You're at the Coaching Inn, 3D Coaching's virtual pub where we enjoy conversations with people who engage in the world of coaching. to this week's edition of The Coaching Inn. First for us, we have a live audience. So welcome to everyone in our live audience. We hope that you'll be able to interact with us and ask questions as we go through the podcast. And lovely listeners, remember to subscribe or follow if you want to get the next episode of The Coaching Inn as it drops.
Today, our subject is coaching and neurodiversity. And I'm absolutely delighted to welcome my friends, collaborators, co-conspirators in an upcoming book about coaching and neurodiversity. And we have Nathan Whitbread and Kim Witten. And I want to be totally self-indulgent and tell you why they're here. So Nathan is here because Nathan has taught me not to be afraid of neurodiversity. neurodivergence and to be normal. I come from a neuro spicy family myself.
And, and I've learned so much from Nathan, it's an absolute pleasure to have you here as a collaborator in our future book. Kim, Kim Whitton, what have I learned from Kim? I've learned that Kim knows a whole lot of stuff about how we process language and how we think. If you like the second half of the coach of the human behind the coach. a lot of the way we wrote was down to some very direct feedback that Kim gave us while we were writing, for which I'm hugely grateful.
And I learned so much from you Kim about being even simpler. So before we kick off, just tell us. So I've said why you're here and why I like you. But I'd love you to introduce yourselves. Kim, why don't you go first? Tell us a little bit about you. Hi, well, thank you for that lovely introduction, Claire. I have been an over thinker for at least four decades, and that has been part of my kind of background and my upbringing and my family and all of that.
And it's taken me a long time to kind of harness all of that into a skill, a strength for communicating and thinking with others and. That's been my passion and I've learned so much from both of you. So just getting to continue this journey and do more of that is gonna be an amazing thing and hopefully great value to everyone. A little bit more technical stuff about my background.
So I've got a background in linguistics and in design and research and then coaching, which is something that I've always done my whole life. I didn't know what it was and formalized it in the last three years. Fantastic, thank you Nathan.
Yeah, hi, so I'm Nathan and yeah I'm proud to call myself a friend of Claire and Kim's actually because I think collaboration is really important but it often starts with trust and friendship and as we talk about that story I just want to say what I've loved about these two individuals is that as we partnered there's never been a conversation about stand behind me, there's always been a conversation about stand next to me and work out how we can work out and move forwards.
And for me, that feels like a really important way to start a project like this. And if it's useful to know the project sort of started because I thought I'd like to write a book and felt very scared about it and unable to do that. And Claire said to me, would you like to write it with me? So I just thought for about two seconds, why not? Because actually, you know what you're doing and I don't. But I think there's something really important here that's useful to do.
So a bit more about me, I'm a coach. I sort of fell into coaching, I guess, like many people do, because that's the kind of way of being. And then I had a real big kind of concern that I needed to professionalise because actually when there's two people in the room, who's kind of working out what's going on and what's right and what's wrong. So that took me on a journey that led me eventually through a fantastic friend called Richard Proctor to Claire.
And then we started to get to know each other. I would reiterate what Claire said, actually, being part of this kind of learning process, particularly around 3D, has been really useful because it's transformed the way I do this in terms of helping me understand that I'm enough and actually the person I'm working with is enough. So if we know those two things we can then move forward to do some great work as opposed to being the magic bullet that solves everything because that's just not true.
So that's kind of where this started and I guess what we want to to touch on and or do something with this book is, is to really just open up this idea that actually it's more important to be a great human being with some coaching skills than it is to be a neurodiversity expert to do good stuff in this space. And that's what I really believe. And I hope that's what is going to be proven out by some of the things we're going to talk about in terms of research and thinking that we're doing.
So please feel free to challenge that by the way, I'll go conspirators if that doesn't work, but that's kind of where I'm starting from. Thank you. So our live audience, we now know that you are able to ask us questions in chat or make observations and that will make you part of the conversation. And to those of you who are listening to the recording, send us an email, info at 3dcoaching.com with insights, comments, questions to join in the conversation.
to position this, one of the things that I noticed is that in every single group supervision session that I do, somebody says, I need to talk about this person who I'm working with who is neurodivergent in some way. And often the coach is looking for some level of expertise. And we know that there are zillions of courses out there, an increasing number of courses out there where you can learn how to coach people who are neurodivergent. And I know that we have a bit of a disease about that.
