Leveling Up Emotional Intelligence and Motivation with Cameron Gott - podcast episode cover

Leveling Up Emotional Intelligence and Motivation with Cameron Gott

Dec 20, 202337 minSeason 1Ep. 44
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Episode description

This week, we're diving deep into understanding ADHD with the incredible Cameron Gott. With over two decades of experience as an executive function and ADHD coach, Cameron brings a wealth of knowledge and a fresh perspective on managing ADHD effectively.

We explore the intricate relationship between ADHD, emotional intelligence, and motivation. Cameron shares his personal and professional insights on the challenges and strategies for thriving with ADHD. Listen as we discuss the importance of asking the right questions and how it can transform the way we deal with ADHD.

The Amazing Cameron Gott, PCC, Executive Function and ADHC Coach since 2000, ICF Trained and Certified Coach
Cameron works with creative leaders and business owners worldwide to help them act more efficiently and lead more effectively. He is also the co-host of one of the highest performing ADHD Podcast – “Translating ADHD”. He has trained and mentored ADHD coaches since 2006 through Coach Approach. He is also a new member of JST Coaching Team and teaches group coaching classes through Translating ADHD.

 

Episode Highlights:

[02:22] - Cameron introduces the concept of developing an internal coach for managing ADHD.

[03:13] - The process of breaking through repetitive, unanswerable questions that often plague those with ADHD.

[05:15] - Leveling up ADHD strategies, breaking through difficulty and boredom.

[11:10] - Insights on the ADHD disruption cycle, moving from overwhelmed to underwhelmed states.

[12:55] - How the blame and shame spiral keep us from leveling up.

[15:03] - Key tools to breakthrough regret.

[18:50] - Discussion on the impact of performance pressure on individuals with ADHD, especially in academic and professional settings.

[21:10] - Self-esteem types and the difficulty to achieve them.

[22:00] - Groundhog’s Day phenomenon.

[23:56] - ADHD is not just overwhelm, there is also underwhelm.

[26:16] - Cameron talks about balancing personal interests and responsibilities.

[28:35] - How to disrupt the level that is not working and change the internal dialogue narrative.

[32:15] - The importance of emotional state in shaping the questions we ask ourselves.

[35:40] - Cameron provides resources for further exploration, including his website and podcast.

 

Connect with Cameron Gott:

·         Podcast - Translating ADHD: https://www.translatingadhd.com/  

·         Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/CameronGottCoach/ 

·         Website: https://www.camerongott.com/ 

 

Thanks for tuning in. If you found value in our conversation, please rate, follow, share, and review our podcast. Your support helps us reach more listeners and continue delivering impactful content. For more resources and episodes, visit https://www.coachingwithbrooke.com/.

🚨Calling all aspiring ADHD coaches ▶️ https://bit.ly/CWBCoachCert

Help your clients break free from paralysis and better manage their life with 3C Activation® coach training!

💥Gain a proven process for ADHD coaching

💥Earn 38 ICF Credits and 25.5 PAAC CCE’s

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Save your seat for the Q&A to learn more ▶️ https://bit.ly/CWBCoachCert

Transcript

Intro / Opening

Cameron Gott

He brings some curiosity. It's sort of like developing your own internal coach here. You can work with a coach. And it's like, you're like, Oh, they're telling me to work with a coach? No, I'm telling you, you can develop your own internal coach, this coach and the self coaching mindset of compassion, curiosity, and just what I call a keen observer, and what is the observer doing and what they're not doing? What they're not doing is judging. And that's the thing that with ADHD, we can do.

Lightning fast is judge something happens and we judge, something doesn't happen and we judge or we feel the judgment of others, which is then elicits an RSD response to that judgment, whether it's real or perceived.

