SuccessFULL With ADHD

Living with ADHD Without Losing Yourself with Micah Saviet and Elizabeth Ahmann

• Brooke Schnittman MA, PCC, BCC • Episode 122

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ADHD is often talked about through the lens of productivity, focus, and executive functioning, but what happens when we zoom out and look at the bigger picture? Elizabeth Ahmann and Micah Saviet, co-authors of Flourishing with Adult ADHD, join me for a thought-provoking conversation about identity, self-perception, and the lived experience of being neurodivergent.

We explore how masking, shame, trauma, sociocultural influences, and late diagnosis can shape the way adults with ADHD see themselves and navigate the world. This conversation challenges the traditional deficit-based model of ADHD and offers a more affirming, strengths-based perspective that can help you better understand yourself and create meaningful change. Whether you're an adult with ADHD, a coach, therapist, or someone supporting a neurodivergent loved one, you'll walk away with practical insights for building self-awareness, self-compassion, and resilience.

Episode Highlights

[0:00] - The hidden cost of masking, perfectionism, and appearing successful on the outside

[0:50] - Meet Elizabeth Ahmann and Micah Saviet, co-authors of Flourishing with Adult ADHD

[2:18] - Why ADHD is more than executive functioning challenges—it’s also an identity experience

[4:23] - Moving beyond the medical model and embracing a neurodiversity-affirming perspective

[7:16] - Understanding the "fifth domain" of ADHD: sociocultural identity

[10:44] - Cultural humility, curiosity, and supporting clients with different lived experiences

[12:04] - The Social Identity Wheel and how identity awareness can reduce shame

[14:49] - Reframing ADHD challenges as differences in neurobiology rather than personal failures

[16:17] - Identity reconstruction and redefining yourself beyond an ADHD-based narrative of failure

[18:24] - Trauma, adverse childhood experiences, and how they intersect with ADHD

[23:51] - Why addressing shame is essential for adults with ADHD

[24:14] - Masking, people-pleasing, perfectionism, and the invisible burden many adults carry

[26:42] - How social conditioning impacts women with ADHD and contributes to late diagnosis

[29:06] - The difference between adapting and masking as a neurodivergent person

[31:02] - Small steps, externalizing tasks, and reducing executive function overwhelm

[33:30] - Using affirmations and visualization to reshape self-belief and identity

[36:10] - Why micro-actions and 1% improvements create lasting progress

[38:08] - Turning goals into experiments to reduce pressure and build momentum

[40:08] - What to remember when it feels like you've tried everything and nothing has worked

[40:55] - New research on ADHD coaching and improvements in well-being and executive functioning

[43:35] - Where to find Flourishing with Adult ADHD and who will benefit most from reading it

Links & Resources

Elizabeth Ahmann, ScD, RN, PCC, NBC-HWC 

Elizabeth Ahmann (she/her) is an ADHD and health and wellness coach, Professor, and Curriculum Manager in the Health and Wellness Coaching Department at Notre Dame of Maryland University’s School of Integrative Health. She also serves as Director of Research at Springer Institute.

With a master’s degree in nursing and a doctorate in public health, Elizabeth brings extensive experience in coaching, teaching, and research. She synthesizes theory, evidence, and practice to translate complex research into accessible, actionable guidance that supports optimal, person-centered care for adults with ADHD.

Micah Saviet, LCSW-C, NBC-HWC

Micah Saviet (he/him) is a licensed clinical social worker specializing in trauma-informed, neurodiversity-affirming care for adults with ADHD. Micah integrates evidence-based, somatic, and neurophysiological approaches to support clients in healing from shame, emotional dysregulation, and trauma-related patterns commonly experienced by neurodivergent adults.

Micah’s work emphasizes moving beyond symptom management toward deeper healing, self-compassion, and sustainable well-being. He writes and speaks on adult ADHD, trauma, nervous system regulation, and strengths-based care for professionals.

Connect

To purchase "Flourishing with Adult ADHD":


Micah's therapy practice: https://www.adulttraumaandadhdsolutions.com/


Micah & Liz's coaching practice: https://www.pathways-ahead.com/


Liz and Micah's research institute: https://springerinstitute.org/


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Micah Saviet:

There is a big role of masking and compensating, and even finding these sophisticated strategies

early on:

perfectionism, overworking, people pleasing, relying on this urgency, and adrenaline, and cortisol in order to meet those deadlines, but from the outside that may look like being successful, or that may look like, oh, they're pulling all their weight, they're doing everything they need to do, but internally it can come at a significant cost, right? This visual, the duck paddling like frantically underneath, you know, the water, but on the surface, you just see it smoothly, calm, floating dock on the top, and there's this iceberg underneath with burnout, shame, and even barely trying to hold things together.

