. Coaching with MGH, D1a. Private ADD Coaching Tagged with , , , , , , ,

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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Filed under B. Coaching Concerns, B2. Working with an ADD Coach, D. Coaching with MGH, D1a. Private ADD Coaching Tagged with , , , , , ,

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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Filed under B. Coaching Concerns, B2. Working with an ADD Coach, D. Coaching with MGH, D1. Private Coaching Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

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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Filed under B. Coaching Concerns, B2. Working with an ADD Coach, B2a. Mentor Coaching, ADD Style, D. Coaching with MGH, G2. Rewrite Your Coaching Manual, G3. ADD Coaching Secrets, G4. Mentoring the ADD Coach Tagged with , , , , , ,

Are you OUT of your MIND?

Monday, November 21, 2011 2 Comments

Reframing to Rewire (First in a series)

Most of us take that “Are you out of your mind?” question to mean that we’ve just said or done something NUTS.  I want to stand that idea on its ear.

A bowl of spaghetti looks twisted and tangled,...

Image via Wikipedia

I think it would be FAR more powerful to use that phrase as a reminder to do exactly that: to GET out of our minds.

To “get out of our reactionary mind” so that we can align our actions with our intentions is more what I had in my mind, so let’s explore how we might begin to DO that.

For those of us with Executive Functioning Dysregulation, following one idea to completion is frequently an exercise in frustration and failure.

Metaphorically, our brains are rather like a tangle of string-like dendritic connections resembling a plate of cooked spaghetti.  

About the only way we can locate both ends of a single strand of spaghetti on a dinner plate is to lift it up out of the plate and away from the rest of the tangle.

After twenty plus years of investigating ADD and working with ADDers, I’ve come to believe that “getting it up and out of the plate for closer observation” is the most successful way to locate both “ends” of a single train of thought as well.

When that single-thought strand is left tangled with the other strands, ADDers in particular can become like Alice in Wonderland clones, looping around relatively aimlessly and getting ourselves into all sorts of odd predicaments

Lifting that strand of spaghetti away from its tangle successfully is where the mere presence of another person makes all the difference in the world: an ADD-literate mentor, coach, or non-judgmental friend who can reframe our challenges simply by virtue of the fact that, from their vantage point, things don’t look so convoluted.

(More to come about that concept in a later post in this series)

Movin’ ON to the Rewiring

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Filed under A1a. Executive Functioning Disorders, A3. Linking & Learning, A5e. Memory and Info Processing, D. Coaching with MGH, H. Brain Based Coaching/Training Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

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 , , , , , , , , ,

10-Step ADD Coaching

Thursday, September 29, 2011 2 Comments

Ten Things to think about that can give you a Brand New LIFE!

ŒBegin with a pen, pencil (or crayon!) and a pad of your favorite paper – or your favorite software on your computer (whatever works best for YOU).

Find a comfortable place to perch while you run through the ten items below.

Plan on spending 30-45 minutes – whatever you can spare, but don’t try to squeeze it in between activities and interruptions.

Make SURE you are comfortable

Identify any tight places in your body:

  • Roll your shoulders.
  • Let your head drop to one side, then the other.
  • Wiggle your toes or spread your fingers.

Adjust your clothing, if you need to.  Unfasten anything that needs to be looser. Kick off your shoes if you feel like it.  Squirm around until you feel comfortable in your own skin. Take several d-e-e-p breaths, exhaling slowly, while you think about your life as it is RIGHT NOW, before you work your way through the list below.

Let things drift into your mind. Don’t force ANYTHING.

  • Where do things feel stuck?
  • What would you like to be different?
  • What seems to be the biggest struggle?
  • Where do you feel tethered to the treadmill?
  • Where is “working hard” keeping you from spending time on what you love and what’s easy?
Whatever pops into your head is fine.  Don’t over-think this, just bring it to consciousness gently.  When you feel ready, take some time to reflect on each of the points below, capturing your thinking in writing, not only to make sure you come up with some specifics, but also so that you can go back to it whenever you want.

Filed under ADD | ADHD | Attention Deficit Disorder, D. Coaching with MGH, F1. ADD Top Tens Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Brain-based Coaching Paradigms

Tuesday, September 27, 2011 2 Comments

Underlying Assumptions Keeping us Stuck

Each Professional Coach has an way of looking at life and at coaching that shapes his or her particular approach and determines the way they coach.

I personally believe that it is impossible
to make lasting changes
that are nothing more than reactions to shame.

