ADHD Decision Paralysis: Finding Calm in Chaos

Kate: 00:01:11

Welcome to the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast.

Kate: 00:01:14

I'm Kate Moore Youssef and I'm a wellbeing and lifestyle coach, EFT practitioner, mum to four kids and passionate about helping more women to understand and accept their amazing ADHD brains.

Kate: 00:01:27

After speaking to many women just like me and probably you, I know there is a need for more health and lifestyle support for women newly diagnosed with adhd.

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In these conversations, you'll learn from insightful guests, hear new findings, and discover powerful perspectives and lifestyle tools to enable you to live your most fulfilled, calm and purposeful life wherever you are on your ADHD journey.

Kate: 00:01:52

Here's today's episode.

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And today I couldn't be more delighted to welcome back my friend, Diane Wingert.

Kate: 00:02:02

We have spoken quite a few times on each other's podcasts and I'm just so delighted to have Diane back to unpick even more about being an ADHD entrepreneur, being a woman with adhd, all the things in between.

Kate: 00:02:16

And if you've not heard me speak to Diane before, I'll give you a little bit of background information on her.

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So after a 20 year career as a psychotherapist and mental health administrator, Diane pivoted into her executive coaching for entrepreneurs.

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And her passion is helping ambitious outliers build a profitable sought after business based on their brilliance and Diane's extensive experience working with neurodivergent individuals, especially those who are gifted ADHD or both.

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And on the personal side, Diane loves dark fiction, strong coffee and laughing out loud.

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She is also a peloton enthusiast, a practicing Buddhist, and the host of the Driven Woman Entrepreneur podcast.

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I love all that mix.

Kate: 00:02:56

Welcome to the podcast, Diane.

Diane: 00:02:58

I've been so looking forward to chatting with you again.

Diane: 00:03:00

Kate.

Kate: 00:03:01

Oh well, you know, if anyone that's listening, I was recently on Diane's fantastic podcast and I have been listening to your podcast for a really long time because for me it ticks all the boxes.

Kate: 00:03:13

I love listening to your voice.

Kate: 00:03:14

I find it very soothing.

Kate: 00:03:16

You're incredibly articulate and you just always on the money when it comes to understanding the nuances of ADHD and the fine lines and all the little pickles that we find ourselves in, in life and business and being an entrepreneur and just everything in between.

Kate: 00:03:32

And I think it really, really helps that you have the psychotherapist background and the spirituality of being a practicing Buddhist and that combination for me just like ticks every single box.

Kate: 00:03:43

So.

Kate: 00:03:43

And I just think that there's so much we could talk about.

Kate: 00:03:46

But I'm going to hone in a little bit because I could say something that is coming up for probably us as people, but also for our clients is a lot of the decision paralysis, the feeling stuck, the understanding when to be impulsive, when to pull back, when to use our intuition.

Kate: 00:04:05

And I just wondered if that feels a good place for you to start and maybe what you're seeing with your clients and yourself as well in business.

Diane: 00:04:14

I love talking about this topic and I don't think I'm ever going to get tired of it because women have lots and lots and lots of decisions to make in their daily life.

Diane: 00:04:23

But if you also happen to be a parent, whether you're in the active duty parenting years like you are, or parenting adult children who by the way, still need you and you're running a business and there's just so many.

Diane: 00:04:36

And so one of the things that is true for all of us is that we have many, many, many decisions to make.

Diane: 00:04:44

And with adhd, because we tend to be perfectionistic, because we tend to be procrastinators, because we tend to be thinking a million miles a minute, many of our decisions don't play well over time.

Diane: 00:04:57

We either are making them under pressure, we are making them impulsively and later realizing I didn't really think that through, we're making them because we kind of get caught off guard and someone asks us.

Diane: 00:05:10

Oftentimes this is when someone asks us to do something for them or with them.

Diane: 00:05:15

The easiest thing is to say yes.

Diane: 00:05:17

I call it the default yes.

Diane: 00:05:19

Because if they catch you off guard and you didn't expect the invitation or the question, it's just easier to say yes because no kind of requires a reason.

Diane: 00:05:31

Yes.

Diane: 00:05:31

It's just like, yeah, sure.

Diane: 00:05:32

So then we get into the whole over committing and involving ourselves in so many things that later we're like, why?

Diane: 00:05:39

Why did I do that?

Diane: 00:05:41

So I love talking about decision making with ADHD because at the opposite extremes there's impulsiveness and some impulsive decisions are good and we'll talk about that.

Diane: 00:05:54

But then we go to the other end of the extreme, which is overthinking, analysis, paralysis and really just missing out on so many opportunities and causing a lot of unnecessary suffering.

Diane: 00:06:06

So one of our assets is intuition and yet I find few of us actually trust it.

Kate: 00:06:15

Yeah.

Diane: 00:06:16

What about you?

Kate: 00:06:17

Yeah.

Kate: 00:06:17

And when you say that, I mean from a personal perspective.

Kate: 00:06:20

I have wanted to be guided by my intuition for many years, but my very noisy head with so many contrasting ideas and the what ifs and the catastrophizing and Then the analysis paralysis, the overthinking, that I've shut down so many things before I even started.

Kate: 00:06:37

And I think it's only since I've understood my ADHD and how that plays a part in my decision making that has enabled me to unlock my intuition a lot more and to be able to know the difference between the very noisy thoughts that aren't necessary reality.

Kate: 00:06:53

Because I thought everything I thought was real and I had to listen to it.

