You already know it's the creator spaces show. Do you consider yourself
a creative? You know, it's really funny because I haven't considered myself a creator until recently. I did not start the translating ADHD podcast with the goal of being a content creator. I started it with a fellow coach for two reasons. One to grow my coaching business. But two and more importantly, it was a passion project to bring the ADHD coaching experience to a podcast form because ADHD coaching is not accessible to a lot of people for price reasons, or other barriers.
In my case, I'm perpetually on waitlist. So I, at this point can't possibly individually coach everyone that wants to work with me. So it was a way. Give that content to a broader community as somebody whose life was changed by going through the process of coaching with my
coach. So tell me about the moment you decided, uh, you
work read, or actually after the conversation that you and I had when you told me that the podcast was in the top 2% of all products. That got my attention. We started this little show. We didn't know if anybody would listen and if they were listening, we didn't know if they would get what we were trying to do. Can you bring coaching to a podcast? We didn't know if that would work or not. So to be on this level of success with the podcast at this point. Yeah. Be having so much fun doing it.
That's really what changed my perspective. It's really cool to know that what I'm doing matters and it's not just the act of content creation, but it's the unique perspective that I bring to the topic and the way that we've decided to address it, that makes it resonate so strongly with people.
What exactly do you create? You've got the podcast. Are there any newsletters books? Really good
recipes. Nothing. Isn't that so funny, I am really comfortable with the spoken word and always have been, I love doing live speaking engagements and was really starting to hit a stride there prior to COVID hitting. And that sort of changed the scope of what live speaking looks like. So I've done some paid speaking since then via zoom, but that's not what I enjoy.
Speaking, I enjoy engaging with the audience and I think that's why the podcast works so well because I don't do it by myself and I don't do it interview style. I do it with a cohost. So we've had the opportunity to really build this rapport and we riff off of each other so well. And so it's easy and it comes naturally to me. Whereas writing is like pulling teeth. I'm still trying to figure out how to interject my own voice into my writing.
So at this time, nothing else, although I have a book idea cooking, I would like to start blogging, but I'm also in the really lovely position where I don't have to do what I don't like doing my business. Does best when I just tell my story and tell it in my voice, because that brings me the clients that are meant to work with me. So I don't have to work too hard at it. And I find I do best at content creation in south work.
How do you go about building up your
audience? Now? That's a good question. So we're not really doing anything actively at the moment and we'd never really have, we started with our inner circle of colleagues. So we actually launched in conjunction. Yeah. The 2019 Chad conference, that's children and adults with ADHD, because my co-host, and I know a lot of people that attend that conference and my co-host has been a mentor coach to a lot of the coaches that attend that conference. So we had a baby built in.
There, because those people are people who will listen to him talking about coaching any way they can get it. But what we didn't expect is that they would keep listening and that they would start spreading the podcast to their clients and start using the podcast and the language of the podcast in their work with their friends. So that's how we got started.
Twitter has been great for us just because there's a really cool community and an interesting conversation about ADHD and neuro-diversity happening on Twitter. Twitter is the best
social platform for somebody with ADHD.
Yeah, exactly. We'd probably do better if we were a little more we're intentional about it, but again, my co-hosts and I don't want to work too hard at marketing. We are not marketers and we know that about earth. So rather than doing the thing that we have to work hard at, we do the thing that works. If I don't work too hard at it. And I'm writing when I feel compelled to say something or I have something to say that works so much better for me than trying to force the content out of my brain.
You've got coaching and you've got the podcast. Has the podcast been
monetized? It hasn't. So we do have a Patrion and that at this point covers all of our editing costs, which is wonderful, but we don't push it heavily. It's just something that's there for those that want to support us. And then we also have just started offering group coaching courses. So taking. Big concept from the podcast and formulating this small 10 person class around that and not just a class, but really coaching in a group setting over eight weeks.
So every individual in the room can be coached at least once during the duration and they're sharing space with nine other people who are in the same dilemma that they are. And the super crazy thing is our groups gel on day one, because they've already got this common language and common understanding about their common experiences by listening to our show. And they already feel like they know cam and ice. So very well before they walk into the room. It's really cool.
Other than that, not monetizing at this time, and we're not sure where that's going to go because there's obviously a question of integrity. Especially since we approached the show as coaches, we certainly don't want to go against our own advice and start prescribing things to our listeners for money. But I've recently been made aware that there are perhaps some other ways to approach that would allow us to stay in integrity. So, I don't know. We'll see, we'll see what comes from that.