Brooke Schnittman:

Welcome to Successful with ADHD. I'm Brooke Schnittman. Let's get started. Welcome back to another episode of Successful with ADHD. Today I have two friends and colleagues who I have worked closely with with our ADHD Ed Camp, and they're just huge rock stars and influences in the neurodivergent space. We have Liz Ahman, she's an ADHD and health and wellness coach, professor, researcher, first author of Flourishing with Adult ADHD, and she brings expertise in public health nursing coaching, translating research into clinical and practical guidance. And then we have Micah Savvy, he's a trauma-informed neurodiversity affirming clinician and co-author of Flourishing with the Adult ADHD, specializing in adult ADHD trauma and nervous system regulation, and I have a copy of their latest book, which is chock full of information for individuals with ADHD, people who are supporting people with ADHD, people who coached people with ADHD. It also goes into neurodiversity as a whole. I've been looking forward to this conversation for a while, there's so many cool new ideas that you both put into this book that the public has not heard about yet, so I can't wait to crack the code into what you guys have been working on. Welcome. Thank you.

Elizabeth Ahmann:

We're glad to be here.

Micah Saviet:

Thanks for having us.

Brooke Schnittman:

So, most ADHD conversations focus on behavior, time management, focus, productivity, but when I was going through your book, it goes a lot deeper, like into identity. So I'm wondering, why is ADHD not just a behavioral issue but an identity experience that you can explain

Elizabeth Ahmann:

that is a great question, Brooke. And we're actually really delighted that the conversation around ADHD is increasingly moving towards a focus on identity rather than just symptoms and executive functioning deficit. There was a 2025 article, we're really research nerds, so you'll have to forgive us. In the journal Developmental Neurobiology, that described this shift in conceptualization, going from an increased recognition of the normal diversity among humans, and if there's normal diversity, then many things are normal, and it's just part of neurodiversity. So, ADHD and other conditions really can and should be seen as natural variations rather than deficit. So, that's a shift away from the more medicalized view of ADHD as pathology and really towards something away from the need to correct and treat, although there are certain treatments and management that are really useful, but it's more towards viewing it as part of the human spectrum, and that's part of the wonderful array of human diversity, so there's where it's more shift to identity,

Brooke Schnittman:

so what you're saying is every brain is unique, so to call a neurodivergent brain and only focus it on a medical model is not the whole picture, because every brain, neurotypical, neurodivergent, and then neurodiversity as a whole is different,

Elizabeth Ahmann:

absolutely,

Micah Saviet:

exactly, and this book really highlights the shift away from that medical model that we're seeing more in research, and we're seeing more as a collective culture now, and acknowledging that, you know, ADHD, neurodiverse brains have structural and functional differences, you know, compared to neurotypical brains, and this does impact executive functions relating to others in the world around you, but if you relate to the world around you differently than the majority of your population, your identity is impacted.

Brooke Schnittman:

Yeah,

Micah Saviet:

right. So recognizing this helps us shift. Up to a more affirming and supportive and strength-based approach to understanding ADH,

Brooke Schnittman:

basically saying that we're more than the DSM 5r or whatever we're on right now, more than just what's in the textbooks, and looking at lived experience, professional experience, every single aspect of the human experience in neurodivergence,

Elizabeth Ahmann:

absolutely, and how that is for each individual, and therefore what individualized strategies and supports matter, but the focus is more on who you want to be and how you get there than on correcting a deficit,

Brooke Schnittman:

right? So coaching, well, there's that you know, I'm so glad that you say that, because look, everyone has different experiences with what works for them to support their ADHD. As you said, it's a holistic, whole person approach, and there are different types of therapies, there's different types of coaching, and growing up I didn't know I had ADHD, I actually was diagnosed with anxiety, just like so many women,

Elizabeth Ahmann:

yeah,

Brooke Schnittman:

so common, and low-grade depression, dysthymia, and I was doing talk therapy, and it wasn't supporting who I wanted to be, it was going deeper into my issues, my issues, and no, I just buried my issues. I didn't want to talk about my issues, I want to figure out how to solve and move forward before I knew what coaching was. So, I love how you're reframing this, and I know that therapy can do that too. Different types of therapy,

Elizabeth Ahmann:

especially ADHD aware therapy,

Brooke Schnittman:

right? Right, and there's so many different types of therapy, CBT, MDR, DBT, you know, trauma therapy, right? But I love the idea of supporting the ADHD individual by helping them achieve their goals and not focusing only on the deficits. I'm a firm believer of that as well, so another thing that you talk about is this fifth domain, a sociocultural identity. So, what are we missing when we ignore the lens in ADHD coaching or treatment?

