Neurodiversity informed coaching: training for other coaches with Elaine Taylor-Klaus

Welcome to the Overgivers Anonymous podcast. My name is Angela Mondor, also known as the Geeky Girl. In this podcast, we're going to be talking about some amazing things to help you get over overgiving. Hi and welcome to the Overgivers Anonymous podcast. I'm excited today because Elaine and I have some history, and of course she's been here before, so I'm excited to bring her back. I can't wait to get into it, but let me give you her updated information because As we know, business owners, we change and grow and things move, and it's a lot of wiggle that happens. So here we are. Elaine Taylor Close is co-founder of the first global coaching organization for parenting neurodiverse kids. Do we ever need that? Originally Impact ADHD is now impactparents.com. Starting out as a mom struggling to raise her 3 complex kids, all of whom have grown into successful young adults, she herself grew to become an internationally acclaimed thought leader and master certified coach and the author of several books, including her personal favorite, The Essential Guide to Raising Complex Kids with ADHD, Anxiety, and More. Welcome to the show, Elaine. How are you?

Thank you. I am thrilled to be here and I'm doing well.

Thanks.

I'm doing good.

Awesome. And, you know, neurodiversity is something that's very close to my heart. Of course, I'm very public in the fact that I have my own neurodiversity and talk about The way it impacts my life and the way that it impacts my family and my business. And I have children as well with some fun neurodiversity as well. And I know that like it's been years, but we did work together years and years ago. And I was so excited when I first met you and Diane when we were looking at, you know, the business that you had created and with helping parents with ADHD children. And of course now it's evolved, right?

Yeah, for sure.

It's super exciting. So we're gonna be talking about neurodiversity, but in informed coaching. So can you tell me a little bit about what that looks like to you?

Yeah. So, so thank you for having me here and for, you know, one, one of my favorite conversations to have. So I'm thrilled to be having this conversation. So, so as you say, I'm a mom of complex kids, now young adults. And on the journey to figure out how to help them as they were diagnosed one by one like dominoes, I began to identify that maybe my husband wasn't responsible for all of the neurodiversity in my family, uh, or neurodivergence in my family. And so I too was diagnosed in my 40s with attention and learning issues. So that's, that's who I am and what I bring to this conversation. When I discovered coaching, as a modality. I was actually heading to graduate school to try to become a support for other parents of complex kids because I was so lost myself that I figured if I could help others, maybe I could help myself. And I discovered coaching along the way and I was sold. I was, I was like, I dove in like, this is it. This is all. And I left graduate school. I left therapeutic world because the coaching world was a modality that was positive and proactive and collaborative. And it was everything I stood for. and everything I realized that I needed in managing the neurodivergence in my family, that my family needed. And I, I became a profoundly better parent as I began to discover coaching. And so, so it's taken me a lot of years. I've been doing this for about 15 years to begin to understand that what I do is this special spicy flavor of coaching that I call neurodiversity-informed coaching. Because, because it's not just coaching, but it's coaching that is informed by an understanding in neurodiversity and neurodivergence. And I'd love for us to talk about the distinction there. And it's, it's as we look at how do we be in communication and conversation with people, and how do we do that with an understanding of and a respect for the way all of our different brains are wired. That's what this is really about.

So, and I think that's the key piece, like how all of our brains are wired differently.

Yeah.

I may have a label of ADHD, I may have a label of OCPD, but that doesn't mean to say that every other ADHD person or every other person who experiences OCPD is gonna have the exact same wiring or the exact same way of doing things. And I think that for me as a business owner, one of the hardest things I struggled with was watching Mostly neurotypical people saying, this is how you have to run your business. This is how you have to do things. And so for me, the evolution was, well, hang on a second, this doesn't feel right for me.

And it's not working for me.

Not working, like, at all.

Like, at all.

Right. But being— I think that now, count me if I'm wrong, but when I think about neurodiversity-informed coaching, I think Um, you know, of, of coaching from this perspective of, here's some options.