Kate: 00:07:00

And then because I've realized that I can churn out, you know, 50 different thoughts in a minute.

Kate: 00:07:05

How can all of those thoughts be real?

Kate: 00:07:07

So that's allowed me to have a bit of distance and kind of go right.

Kate: 00:07:11

And so now I'm able to just kind of quieten things down.

Kate: 00:07:15

But that has definitely down to experience, maturity, self development, and all of that.

Kate: 00:07:22

And interestingly, I get really upset, actually really hurts my.

Kate: 00:07:25

My heart, my soul.

Kate: 00:07:26

When clients come to me and they have all these thoughts and ideas and all this amazing stuff, but they've just shut it down each time.

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And they've kept themselves really small because of this paralysis.

Kate: 00:07:38

They just.

Kate: 00:07:39

The overthinking is just too much for them.

Kate: 00:07:42

And it's breaking it down, isn't it?

Kate: 00:07:44

It's like chunking it right down and saying, right, like, what can we.

Kate: 00:07:47

What's the one thing we can just start with now?

Kate: 00:07:49

Like, that one small decision.

Kate: 00:07:51

I'm interested to know, has being a practicing Buddhist for you helped you?

Diane: 00:07:57

Absolutely.

Diane: 00:07:58

Yeah, absolutely.

Diane: 00:07:59

I have kind of an interesting history with becoming a Buddhist because I grew up in a household where there was no practicing religion.

Diane: 00:08:07

I was actually part of an evangelical Christian church for quite a number of years.

Diane: 00:08:12

And then I had like, a.

Diane: 00:08:13

What I would call now a spiritual wasteland, Kate, where I really didn't want to have anything to do with any kind of religion.

Diane: 00:08:20

However, I had a pretty serious car accident that's left me with permanent damage to my cervical spine.

Diane: 00:08:26

hat I've had a headache since: 1987

Diane: 00:08:30

And so I had to undergo a lot of medication, a lot of procedures, a lot of, you know, 12 hours of traction a day.

Diane: 00:08:38

And I really had to make drastic changes in my life.

Diane: 00:08:40

And after all was said and done, I still had to come to the understanding I'm going to spend the rest of my life living with chronic pain.

Diane: 00:08:49

So I tried all the different things, and they finally said, there's really nothing more we can give you.

Diane: 00:08:57

You have to learn to live with this.

Diane: 00:08:59

And I thought, awesome.

Diane: 00:09:01

Twice a week, acupuncture sessions that lasted a couple of hours and that went on for a couple of years.

Diane: 00:09:06

I mean, I've put so much time into this pain.

Diane: 00:09:10

But my doctor at that time, my pain management doctor, who was an Orthodox Jew, said, well, you know, we've tried everything, Diane, but some people find meditation helpful.

Diane: 00:09:22

So, you know, when you're not thinking about something, it doesn't exist.

Diane: 00:09:26

But then as soon as you're thinking about it, it's everywhere around you.

Diane: 00:09:29

So, like, literally the next day, I go into a Starbucks, and in the community board on the wall, I see meditation classes near you.

Diane: 00:09:39

So I thought, awesome.

Diane: 00:09:41

I had no idea that they were being offered by a Buddhist organization.

Diane: 00:09:47

I didn't even know there was a connection between Buddhism and mindfulness and meditation.

Diane: 00:09:52

I just knew my doctor recommended, and boom, here we go.

Diane: 00:09:55

Kind of impulsive, right?

Diane: 00:09:56

So I went to the class, and almost immediately I realized, oh, I come in and I sit down.

Diane: 00:10:03

Everyone's being really quiet.

Diane: 00:10:04

And then I.

Diane: 00:10:05

That is when I notice after the room fills up with people who are all being very quiet.

Diane: 00:10:09

I noticed then, not before.

Diane: 00:10:12

There was a shrine, there was a Buddha, there was a candle.

Diane: 00:10:15

And I'm like, where'd all this stuff come from?

Diane: 00:10:17

Classic adhd, right?

Diane: 00:10:19

But I knew it would be rude to just get up and walk out.

Diane: 00:10:22

Now that I realized, oh, crap, I'm in a religious situation, which I don't want to be in, I thought, I'll just wait for the intermission.

Diane: 00:10:29

I'm just going to wait.

Diane: 00:10:29

There's got to be a break somehow, right?

Diane: 00:10:31

So I'm just going to hang out and try not to be obnoxious or make noise or anything.

Diane: 00:10:37

But I thought, well, as long as I'm here, I might as well just do the whatever it is they're going to do.

Diane: 00:10:42

And I started to go along, even though I'm literally looking for my opportunity to leave.

Diane: 00:10:48

And I started to notice that the breathing and the mindfulness training and the just the calmness of the room, I thought, well, I don't have to be a Buddhist to get something out of this.

Diane: 00:11:05

Fast forward.

Diane: 00:11:07

I signed up for all the rest of the classes I started.

Diane: 00:11:10

This is true ADHD fashion, right?

Diane: 00:11:12

We are either obsessed or we couldn't care less.

Diane: 00:11:15

So because I noticed this was helpful and I had my doctor's prescription to do it.

Diane: 00:11:20

Next thing I know, I'm taking classes regularly, I'm going on retreat.

Diane: 00:11:24

I still didn't think of myself as a Buddhist, but it was literally infiltrating my thinking and affecting everything from My routines, to how, and I was still a therapist at the time, to how I was approaching problems with my clients, to my own centering and grounding techniques.