Shame is a lousy “motivator” that we’ve somehow come to believe will keep the “lawless” on the straight and narrow.

MAYBE – if “on the straight and narrow” means “behind the eight ball!”

Shame’s Genesis

After 20 years of coaching ADDers, I have observed that shame is actually the internalization of  repeated “evidence of failure” after years of struggling to incorporate the implications of ADD with the well-meaning “support” of people who didn’t really understand the pragmatics of Executive Functioning dysregulation: what moves things forward and what makes things worse.

Whatever the rationale behind saying them, variations of comments like the ones below not only make it more difficult to live up to expectations, they encourage a black and white belief that we are fundamentally inadequate and always will be.

  • You HAVE to get organized — why don’t you write things down!?
  • Anyone with your intelligence should be doing better! 
  • You could if you wanted to badly enough and put the effort in.
  • You don’t listen! You aren’t really trying. 
  • You MUST take responsibility for your own life!

Our “helpers” need to understand that attempts to MOTIVATE us to make better choices in any fashion will never work – because 90% of our chronic oopses are not the result of a “failure of WILL.”  They aren’t even “choices” at all, unless you want to use the term “choice” to hold us accountable for unconscious assumptions underlying our actions.

We don’t need to be motivated to make better choices, we need to be coached and mentored to learn how to MAKE and ACTUATE choices at all.  And that absolutely must begin with an examination of The User’s Manual for the ADD Brain!

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Filed under A1a. Executive Functioning Disorders, ADD | ADHD | Attention Deficit Disorder, D1a. Private ADD Coaching, H. Brain Based Coaching/Training Tagged with , , , , , , ,

What to Talk About in Your Coaching Call

Tuesday, September 20, 2011 Leave a comment

Does your mind go blank . . .

the minute you call for coaching?

Part of the magic of The Client Prep Form is that, in addition to serving  as a session roadmap for you and your coach, it is startle insurance for YOU!

Since ADDers tend to have a hair-trigger startle response that shuts down thinking momentarily, I can’t encourage you strongly enough to develop the habit of USING the Client Prep Form for that reason as much as any other..

To help jumpstart your thinking process for those times you “ADD-out” – including the time it will take to make using the Prep Form a habit - print a copy of the following list and keep it in the front of your coaching notebook.

BY THE WAY . . .

Coaching forms are useful for Peer Coaching relationships too – that’s why I will be making many of them available here on ADDandSoMuchMore.com.

Stay in the Loop: Check back often -or- if you want email notification of new content,
tell the nice form on the skinny column to your right where to notify you.
[Stringent NO SPAM Policy.]

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Filed under ADD | ADHD | Attention Deficit Disorder, B. Coaching Concerns, B2. Working with an ADD Coach, B3. Peer Coaching, D. Coaching with MGH, D1a. Private ADD Coaching, H. Brain Based Coaching/Training Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

ABOUT Values & The Goose Story

Tuesday, August 23, 2011 1 Comment

What’s with the Geese?

An early logo for my first company, The Optimal Functioning Institute™ - with the company name inside a "V" formed by geese flying in formation

The graphic above these words is a very early logo put together by WebValence webmaster Marty Crouch for a coach curriculum I had spent several years developing and was about to debut: the first ADD-specific coach training program in the world (and the only one for many years.)

I founded The Optimal Functioning Institute™ on the principles that Dr. Harry Clarke Noyes articulates in The Goose Story, a free-verse poem about the importance of community.  In The Goose Story, Noyes compares and contrasts human behaviors to those of a flock of geese, starting with an impressive explanation as to why you always see them flying in V-formation.

The reason I was so taken with this story is a story of its own: how I became aware of the importance of a strong personal foundation and of values-based goals. This post attempts to give you a little bit of background.

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Filed under ADD | ADHD | Attention Deficit Disorder, B1. ADDCoach Terms & Tools, D. Coaching with MGH, E2. Making a Difference, E2b. Midnight Musings Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Distinguishing Can’t from Won’t

Tuesday, August 16, 2011 Leave a comment

CAN’T vs. WON’T

A fundamental concept underlying the manner in which I coach individuals with attentional spectrum deficits is a result of the distinction between “can’t” and “won’t.”

Distinguishing articulates the differences between words as they apply functionally

When we distinguish one word from another, we bring to conscious awareness the reality that, while the denotation of two words – the surface, dictionary meaning – might be effectively equivalent, the connotations are quite different.