In a group supervision that I've just come off the call for, I wrote this down. How do we manage not knowing how to work with someone when we don't know how to work with them? And actually, there's a huge thing for me about what do we need to do inside ourselves? How do we manage ourselves not knowing how to work with them when we don't know how to do it? But truly, we don't actually know how to work with anyone. So that's one piece of information.
The other one is the lovely quote from Chris Packham, the British TV presenter, who says, when you've met one person who's neurodivergent, you've met one person who's neurodivergent. So there isn't a bundle of wisdom that goes, if you do this course, you'll know how to work with everybody. looking around the world and noticing what you notice, Nathan and Kim, do you notice is in the world of coaching and neurodiversity? Go on, say more complexity.
Well, I think there's complexity and it's funny because I was chatting to someone earlier today and we were talking about this because quite often what happens is we work out how to do something and then we want to then design a lovely method with some building blocks that's apparently repeatable. But then we forget how we got actually the way we got to that bit was through partnership and working it out.
But we somehow think this one-off partnership is somehow a piece of what made me think about that as well as I was listening to a Spotify playlist the other day called One Hit Wonders. And they're all great songs, yeah? They're all brilliant songs, but they're all one-off hits. And actually that's what often the coaching session needs to be.
It needs to be a one-off hit because it's a one-off hit with two people collaborating based on that space, that unique experience to produce the hit in that moment. And that's it, it's done. There's no album. That was quite profound for me, I don't know that really answers the question. But I think there's a lot of this idea that this is kind of replicable, but actually it's not because it's about human beings.
And there's also this idea as well that we're somehow coming to, mean, so a lot of the work I do is around individuals who've maybe been prescribed coaching to help them sort out or manage or stuff around this space. But often as we know in coaching, The question is never the question and the problem is never the problem because there's always something underneath generally that's going on.
So we start off with a conversation about ADHD for example, but the real thing might be something to do with relationships. might be to do with earlier this week I was working with someone who was basically talking about marriage breakdown and that came up as part of the coaching space. This is like, how do we hold that in the right space? But that's nothing to do with neurodiversity. Yeah, we're looking through the lens of neurodiversity as we talk about it, but that's about a human.
working with another human to work out what they're to do next. Kim, what do you notice in your space? Yeah, I think something that comes up a lot is uncertainty, is people thinking that they have to do something different. And I've seen this in myself when I've encountered this and trying to work with people, you know, and when we're unsure, that's okay, we can embrace that. But also, we already know what to do. which is to ask, you know, what would be helpful? What would be useful?
And we don't necessarily need to go out and be an expert in this or, you know, that, that might help. That might bring some, confidence, but I think the, the real confidence comes from relying on what you already know and applying the skills that you already have and knowing that that's okay to not know as well. and I've experienced that and then I've seen that and Yeah. We've been on many sides of that.
Yeah. We'll see what questions the audience have in a minute, but I'm just, can you, Kim, can you just talk to us about what makes it important to be simple in the way that we ask questions? Tell us about passing. Yeah. So, you know, we want, we want to have a good thinking conversation with somebody where they're gaining new insights about their stuff. Right. That's, that's, you one of the big goals there.
But when we ask complicated questions, we're making somebody think and we're making them think hard, potentially about the wrong things. We're maybe shifting the focus unintentionally, you know, with the best intentions, we're shifting the focus to making them think about the question that we're asking, trying to understand and break down and parse the question into parts. And when you're in that mode, then you start doing things that are like, well, what's the answer they want to hear?
You know, what's the correct thing to say in this rather than keeping the focus on the topic or the question at hand. And so when we ask a short question, we're broadening the scope of interpretation, but we're forcing that person or inviting them, I should rather say, to think about their stuff. rather than the focus on us and the clever question that we might have. Yeah. And you've written a blog post for us, which is coming up any minute, I think. great.
I built on what you said in that blog post. Great. Go for Because I think that too often, by making it complex, and this is for everybody, not just people who are neurodivergent, but So I'm going to introduce you to my jar of mayonnaise. I can only explain this with a jar of mayonnaise. I've tried to explain it with other random things, but I can't. so this jar of mayonnaise is what we see and hear and sense the person saying.
But then what happens is if we form a complicated question, we are asking a question that isn't directly connected to what we saw or heard or sense. It's what you've just described, isn't it? It's a pass, it's movement away. And the challenge is that the person then does their own passing of that, which means that the answer, what they then respond with, is over here. So we're now two steps away from the work, not even one step away from the work.
And that's why saying what we see or hear or sense is the most important thing because the work is the mayonnaise. This is on YouTube if you're listening on audio only. The work is the mayonnaise and as soon as we start taking a journey away from it we actually get further and further away. Thank you for the inspiration Kim Whitton. One day I'll learn to explain that without the mayonnaise, but for now I need the mayonnaise to help me. Go on Nathan. No, I'm just thinking about it.