Brooke Schnittman

Welcome to successful with ADHD. I'm Brooke Shipman. Let's get started. Welcome everybody to another episode of successful with ADHD. I have the amazing Cameron got and Cameron is not new to this ADHD thing. He's in fact been doing this since 2000. As an executive function and ADHD coach, Cameron is an ICF trained and certified coach. He has his PCC certification, and he works with creative leaders business owners worldwide to help them take action more efficiently and

lead more effectively. He also is the co host of one of the highest performing ADHD podcasts, translating ADHD, and has trained and mentored ADHD coaches since 2006, which is when I graduated from college people. And he's done that through coach approach. He also is a new member of the jst coaching team, which is where I got my ADHD coaching, and he teaches group coaching classes through translating ADHD and Melissa Orlov, ADHD Marriage

program. I've had Melissa on one of my previous podcasts at ADHD power tools. And he's now curious about the nexus of ADHD emotional intelligence and motivation through equanimity group coaching effort, and Cameron lives outside of Charlottesville, Virginia, in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains with his wife and two

Cameron introduces the concept of developing an internal coach for managing ADHD.

children. So today we are going to be talking about ADHD, and who questions that are going to go a little bit deeper, as far as like the new research with ADHD and going also into a lot of the whys and why cans and unanswerable feelings of blame. So we're gonna get really deep on today's episode of successful with ADHD. Cameron, welcome.

Cameron Gott

Thanks, Brooke. I'm happy to be here. We were just talking before the the episode, just how we've been sort of in the circles not connecting. And so it's just how, how small this world is, but also how big it's getting, because you know, you and I have not formally met. So it's great to meet you and be on your podcast. So thank you very much.

The process of breaking through repetitive, unanswerable questions that often plague those with ADHD.

Brooke Schnittman

Yeah, I'm so excited to have you. And I've heard about you for a very long time. So I appreciate you being on here. So you have worked with clients for over 25 years, and we're going to be talking about leveling up the questions you ask yourself or ask better questions. So we know that with ADHD, it makes us ask the same questions over and over again, and especially like the why questions like why can't i Why

do I always? So can you tell us a little bit about these unanswerable questions that promote feelings of blame, shame and rejection? Sure.

Cameron Gott

And I think that blame, shame and dread and rejection are one area, right? We can have other areas of regret. And so there's all kinds of iterations of this sort of playing out where we are trying to answer these questions, or trying to level up, but we can't get off the level we're on. So you were so kind, you're like, I'm not new to coaching. That's very kind. Or excuse me, I'm not I'm not new to ADHD. So it's a kind way of saying that I am an ADHD ancient.

Brooke Schnittman

That's not that's how you interpreted it. That's not what I'm in.

Cameron Gott

No, no, no, I embraced variance. I embrace it wholeheartedly. Okay, we talk about gray matter. You know, right. I am old gray matter, okay. That's what I am. Just because

Brooke Schnittman

you have gray hair doesn't mean that you're old gray matter. Oh,

Cameron Gott

no, no, that's just what my children tell me, Brooke, okay. And it's okay. Instead of rejecting it. I'm accepting it. But the thing is today, I think there's a real opportunity to share with people again the frustration of trying to manage ADHD and that we can get kind of hung You're up in these levels, were sort of engaging with the same level or the same questions that are, they're not satisfying. And as you said, it's this this why, like, why is this so hard? Why

Leveling up ADHD strategies, breaking through difficulty and boredom.

do I have ADHD?

Brooke Schnittman

Yeah. And it's so fascinating that you talked about these levels, because I was coaching someone yesterday. And this is a successful person who was going through that same level of question. It's like, I have all of these different planners, and I'm doing all these different programs. And I just feel like a failure, because I'm never doing what my intention is. And it's the same story session after

session. And it was like, it took about four sessions to really break in there and create some level of trust and awareness to move forward together as a team. And I thought to myself, like, wow, you know, because you and I have been doing this for a while, we use the strategies that we help clients get to, right. So you really have to take a level back on some things and say, okay, they're going through, similar to what we have gone through, like 20 years ago, five years

ago, whatever. And let's meet them where they are, and work with them with that level to try to raise them up to that next level. So they don't have to keep repeating that same story.

Cameron Gott

Yeah. And so that's a great way to put it. And part of that being an ADHD ancient is I have all this experience of sort of seeing people grappling with their ADHD. And the thing that I recognize is that they're all engaging at different levels. They're all engaging at different levels. And it's, and so that just got my attention. And I thought a gaming metaphor analogy would be helpful here to kind of set this up, but that's

okay. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I'm not a gamer, because when I try to game, my head kind of explodes. I don't game my kids game. Right. So they're gamers. And there's sort of two things that I noticed that had them disengage from their gaming. Okay, and, and it's sort of a there's a corollary here with ADHD. So the first is my daughter, who she was playing Zelda, one of the Sillas, it

Brooke Schnittman

was my favorite game going growing up. And I will say, I used to be a gamer when I was a little kid.