Diane: 00:11:47

I think it was probably several years in before I kind of realized, you know, I think you've actually sort of become a Buddhist.

Diane: 00:11:56

And I didn't ever have to do anything to become official.

Diane: 00:12:00

I did in fact decide to go through a ceremony, a ritual.

Diane: 00:12:04

So I've been given a Buddhist name.

Diane: 00:12:06

They clipped off some of my hair.

Diane: 00:12:08

I actually got a tattoo of a lotus flower on my shoulder because I like to memorialize important events in my life.

Diane: 00:12:18

But when I take what I've learned about how my brain works, how my mind works, that my thoughts are actually quite unreliable.

Diane: 00:12:28

My feelings are fickle.

Diane: 00:12:30

I've got no business listening to like 85% of the thoughts that go through my head.

Diane: 00:12:36

I realize this is probably one of the best life skills that I could ever possibly learn.

Diane: 00:12:43

And it took chronic pain to introduce me to it.

Diane: 00:12:47

And I've had plenty of people with ADHD saying, oh, you're crazy, that's impossible.

Diane: 00:12:52

I could never sit still and make my mind go blank.

Diane: 00:12:55

That's not what meditation is.

Diane: 00:12:57

That's not what mindfulness.

Diane: 00:12:58

Mindfulness is this most simple thing possible.

Diane: 00:13:02

It's three basic concepts.

Diane: 00:13:04

Be open.

Diane: 00:13:05

Be open to what actually is instead of what you think it should be.

Diane: 00:13:09

Like, quiet down.

Diane: 00:13:11

Be open to the reality that is actually happening right in front of you instead of whatever is going on upstairs.

Diane: 00:13:18

Be curious about why there's a gap between reality and what you think it should be.

Diane: 00:13:27

And then don't judge yourself for anything about that gap.

Diane: 00:13:32

Stay open, stay curious and be non judgmental.

Diane: 00:13:35

That's all mindfulness is.

Diane: 00:13:37

Including the fact that I'm pretty sweary.

Kate: 00:13:40

Me too.

Diane: 00:13:42

And I've heard it's a sign of intelligence.

Diane: 00:13:44

I don't know.

Diane: 00:13:45

I've also heard it's a sign of non intelligence.

Diane: 00:13:47

But somebody said to me, I, you know, you've, your voice has become so much calmer since you've been a practitioner.

Diane: 00:13:56

And I'm like, the last thing I am is calm by nature.

Diane: 00:14:00

But that, and several people have said, I really like listening to your voice because it's so calm.

Diane: 00:14:04

And I'm thinking, what the hell?

Diane: 00:14:07

They said.

Diane: 00:14:07

But I have one question.

Diane: 00:14:08

You're Buddhist, right?

Diane: 00:14:09

I said, I do consider it.

Diane: 00:14:11

I think of it more as my philosophy of living rather than my religion.

Diane: 00:14:16

They said, you kind of swear a lot for a Buddhist.

Diane: 00:14:21

And before I could really stop and think, that's kind of Weird.

Diane: 00:14:24

I mean, what does one have to do with the other?

Diane: 00:14:27

I said, well, I'll tell you what, you can just think of me as a profane Buddhist.

Diane: 00:14:31

And I actually like that.

Diane: 00:14:32

I like the contradiction.

Diane: 00:14:35

Because, frankly, people like us do not fit neatly into any little category, any little box.

Diane: 00:14:41

Most of us hate boxes.

Diane: 00:14:43

And so I think, you know, if you want to know more about mindfulness or meditation, follow your curiosity.

Diane: 00:14:50

It is probably not as limiting as you think.

Diane: 00:14:54

I realized until I started learning this skill, even though I was a very experienced psychotherapist with lots and lots of training, that I was like a.

Diane: 00:15:04

A head that was disconnected from the body.

Diane: 00:15:07

I treated my body like a.

Diane: 00:15:09

Like a transportation device for my brain.

Diane: 00:15:12

Just.

Diane: 00:15:12

I just need to move my brain from one place to the next.

Diane: 00:15:15

It wasn't like I was an integrated being.

Diane: 00:15:17

And now I've come to understand the human being.

Diane: 00:15:21

And here's where we get into intuition.

Diane: 00:15:23

The human being actually has wisdom from three centers.

Diane: 00:15:28

The brain, the heart, and the gut.

Diane: 00:15:32

So if you are up in your head all the time, like, you're literally denying yourself the wisdom of two other centers.

Diane: 00:15:42

Yeah.

Diane: 00:15:42

And trust me, blocking it.

Diane: 00:15:44

You know, I almost think about it, like, you know, if you have a circuit box in your home that when you block, you turn, you shut off some fuses because you're testing things for the electrician or whatever, or your hairdryer blows out, you know, a couple of rooms of your.

Diane: 00:15:59

Of your house, if you shut something off, anything off, you will unconsciously and unintentionally shut other things off, too.

Diane: 00:16:10

So if you want to make good decisions that are informed by wisdom, informed by intuition, informed by your inner knowing, you have to connect your head and your body.

Diane: 00:16:23

Otherwise it's just guesswork and luck.

Kate: 00:16:26

Yeah.

Kate: 00:16:26

And being on our phones all the time and so connected to phones and emails and social media, like, we are disconnecting that part of us.

Kate: 00:16:37

And of course, there's so much noise.

Kate: 00:16:39

There's so much noise externally and there's so much noise in our heads.