Elizabeth Ahmann:

I want to credit Amber Mays and Sukari Pinnock Fitz, who are coaches themselves for coming up with this concept of the fifth domain, which is the social cultural domain, which is often overlooked in therapy coaching and other services, but it's really an essential lens to consider in all healthcare, all mental health care, all coaching, and in our book we really wanted to bring attention to this issue of social cultural identity and context by incorporating a chapter on it, which we did, and then also in each chapter we weave through some issues related to diversity as it impacts the topic of the chapter, so I think it's important for several reasons. Maybe first, as coaches or therapists, we need to know that socio-cultural differences we have between us and our clients can really make a power differential, which is really as often because the whole issue is not looked at unaddressed, and so you really can't have a truly client-centered care, because you're always a little bit more in the expert role, and that's what that power differential does. So, becoming more aware of that can help clear up potential misunderstandings when there are different perspectives that are not elicited and addressed, so it's really important we think to have those aspects of identity out in an open as well.

Micah Saviet:

I'll just add that this, you know, this fifth domain socio-cultural identity, it's really rooted in client-centered care, as was said. No, that's what we believe, and that's what this book shares with ADHD-informed professionals, is that the root of working with adults with ADHD is client-centered care to promote empowerment, resilience, and well-being.

Elizabeth Ahmann:

Individuals with ADHD come from a wide range, range of backgrounds, cultural influences, life circumstances, and also these various factors, education, economic status, economic stability, health care access, neighborhood environment, social support, all of this influences choices, perspectives, and behaviors, and so, including care seeking and outcomes care. So it's really important information to open up the conversation about,

Brooke Schnittman:

well, that brings in good perspective into what you were saying on the first question, on like the book, going deeper into identity, because if the focus is on how to coach the whole person, the adults with ADHD, and they have these so. Sociocultural differences. Well, if everyone is different, neurodivergence, neuro typicals, right? And then you have this socio-cultural difference on top of that, like there is no one size fits all approach. And I'm curious, from your perspective, what you would recommend to someone who is working with someone who has different sociocultural dynamics, then that coach even knows about different, you know, cultures, different ways of being brought up, different aspects of beliefs on ADHD that you know the coach is not current on

Elizabeth Ahmann:

that's such a good question, and I think we don't have to know everything about someone else's experience, but we have to be very aware of our own privilege, our own potential biases, then listen for where those might show up and open a conversation if necessary, and also always lead with curiosity and not be afraid to invite conversation about all those aspects of identity instead of making assumptions, so I think you know if if we've grown up in the middle class or upper middle class, we might not understand the lived experience of someone who grew up in a lower income area or immigrated to this country if we didn't, so we don't have to know their experience, but we have to be aware that we need to invite that into the conversation, because it does make a difference,

Brooke Schnittman:

yeah, makes sense. Another thing that I thought was really interesting is this social identity wheel, very powerful, but also something most ADHD ers have never even been asked to think about. So, what actually shifts for someone when they map their identity this way,

Micah Saviet:

yeah, that's a really good question. And this is really kind of where the rubber meets the road, because we think it's probably really important for professionals to, as Liz was saying, to map their social identities, their intersectionalities, and recognize areas of privilege, bias, background. background, whether that be race, gender, or other intersectional identities, this can sometimes be really eye opening, right, as a first step in kind of sensitizing ourselves as providers, as ADHD-informed professionals, to, as we talked about before, these power differentials, right, power differentials that are so common in the medicalized model of care, where you go see someone and they tell you, do this, this is your treatment, follow these protocol. Even more prescriptive, you know, cognitive behavioral approaches are more of this power dynamic. And then, when you don't do it, oh, why didn't you do it? You know, these types of things like that, right? This intersectional identities can really help us to become more aware of, you know, personal and client identity issues and dynamics that we may not otherwise have been there. So it's really looking through things with a different set of lenses, and this may be the first step, or one of the first steps, that we can take to becoming a more inclusive therapist, coach, or provider, and for individuals with ADHD. On the flip side, understanding these aspects of your own socio-cultural identity can help start to impact your own self-perception. Right, someone with ADHD impacts our self-awareness and self-perception, and we can look at our own treatment and care seeking through that lens, and also look at our own choices that we might have made through that one.

