Jessica: What do you think the biggest difference has been for you
post-treatment compared to how it was before you got a diagnosis? Brett: I can sum it up real quick,
uh, contentment with my life.
Hello brains! We're finally back with Brett Thornhill Part 2.
Thank you for continuing to remind me. Everybody really seemed to connect with Brett's story of being diagnosed with ADHD
later in life including one of the people in this picture.
So in this part we tried asking him all the things you might want to know about how to find and work with an ADHD coach.
And patreon brains hang around after the interview. We have some cool announcements in case
you'd like to, you know, ask Brett some questions yourself. Jessica: So after receiving your diagnosis
What made you decide to be an ADHD coach?
Brett: I didn't even know ADHD coaching existed actually when I got my diagnosis.
But I knew that there was something that I needed other than just, "you have ADHD,
here's some medication, come back and see me in six weeks." So the more research that I did the more I kind of
discovered that coaching existed.
And I was talking to my sister once
explaining a whole bunch of stuff to her about ADHD and myself and the stuff I'd learned about myself
and she said, "You know Brett, you need to start sharing this with people. You need to start using this somehow."
And I went, okay. I went to an interview, a job interview, or a you know a coffee with someone about a job. I came back home and
I wasn't very happy and my wife Roxanne, she saw it on my face, and she said, "Well
I guess that didn't go well." And I went, no actually that went really well. I think if I want it's mine.
She goes, "Well. What's wrong?" I don't want to do this anymore.
I was not happy in the career that I was in at the time. I felt like, like there's something
I'm supposed to do with my life.
And this ain't it. You know even though I had done it for 20 years, and she said, "What do you want to do?
I pretty much literally said I want to jump off a cliff,
and I don't know where the bottom is and I want you to hold my hand on the way down.
Jessica: Aw. Brett: So I dug into coaching, I found out that there were opportunities,
I had no clue how it was gonna end up, but I knew I had a passion for it
and I knew that passion had always led me in the right direction in the past so as long as I had that
I could learn the rest.
I literally found my path by walking on it which is something I advise my clients to do quite often.
Sometimes you do have to find your path by walking on it.
Jessica: So did it make a difference for you to connect with other people with ADHD? Brett: Oh goodness,
yeah. When I started training to become a coach
it was great to feel part of a tribe. You know, people that I could talk to and people who thought like me
and even if they didn't think like me they got it. My clients come in and they go, "Oh my goodness,
it's great to talk to someone who gets it." It's not that I necessarily think exactly the same way as them
it's that I understand the fact that they don't think the way - the same way as everyone else.
That makes that more acceptable. That makes it more
typical, yeah. Suddenly you don't start questioning
What's wrong with me? Jessica: Tell the Brains what it's like if they were to go in for ADHD coaching.
What's, what's that like? Brett: That's a real good question because a lot of people think the coaching is about fixing, and
it's not. Believe it or not, it's much less about imparting knowledge and insight to people than it is helping them find their own.
Oftentimes we get so close to our own situation that we can't see the forest for the trees.
A coach's job is really to be an objective safe
non-judgmental source
where they can
talk about where their challenges lie and what's got them stuck and
the power of being able to hear that reflected back to you often times
will allow you to see it in a completely different light and that can be really really powerful.
Jessica: So what would you say your approach is to coaching? Brett: Everything
I do really comes from three underlying
principles. First of all, you have to understand what you're dealing with. You have to understand the biology. You have to understand exactly what's happening
in the brain, how it impacts your behavior. It helps you get past that point of, you know, "Is this valid,
or is this not valid?"
You know it's the same if you're gonna take an approach to any problem, the first thing you have to do is understand it. The
second pillar that I use is acceptance and every time I say acceptance people think I mean
resignation. "Oh well I have ADHD so therefore that means I can't." That's not what acceptance means to me at all. Acceptance to me is
as much about empowerment. Sometimes learning how to
acknowledge and how to accept the things that you're very very good at, your gifts your talents your skills,
can be more challenging than accepting those things that you consider to be your weaknesses.