Cameron Gott

Yeah, so she's playing Zelda, and she's, you know, engaged, and she's interested in in it. So there's a great story there. And she, you know, convinces me to like, help, you know, buy this thing. So she can level up and etc, etc. She reaches this point where a level where she cannot get past this thing, this initiative, this challenge, can't get by it. So you can go on YouTube, and you can look up cheats, and hacks and strategies, and how do I get around this particular

challenge? So she got all that information she went in and tried to do that couldn't make it happen, just the whatever it was, she couldn't get past this challenge. So what did she do? She, she stopped. She disengaged.

Brooke Schnittman

And she took the emotion out of it.

Cameron Gott

Well, and she took her investment out of it. Right. And what did she do? She went to something else in the sense of she's got another game. She's fully engaged. And she's getting really good at it. So she just left Zelda because there's other options. On the flip side of that there's my son. So my son during COVID, when he was a senior in high school, what he did was learned to game better. With all the remote learning, that's what he was doing on the

slide. Well, guess what? He goes to college, and he gets on an esports team. He is on an esports team at Virginia Tech. Cool. And he's he is he is engaging and he's thriving. He's leveling up, he is engaged. He's becoming really excellent. One of the better players on the team for this particular game. He does it for a couple semesters. Checking in with him. He's like you got any do you have? Do you have a tournament this weekend? Now I quit. You quit? Why'd you quit? Yeah.

wasn't interesting. Kind of lost interest. Right? So there's two examples where my daughter, it was too hard. For my son, it was too easy. Loss of interest. And the thing is, is I want to bring this back to with trying to navigate ADHD. It can be two things. It can be often very difficult, very challenging. The example of your client of like, why is this so hard? I have all these different tools. Why is it this way? It's a conundrum.

That's a frustrating the. So some days we wake up and it's so hard just to get up and navigate our day. On the flip side, there is a certain tedium about managing ADHD, right? It's like all these different things. And what do we have? We have an interest based nervous system from William Dodson. So if we lose interest, what do we do? We disengage? And so these are the two boundaries, Brooke, that are happening as we're trying to engage with our ADHD is it, it can be very easily too hard and

difficult. And it can be also not interesting. I'm tired of this, can I just be done? Can we be done with this? Right? And so there you have it. And within that, then we have the asking of the these difficult questions that don't get us the answer is to move forward in the game. We're playing whatever game that is. And so today, what I'd like to do is share some of these common levels we get hung up on, and what you can do as an individual to kind of break through those levels. Absolutely.

Insights on the ADHD disruption cycle, moving from overwhelmed to underwhelmed states.

Brooke Schnittman

I would love to talk about that. And I'm glad that you brought up the you know, you get so bored that you quit, or you are so overwhelmed that you also quit. And it's funny that you say that because my book that's coming out, activate your ADHD potential. I talk about how to get through the shame spiral, I call it the ADHD disruption cycle, going between overwhelmed and underwhelmed and everything in between. And so there is to our point of also being on the same page as usual.

Cameron Gott

Yeah, well, I think that you and I are like minded coaches. And we see that being in 30 years in this 25 years have been 30 years of a diagnosis with ADHD and 25 years working in this area. The challenges of ADHD haven't changed. Right? It's it's pretty consistent. What we are learning about it is changing, right? Again, the what we're learning about the neuroscience and the neurobiology and different

Brooke Schnittman

medications and how it works with RSD, and right and

Cameron Gott

RSD, and emotional dysregulation, and sort of the tie in between ADHD and emotional dysregulation. So what we're learning is evolving. But you and I, as coaches recognize there's certain things that work, and certain things that don't work, right. And one thing is kind of getting into these cycles of asking the same questions that might be infused by an emotion that is not serving you in that moment. Right. So one in particular, I call you call it the blame,

spiral or shame spiral. I call it blame and shame, right, those

How the blame and shame spiral keep us from leveling up.

two things that are sort of blaming oneself, blaming others, feeling a sense of shame, or dread. On the podcast, we talk about one down this one down position that is so difficult to level up from that place, because that emotion is informing the questions you're asking. And if your questions are perpetuating the blame and shame, you're going to stay locked on this level.