Kate: 00:16:43

So making a decision and then feeling stuck, because we're comparing, then we're procrastinating, and then we're saying, imposter syndrome's coming in.

Kate: 00:16:52

And we're saying, well, they're doing it so much better, so what's the point?

Kate: 00:16:55

May as well just not even try.

Kate: 00:16:58

The only way we can do that is to kind of like taper down the noise a little bit, and maybe starting externally can help with the internal noise.

Kate: 00:17:09

Because I have true.

Kate: 00:17:10

Many times where I've had a super busy day.

Kate: 00:17:13

And then I need to walk the dog.

Kate: 00:17:15

And I just know that if I put a podcast in, it's not going to do me any good because I've just been.

Kate: 00:17:21

I've just had just noise at me the whole time.

Kate: 00:17:24

I need to be able to disconnect and breathe and allow.

Kate: 00:17:29

And then that's when after about 10, 15 minutes of walking without any distractions, anything else, suddenly things start coming to mind like, oh, you should have done that, or maybe you change that or email that person.

Kate: 00:17:42

And that's when I get those downloads, those intuitive downloads, because I've actively made that decision to just stop with the noise and just kind of ground myself.

Kate: 00:17:53

So that's my trick because otherwise it doesn't happen.

Kate: 00:17:56

It's in the shower, it's walking, it's driving, maybe probably baking or cooking, dishwasher, unloading, that type of thing.

Kate: 00:18:05

But never when I'm in front of my emails, never when I'm listening to something and trying to absorb more information.

Kate: 00:18:13

Doesn't work.

Diane: 00:18:14

Do you know what you've just helped me realize, like, two things I talk about, but as you were discussing this, my brain just went connect like the magnet is how much difficulty folks like us with busy brains, adhd officially diagnosed or not, how much trouble we have with transitions.

Diane: 00:18:37

And because we're up in our heads, we're up in our routines where there's constant chatter around us.

Diane: 00:18:44

And because we're so used to that, we are so accustomed to an excess of stimulation.

Diane: 00:18:52

Most, most of us are actually extremely uncomfortable when we reduce the noise in our lives because we're so used to it.

Diane: 00:19:02

Right?

Diane: 00:19:02

It is something you have to learn how to do.

Diane: 00:19:06

Because if it suddenly went from noise, noise, noise in your head and around you to quiet, that would feel actually terrifying for most people.

Diane: 00:19:16

But this notion of, you know, the busyness of our heads and the busyness of our lives and the fact that we're constantly plugged in to devices that are engineered to eclipse everything else that we could be paying attention to when we say, I'm addicted to my phone by design.

Diane: 00:19:36

By design.

Diane: 00:19:38

That is exactly how all these apps are designed.

Diane: 00:19:42

It's no, it's not an accident.

Diane: 00:19:44

It's not a after effect, it's not a side effect.

Diane: 00:19:47

They are designed to hook us, to reel us in and to keep us there as long as possible.

Diane: 00:19:54

So knowing this, and I love technology, I am up to my eyelashes in technology in my business and in much of my life, but I know how damaging it is to my Brain.

Diane: 00:20:06

I recently interviewed Dr.

Diane: 00:20:08

Johan Vicklund, who's in New York.

Diane: 00:20:11

He's a professor of entrepreneurship and he specializes in research on entrepreneurs with adhd.

Diane: 00:20:19

Such a fascinating man.

Diane: 00:20:21

And when I asked him if he wanted me to create some shareable assets after our interview that he could share with his social media audience, he recoiled in horror and said, I don't do social media.

Diane: 00:20:34

I value my mental health.

Diane: 00:20:36

And I was like, I'm feeling kind of called out here.

Diane: 00:20:40

So we have to be able to understand that in order to tap into our intuition, in order to be able to leverage it, to utilize it, to guide us, to inform us, to help us make decisions.

Diane: 00:20:55

I won't say completely free from people pleasing perfectionism, undue influence, FOMO imposter syndrome.

Diane: 00:21:03

It's going to be hard to eliminate all of those things unless you decide to go live in a cave.

Diane: 00:21:08

And I don't know too many people with ADHD that could live with that much sensory deprivation.

Diane: 00:21:13

But learning that, even just taking that walk with your dog and not bringing a podcast along, you can start to learn to pay attention to how it, how your footfall feels on different types of surfaces, like on a, an uneven trail versus on a sidewalk, on a bunch of leaves or ice or snow, or just like kind of dialing in.

Diane: 00:21:41

Because people talk about the mind body connection, Kate.

Diane: 00:21:45

There is no mind body connection.

Diane: 00:21:47

There is a seamless interface of mind body, and they both inform each other.

Diane: 00:21:55

If we're trying to make good decisions all up in our heads, where there's so much going on, at least half of them are going to be complete shit.

Diane: 00:22:05

Probably more.

Kate: 00:22:06

Yeah.

Kate: 00:22:07

So going back to what I just said before is that we only get these ideas and these intuitive hits if we actively, every single day, create space and actively and consciously say, right.

Kate: 00:22:22

If I don't disconnect and if I don't give myself some time out or some space, this is not going to happen and my business isn't going to flourish and I'm not going to be able to develop and progress and all these things.