Yeah, it's kind of like it's the over complication. There's also a bit of diagnosing there isn't there sometimes because we're trying to work hard in question formation. Around that question bit though, I would say I have noticed that sometimes people who have neurodivergent traits struggle with certain types of questions more and particularly if they're not clear and if they're too open.
And I think there's something around there, again, in the moment of making sure our questions are offers and not destinations, i.e. because I know we've all been through those, you know, like filling in the form to get your car re-registered or something like that, you know, there's, or tax return, there's questions that you have to answer or else. But actually that's not what we're doing in this space.
We're actually making offers and if... the offer is not okay, we need to bring it back into the middle and say, well, what do we need to do to make this offer okay? So it supports you to move forward with your thinking. Yeah. So we have our first question. So this is a question from Vivian. I'd be interested to know how we measure progress and success considering people's unique perspectives and experiences. I know what Nathan's going to say. Gosh, I feel so much pressure now. Go on.
Well, I would say the most important thing is movement. Is that what you thought I going to say? No. I thought you were going to say ask them. Well ask them as well, but I was going to say that movement is the key thing because actually we get really hung up, don't we, the amount of movement, especially when we talk about value in coaching. There's a huge amount of ideas around what should be happening as opposed to what needs to happen for the individual in that space.
But yeah, I mean, obviously the only real test is to ask them because we don't know how any of stuff lands. And I just love that idea about... particularly as coaches, I think if you've done this for a while, we've all experienced sessions where we thought it was the worst thing in the world, where we thought we'd absolutely failed ourselves and the person we're working with and they go, well, that was the most insightful conversation I've ever had. So it comes back to that whole thing.
Well, it's not about us, it? It's about them. Yeah. So you've just opened that question up, haven't you, Nathan? Because you've opened it up to how do I measure? progress and success for me in my professional learning of working in this space. And then there's also how do we enable the person who we're coaching to measure their progress and success. And help them to feel comfortable about it as well.
Because especially if someone's coming into this space because they feel either they've been sent or indirectly sent for various reasons, and there's lots of correlations that how do we kind of do stuff that starts with You're enough, you're okay. And what do we need to do to support you to move forward the thing that you're bringing? Yeah. Kim, anything to add or to build on that? Yeah, I think I would add to that. I like this idea of movement and there's lots of interpretations on that too.
And I think another measure is feeling. Like the feeling is the measure, you know, it's how does this feel? Does this feel like growth? Does this feel like progress? And oftentimes we take our feelings and our sensations and we might use them as judgment. But if we step back a little and get a little bit curious, we can see that as information that it's telling us something. It's telling us if something's right or if we're in a dangerous spot or those different things.
And then the other piece I would add to that, maybe even before, well, I don't know if there's an ordering to this, but is defining what success means. Like what does success look and feel like? What does done feel like? What does progress feel like? How will we know that we have it? And that's something that you can do together. You can co-create that and have that shared understanding of what success looks like. And then you know where the work is going.
And if you're actually hitting those milestones, you can create the milestones along the way or not. We're just, you know, check in along the way and see if you're getting Maybe I was going to add into that if it's okay, can we just add good enough bit as well? Because I think that's often a big thing in this space in terms of this perfectionism, because actually if you've had to overcome, often you set yourself up much higher bar. So then, that can translate into this as well.
Just to sort of build on what you're saying. Yeah. Thank you. So another question, can you expand on some of the misconceptions out there when coaching neurodivergent individuals? Shall I start with this one? We're coaching adults. Well, even if you're coaching young people, they've lived their life for their whole life. So I think one of the misconceptions is that they don't know how to do this. They do.
And they might have come for coaching because they want support and thinking some stuff through or learning to think about stuff through in a different way. But actually the people that we're talking to that we're with are experts in their own, how they do what they do. So I think the biggest, for me, the biggest misconception that I've noticed so far, and I reserve the right to notice others on the way, is that I need to know, I need to know how to work with you.
And I need to know all about what this neurodivergence that you describe or don't describe. that I need to know all about it. And I don't because you are this, the person, the beautiful, wonderful person that we're working with has lived their whole life before they met me. And so they're the expert. That would be mine. Let's go the other way around. Yeah. have misconceptions. Yeah. I would add to that too, is that everything is experience.