Brooke Schnittman

I think that's genius. I love the level analogy, because it's so visual. And so many of us ADHD ears are visual. So I can see that I can feel that right. And I think that those questions that we ask ourselves, like you said, if we don't have a toolbox of other questions, then we're stuck. And we're seeing, we don't see the forest between the trees, we're

just in it. And because of our emotions, you and I even as PCC coaches, we can still be stuck in that when we're emotional, unless we potentially redirect our attention. And they come back and become calm, and then ask ourselves different questions, but not everyone has those tools or awareness.

Cameron Gott

Right. Right. And that was, again, when we think about back on my own experience with ADHD is that I was on this level where I was navigating, and I had very little awareness of what I was doing. And so awareness is one of those things that often clients new to coaching be like, can I have plenty of awareness? I don't need any more awareness. What I need is I need production I need I need action I need I need tools in order to perform as you were talking about your your

client, right? I have all these things and it's like, why can't I do the thing that I intend to do? Which is actually Really, that is what ADHD is, in an absolute nutshell right there.

Key tools to breakthrough regret.

Brooke, there's there's a couple more levels that I'd like to share, play in addition to that blame shame is this again, this, this recognition. And by the way, listeners, as you're listening to this watch out for the double blame shame effect, where it's like, oh, I'm in blame, shame. And then it's like, I shouldn't be here. And you bring on more blame, shame or dread or

Brooke Schnittman

feel yourself, yeah.

Cameron Gott

Where you are is where you are. And so the first step is, be where you are. So I just want to say as I share these, don't try to scurry or run away from this level, because you're just going to slip back into it. And I'll tell people, or I'll share why that is. But so first and foremost, just breathe and be where you are, and have your eyes open, and be kind of like, Okay, where am I? Am I in the blame? shame spiral, am I in a different place. And so there's a couple more that I'd like to share.

Another one that's emotionally tinged is though, is the woulda, coulda, shoulda. So what it could have showed is this more about regret. And you're kind of looking back on the life that you know, was. And it's sort of going back and looking at old stories or old experiences. And I kind of wish that this turned out differently. This is often happens, actually, Brooke, when we get a diagnosis, we kind of go back to the life that we had

before the diagnosis. And it's like how would have this played out if I didn't have ADHD is a common story that gets perpetuated. And that circular thinking reinforces, and it's an interesting thing that's at play Brook is that our dynamic sense of time, right of how we're very fluid with time. And the memory aspect of we're very selective with memories. And we so we go to a very strong emotional memory of some time in the past. And it's like, we're there. We

are there. And it's like, and it's like, and so it's in, but we're actually here right now, right? You and I are talking to each other. And that was then and this is now, but we can go back and just be living in that space. Again. And that's informing the questions we're asking.

Brooke Schnittman

Everything is tied to emotion, in order to form a memory, there has to be emotion attached to it. So every human being has negative memories that they that stand out so much more than the positive ones. And with our negativity bias on top of that, those negative memories are ingrained into our brain because of all the emotion that's attached to it. So yeah, I appreciate that.

Cameron Gott

Yeah. And we also the negative emotions are much stronger than the positive ones. So our I'll meet with a client, and that's like, how's it going? It's like, oh, I got this, this, this and this. And it's all the negative things that happened in the wind, like, so what are your wins? What are your wins? And it's like, it takes a little bit of excavating, kind of like, oh, yeah, yeah, that happened, right? It's it takes a little more work a little more engaging with a level of searching for

those wins. So there's a level, an alternative level to play on is like, in your week to look for the completions to look for the winds to look for the learning. In this experience. The other two, there's two more levels, I just want to share real quick and then we'll get into like, Well, what do you do? But one is, I think it's that. It's the performative level. And so it's this again, I feel it's really interesting. I work with high performers. I work with leaders I work with people have

Discussion on the impact of performance pressure on individuals with ADHD, especially in academic and professional settings.

done a lot. And it's like, they've done that, but at a tremendous cost

Brooke Schnittman

cost, right? Because they're hyper focused on this. They gave up their family, they gave up their relationship, they give up their health. Exactly.

Cameron Gott

And so it's coming to this recognition of, okay, there's more to this than performance. And I want to this, this is going out to the parents out there. Right, I mentor a lot of coaches who work with parents and with kids. And it's that they're like, hey, the parents and everyone, the teachers are all focused on the performance. Right? When I was in school, it was all about the performance and that's understandable,

right? It's that you're in school and there's certain measurements of success and so you have to be able to do that. But so many of my clients is once they get out of college, it is a freedom that like oh I don't have to like again try to perform to these expectations or standards. It's someone else's setting. Plus

Brooke Schnittman

they also don't have the executive function brain of this someone else that's doing it for them wherever my Ending them. So now they are their executive functions haven't been trained. Right.