Kate: 00:22:34

And if anyone's listening now and they are thinking, I am an entrepreneur and I'm feeling really stuck right now, and that's because we've been so busy on this kind of hamster wheel with social media hamster wheel with algorithms and SEO and all those things that sadly are part of running a business, but it shouldn't be something that takes over, because what I think is adhd, entrepreneur, entrepreneurs, what we're brilliant at is the innovation and the spotting the trends and being one step ahead and we have those ideas and if we're lucky enough not to be in self sabotage mode, self sabotage mode.

Kate: 00:23:12

And we're lucky enough not to be in this paralysis of overthinking what we do with this, these ideas and this intuition is unbelievable.

Kate: 00:23:23

And everything that's worked for me and my business has come to me from, ooh, let's try that.

Kate: 00:23:30

Oh, let's do that.

Kate: 00:23:32

Beach walks, nature walks, swimming, cold water swimming.

Kate: 00:23:36

That's when the things have come to me and those.

Kate: 00:23:40

And I have now a bit of a radar that when something comes to me in that moment and it feels kind of like I'm in a mindful moment, I'm like, right, bank that one.

Kate: 00:23:49

That one is a good one.

Kate: 00:23:51

But if something comes to me in a flurry of anxiety and shoulds and needs and comparison on social media and I kind of think, oh, I need to do that.

Kate: 00:24:02

And it's like done in a frenzy.

Kate: 00:24:04

I've learned now to just kind of hit pause on that and just kind of go, where's that coming from?

Kate: 00:24:09

Is that the right decision?

Kate: 00:24:11

And often that's me throwing money at.

Kate: 00:24:12

Some think that I shouldn't have thrown money out or made a rash decision that is maybe really good for the short term, but there was no longevity in it.

Kate: 00:24:20

And so it's this kind of just constant learning and awareness, isn't it, of where we make these decisions and how we make them and learning what works and what doesn't.

Kate: 00:24:33

I don't know if you've found any of that as well, of that in your life.

Diane: 00:24:37

So, so, so, so, so true.

Diane: 00:24:39

And actually something I'm, I'm inclined to, to share is we're lucky when it's a matter of going out for a walk or going for a swim or however we create the space.

Diane: 00:24:53

And then that intuitive hit happens.

Diane: 00:24:56

And for many people, all we have to do is to create the space.

Diane: 00:25:01

I think of it as like sending the invitation to our, to our inner knowing.

Diane: 00:25:06

Yeah.

Diane: 00:25:07

And then there it is.

Diane: 00:25:08

However, it's not true for everyone.

Diane: 00:25:11

For others, they need to create that space.

Diane: 00:25:15

They need to create white space in their calendar.

Diane: 00:25:19

I used to love having my day so full that I literally went from thing to thing to thing to thing to thing.

Diane: 00:25:29

And if there was so much as a red light or a line that was too long, it screwed up my whole day.

Diane: 00:25:36

It took me a while to realize that was my ADHD striving for stimulation.

Diane: 00:25:42

And because I didn't know how to seek quality stimulation I was just settling for a whole lot of busyness because it kept my brain fully charged.

Diane: 00:25:54

When we create space in our life, however, it could be just sitting and staring out the window.

Diane: 00:26:00

It could be.

Diane: 00:26:01

A client of mine just created a coloring book for women with adhd.

Diane: 00:26:06

However, we are creating the space where we're not actively using our cognitive skills, which, by the way, for most of us are impaired anyway.

Diane: 00:26:17

So we, you know, our executive functions that are impaired, we burn up a lot of energy, we burn up a lot of our ability, a lot of our bandwidth doing that.

Diane: 00:26:25

When we create the space, we allow our mind to show our brain the wisdom that it has, but it doesn't always show up during that white space.

Diane: 00:26:37

We need to create the white space.

Diane: 00:26:40

We need to create emptiness in our day so that the mind can be recognized by the brain and we can hear what it has to show us.

Diane: 00:26:53

I just don't want anyone to think, well, I went for a 20 minute walk and nothing happened, so let's do that.

Kate: 00:26:58

Oh, yeah.

Diane: 00:26:59

You have trained yourself over several years now by intentionally creating space, creating that invitation, doing all kinds of practices that regulate your emotions and your nervous system, all of these things together.

Diane: 00:27:16

But it may be that you go for your long walk, you go for your swim, you go for your bike ride, you get out there with the dogs, or you do something mindless, maybe knitting.

Diane: 00:27:28

It could be anything.

Diane: 00:27:30

It will happen.

Diane: 00:27:32

It might come to you just as you're falling asleep or just as you're waking up or when you're taking a shower.

Diane: 00:27:38

But it won't come if you don't create the space to invite it to come.

Kate: 00:27:43

Yeah.

Kate: 00:27:43

Oh, absolutely.

Kate: 00:27:44

All of that.

Kate: 00:27:45

And yeah, thank you for the caveats.

Kate: 00:27:47

Because I don't want people to think that every time I go for a walk, I get like a new business idea because that's exhausting.

Kate: 00:27:55

I'd be like, oh my God, I need to set up another URL.

Kate: 00:27:58

So, no, I'm not.

Kate: 00:27:59

Like, I'm not, I'm not doing that.

Kate: 00:28:00

But you're absolutely right.

Kate: 00:28:01

And I wonder what you maybe you could speak to of someone that's saying, yes, this is me, this is me.

Kate: 00:28:08

And they just don't know where.

Kate: 00:28:10

They don't know where to begin.

Kate: 00:28:11

They don't know where to start with this feeling of just being stuck, stuck in this place, of everything coming at them from all angles.