You know, whether you've had a diagnosis or they've had a diagnosis, then they've lived their life as a person who has experienced things this way or another. It's all valuable. It's all experience. And you don't have to know about that. You don't have to be knowledgeable in it or even be aware that you or they have that experience. You can go into it and use the tools that you have and simply have a conversation. work with where you are and move forward together with where you are.
You don't have to necessarily do something so wildly different or be so knowledge about. Sometimes the best conversations or coaching sessions happen when you don't fully know what is going on or what it's about, or you don't have all the skills or expertise or knowledge because it forces you to listen differently.
you pay more attention and you're kind of listening for what's underneath or you're abstracting things or you're noticing things that you wouldn't otherwise notice if you were just enmeshed with like, this is a, you know, labeling and naming things. This is an example of that where you're just really in tune with them and listening intently instead. Thank you, Nathan. Yeah, I think that's just something.
I struggle with the labels piece because I think picking up on your lovely tin of mayonnaise, that's what labels are for. Because you need to know the ingredients. Though someone did say to me that it's quite useful to know the ingredients. But I think when someone describes conditions or whatever, and I have to say I've worked with stuff that I've never heard of, I've honestly never heard of, and that's okay. Because I think the useful question then is what does that mean for this conversation?
Yeah. And it might be, just need to tell you. And we're going, great, let's get over that. Or it might be there's something different. But if we start with that, then it's come back to that asking partner in bed, doesn't it? Because if we know what that means for us now, then we can do something with it. Because I think there's a huge issue with partial understanding and perception and even lived experience. So I've got dyslexic diagnosis, I've got ADHD traits, I've got autistic traits.
That's what I understand it to me. but I can bet my bottom dollar that some of the particularly people that are different to me, their experience and what that looks like for them is completely different. Completely different. Because that's only ever part of who I am. I'm still a male. I'm still white. I still live somewhere in the middle of England. You know, I still do all the weird stuff that I do, but that makes up who I am. So that's only ever part.
it's that. And I think I... talked about before, it's a lens to look through not a label to be worn and I get the fact that diagnosis is useful especially if gives you access to drugs or therapy or something that you wouldn't have access to but it's only ever part of who you are. It's not all of who you are and it will never be all of who you are and I'd encourage you to think about that. Yeah there are so many questions here. So here's one.
How do we bring neurodivergent thinkers back to the work when they are keen to go off track? Do you know, that was a question that came up in a supervision earlier this week. And one of the people in the room has an autistic diagnosis. she said, so someone else brought the question. And she said, if I'm being random, please don't be random too. because I need you to hold the center while I'm being random and being random will be useful, but it won't be useful if you're also all over the place.
So I think there's something about letting people go where they need to go and then checking in with them. You know, do you want to keep being random or do you want us to center? And if you want us to center, what are we going to center on? I love that example because the person was basically conveying how they need you to hold the space. Partnership and team. Yeah. And that's one of the things I think that's really critical is that we often look at human beings.
I like to think of it as the John Wayne style of life. You know, this man with the Stetson who basically solves everything on his own.
And that's the kind of narrative that we have in many spaces, There's no, no one talks about the team behind, but actually, you know, in order to support individuals to amplify their strengths and manage the things they find difficult, team, the right team with the right kind of checks and balances and making sure that we're, you know, we're in good spaces can be invaluable in terms of keeping us on course.
And also thinking, I mean, just picking up on that particular question about focusing on stuff, even things like, how do we support individuals to work out how to reset well? Because with the best will in the world, the very thing that is useful in one space can be not useful in another. So we don't want to stop it because it's useful, but we need to know how to do something with it when it's not appropriate. Thank you. So I'm going to bring these two questions together.
If that's a linguistic mess, Kim, untangle them with me. I'm sure it'll be fine. Go for it. Do you know you're always on my shoulder going, make it more simple, make it... I know I'm on people's shoulders going, make it more simple, make it more simple. Well, you need to know listeners that Kim is on my shoulder going, it's not simple enough, make it more simple. Which is funny because I overcomplicate things all the time. except when you give me feedback.
When it's really clear, you're going make it simpler, make it simpler. the question, the two questions are, well, one's an observation. So Vivian says, an observation for me is that people are willing to share more openly that they are neurodivergent, which has helped to ask those open questions of how you work together. Is that your experience also? So that's about people who come saying I'm neurodivergent. And then Alan's asked a different question, but it's in the same space, I think.
What do you do if you sense a thinker is neurodivergent, although they don't identify as such? I'm going to start with Alan's with a story. I worked with somebody for two years and wondered and it cost me a lot of money and supervision. And it was absolutely right not to say anything. Because it, and I can only say it was absolutely right not to say anything in my, that's a gut feel. That person subsequently had a diagnosis.