What, what would—

what works for you or what doesn't work for you? Does that tie in?

Yes. Yeah, for sure. And, and ideally, ideally, all coaching is neurodiversity informed. Okay, so let's— can we step back and just like, yeah, let's identify our terms for a minute. Neurodiversity means all brains are wired differently, and there is no good or bad. It's just different. Okay, on a nutshell, there's a spectrum of brain wiring. We're all a little different, that most people maybe fall into this realm of neurotypical whose brains are wired fairly similarly. But there's a big range of maybe up to maybe 20 to 40%, depending on the data you look at, of people whose brains are not wired quite so typically.

Yes.

And when you look at trauma and uncertain times and the influence of that, when you look at what happens in the modern world and the way that That shapes the brain, that shifts us probably out of that 40 to 60 number and maybe flips it. Because when you look at, at living in a, in uncertain times, that has an impact on the way our brains are wired, because everything we experience impacts the way our brains are wired. So, so neurodiversity is all of us. And neurodivergence means those of us whose brains diverge in some way from what we would consider to be neurotypical. I prefer to call it neurospicy. That's just my particular language around it that I've borrowed from someone. I cannot remember where I got it from, but which is a classic neurodivergent thing. But so, so I like to play with the term neurospicy. So ideally, when you look at the world of coaching, professional coaching is about meeting people where they are. and helping them grow from there. Right? Helping them. And the goal of coaching is to do one of two things or both, to deepen people's understanding of themselves or to raise their self-awareness, to forward the action in their lives, and ideally to do some combination of the two. That's what coaching is supposed to— it's the goal of coaching, right? On some level. So, Um, that should be ideal for people with neurodivergence, right? For neurosensitivity.

Yes, it should.

That should be exactly what you want. The challenge is that when coaches are not well informed about neurodivergence, they may not understand how to meet people where they are. They may not understand how to help people elevate their self-awareness because Because there's a different lens for looking at it and understanding it. There's language around executive function, emotional regulation. These are all issues that all coaches deal with, and it may be— you may be dealing with it with very neurotypical people. But when you're dealing with it with people who are neurospicy, you want to understand it well enough to be able to meet them where they are, to support them and help them grow with it without actually adding insult or challenge or upset without making them feel like they're wrong again or that now they're disappointing you unintentionally.

Right.

And I think it's really unintentional. But we've been doing a lot of work in the last couple of years training coaches and training professionals, right? So whether it's lawyers or bankers or whatever other professionals in the world around Neurodivergent, neurodivergence, and neurodiversity awareness. Because I think a lot of times people just don't— they don't know what they don't know, and they're not intending to create an environment that is not supportive or not inclusive. That this falls into that realm of DEI. They're not intending to not be inclusive, but they are unintentionally not being inclusive because they don't understand the impact of XYZ, and XYZ could be having, having people start working with you and, and requiring that they do a lot of writing when this is a person who's very visual or auditory. Or it may be, you know, coaches are told not to chase our clients. We're supposed to wait for them to come to us. Well, if they have a time management issue, that we might be waiting a really long time. And so maybe they need help with that. We want to come to them. So there, there are ways in which we can be Neurodivergent aware enough to improve our capacity to meet them where they are and elevate them.

And I love the fact that you say that everybody has a bit of this different wiring because it's true that nobody has this. And we come to this world with our own lenses, our experiences that we have. I love that you brought up trauma. I love that you brought up that the things in your life can change the way that you think and the way you see the world. And I, you know, this— I often say, like, you might be— you, you might be listening to what's happening in the world and you have some opinions and they may be different than mine, but that's just because we're wearing different lenses. It doesn't mean to say that I'm disagreeing with you, but I'd like to understand you more. I think that when we look at especially neurodiverse people or, or people who are spicy, right?

Mm-hmm.

The, the concept of being open to the idea That there could be another way to get something done. And it's, it's not even like, even as a neurodiverse human being, if you have your own neurospiciness, if you think, oh, all people are going to be just like me, you're not.