Kate: 00:28:19

And they have this inkling that actually being an entrepreneur is something that might maybe a little bit further down the line, alleviate some of this pressure, because maybe they're answering to a corporate job right now, answering to other people's demands, which for me was the most suffocating thing in the world.

Kate: 00:28:36

And even though being an entrepreneur brings its other stresses and pressures, at least we're answering to our own demands.

Kate: 00:28:44

Where'd you begin?

Diane: 00:28:45

Oh, I'm grateful that you asked this because I'm probably going to say something that you might not expect, and that is I actually have a concern that entrepreneurship for women and entrepreneurship for women with ADHD has been so glamorized and so hyped and we have all seen lots and lots of influencers and big names who, most of whom don't have adhd, by the way, and many of those who do have lots and lots of help.

Diane: 00:29:20

We've been told basically it's easy, it's fast, it's fun, you have freedom, you have flexibility, you can be there.

Diane: 00:29:29

Sounds very similar to what we were told by companies that wanted us to jump on the MLM bandwagon, right?

Diane: 00:29:36

And many people who are promoting entrepreneurship for women and women with adhd.

Diane: 00:29:41

It really has a very MLM kind of feel to it.

Diane: 00:29:47

I do believe that many of us are much better suited to working for ourselves because we have more control over the conditions, we have more control over the environment, we have more control over the expectations.

Diane: 00:30:05

Those things are good.

Diane: 00:30:06

And if you are caring for other beings.

Diane: 00:30:09

Back in the day, I was spending probably half my take home income on childcare.

Diane: 00:30:16

Now if I was starting my career now, I promise you, I would be an online entrepreneur and my kids would be working around that and I would be working around them.

Diane: 00:30:27

But I don't think it's as simple as, hey, you have ADHD and you want to give your boss the middle finger and do your own thing and have your own schedule.

Diane: 00:30:37

Okay?

Diane: 00:30:38

In order to be successful as a woman with ADHD in an entrepreneurial venture, you have to be able and willing to take full responsibility for all decisions in that business.

Diane: 00:30:53

You can hire a coach, you can hire a consultant, you can be in a mastermind, you can be in a group program, but you are literally where the buck starts and stops.

Diane: 00:31:03

Some of us have difficulty initiating things, but once we get going, we're golden.

Diane: 00:31:09

Others of us can start things like nobody's business, but then as soon as it gets hard or a little bit boring or we get a little bit confused, it's like, bye, and we're starting something else.

Diane: 00:31:20

And many of us inexplicably abandon ship when we're like 70% of the way through something.

Diane: 00:31:26

And Then we just get pulled and it's all because of our adhd.

Diane: 00:31:30

So I think this idea that, oh, all I have to do is start my own business and all my problems automatically disappear.

Diane: 00:31:36

Hell no, you will have different problems.

Diane: 00:31:39

I think they're problems that I'm willing to have.

Diane: 00:31:41

They're problems that you, Kate, are willing to have, but it's not magic.

Diane: 00:31:46

And I think you have to be willing to experiment, you have to be willing to fail, you have to be willing to make mistakes, some of which will be public.

Diane: 00:31:59

And that, I think takes a certain mindset that, like you say with eft, even though I'm fucking up right now, even though I've fallen on my face more times than I've gotten up, even though I feel like I don't have a fricking clue what I'm doing and I don't know where I'm going to get a clue, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

Diane: 00:32:22

If you can't do that, whether you're into tapping or not, and believe it, by the way, because if you're just lying to yourself, your inner knowing will know and nothing will happen.

Diane: 00:32:30

No good will come of it.

Diane: 00:32:32

You have to be willing to take full responsibility for whatever outcomes you're creating and love and accept yourself enough to forgive your failures, forgive your mistakes, forgive your cringey moments, your bad decisions, your impulsive choices, your overthinking, your missed opportunities, your bad investments, and keep going.

Diane: 00:32:56

And you know, one of the questions that I get asked a lot is how do I know if I need a therapist or I need a coach?

Diane: 00:33:02

I think if it feels really scary, really hard, or really traumatizing to fail to do things without knowing how they're going to work out, if your self judgment is so harsh that that would be devastating.

Diane: 00:33:21

But you really want to be an entrepreneur.

Diane: 00:33:24

In my not so humble opinion, you need a therapist to help you understand why in addition to feminine conditioning, family conditioning, past history, why it feels especially terrifying for you to try and not succeed.

Diane: 00:33:43

Because I think you would agree with me.

Diane: 00:33:47

That, I think, is the number one disadvantage that all women have when it comes to entrepreneurship, not just women with ADHD in general.

Diane: 00:33:57

Women have less experience with making mistakes and failing and getting up and do it again.

Diane: 00:34:05

Because we, we treat, if you think about it, just parenting.

Diane: 00:34:09

Our little girl falls down, we rush to her, we pick her up, we comfort her, we hold her, we soothe her.

Diane: 00:34:16

Our little boy falls down.

Diane: 00:34:18

This is broad generalization.

Diane: 00:34:19

Little boy falls down, we say, are you okay?

Diane: 00:34:23

Get up, shake it Off.

Diane: 00:34:25

And so women, because we're not doing hardcore physical contact sports, and I'm not suggesting we should.

Diane: 00:34:32

We're not in competitive things like debate team.

Diane: 00:34:36

We tend to socialize the genders differently.

Diane: 00:34:39

And I realize now, wow, if I had known this, we put women at a disadvantage by depriving them of the opportunity to make mistakes and fail and learn that they can get up and try again.