Elizabeth Ahmann:

Just to go back to your earlier question, I just had a thought that might be clarifying, like if we think as coaches or therapists that we need to know everything about somebody else's identity and how that impacts their experience, that's making a big assumption on our part, and I have liked in my own teaching the shift from cultural competence to cultural humility, which is when we make ourselves open to learning from the client more about who they are, how their family, how their social groups, how their cultural background affects their experience. So, we don't have to be the experts in that. We are approaching working with people with ADHD with humility and trying to learn their lived experience.

Brooke Schnittman:

Understood, that makes sense, so how does understanding your identity reduce shame for adults with ADHD?

Micah Saviet:

That's a great question, and I think I'll just, you know, give a simple answer with a simple example in a group I've been recently running for adults with ADHD. You know, a number of participants have come to these kind of aha realizations during this group that the challenges that they've been facing for decades of their life are in fact not moral failings but just part of their neurobiological wiring, right, but by shifting ADHD from something that needs to be fixed, corrected, remediated, or even accommodated for our book, really emphasizes a strength-based affirming framework focused on these kind of self-determined choices that that build this kind of whole resiliency capacity and agency, and this is this is, you know, what we're providing in the book is evidence-based pathway to help adults with ADHD kind of make this shift and start viewing that they can move towards well-being in art.

Brooke Schnittman:

Yeah, so it's all starting with awareness in all of these different aspects that we're talking about, the fifth domain, the socio-cultural wheel, and starting there, so they can build agency, and then move into how do I live my life fully with ADHD, like how do I manage those executive functions and be true to myself with ADHD, is what I'm hearing,

Elizabeth Ahmann:

absolutely, and I'm thinking right now of a study that came out in 2025 it was a small study of several women who had ADHD coaching, and one of the key takeaways of value for them was identity reconstruction, so that's all these pieces we're talking about. Who have you been? Who are you? Who do you want to be and really looking at that was, you know, they also liked learning some executive functioning skills and figuring that out, but this identity reconstruction was also key,

Micah Saviet:

because your identity shifts when you start looking at the challenges you've had and your life experience through a lens of, oh, my brain is wired and functionally and structurally different than what I thought it was, and I'm not just a failure,

Brooke Schnittman:

right? And you actually, it's funny because when you mentioned identity in the book, I was thinking about it as that, how like ADHD failure becomes so many of our identities, like we are the failure. It's not the ADHD that was unmanaged, and what you were sharing in the beginning is like, well, no, like actually, let's take a let's reconstruct our identity, right? So now we can build agency and empowerment and live in a different way than the medical world terms. People with ADHD

Elizabeth Ahmann:

absolutely, and that in part includes understanding where you come from in social, cultural sense, and how that impacts how you understand and work with ADHD, also really understanding executive functioning, really understanding how motivation works with ADHD, so there's a lot of awareness building that's an important foundation for moving forward into a more hopeful experience of life,

Brooke Schnittman:

so you mentioned things also besides executive function and sociocultural differences and emotional regulation, but like aces and marginalization and lead diagnosis in women, so How do these layers actually change how ADHD shows up.

Micah Saviet:

Yeah, great question. I guess I'll start with a point on that, and then I'll turn it over to Liz. You know, so just this idea that we're building on here, right? Like, if you live for decades of your life thinking that there's something wrong with you and thinking that things are harder for you due to these kind of personal and moral failings, and this, this adds a huge amount of shame, and, and I would argue, psychological trauma. Right, so then we think of these, these terms like complex or compounded trauma, which you know we often see comes with this history of adverse childhood experiences, social marginalization, you know, late diagnosis of ADHD, it's less so a specific and single incident of one thing that happened, which we typically think about with post-traumatic stress or trauma, but it's more the accumulation of stressors and adverse experiences, and so someone experiences all these layers and compounds, you don't only have ADHD, you also end up dealing with depression, anxiety, trauma, identity, shame, right. So, so, in my experience, my clinical practice, like I have seen childhood trauma even complicates. ADHD, so people are coming, saying I don't know what's trauma, what's ADHD.

Brooke Schnittman:

Yeah,

Micah Saviet:

and they're all mixed together.