But right now we're just really excited about the group coaching and looking to grow with that endeavor because it's so fun for us. It's a way for us to coach more of our listeners at a time, and we learn a lot in those groups. These are our biggest fans coming through the door. And so we get to hear their experience with our content as we're doing this work with them each week, which is really awesome.
What's your north star metric for success? How do you know you're on the right path? I
think the answer ties back to something we talk about in the podcast a lot, which is big agenda. What's your higher purpose? What matters to you. And so it's a twofold thing. The first is right now, we're the only people doing what we're doing. So ADHD content comes in three tiers. You have the general garbage that's out there. That's going to give you tips and tricks and tell you to buy analog clocks. And then you have. Second tier of really awesome and amazing content creator.
So I'm thinking people like Renee Brooks, who does the black girl lost keys blog, or Danny Donovan, who does ADHD comics who are tapping into something deeper. Because they're talking about their own lived experience with ADHD in a way that never gets talked about at that first level. So people find their content and it's this moment of someone else on planet earth understands my experience. What we're missing. How do we then get people to do their own work?
And some of these content creators are great at doing that in smaller bites, but how do we get people to seeing that there's a different way to live in, be in the world with ADHD? So cam and I aren't the only people that can carry that message because there are lots of other people who see what we say. I want to see that message getting bigger and broader. So that's the first thing that I'm really passionate about. And the second is elevating ADHD, coaching, ADHD, coaching.
In this strange space, because most coaching programs, whether they're ADHD centric or not are based on the international coach Federation coaching competencies, which is a really powerful set of tools. For coaches and something, I would not be able to do the good work that I do without honing my skill set there.
But the part we leave out is that you can't coach a person and approach them as naturally creative, resourceful, and whole, if they have ADHD, if you're not bringing ADHD into the picture, And so confounding that when we have ADHD, guess what? That impairs our ability to see how ADHD is impacting us. Oh, good. ADHD. Coach needs to be able to hear the ADHD in the room because you're coaching the person and you're coaching the ADHD at the same time.
And it's always both learning what the lived experience of an ADHD person who has done their own work and can articulate those very personal experiences. In a way that helps you better understand what's happening for that person. That's the work that you need to do because your clients showing up who has never really tried to articulate their ADHD before, and who may not even recognize the ADHD behaviors in themselves, they need you to help them do that. I want more coaches to have that.
It's just about changing the approach, making, listening for, and reflecting back the ADHD stuff. Part of the coaching practice. So I'm really interested in elevating the coaching industry as this cam. That's the direction we see this endeavor heading over the very long. So then on that
path, what's your current goal as a
creator? Good question. So right now, our goals are twofold. Number one, to keep growing the group coaching number two, to keep working to position ourselves, to do coach training together. So immediate next steps. After our six week break, we intend to add a second coaching group. We intend to take this six week break to step back and evaluate what the other opportunities are to tap in to our community of patrons and find out. They want from us how we can better engage with them.
So how can we engage with more of you more often? And then number three is I'm finally getting certified because if one wants to train coaches now or ever one needs to have a certification. So that long overdue, hairy, scary process is also on the horizon and in process right now.
If you could send a tweet back to your start, what would it be? And when would
it be? I would go back to probably the early days of the show, right around the time we were going to launch. So I'm very fortunate that I have a good friend who knows a lot about podcasting, who was really. To help me figure out what to focus on and what not to focus on leading up to launch. But as we sat down to record, we spent hours upon hours trying to figure out what the anatomy of an episode was. We made outlines and we came up with all these different episode types that might exist.
And we just put in so much work that was completely unnecessary. So I would tweet back to myself just record and see what happened. Because when we let go of all of that, and we just started to see the dynamic between us and started to learn how to work with each other and got better at that. We didn't need any of that other stuff. And so if I had it to do over again, I would tell myself, just record and learn.
Yeah, I think that's really great advice. Any final thoughts you'd like to leave the
audience with today? Hm, that's a good question. Uh, if you want to start a podcast or blog or whatever, my two big pieces of advice are this number one, know what your unique message. When we started our podcast, ADHD podcast was already a pretty crowded space that has only gotten more crowded, but we knew we didn't need every person with ADHD to listen. We just needed enough people. Well, listen. And the reason people listen to us and stay with us because we're doing something different.
What is your unique message in your space? Everybody has one. Bring your voice to it, which brings me to number two, what's your medium, the best content creators I know are working in a medium that's comfortable for them, whether they're bloggers or artists or fellow podcasters, it's not a painful medium to work in. It's something they like doing and enjoy doing. So play around with different mediums and find the one that doesn't feel so much like work. So what's your media.
Stick with one thing and do it well, rather than trying to have a presence everywhere.
Um,