Diane: 00:34:57

You have to be able to do that to be successful as an entrepreneur.

Diane: 00:35:00

Now, you can learn even if you don't have that experience, but you have to get it.

Kate: 00:35:07

You know, for you to say that out loud for so many women is going to be so validating because they're going to be like, why do I feel like this?

Kate: 00:35:15

And you've just explained it.

Kate: 00:35:16

This is societal conditioning that we've been kind of protected from.

Diane: 00:35:21

Protected?

Kate: 00:35:22

Yeah, yeah, from, like, dangerous situations where we don't want to fail in public.

Kate: 00:35:27

And we have been told that we just need to, like, either keep quiet or be perfect.

Kate: 00:35:32

Just people, please, just do what.

Kate: 00:35:34

Just do what you need to do to just, like, keep the peace.

Kate: 00:35:37

And when we feel like something needs disrupting a market needs disrupting an industry, that fear of failure and that fear of using our voice is terrifying.

Kate: 00:35:48

And then you combine that with rsd, which is very, very prolific, and ADHD is, like, one of the hardest things for many of us to deal with.

Kate: 00:35:56

That RSD is so debilitating for many people that the thought of any form of criticism or rejection or failure is just too much to bear.

Kate: 00:36:06

And that's it.

Kate: 00:36:08

So we are navigating a lot here.

Kate: 00:36:10

There's a lot.

Kate: 00:36:10

And, like, you say, I like that idea of, like, what do I need a coach or a therapist?

Kate: 00:36:15

And the therapist is there to help us, like, understand maybe past trauma, understand what our family history or the generations, how we've been brought up, all the different moments in our life.

Kate: 00:36:26

But what is it?

Kate: 00:36:27

What are they?

Kate: 00:36:28

What's that differentiation, would you say then, okay, someone's saying, you know, I've got a therapist, but they're not helping me.

Kate: 00:36:34

They're not pushing me along.

Kate: 00:36:35

They're not helping me see kind of like the next steps for.

Kate: 00:36:39

For my business or where I want to be in life.

Kate: 00:36:41

What is it that the coach then takes from the therapy to the next level?

Diane: 00:36:46

I guess this was my own evolution, professionally and personally.

Diane: 00:36:50

I loved being a therapist.

Diane: 00:36:52

I was an excellent therapist.

Diane: 00:36:53

When I closed my business, my clients were not happy, even though I found them replacements.

Diane: 00:37:01

You know, did.

Diane: 00:37:02

Did all that good transition work.

Diane: 00:37:05

But I realized, Kate, that I come to a point in my own life where I think healing is necessary, important, wonderful work.

Diane: 00:37:14

But once we have achieved an adequate level of healing, because I think we can and should be healing, and I'm still healing from childhood trauma.

Kate: 00:37:24

Yeah.

Diane: 00:37:24

And.

Diane: 00:37:24

And I'm in my sixth decade of life, so I think we don't have to be completely healed in order to stop seeing a therapist.

Diane: 00:37:33

Just like we don't have to be completely ready before we can take action in our business.

Diane: 00:37:38

Right.

Diane: 00:37:39

And I think when I reached a point where I realized it's not as simple.

Diane: 00:37:43

A lot of people say therapists talk about the past and coaches talk about the future, it's so much more nuanced than that.

Diane: 00:37:50

But the goals of therapy are insight and healing.

Diane: 00:37:55

The goals of coaching, our progress and change.

Diane: 00:38:01

So I think if you have had therapy and are like, I kind of feel like I'm making my weekly pilgrimage to the therapist's office and kind of recreating my week like, dear diary, so Monday this happened and Tuesday it's time to wrap things up.

Diane: 00:38:16

Because if you are thinking about the future, wanting to move forward with the future, willing to take the risks of doing new things or expanding in your life in some way, a therapist is only going to be able to do so much to help you psychologically prepare for that.

Diane: 00:38:35

What you'll actually need to do, and I know, Kate, you will agree with me, what actually transforms you is not getting ready for the transformation.

Diane: 00:38:46

It's implementing the transformation and integrating the results into your self concept.

Kate: 00:38:54

Yeah.

Kate: 00:38:55

And I think the coaching, we don't have to be.

Kate: 00:38:59

We don't have to have all the answers to then go to a coach.

Kate: 00:39:01

I think a lot of people think I need to know what I'm going to be coached on.

Kate: 00:39:05

I've had it many times before that People come to me and they say, I'm just ready for something, for change, and just know that what I have been doing isn't working.

Kate: 00:39:14

And there's just something in me that just, you know, I'm just crying out.

Kate: 00:39:18

And often they've had a bit of an unraveling and they, they're ready.

Kate: 00:39:22

They've sort of, you know, taken off all the old clothes and they're sort of standing there, you know, proverbially naked.

Kate: 00:39:27

And then they're thinking, okay, but who do I want to be now?

Kate: 00:39:30

Like, what's that going to look like?

Kate: 00:39:32

And I love, I love nothing more than working with these people and who are ready to step into a new chapter, maybe it's been after an ADHD diagnosis themselves, and they've had new awareness, new understanding, and they can look at their life through a totally different lens.

Kate: 00:39:48

Like they see themselves as the child, the teenager, and they can see themselves with more compassion and self forgiveness and self kindness because of this new understanding, this new lens.

Kate: 00:40:00

And then so that means that they can see the future self with a new lens as well.

Kate: 00:40:04

Where maybe before they didn't see any hope.