Brooke Schnittman:

Yeah, so you know, like the general rule that I've heard of is, well, did you experience ADHD symptoms before you experience trauma, but for someone who has CPTSD or grew up in traumatic homes or lived experiences, how do you differentiate between trauma and ADHD?

Elizabeth Ahmann:

Well, and also having ADHD when you're young affects how people treat you and can become a traumatic experience itself, right? You're singled out, you're bad, you're too hyperactive, you're this or that, or you're not paying attention. So,

Micah Saviet:

and I'll just add that, you know, when we think about the neurodivergent nervous system, right, it is hyper connected. We have hyper connected synaptic connections in our brain and our nervous system, so that means we're more sensitive than a neurotypical nervous system to experiencing situations as traumatic when it comes to even sensory harm, right, sensory overwhelm, sensory harm, before we even have turns to describe this when we're very young.

Brooke Schnittman:

Yeah, so it's even more complicated, and I know you mentioned you know we are more marginalized with neurodivergence, especially ADHD, when we're younger, which then can cause trauma. I know you helped me find a statistician with my bullying survey too, and the results from adults with ADHD who were bullied as children is traumatic. I mean, like 90% of the adults who filled out my survey were bullied as children. So, yes, of course, that's going to cause trauma as well. So, like, how do you, how do you deal with that, or is it not necessarily making the exact diagnosis, but treating the symptoms?

Elizabeth Ahmann:

This is such a great question. I might not answer it exactly, but several years ago we brought together really several really experienced ADHD coaches to help us look at what are the key pieces of an ADHD coaching engagement. What stands out? It was a preliminary study to a later study we did, where we wanted to have that defined, and one of the key pieces that showed up that really differentiated ADHD coaching from other coaching was addressing shame. All of these coaches experienced that a key issue for their clients was addressing shame. So we really pondered that, and there were suggestions that they had about ways ADHD coaches would approach this, not as so much as psychological, but somewhat as identity, somewhat as skill building, and that actually really spurred us to write our book that were that you showed earlier, because we just feel that there needed to be more attention paid to how do you support someone in building a positive identity with ADHD, and the various chapters of our book approach it with different frameworks that can be worked with individually or synthesized together in different ways, and really the whole point of our book is to help adults with ADHD build a positive sense of identity, hope, resilience, and, as in our title, flourishing. So that's really where the whole idea and inspiration for the book came from.

Brooke Schnittman:

So masking, this is not a topic that was talked about years ago, and we know, especially women in high-achieving professionals, they mask, and there's masking across different identities. So, how does that show up differently depending on someone's background?

Micah Saviet:

Yeah, great, great question. Right, so this idea of masking, you know, even just the simple act of masking or suppressing kind of one's own neurodivergent tendencies, or then so many of my clients, you know, having been told growing up, like, don't stem, don't do this, don't do that, right, this is a suppression,

Elizabeth Ahmann:

stay focused

Micah Saviet:

suppression of our own nervous systems and our own brains cues and needs, we're essentially negating those, those needs, and that, that is, you know, a traumatic experience for, for people who are masking and compensating, and you know, when we. Think about this, you know, the medical model historically it's been really focused on these kind of externalized hyperactive presentations for ADHD, most of which we see like in younger boys, but many women, as you're just talking about, like, and high achievers present very differently, that kind of stereotypical ADHD presentation, you know, may show up more as that internal restlessness, chronic overwhelm, you know, emotional kind of intensity, difficulty with sustained attention, rather than this kind of over impulsivity and disruption, and because of this, as you, you talked about earlier, this can so often look like that, anxiety, depression, so there is a big role of masking and compensating, and even finding these sophisticated strategies early on, perfectionism, overworking, people pleasing, relying on this urgency and adrenaline and cortisol in order to meet those deadlines, but from the outside that may look like being successful, or that may look like, oh, she's, you know, they're pulling all their weight, they're doing everything they need to do, but internally it can come at a significant cost, right. This visual, the duck paddling like frantically underneath, you know, the water, but on the surface you just see a smoothly calm floating duck on the top, and there's this iceberg underneath the burnout, shame, and even barely, you know, trying to hold things together.

Elizabeth Ahmann:

Yeah, and Brooke, you mentioned women, I think, particularly for late diagnosed women, women in general. Social conditioning is a huge thing, and many women are taught, whether explicitly or implicitly, to be organized, emotionally attuned, relationally responsive, and when they struggle with executive functioning or emotional regulation, they're more likely to internalize those difficulties as personal failings rather than considering their own neurobiology or neurodevelopmental capabilities and preferences, so that's why, like you said earlier, many are diagnosed with depression or anxiety before the diagnosis of ADHD is ever considered, and the impact of that on self-concept can really be profound. You can think of yourself as lazy, sensitive, not living up to your potential, and those aren't just passing thoughts, they're often deeply ingrained into your identity, that's just important to realize, I think.