No. Which is why, I mean, you know, in my work, what I love about coaching is coaching is about helping people figure out what's the best way for me to X, Y, or Z? What's the process? What's the system? What do I need to be successful in whatever? It's not that I don't do strategies and structures and tactical stuff because it's important and those are available.

But if you—

but some people are theory people and some people are method people and some people are tactical people. And so you really gotta Help them find the path that works for them. And if parents come to me all the time saying, you know, give me a strategy for— well, you know, I can. I've got a book of strategies. I do. But it's not my favorite book. And that's what— and this is why, because I can give you a strategy, but it may or may not be the right solution for you till I understand what the challenge is and what you're trying— what's the change you're trying to see. The strategy may change depending on what's underlying, what's causing the challenge you're trying to address.

Well, and the strategy could change from month to month or year to year too. It's important to check in, right? There's plenty of times when I've put together, oh, here's what's helping me in my brain, and here's what's helping me to get to XYZ that I'm trying to get done. And then all of a sudden, there's this shift, and I'm like, It's not working for anymore. There's something wrong. There's— it's not that there's something wrong, it's that things have changed. And so it's important to readdress those strategies.

And maybe what's changed is that it's no longer interesting. I mean, I can't imagine that would be a problem at all. That works great, but I'm bored. And so it's time to change it up just to change it up. Like, we do this annual thing every summer called the ADHD Parentspalooza. It's an interview series. It's an online summit. It's fabulous. And I would get bored if it was the same every year. So sometimes we do one interview, sometimes we interview people together, and we put people together who know each other. Sometimes we put people who don't know each other. Sometimes we do— this year we're doing some single interviews and some double interviews. It's not that there was anything wrong with it before, it's just that I needed to change it up to keep it interesting.

Yes.

There, you know.

Yeah. And it's important to understand that about yourself. And sometimes I think that what, what I hear, what I know from my own journey, what I've heard from other people's journeys, is that sometimes as a neurotypical person, it— we can't even see what other people see. And so it's important to get that reflectiveness from somebody else that goes, oh, well, I've noticed that this happens to you, and then that happens. Um, and to be open to hearing those reflections, right?

Yeah, for sure. For sure. It's all about openness, acceptance, and rolling with it, right? Being with it, trusting. There's a certain amount of trusting the universe, trusting the process. I was in a conversation with a business partner of mine yesterday about— and she was saying, well, we have to have this. Like, okay, so let's pull back. The outcome, the benefit you're looking for is this. This is one way to get there, but there are probably 10 ways to get there. What if we stop saying you have to do it this way and we pull back and we say, okay, here, let's look at, let's brainstorm and see if we can come up with 6 different ways to get there and then assess which is the best. It's, is it as efficient? Maybe not, but maybe.

Yes.

Because if it's what gets you to something that really works for everyone, then, then it will ultimately be more efficient over time.

Well, and it's one of the things that comes up for my clients when we're building teams, right? And they're like, well, this is the process. This is how I want them to do it. And I want them to get it done this way. And da da da da da. And then you say, but hold on a second. What if it's holding them back? What if it takes them twice as long to get it done? Because if you've put in these expectations, you have to do it how they have to do it. But maybe they can do it faster if you just let them have a little extra flow. And maybe they're still getting, like you said, getting to the same end result, right? I talk about the end in mind a lot.

This—

are we— is this what we agree on? Is this the end in mind we're looking for? Yes. Okay. Doesn't matter how we get there, right? We just need to get there.

Well, and so, so there's— it's this double-edged sword because on the one hand, you start with the end in mind, right? And I agree with you totally so that we all know what we're working towards. On the other hand, we don't want to be so attached to this particular outcome that we can't find the process because it may take us in a slightly different direction that's more effective. Right.

And so, yeah, so I often talk about it as like we're looking at it from, from a compass perspective rather than a turn-by-turn GPS, right?