Cameron Gott

And it's sort of like it the whole, it's like you wouldn't ask a fish to climb a tree. You know, it's like that type of thing in the sense of if you're really focused on kind of performing and, and high performance and getting to a very specific outcome. So this is cognitive and flexibility, that we will paint a picture of success, and that anything outside of that picture doesn't exist doesn't exist. So that's that black and white thinking. It's often confused for

perfection. And I liked the term have more of a exactness, right? There's an exact picture. And it's like we again, it's a focus thing, we're looking at this. And here's this, all these other things that are possible that if we just loosen that picture up a little bit, or just just got to be more of like, okay, so there's performance, but what else is there? What else can we measure? For what else? Where can I engage in order to level up, it's not just performance based?

Brooke Schnittman

Totally, I agree. And I was talking to Dr.

Self-esteem types and the difficulty to achieve them.

Gabor Ma Tei. And he was talking about the difference between like intrinsic self esteem, true self esteem, and contingent self esteem. And so many people have contingent self esteem, which is that performance based self esteem. And to get to that true self esteem, it's really hard.

Cameron Gott

Yeah. It is really hard. And so Russell Barkley talks about the the Fourth Circuit's and how everybody focuses on the, the what and the how, and they don't focus so much on the who and the why. And so that sort of, again, the who and the Why are really critical and important. And I'll make that distinction. We as coaches will make that distinction of like a why question versus more of like, what is what is the why here. The last one is what I call the Groundhog's Day.

Groundhog's Day phenomenon.

phenomenon. So Groundhog's Day was a movie with Bill Murray and Andy McDowell, way back, great movie way back. And the guy, the guy wakes up, and he has no memory of the day before. And so he's stuck on Groundhog's Day in flux Itani. Pa

Brooke Schnittman

Yeah, where the groundhog comes out of the groundhog

Cameron Gott

every day. And so he's going through this every day, he wakes up no memory of the day before. And so many of my clients, this picture, or analogy resonates with them, because they'll wake up and this the sense of not having any wisdom or knowledge or knowing from the past to inform their future choices. Right. So it's a movie, it's where, like, again, my kids, they went to other games, right? They went, they were like, You know what, I'm out. I don't have to do this.

Here's the The challenging thing with ADHD is, we can't really disengage from this. I mean, we can, but it's like, you know, yeah, Bill and Andy get together, right? And it's like, the movie ends on a happy note. And here, it's like we're going through and it feels like we're starting fresh every day. So it's this on repeat cycle. It's like, I feel like I'm playing the same level, the same stuff every single day. And Oh, guess what, then it what does it do? It tips into that tedium and

boring. And I'm like, you know, this is really exciting, doesn't excite me here. So they're the sort of the four cycles and listeners, it's like, you might have another one that sort of like, okay, here's a level that I'm kind of, I feel like I'm stuck on. Hmm,

Brooke Schnittman

no, I think that's, that's huge. So often

ADHD is not just overwhelm, there is also underwhelm.

people think that ADHD is just constant overwhelmed, but it's not true. We get bored when we're doing the same thing over and over again. And that's the underwhelm. And I love that your children knew. Okay, it's time to get out because this isn't working for me. And it's interesting, because I also was on another podcast, and I was talking about like, there are just some commitments that you just can't get out of, though.

You know, like, for instance, if I'm on a tennis team, right, and three quarters of the way into my my tennis season, if I just said, Hey, guys, I'm really feeling this and I have other things by that wouldn't really I mean, I could do that. But that wouldn't really lands well, and it probably wouldn't be a good decision on my end, and it would impact a lot of other people, the video game decision from your kids, it didn't impact

anyone except for themselves. So there are some decisions Things that you can get out of and get out of it fast. As soon as you know, it's something that's eating you up and taking you away from the things that mean something to you in your life. But there's other things that you have to make a commitment to. And you, unfortunately, very often need to see it through. Exactly.