Brooke Schnittman:

Yeah, and knowing when that conditioning and that identity shows up in your decision making and your thought patterns and stopping it, that's really hard. But I think the bigger message here today is we need to understand ourselves, so we can catch those thoughts, we can move forward and challenge it, like, and live with what we've taken on, because we're not going to get rid of all of it,

Elizabeth Ahmann:

right? Right, but

Brooke Schnittman:

we need to live with it and be able to flourish with all of the years of negative messages and shame and moving towards, you know, a better sense of identity.

Elizabeth Ahmann:

Yeah, to really shift from that deficit-based identity to one that sees our own neurodivergence as part of a kind of complex adaptive system that we may have developed certain skills and we may need to unlearn some and and learn others as we take on ourselves as who we are more full and that's why we really focus in our book on strengths understanding executive functioning positive psychology and, and other frameworks that really build all of that.

Brooke Schnittman:

Yeah, I definitely agree with that. I'm curious, you do talk a lot about masking in the, in the book, and there's big talk about adapting versus masking. Can you talk about when someone would adapt compared to mask, and how to live as a neurodivergent person, right? And not necessarily mask, but we have to somehow meet in the middle and adapt.

Micah Saviet:

Masking can look and appear successful on the outside, right, but across, when we think about, like, across identities, the cost is often like very cumulative and invisible. These invisible burdens, it's very an embodied experience, like it has a physiological nervous system toll. So, when we think about masking, it's like this kind of prolonged suppression, right, of our neck. Natural ways of thinking and being and responding in order to meet these external expectations and adapting is how would you, how would you approach that with

Elizabeth Ahmann:

well, I think that I think where we start in the book is a very neuro affirming stance and helping build self acceptance. We have a chapter on self compassion. We have a chapter on how to really develop the ability to affirm yourself, so it is really accepting your own nervous wiring and learning how to work from that, really, that kind of space. Yeah, and you know, of course, it's a gradual process, and of course, you try, you will experiment in situations you're more comfortable with, like any skill, sort of a gradual process, but it really comes from beginning to see yourself differently.

Brooke Schnittman:

Yeah, so what's one small shift someone can make today that would honor both their ADHD brain and their lived experience.

Micah Saviet:

First thing I would say is really lowering the bar and making things visible. We have a whole chapter devoted to small steps and gradual wins, where we encourage the shift to, you know, making change feel safe, doable, you know, self-trusting, and not overwhelming. So it's really picking one task you've been avoiding and shrinking it to this kind of five minute version, externalize it, get it out of your head, offload the executive functions, write it down, set a visual cue, you know, use AI, you know, say it out loud, right. This works with your ADHD brain to kind of reduce that over on bypass that initiation friction initiation freeze, also honoring your lived experience and helping to balance that perfectionism, right, and, and, and being mindful where your capacity, where your spoons and capacity offer that day.

Brooke Schnittman:

I know in the book you had put Dr. Thomas Brown's executive dysfunction model, and you have different apps and tools that can be used for externalizing, and one of the things that I love, and the tools that you suggested is Asana, and I believe you had it for activation, for getting started. For me, it helps so much in externalizing and offloading my ideas, because I know I come back to it. I use it with my assistant and my team members when we have our weekly meetings. Okay, I have this thought. Let me just put it on here. I don't have to think about it again until I meet with them, or I have this shiny bright object that comes to my mind, like I need to do this new project, but let me put it on my future opportunities list that I come back to in 30 days, and then probably never look at it again, because it's not so shiny, I love externalizing what's in your brain and putting it onto paper to reduce that cognitive load.

Micah Saviet:

Yeah, it's so, so common for like professionals and really high achieving folks that to think that, oh, I got to work harder, I got to hold it all together, I got to remember everything, but like we think about executive function, it's a gas tank, it's a capacity, and when you're draining your executive functions with trying to keep all the balls in the air juggling, other things are going to take a hit.