I love that.

Like, we're, we're trying to get to California. Fantastic. California is over in that direction. Are we gonna stop at Hoover Dam? Are we gonna stop over in Las Vegas? Like, where are we going? It doesn't matter, but we're heading towards this direction, right?

Right. And then we recalibrate.

Maybe we don't get there in the time frame we wanted. Maybe it takes us a little longer, but We're moving in the direction.

Yeah. Yeah. And to be adaptive and to be— and I think that's the notion of flexibility and resilience is really important in this realm because the term that I like to use is flexible structure. Like we want structure, right? Structure is really important. But structure has to have some flexibility to it. You cannot build a bridge that doesn't move. Or it will collapse.

Yes.

And if we learned nothing in COVID at the beginning of the first couple of years of COVID it's that we needed some flexibility in our structure because to say we only can do it this way shut down our entire world. Right.

Yes.

And to be able to say, okay, well, maybe we can do mental health online, or maybe we can learn. Some people can learn actually better online. Not everybody, but Um, to be able to adapt to, to where people's needs are and how they process information is, is a huge gift of both neurodiversity awareness and coaching. And I think that's where they come together.

And I think you're right. Structure is important. And sometimes as a neurodiverse person, we're, we're a little bit afraid of structure because we feel like it could be almost too claustrophobic or like box-like or stuck in a box. But to me, We do, we do, we totally do. But if we can look at it and, like you said, be flexible— like, I have certain working hours that I want to work, and, and they're working hours that I have implemented to myself because they work with the life that I want to have and the work I want to get done.

Yes.

But sometimes I work at my desk here, and sometimes I work out in the garden, and sometimes I work in the living room. Sometimes I have the TV on, sometimes I have the radio on. It's about still working during the times I want, but Being able to play with my environment to help me to stay focused on what I'm working on. Right?

Yeah. And for me, it's having those hours and being able to be somewhat malleable with the hours because I think I said to you earlier in the proverbial green room that I had some family health stuff came up this year that shifted my plans for the summer. And so, you know, in coaching, we call it dancing in the moment. Right? We have to dance with what's coming. And instead of going to that model of freaking out because this didn't go as I expected it to. And I think that's where most people struggle in the world is we struggle when we get triggered or challenged when there's a gap between expectation and reality. True.

Yes.

That's where upsets happen. If we can shift our mindset, our way of being so that we, we expect the unexpected and we, we trust our capacity to be with the unexpected and whatever happens, everything shifts from there because you're no longer constantly living in this triggered state. Now you're just dancing, right? Yes.

I often say, I often say, stop shitting on yourself.

Yes.

Right. I try to get rid of the shoulds as much as possible. And, and that's because if I'm shoulding all over myself, then I'm self-deprecating. I'm putting, I'm putting things on myself that are making me heavy, that are making me feel like I can't dance. I, I can only just lay there or in a puddle. Right.

Well, I, I think there are a couple of things that happen. Yeah. We talk about it shedding the shoulds. Part of what happens is that we are often living other people's expectations instead of our own. Right. And so part of shedding the shoulds is shedding the, they think I should. But the other thing that happens is that we get so caught up in everybody else's expectations that we forget to set our own expectations, or we set our own expectations based on other people's shoulds.

Yes.

So the other thing that I think is really important is to begin to think about, is that really important to me? Is that a high value for me? What's important to me about And, you know, in my work with parents of complex kids, but also with educators and administrators and professionals, if we can get really clear on what our values are, it's a whole lot easier to set our own expectations and figure out what's important instead of trying to keep up with whatever some other entity thinks is important. Now, when you're in a system, and whether you're in a corporation or a school system where there are metrics and expect— I mean, I'm not saying you're not going to hit your numbers, whatever those numbers happen to be, but how you get there and when they happen may morph and shift, or maybe it's not the right system for you. Yes, I totally get that.