Cameron Gott

And so that identifying what those things are engaging with them and engaging to a completion point. Those are what I see as there's the three challenges of ADHD, the actual barriers of identifying what I need to do, engaging with it, and engaging with it to actual completion point. So that's a great example of you get into a tennis

Brooke Schnittman

League. Yeah, right League, and

Cameron Gott

it's like, ah, and I imagine what you're doing is you're seeing it through. So what are you doing? You're, you're actually thinking, okay, how can I make this more interesting to see this through? That you bring some creativity to it? Right, and you're asking different questions. Exact coach, mountain biking. So I've been coaching mountain biking. Yeah, what? So the Blue Ridge Mountains, Central Virginia has some some great mountain biking, and my kids, it was again, it's

Cameron talks about balancing personal interests and responsibilities.

sort of like, I'm not gonna be that parent on the sideline, watching a coach, my kids lacrosse in, you know, lower school, middle school. He was like, I want to do biking. I'm like, great. So it's like it was an activity we're doing together. And so I've been on that team with my kids. Well, guess what one of my kids was like, I don't want to do this anymore. She's gone on to something else. Taekwondo and horseback riding that she's been doing for some time. And so

that's fine. And I was thinking, Hmm, you know, I still enjoy this because it's a way to, again, teach. I love teaching. And so it's just again, thinking about how to make that happen. Today, I'm going, I'm going out and I'm doing mountain biking. And so is that adjustment, sort of thinking about because I Brickhouse at this place of oh, she's done, I'm done. She's done. I'm done. I'm like, you know, I love it. So what can I do to kind of like, think about how do I keep doing this thing

that I really enjoy doing? I was a school teacher for 13 years.

Brooke Schnittman

13 years, we have so much in common. And

Cameron Gott

it's like, it's a great way to engage with kids and teach them a skill. And mountain biking is this lovely skill of life? You know, it's like, okay, you get on your bike, and the decisions you make really have consequence. Yeah, yeah. And

Brooke Schnittman

I think that also as the receiver, so you are a dad who is in it with your kids, right? And she says, I'm going to quit. I don't want this anymore. I want to do taekwondo, which is so ADHD. My stepson is like that, too. He's like, in a million different sports. And at the same time, you having ADHD, you have ADHD, correct? Oh, yeah. Okay. You having ADHD? You're like, well, I did this, oh, maybe you have a better reason. But I did this because of her, and I want to be present

in her life. And now she is not doing it. So you know what, by like that black and white thinking, but then you stop yourself. And you're like, wait a second, it's not about her. It's also helping me. So not everyone's able to do that. Yeah,

Cameron Gott

exactly. So as we're finishing up here, I sort of, I want to give people some ideas around like, again, how do

How to disrupt the level that is not working and change the internal dialogue narrative.

you? How do you disrupt the level that's not working? Right, again, those four that I shared, and then to engage, what are different levels that you engage with? And so at the beginning of the session, you talked about, again, the questions we ask, and so it is it is, we are constantly having a narrative with ourselves as human beings,

right? We're always sort of, sort of as we go through our day, we're always kind of having this internal dialogue and rationalizing decisions, what we're doing and what we're not doing. But the four that I want to talk about, again, back to your emotional state. So as you said, your emotional state informs the type of questions so before I kind of serve up, like, here are some questions you can ask. It's really about what kind of emotional state can you bring in? And so this is from coaching

actually broken? I think you'll you'll appreciate this is, you know, when you think about a coaching mindset, right, what is the coaching mindset to you, when you think of coaching mindset, what is it

Brooke Schnittman

open, open growth?

Cameron Gott

of curiosity? Yeah, right. Curiosity, empathy, right. So empathy for others, empathy for self. So this sort of bringing curiosity to this level where you are the first thing I said to people was, be where you are, don't fight it. Just be where you are, be on that level, if you're on that shame spiral, be in there. But take a step back and start to bring some curiosity. If you bring some curiosity, and sort of like developing your own internal coach here, you can

work with a coach. And it's like, you'd be like, Oh, they're telling me to work with a coach? No, I'm telling you, you can develop your own internal coach, this coach in the sense of a coaching mindset of compassion, curiosity, and just what I call a keen observer, developing this keen observer, we talk a lot about it on the translating ADHD podcast, there's this keen observer you're observing and what is the observer doing and what they're not doing? What they're not doing is judging.