Elizabeth Ahmann:

So, I want to make a suggestion of a small step that's really in a different direction, and it might sound woo woo kind of, but there's actually research around it, and it's about aspirational affirmation, as you're learning to think about yourself differently. A small shift is even to say to yourself, whether you believe it or not, I have ADHD, and I'm okay, or whatever it might be the way you'd like to see yourself, because our neurons can rewire themselves, and we want to encourage ourselves to have a more positive look at our identity, so I think there can be small shifts in how we affirm ourselves, and it can be forming something that we see now, and it can also be an aspirational affirmation. So I really like that as well,

Brooke Schnittman:

I love that. I love the creating smart, specific, actionable steps towards a goal, but also the most successful people do vision too, right? I think there was a study about famous basketball players, and there were ones who shot baskets, and then there were ones who shot baskets and also vision themselves sinking the basket, and you can imagine who were the ones who made the most free throws, the ones who were visioning it, and that really speaks to the reticular activating system, and you know, reducing all of the friction. Right, and all the sensory overload that we have, and folk, you know, narrowing our focus, and I love visioning, and I know it does sound woo woo, but it works.

Elizabeth Ahmann:

It actually has neurological basis. It does,

Micah Saviet:

because our brain doesn't know the difference, our brain doesn't know the difference between imagining an experience and living the experience. We're getting the same neurological effect. The more vividly we imagine the experience, our brain thinks we are still experiencing it in vitro.

Brooke Schnittman:

Yeah, and if you think about it in the opposite lens, I know we're shifting more towards a positive strength-based focus, but I know what a lot of us can think about is the thought of a bear, right? Us being fearful that someone is thinking something bad about us because we're people pleasers can have the same visceral reaction as being afraid of a real bear in front of us. So to flip that on its head, right, we can also believe what we keep telling ourselves over and over again, and rewire those negative thoughts.

Elizabeth Ahmann:

Yes, let's have those practices, mental practices, be more positive, and I think whether it's externalizing executive functions or adopting affirmations to help visualize where you want to go. Small steps might seem really small, but actually they're the beginning of building something bigger. Taking a small step is really evidence that you can start, you can adapt, you can follow through in a way that fits you, and we're just really.. we think we have a whole chapter on small stuff, because we think that is very.. I love small

Brooke Schnittman:

steps. I call it 1% action or micro actions.

Elizabeth Ahmann:

Absolutely,

Brooke Schnittman:

and that's so hard to think about as an ADHD, or if you think of the two ladders, right, the small steps, and then you have the one with really big steps, where do you think the ADHD or falls into play? Right, they want to reach for that big step, and sometimes they make it, and sometimes they fall, but the one who's taking the small steps, right, exactly, is consistently small step. It might feel weird because you're not doing it all, but you eventually get there.

Elizabeth Ahmann:

Well, I'm a hiker, and I've done a lot of the Appalachian Trail, and I know that the only way you can get to the top of a mountain is slowly and gradually. Maybe there's some ultra ultra hikers who can do it differently, but I got there slowly and gradually, and I think most of us do.

Brooke Schnittman:

I love that, and I also, since you put that visual in my head, too. Is once we get on top of that mountain from the hiking, now we need to look back instead of forward of, oh, now I have to go down the mountain, look back and recognize

Unknown:

what I've done that we have achieved

Brooke Schnittman:

exactly, instead of that forward focus gap focus more,

Elizabeth Ahmann:

always more, yeah, exactly, gratitude, right? And that's self-compassion, gratitude, and yeah, very important.

Brooke Schnittman:

So you mentioned the small steps, is that how you start transitioning clients from moving away from awareness and now into action when they've spent years feeling stuck or misunderstood?

Micah Saviet:

Yeah, that, that, that's, that's a great question, right? So, this, this awareness is key, right? Without understanding, you really, really can't approach even the small

Brooke Schnittman:

step,

Micah Saviet:

or you know, when you don't have the neurobiological explanation, you can't shift away from shame into small steps for action. So, exploring this and validating why people have been stuck and that their patterns make sense in a larger context that helps to free up some of the shame combined with self compassion and creates that safety to try something, so yeah, I mean we translate insight into personalized experiments, right, not even, you know, you know, big goals, setting aside smart goals, all that. So, just like, try out an experiment for this week, right, focusing on regulation, you know, making that action little bit more accessible. So, yes, and you want to track, like you guys are both saying, right? You want to track what works. How did you get from there to hear for your brain and body, right, moving towards this. I'm learning how to work with myself, and

Elizabeth Ahmann:

I'd like to really highlight that experiment, because if you have an action step and you don't do it, you fail. If you have an experiment, it's something you're trying, you can succeed or fail, it's just an experiment, and it takes a lot of pressure off of chime,

Brooke Schnittman:

exactly. I like the word experiment. I also use the word beta. You're just in beta mode, always in beta mode. Everything is beta.