And this is something I encounter with my clients a lot. Many of them have struggled through a lot of their lives and so acknowledging
any level of success at all can make them feel very self-centered and arrogant.
That's a common thing that I see with people with ADHD all the time. We don't take compliments well.
You know we find it very difficult. I see you laughing because you know
You know we find it very difficult to
be acknowledged for things that we do well. So I make a very sharp distinction between being self-centered and being a centered self.
I think it's really important to be a centered self. I think being a centered self is about knowing who you are.
I think confidence comes from that and I think that's born from acceptance.
You know, you have to accept who you are
in order to be able to move on to, you know, being able to embrace yourself.
And that's the third pillar, you have to embrace
who you are. You have to embrace once you've accepted. You have to embrace what that means for you. You have to embrace that the
differences that exist in your life can actually be very very special and can help you create things that others
just won't see, won't think about. We're the people who'll go to the edge of the cliff. Jessica: Or hang off a cliff in some episodes.
Brett: Or hang off the cliff in some, in some episodes absolutely. Yeah, yeah. I - you know, I think those three steps,
they're vital. They're what got me from looking backwards to looking forward. It was only after I kind of got through my journey
that I realized that I had kind of taken these three steps.
It made sense for me to approach my coaching in that way as well.
Jessica: How do you know, if you're looking for support from an ADHD coach, what to look for? Brett: That's a great question actually. Personal fit is
incredibly important. Look for someone that you like as an individual. Look for someone that you feel
you'd be comfortable to sit down and have a cup of coffee and have a chat with. Ask
lots of questions. Never be afraid to ask about qualifications. Never be afraid to ask about
what got them to where they are.
Because you're gonna be spending a lot of time with this person, you're gonna be opening up to them. The coaching relationship is a partnership
so you have to have a comfort level. You know, styles have to - have to jill.
Jessica: What's the difference between a coach and a therapist? Brett: Strictly speaking therapy really is about
resolution of the past.
There are times as a coach when we need to dip our toe in in the past just to figure out where the assumptions and
beliefs that are holding you back have come from, we don't stay there long. It's really about forward movement.
It's not my job to help you resolve what's happened, but this is what led you to this point.
How do we use that moving forward?There are some issues which are very clearly better geared toward therapy than coaching,
and it's my job,
and I'm obligated by a code of conduct to
identify when that happens and to identify that for the client and to advise them that you would be best off seeking
therapy for this and to help them then find a therapist.
A therapist that
understands
ADHD because I will tell you this I will look straight into the camera and say this if you are going to see a therapist
and you have ADHD it is imperative to find a therapist who understands ADHD.
I mean there are lots of great therapists out there.
But if your therapist does not understand ADHD then there is something fundamental about you that they are missing
and you run the risk of doing more damage than good. Quite honestly. That's my opinion.
Jessica: Thank you again Brett for spending so much time talking with us. If you'd like to learn more about Brett
you can find him at his website.
www.embraceyouradhd.ca Dot C. A.
That's the important part. If you want to hear from other ADHD coaches and experts you can also check out the online
ADHD awareness expo coming up. You might even see me giving some tips myself.
It's online so you can join wherever you are in the world and you can sign up for free at
howtoadhd.com/expo
HOW TO ADHD DOT COM!
Oh yeah, we've been busy over here, and by we, I mean Scott our amazing website developer. Thank you Scott! It's beautiful I love it!
And thank you to my patreon brains who make this show possible every week. This week as an extra special patreon thank you
we'll be posting a patreon bonus video with a bunch of Brett's questions that we couldn't fit in this episode and Brett just might be
in the comments answering your questions.
He totally will be.
That's it for this week. If you're like, website! Expos! Bonus videos!
What's she doing now! Be sure to follow me on Facebook and Twitter
and I'll keep you up to date when I remember to update them.
Is that it, I think that's it. I'll see you next week. Bye brains! Question time! Katrina Hauer asks, what Hogwarts houses
are you and Edward? We didn't know so we had to find out, but apparently I am Ravenclaw and he is
Edward: (sighs) Hufflepuff. Jessica: (laughs) He was totally rooting for Slytherin. Bye brains.