And sometimes we need somebody to help us. And this is where your informed coaching comes from, is when somebody can say to you, is that what you really want. Like, is that story you're telling yourself, is that your story, or is it somebody else's story that you've just been playing on repeat in your head? You know, one of my favorite exercises that I did years ago, and I do often, is what do I want my day to look like?

Yeah, yeah.

Then I can start to peel back. If nobody else was involved, if nobody else was here, and if it was just me, my brain, myself, my wants, what does it look like? Doesn't mean to say that I can make it happen necessarily today, but I can work towards it.

Work through it. Well, and so going back to that conversation about structure, right, is a lot of, a lot of, you know, people in the productivity realm and the, you know, all of that consulting realm will say, well, here's how you do that. You block schedule. Well, that's really nice if that's a good fit for you. Block scheduling did not work for me and makes me crazy.

Right.

So I want to be able— it was really important to figure out what do I want? And then I had to figure out how to make it work in a way that worked for me in my life, my schedule, and my work. And so there's the what and then the how. The how comes at the very end. We have this tendency to start with how, and the truth is how will come if we get really clear on what we want. So can I offer an exercise for people to play with?

Yes, please.

Awesome. Okay, because this is just bringing me to it. So we're talking about shedding the shoulds, and the most powerful way to shed the shoulds is to pay attention to your own language, to notice when you're, when you're getting into that obligatory language. And by that I mean have to, got to, need to, ought to, should, right? All of those words. I need to— anything we say it all day long, you'll start catching yourself. I need to, I've got to, I need to, I've got it and just replace it with the word want or choose. That's it. And so when I learned to, when I became a coach, when I was going through coach training, I committed to myself to do this for a year.

Wow.

One year of wanting, of only wanting. And that meant I want, I had to figure out what I wanted in driving carpool or doing the dishes or whatever it was that was required. But I had to find my want in it. And even that, you hear me saying I had to. I chose to find my want in it. And when you begin to just notice your language, when you catch yourself shoulding instead of wanting, it's unbelievable how it shifts when you say, no, I want to go put my kid to bed tonight. I want to, you know, I want to do this report and do something really great for my supervisor. I want to, whatever the want is, when we come from a place of Choice.

I love that. I love that concept, and I see the value in it, and I've done it to some degree in my life and in, in taking control of my own actions. But I'll tell you what, I had resistance come up, and I'm sure lots of people are listening, right? And they're going to have some resistance. And I'll tell you what my biggest resistance was, is I want to cook supper. I do not— the last thing I want to do is prepare food. I just, I could care less. I just don't want to. Right.

Okay, great.

How do I, how do I change the language to want if I don't want to?

So here's what happened for me. Yeah. At some point, I looked at my husband and I said, you know, you're really good at this and you like this, this cooking thing, and I'm terrible at it and I hate it. What's wrong with this picture?

Yeah.

And I, who had been doing everything in the family because I was a stay-at-home mom in those days and he was working, right? So we had fallen into these really traditional patterns. Yes, he was working and I was still— and I asked him to shift. And so I was then, then I was just prepping meals and doing the shopping and he was— and then eventually he took it all over, over time as I went back to work and things shifted. But that exercise allowed me to, to see a place where it was not the best and highest use of my time, and it wasn't serving anybody ultimately. Because if it were just me, I'd have an apple and cheese for dinner, and I'd be very happy.

I often say that to my husband. He's like, what do you want for dinner? I'm like, I just don't care. And he's like, oh, I get it. You would just have popcorn and ice cream. I'm like, yeah, that's pretty much it.

That would work, right? So it's not that I'm not a healthy eater, right? It's just that I just have a different value around it. And so I think the reason I, I introduced the exercise and what I invite people to do is to do it for 2 weeks. You don't have to do a year. 2 weeks.

Yeah.