Elizabeth Ahmann:

Absolutely, it

Brooke Schnittman:

shifts the narrative of move

Elizabeth Ahmann:

success, failure. Yeah,

Brooke Schnittman:

exactly. So, if someone's listening. Okay, and they feel like they've just tried everything and nothing has worked. What would you want them to understand differently after reading this book?

Elizabeth Ahmann:

First, I think we want therapists, coaches, and other practitioners to see people with ADHD differently. We really hope this book provides perspective and practical guidance supported by theoretical frameworks supported by research evidence to support adults with ADHD more effectively in moving towards well-being. I think also for individuals with ADHD, one suggestion we have is a bit beyond our book, but is to find a coach or therapist who really get ADHD, so that they can work with you to embrace your strengths and gifts, and help you understand how ADHD is showing up in your own life, help you value and strive for your own well-being. Yeah,

Micah Saviet:

it's interesting, you know, Liz and I are very much researchers, and we just completed a study that found that 12 sessions of ADHD coaching with a credentialed coach was associated with improvements for adults in core ADHD symptoms, executive functioning, and functional well-being. Right, so this is in line with over 20 other studies of ADHD coaching across the lifespan, so we really encourage neuro-affirming coaching for adults. Yeah,

Brooke Schnittman:

and I, I know there is no magic number, but 12 really hits home for me too, because going back to what you're saying, it's not just let me give you all the productivity hacks, and you're cured, and now you can go off on your merry way, right? There has to be a lot of focus on awareness first before you build those small steps, and I know there's lots of different studies about how long it takes to form a habit, some are 60, some are 30, some are whatever, right, but if you're taking at least, you know, the first month and really digging deeper and understanding yourself before you're knowing what positive actions and habits you want to move towards, right there you have those 12 weeks.

Elizabeth Ahmann:

Yeah, absolutely, and I mean, of course, that's always individual, but the research that's been done on ADHD coaching and actually CBT is mostly in that, you know, eight to 12, sometimes 16 sessions might not always be consecutive weeks, but you might not see all the change you hope to see, but there is evidence that for many people some change really does occur in that, even that surprisingly short time period. Yeah, I want to say one other thing, Brooke. I don't know this can go in the answer to that question, which is, if you've tried everything and nothing has worked, what we want people to understand, and I want to say this because we've just been getting feedback that our book, even though we wrote it for therapists and coaches, it's really an affirming and empowering read for adults with ADHD themselves. So we've been thrilled by that feedback, and we really just invite anyone who has ADHD or loves or works with someone with ADHD, of course to get a copy of our book and see where it takes you. There are a lot of things you can explore there. Try and even just learn. So we hope this book will really serve people in those many ways.

Brooke Schnittman:

Yeah, well, it is chock full of awareness and insight and tools, so I'm a tool and awareness person, so it hits, it hits lots of buttons or check marks for me, for someone, and we're going to put in the show notes too, but for someone who's looking to find this book, where can they find

Micah Saviet:

it? Yeah, great question. So this book is available on Amazon, it's available directly from our publisher, Routledge, and we just got noted that the audiobook version of our book is coming out on june 23 as well, and that's available for pre-order now. Audible,

Brooke Schnittman:

okay? Flourishing with adult ADHD,

Elizabeth Ahmann:

absolutely, and it's not only Amazon US, it is available on Amazon in many parts of the world, so yeah, we invite people to look for it.

Brooke Schnittman:

Wonderful. Well, thank you, Mike and Liz, for coming on successful with ADHD. I know I benefited from going through your book, and I know that coaches and therapists and adults with ADHD will truly build awareness in reading this book and hopefully maximize their life and flourish with adults ADHD.

Elizabeth Ahmann:

Thank you so much, Brooke, for this opportunity to share about our work and. Make it available.

Micah Saviet:

Really excited to get this out there to everyone. Thanks for having us.

Brooke Schnittman:

Thanks for listening to this episode of Successful with ADHD. I hope it helps you on your journey, and if you need any additional support for you or a loved one with ADHD, feel free to reach out to us at Coaching with brooke.com and all social media platforms at Coaching with Brooke. And remember, it's Brooke with an e. Thanks again for listening. See you next time.

Unknown:

Bye.

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Brooke Schnittman MA, PCC, BCC

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