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! 

Read more of this post

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.**


Read more of this post

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

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.

Read more of this post

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 , , , , , , , , ,

Top Ten Reasons WHY Most Successful Coaches Work with Mentor Coaches

Thursday, May 26, 2011 Leave a comment

Updated legacy post -orig. 6/21/95- from Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, A.C.T., MCC, SCAC –
With a tip of the hat to Carson, who always counted DOWN
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Top Ten Reason Number TEN:

Illustration of a gray smiley in profile talking to a smaller, bright pink smiley in profile (who has a musical note to suggest her or his mood and the tone of his or her responses.As my first coaching mentor,
the late Thomas J. Leonard,
founder of the personal and professional coaching field,
and both CoachVille and the original CoachU (now CoachInc,)
– often said:

“Coaches who have coaches get up and running up to
4 times faster than those who use “the lone ranger” approach.”

Read more of this post

Filed under A. Hopefully Helpful
, B. Coaching Concerns, B2. Working with an ADD Coach, B2a. Mentor Coaching, ADD Style, D1b. Private Mentor Coaching Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Mentor Coaching and Football?

Wednesday, May 25, 2011 Leave a comment

A Successful Coaching Practice
Blackl & white graphic of a football player running for a touchdown and a
Winning Football Team - not that different

Developing a rewarding and lucrative coaching practice is similar to winning a football game: you must score to win!

And touchdowns are only ONE way to score!

Football games are rarely won with a single touchdown, nor are most touchdowns accomplished in a single attempt. The majority of scores happen as a result of a series of first downs. Those hard won ten yards are captured in multiple plays that gain a few yards at a time – and every change in strategy includes a huddle!

But NO points can be won unless the team is in possession of the ball!

Read more of this post

Filed under B. Coaching Concerns, B2a. Mentor Coaching, ADD Style, D. Coaching with MGH, D1b. Private Mentor Coaching, G4. Mentoring the ADD Coach Tagged with , , , , ,

Is this YOU? How are you like my former clients?

Monday, May 23, 2011 Leave a comment

Recognize yourself abstract drawing of a group of cartoon humans in various non-human colors

among my former clients?

As I said in the first part of this post
(which you can read if you click HERE)

. . . regardless of “niche,” when you take the time to look closely, most coaches tend to attract clients in “categories” focused around similar types of challenges.


In addition to the challenge profiles I described in Part One of this article, here are a few more of the “categories” that my clients have had in common over the past couple of decades.

Read more of this post

Filed under D. Coaching with MGH, D1. Private Coaching, D1a. Private ADD Coaching, D2. ADD Partner Coaching Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

MGH clients . . .

Saturday, May 21, 2011 Leave a comment


I Coach Clients Who . . .

cartoon drawing of woman in coach hat, sunglasses and t-shirt with "mghcoach" on it

     Like every other coach on the planet:

“I work well with people in transition,
both in personal and professional settings.”

Well, duh!  Who doesn’t that include?  

There’s not a soul with breath to fog a mirror who isn’t
experiencing some sort of transition, right?

Yet, when you take the time to think about it more specifically, most coaches tend to attract clients in “categories” clustered around similar types of transitions, which means they are likely to be working on similar types of challenges.

Even though we coaches redefine our “ideal client profile” relatively frequently, even in brand new niches there remains an essential core of familiarity.  It’s fascinating to look back over a decade (oh, alright, several) to attempt to determine what my clients had in common.  It’s an exercise well worth doing annually for any private practitioner.

So, maybe you will recognize yourself among some of the “transition categories” my clients have had in common over the past couple of decades. Read more of this post

Filed under D. Coaching with MGH, D1. Private Coaching, D1a. Private ADD Coaching, D1b. Private Mentor Coaching, D2. ADD Partner Coaching Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

Key Tasks for ADD Coaching

Friday, May 20, 2011 3 Comments

Old headshot of Madelyn (a.k.a. MGH) long familiar from the webADD-Specific Coaching Skills

Ten Key Areas That Need Time & Attention

A Therapist or Doctor may or may not have the time to work with any of these areas.

A “vanilla coach”** may not find these skills important, agree that they are useful — or even understand why they tmight be an appropriate part of a coaching relationship.