Kate: 00:40:07

It was despair is victimhood.

Kate: 00:40:09

There was just nothing that, you know, what have I got to offer to the world?

Kate: 00:40:13

And now they can almost separate the ADHD from who they are and use it, I hope to their advantage now, like the awareness, and then also see the things that have held them back as well.

Diane: 00:40:26

No one's ever too late for it, because I think if we are, I think it's one of the things that defines many people with ADHD compared to neurotypicals.

Diane: 00:40:34

Kate.

Diane: 00:40:36

We tend to be more of us on the path of continuous evolution.

Diane: 00:40:41

So it's not unusual for us to have multiple careers, multiple friend groups, different, you know, evolve.

Diane: 00:40:49

I've known people who've moved many times who've had multiple different careers.

Diane: 00:40:53

I think that's a good thing.

Diane: 00:40:55

The neurotypical world says, can't you just pick and stick?

Diane: 00:40:59

I'm not made that way.

Diane: 00:41:01

And I think it's one of the reasons why people think of us as younger than we actually are, because that.

Diane: 00:41:08

That willingness to change, that willingness to try new things, that willingness to reinvent, I think is something that's more associated with younger people.

Diane: 00:41:18

But it's a great way to live and not be referencing the past and who you used to be and who you used to do.

Diane: 00:41:26

And to your point, I think that getting an ADHD diagnosis or even coming to the awareness, like, oh, this is me, yeah, I may or may not want a diagnosis.

Diane: 00:41:37

I talked about good reasons why people don't get diagnosed on a recent episode of my podcast.

Diane: 00:41:42

But I think that awareness needs to be integrated into our self concept and into our identity.

Diane: 00:41:50

So it is a good time for coaching, because learning this very important piece about who you are is a bit of an identity crisis.

Diane: 00:42:00

And so it needs to be processed.

Diane: 00:42:02

It needs to be integrated into who we are.

Diane: 00:42:07

And sometimes that involves some steps, like going through a grieving of not having known sooner.

Diane: 00:42:13

But I think coaching is particularly well suited to people who are in times of transition.

Diane: 00:42:18

And I also want to normalize that.

Diane: 00:42:20

Many women, when they're being honest, say, I don't know who I Am.

Diane: 00:42:26

I don't know what I want.

Diane: 00:42:28

I don't know.

Diane: 00:42:30

Because we're not encouraged to know ourselves.

Diane: 00:42:33

We're encouraged to be there for others.

Diane: 00:42:35

So if you feel like, wow, my kids left home and I have no idea who I am, that's not at all unusual.

Diane: 00:42:42

And it's a good opportunity to work with someone to help you discover the you who's not serving the needs of others.

Kate: 00:42:51

Yeah.

Kate: 00:42:52

Here's to normalizing change, normalizing doing things differently and living our lives to what works for us and not the neurotypical box.

Kate: 00:43:01

And if moving cities or countries in your 50s or your 60s fills you with invigoration and excitement and enthusiasm and lust for life, like, why is that not a good thing?

Kate: 00:43:15

And you know the same way if you are neurotypical and you've lived in the Same House for 50 years and that brings you comfort and love and security, then that's also lovely as well.

Diane: 00:43:26

Absolutely.

Kate: 00:43:27

It's the removing the judgment of what we should be doing or what things should look like, even if it doesn't feel right to us.

Kate: 00:43:36

So, I mean, I love talking to you, Diane.

Kate: 00:43:38

I can talk to you forever.

Kate: 00:43:40

And you know, we'll keep doing this.

Kate: 00:43:42

We'll just go backwards and forwards on each of those podcasts.

Diane: 00:43:44

Love it.

Kate: 00:43:46

But I just want to thank you so much for being here and always sharing your, your beautiful insights.

Kate: 00:43:52

Can you tell people where they can find you?

Kate: 00:43:54

Like what you're doing, you know, work wise for people at the moment and.

Kate: 00:43:58

Yeah, just anything that people might want to know?

Diane: 00:44:00

Yeah, absolutely.

Diane: 00:44:01

I think if you like the sound of my voice and the things I have to say with it, you should absolutely check out the Driven Woman Entrepreneur podcast.

Diane: 00:44:10

I'm sure Kate will link to it in the show notes.

Diane: 00:44:13

And if you are wondering what is the one thing above all other things that's keeping you feeling stuck right now and not moving forward?

Diane: 00:44:23

I have a quiz called what's holding you back?

Diane: 00:44:27

And you not only get an individualized result, you're going to get a short series of emails after that that link you to a bunch of resources and next steps to get unstuck.

Kate: 00:44:36

Diane, thank you so much.

Diane: 00:44:38

Always a pleasure, Kate.

Kate: 00:44:41

If you've enjoyed today's episode, I invite you to check out my brand new subscription podcast called the Toolkit.

Kate: 00:44:47

Now this is where I'm going to be opening up my entire library.

Kate: 00:44:51

My vault of information from over the years, my workshops, webinars and courses, my conversations with experts about hormones, nutrition, lifestyle and bringing brand new, up to date content from global experts.

Kate: 00:45:06

This is going to be an amazing resource for you to support you and guide you even more on more niche topics and conversations so you can really thrive and learn to live your best life with adhd.

Kate: 00:45:17

I'm so excited about this.

Kate: 00:45:19

Please just check out it's the Toolkit on Apple Podcast and you get a free trial.

Kate: 00:45:24

Really hope to see you there.