Just notice the, the language you use around obligation and, and notice what shifts when you start to ask yourself, well, do I want it? Just that, because things will start to shift. It did piss my mom off a little bit, I gotta say, because I stopped Making appearances, right? Yeah. Well, can you just drop by and make an appearance? No, Mom, I'm sorry, I can't. And so I did start saying no, and I probably did shift some dynamics with friends and things where I realized I was doing more out of obligation than out of choice.

I love the way you turn that. So when I brought you that piece, because I know that people are thinking it, right, of the shift, it's like, But how else can you look at that situation? It's not just like, oh well, you just have to start wanting it. No, like, how else can you look at that situation? What are some other things that you can think about that can shift you from to want, or, you know, to change it so that it feels better?

Well, and ideally, let's, you know, if you're in a partnership with someone and there's something you're doing regularly— now it may be that there's something neither of you wants to do, and then you've got to Like, so here's a great example. Okay. In our old house years ago, we had this huge basement and it was a nightmare. I mean, it was just a nightmare. And it was so bad that for— and I kid you not— 10 years, other than the play area for the kids, neither of us went in there because it was just— it was too much. And both of us were overwhelmed by it and freaked out, whatever. And so we made a deal that we would go in there for 1 hour, just the 2 of us, but we would body double with each other. Do you know we cleaned the whole thing up in an hour?

Wow.

Because it was now 2 of us doing something we both agreed we did not want to do, but we made the choice to do it together. So I didn't— at that point, I was choosing to do something I knew I didn't want to do, but I was still coming from a place of choice.

And I love the body doubling. Like, I have people who I can call. Like, literally, my girlfriend will call me and she goes, I just need you on the phone because, like, I got some chores I got to get done. You know, that body doubling has been amazing.

Yeah, it's a great tool. It's a really, really great tool. My kids use it across country all the time.

That's awesome.

Anyway, so that's my challenge to your listeners. 2 weeks of just paying attention to your language about if you hear yourself going have to, got to, need to, ought to, should, ask yourself, do I want to? Do I choose this? And just notice. That's it.

That's fantastic. Thank you so much. I love that. And I love the fact that you're like, hey, you don't have to do it for a whole year. Give it a couple of weeks. Give it a shot. Right.

See how it feels.

Yeah, right.

I love it.

Yeah, just an invitation.

And if you choose not to do it, that's fine too. That's your choice, right?

Yeah, it is totally your choice. Yeah, your circle of control, even your actions, right? So, so tell us, all of us who are listening, what— how would we want to get a hold of you? What, what would you want to share with us when they did get a hold of you? Where would you like them— where would we like us to go to find you?

Well, so thank you. I am doing— Diane and I are both doing more and more work around neurodiversity-informed the workplace and neurodiversity inclusion. And so love to talk to anybody who's interested in bringing that into your life, your work, your family, whatever. We have a Coach's Guide to Neurodiversity for your audience, which is probably the best place to go. You know, download it for free, get a sense of who we are and what we offer. I think that's at impactparents.com/overgivers.

Oh, it's a really good name.

Yeah. So you can download that for free. And there's tons of resources on that on the website. We have podcasts called Parenting with Impact. So you can find us in a lot of places. And, and I guess the thing I want to say is, is if you know that this appeals to you, that you're interested in it, ask for some help. Get, get some guidance, lean in, just ask for a conversation to see what resources might support you. We are more than happy to, to help inform you, guide you, direct you, or refer you, whatever. I just want to be in conversation with people who are interested in bringing this juicy conversation to the world. So I love it.

Juicy conversations and spicy diversity.

You got it. Neurospacy, neurospacy brains.

That's it. Yes, I love it. Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast, Eileen. I love it.

Thank you for having me, my friend.

Okay, have a great day. Thank you so much for listening to the Overgivers Anonymous podcast. Your support means the world to me. You can find show notes for this episode and other goodies at overgiversanonymous.ca. And if you enjoyed this episode or you enjoy the If you like this podcast in general, why not join us in the Overgivers Anonymous Facebook group where you can connect with overgivers from all over the world? Head on over to geekygirl.ca/group.