An ADD Coach, however, must be prepared to include a certain amount of work in each of the following arenas — understanding how to use EACH of the ten skills below.  It’s a coach’s job to work with clients to remove “what’s in the way” of shining success.

Backfilling basic skills — insufficient, underdeveloped, or missing as the result of kludgy Executive Functioning –is the most likely suspect in the ADD population, rather than lack of motivation, resolve, ambition or many of the other things-in-the-way that are more common among vanilla clients.
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**vanilla = unflavored by ADD – a “vanilla coach” means the coach doesn’t work with ADD/ADHD/EFD clients and/or has not been trained in an ADD/ADHD/EFD-specific, brain-based coach training, regardless of whether they fall on the Attentional Spectrum personally or not.

Read more of this post

Filed under ADD | ADHD | Attention Deficit Disorder, B1. ADDCoach Terms & Tools, B2a. Mentor Coaching, ADD Style, D1a. Private ADD Coaching, D1b. Private Mentor Coaching, G2. Rewrite Your Coaching Manual, G3. ADD Coaching Secrets, H. Brain Based Coaching/Training Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

How I Mentor Coaches

Thursday, May 19, 2011 Leave a comment

Old headshot of Madelyn (a.k.a. MGH) long familiar from the web

Mentor Coaching with Me

I want all of my clients to enjoy their coaching time.

I firmly believe that it is impossible to enjoy ANYTHING much, unless it happens in an unconditionally constructive atmosphere. 

As important as that is with any client, it is essential with clients who support clients of their own.

In my experience, coaches need immense support to be able to develop to the point where all of the skills they need are as natural as walking and talking.

(Remembering to deliver charge-neutral communications and stay unconditionally constructive will take a lot more focus than it will once it becomes second nature to do so, for example.)

Coaches often feel a drain on their energies they can’t always identify and can rarely explain as a result.  A huge part of a Mentor coach’s job is to restore those energy balances!

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Filed under B. Coaching Concerns, B2a. Mentor Coaching, ADD Style, D. Coaching with MGH, D1b. Private Mentor Coaching, G2. Rewrite Your Coaching Manual, G4. Mentoring the ADD Coach Tagged with , , , , ,

How I Coach

Sunday, May 1, 2011 Leave a comment

Caricature of Madelyn with a visor, pearls, earrings, and a striped t-shirt with an ADDCoach logoMy Coach Approach

I want every one of my clients to enjoy their coaching time, and I firmly believe that only happens in an unconditionally constructive atmosphere.  

Like all coaches, I’ll always encourage your very best efforts. My come-from, however, is that we ALL do the best we can at all times, especially during those times when it could easily look otherwise.

  • I know that on days when my functional temperature is low, I’m working twice as hard, not half as hard, even if I have little to show for my efforts.
  • I need a coach who will remind me not to beat myself up, not one who will initiate the beatings!

To my mind, anyone who does well with a “tough love” approach is doing so in spite of the approach, not because of it.  I want my clients to develop healthy motivational strategies. Read more of this post

Filed under B. Coaching Concerns, D. Coaching with MGH, D1. Private Coaching, D1a. Private ADD Coaching Tagged with , , , , , ,

The ADD MasterCoach Profile™

Wednesday, April 20, 2011 Leave a comment

– Updated legacy post -orig. 04/29/98- from Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, A.C.T., MCC, SCAC –

drawing of graph paper with a jagged line representing up and down values plotted on a graphMeasurements of Mastery

The ADD MasterCoach Profile™  is rigorous - daunting, even - but you won’t believe the impact on your practice. 

When you score above 85 on The MasterCoach Profile™, not only will your practice be sustainably full, you will be one of the leaders in the ADD Coaching field and a model for every single coach in the industry.

While there are no real guarantees in this business, working The ADD MasterCoach Profile™ is the closest thing to a guarantee you will find in the coaching field.

There is simply no way you can score well on this program and not be at the top of the field by any standard you would care to measure.

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Filed under B. Coaching Concerns, B2a. Mentor Coaching, ADD Style, D1b. Private Mentor Coaching, D3a. Groups for Coaches Tagged with , , , , ,

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