And that's the thing that with ADHD, we can do lightning fast is Judge, something happens and we judge, something doesn't happen. And we judge or we feel the judgment of others, which is then elicits an RSD response to that judgment, whether it's real or perceived. And so that stepping back, and first of all, just okay, how much judging is going on? And giving yourself a break? I used to judge myself, it is overload. Exactly. I had to look at what was contributing

to my sense of overwhelm. And it was this constant braiding of myself, or blaming myself feeling shame, blaming others blaming the situation.

Brooke Schnittman

Yeah, yeah. And if your thoughts are always, that way, you're burning out, and then you're trying to fill up a cup that's already full with productivity. Exactly.

Cameron Gott

Yes. And so this focus on productivity is, again, self care, I have a simple equation that momentum equals hope plus reserve. So we need to have hope, we have to have a sense of like, when we're hopeless, we have despair, it's very difficult to get off of a level, if we have hope. But that

The importance of emotional state in shaping the questions we ask ourselves.

reserve doesn't come from thin air. I like I love how you said that cup is full, we need to drop the level in the cup, and really think about what is self care for me. So I can boost my bandwidth and have some cognition to put toward this level and getting off this level engaging with a different level.

Brooke Schnittman

Yeah, and I know that you and I both talk about that ADHD Hierarchy of Needs first doing that, like 1%, taking care of yourself.

Cameron Gott

That is absolutely. The two other things I'll say real quick game with a friend. Right, my kids game with their friends, it is a social event for them. And so as you're engaging with your ADHD is to don't do it alone. Right? Don't do it with people who are just measuring with this kind of very critical or, okay, here's, this is the spot, you have to hit right these people who might be reinforcing that specific outcome. So gaming with a friend in the sense of talking about

your, your challenge. And when you do so, it just changes it. Because blame and shame lives, it reinforces that isolation, we feel like I can't share this, because of the shame, the stigma, exactly, versus finding a community of support to work on this with others. The other thing I'll say, is context and this solving a dilemma, bigger than your ADHD. I think that this is sort of people come in, it's like, Okay, here's the

ADHD, here's the problem. And this is what we're solving versus, you know, you and I are coaches, there's a life coaching element to ADHD coaching. My clients are not coming to just solve their ADHD, they want to have a better life. So if you take this all this hard work, and put it towards something bigger, that's what I learned. It was like, I can make a difference in the coaching field, I can make a difference

in the ADHD coaching world. And that's where I put all my attention and guess what, then I start to fabricate interest there. And then I see Oh, my work on getting better with my own ADHD management serves this other higher interest. So we can fabricate interest, maybe not on the level we're struggling with. But in this other like again, what am I working towards? And as you do all those things, then the tenor or the tone of your question Shouldn't starts to

change, right? Less of why is this happening to me to more of like,

Brooke Schnittman

my purpose? Why am I doing this? And

Cameron Gott

who's a resource? Who can be a resource? How can I do this differently? What is a different outcome here that I'm not seen? But it's again, the questions are infused with more curiosity, and you can't fake it. Or you can't fake that. And so

Brooke Schnittman

then ADHD ear, yeah. And it's like, Ah, okay, we don't believe it. We're not doing it. Right, exactly. So Cameron, like we are so aligned. I wish that we could film even

Cameron provides resources for further exploration, including his website and podcast.

more right now. But I know that you have other coaching commitments and but I so appreciate your time on successful with ADHD. If people want to find you, where would be the best place.

Cameron Gott

So the best place would be my website is Cameron got.com. And from there, you can sort of see what what I'm what I'm up to. Now, the interesting thing I'm doing is this class called equanimity, equanimity. See, I can't even say it myself. So equanimity is this sense of just again, being with strong emotions, and you kind of just going along and, and so that's

the name of the course. And that's my interest right now is like having a different experience with emotions, letting them inform versus this thing that it's hard to regulate, or manage. So yeah,

Brooke Schnittman

I appreciate that. It's a lot of acceptance and and riding the wave of emotions to get to the level that you need, but being acceptance of where you are. So Cameron, gotta calm with two T's everyone listening,

Cameron Gott

and also and translating ADHD podcast.

Brooke Schnittman

It's a wonderful podcast, make sure that you go follow if you're not already. Alright, thank you so much, Cameron, for your time.

Cameron Gott

It's been a pleasure, Brooke, thank you so much. I'd love to come back sometime. So thanks

Brooke Schnittman

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 any Thanks again for listening. See you next time.

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