Connotation – subtext and common usage within sub-groups – always rides along with the denotative (dictionary) meaning of a word, whether or not we intend the emotional “spin,” or whether or not we are aware of it consciously.

A Distinction, as it applies to the coaching relationship,  is a psycho-spriritual subtlety of language, consciously used for the express purpose of facilitating psychological and spiritual growth.

Distinguishing hones functioning as well as thinking.

  • It sharpens listening, language and coaching skills.
  • It helps to form vital neurological connections, ” brain-links” in a way that expands your knowledge base exponentially – rather than in the linear fashion in which we are accustomed to learning.
  • It’s a brain-game that helps build positive-minded neural-net — weakening the bonds of “old tapes” so that we can shape new futures.

My goal, whenever I select a distinction and let my brain loose to blog about it, is “to seed a shift in come-from“ – to illuminate cherished opinions and unconscious habits of thought, hoping to inspire a reframing of underlying assumptions. 

Can’t vs. Won’t

I want to shine a light on the necessity of accepting the behavioral characteristics of ADDers as part of the ADD diagnosis.  For far too long, neurological ADD challenges have been assigned to the provinces of behavior or psycho-analysis.

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Filed under D. Coaching with MGH, E2a. Rants; Ruminations Tagged with , , , , , , ,

ADD Partners – When Good Love Goes Bad

Tuesday, July 12, 2011 Leave a comment

Drawing of a man and a woman sitting back to back, arms crossed, and clearly not communicating.He said, She said

Marriage therapists say there are three sides to every story:  his side, her side, and what happened.

Misunderstandings abound, even in relationships where neither partner has ADD, but I’d be tempted to argue for a fourth side with ADD in the picture –
especially when it has been recently diagnosed or (holy moly!) undiagnosed, maybe barely suspected.

It seems to make no difference if the participants are intelligent, psychologically savvy individuals — without the knowledge of the impact of ADD on perception and functioning, the curve ball injected when ADD is part of the dynamic can set up situations that defy analysis.

In fact, psychological models often muddy the waters, aiming terms like “resistance,” “struggles for control,” “passive-aggressive behavior,” and “ambivalence” at situations where ADD is clearly the one and only culprit — but only to the ADD knowledgeable who remember to look for it there first.

Help that didn’t

I spent almost a year in therapy working on my “feelings of ambivalence” toward my sister — “repressed,” of course.  The presenting evidence?  I was chronically late to any activity we planned together, often because I was unable to find my keys so I could lock the door behind me when I left my Manhattan apartment.

I knew that my sister interpreted my lateness as a sign that I didn’t want to spend time with her or that I didn’t  care about her feelings.  Every shared event began with a tense half-hour at the very least, if only because I was so frazzled from my attempts to make it on time.

“You could at least call!   Why don’t you do that?”  hung in the air,
even on those occasions when she didn’t actually say it.

The answer:  Read more of this post

Filed under ADD | ADHD | Attention Deficit Disorder, D2. ADD Partner Coaching, G6. When Beloved has ADD - alternatives to murder and divorce! Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Mentor Coaching

Monday, July 11, 2011

LINKS — See also: Mentor Coaching and Football? for context, and How I Mentor Coaches for specifics —

Why MENTOR Coaching?

by Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, A.C.T., MCC, SCAC
ADDCoach Trainer & Certified Mentor Coach

An older female helping a younger one put a puzzle together

All coaching
targets your functioning,
wherever the application.

MENTOR Coaching targets
your development as a Coach,
first and foremost.

Hiring a Mentor Coach to coach you through the practice development phase helps you put the practice puzzle together:  it straightens out your learning curve and gives you guidance and encouragement as you define and build your career.

Clients ready for a Mentor Coach:

  • have already done a lot of Foundation work, either through a formalized training or from the school of life
  • feel confident that they are ready to work with others in this regard (and may be practicing coaches who have been “flying solo” for some time)
  • have already acquired a great many coaching skills, and may well feel they have been coaching all their lives while making a living at something else
  • hire a Mentor Coach primarily for practice development coaching. 

They look to their Mentor Coach to help them:

  1. deepen their personal growth
  2. hone and expand their coaching skill set, and
  3. strategize steps toward a professional coaching practice that is personally and financially rewarding.

By definition, coaches are on the fast track with personal growth. Mentor Coaching puts them on the fast track with practice growth.

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Filed under B2. Working with an ADD Coach, B2a. Mentor Coaching, ADD Style, D. Coaching with MGH, D1b. Private Mentor Coaching, G4. Mentoring the ADD Coach Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

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