And one day I said to them, This question has been in my mind for two years. Given what you've just said, I just wonder whether, and at which point they went, yes, I've been wondering that for the last three months, and I have done something about it. And the question that caused me to speak was something came up about I need to change myself. And I said, I wonder if we moved away from the, I've got to have a behavior change here to what if I had a coping strategy?
And that was picked, that was a much more generous question that this person was much more easily able to answer, engage with and all those things. And that's what made me ask the question. But I had been silent for two years because I think there's a real issue for us. We are not experts. We are not in the business of diagnosing. So it's not for me to go. And yet, there's what we see and hear and sense. So it's a really delicate, fine, fine, fine line.
Kim Nathan, how do you respond to, people disclosed? You know, what's difference if they disclose that they are versus if you wonder whether they might be? I'm curious where that comes from, like in myself when I notice it as well. Like, why does this matter? You know, why does this matter to me that, you know, am I gonna do something with this information? You know, am I gonna treat them differently? And you know, where is this coming from? I think is my starting point.
I don't know beyond that. think there's sometimes something about tribe if you're in the space because actually we all want people like us. I think that's quite a human thing so think being really, especially as a coach, really conscious of that is really really important.
Personally I really like the language of traits because actually that... so if it's useful my understanding of diagnostic and I'm happy to be blowing out the water this is what you said, is if you've ever been to Tesco's and you've had those little charity voting tubes where you get the blue tokens and you stick them in.
So neurodiversity is a bit like all these tubes with lots of different conditions and you can get different numbers of tokens, different ones and you've kind of got this magical line across and if you get to the line you get a diagnosis because you've got enough of this stuff to basically make you get the label. But you may have lots of tubes filled up all over the place and never get anywhere near the line but that whole stuff is going to impact you in all sorts of ways in your life.
probably in ways you never even thought about and certainly ways that my wife continues to explain to me, which I think is wonderful, that someone who's kind of partnering and trying to notice and work out with you at the same time. yeah, I think it's useful sometimes to notice, but not to diagnose and to wonder, because wondering is a great thing. wonder why that's tricky. I wonder why you've talked about that quite a bit.
And then if the conversation goes on, we can obviously signpost if that's useful. but only if that's driven by them. Because like you said, that person has existed before they came anywhere near us. And if they live anywhere in a connected world, they're to be acutely aware of all this stuff anyway, because actually it's out there. It's big. And sometimes we just need to stay.
I think there's a real importance, and especially in the coaching space, you know, we're working with the person who has come, regardless of what they are and who they are, to do the work. Like you said, Kim, you know, we don't need data that's not useful. What we need to know is what's going to support us to have the best conversation possible so they can move forward. Period.
Like, is it going to be helpful to center this piece of information or to highlight this, this piece that you're noticing, you know, and it may or may not be, you know, relative to the conversation that you're having. The other thing I was going to say that's really interesting is when you start to talk about things like menopause and stuff like that, obviously things change for females at that period.
And some of that stuff can look a bit like some of this stuff, but that doesn't mean you've got this stuff. It's just different. So actually, and we don't know, and often the individual doesn't know, but we're still in the space and we can contract and work out what to do as opposed to worrying about the exact bit of whatever that, and the same with PTSD. There's lots of stuff that kind of can look like this stuff. So some people call that acquired neurodiversity.
mean, there's obviously a name for everything that's ever appeared. But ultimately we don't know why do we need to know? Because actually what we need to know is that we're enough to support that person to do the work that needs to be done. So there's something that comes up for me as we're talking about this that's about trust and partnership and noticing and they need to be held really delicately together, don't they? Because we can flip out of partnership.
by accidentally taking power by diagnosing. last summer. Having taken to supervision for two years, what is it about the way that I work that means that I work with so many neurodivergent coaches? I said to my daughter, who's autistic. Do you think I'm neurodivergent? And she said, what do you think? But she didn't, she didn't say yes, but she said, let me, she said, let me go away and think about it.
And she came back the next time we were together for a weekend, she came back and she said, I've been thinking about what you said. How many coping strategies do you have to get through a day? And I said, 50, a hundred. Doesn't everybody? And she went, no. You And if you looked at my coping strategies, you'd realize that they are really quite, I have a high need for some really basic coping strategies in my world.
But it was really interesting, the partnership in that enabled me to come to my own insight rather than her making the meaning for me. you know, that's in a family system where people know a lot about each other and, you've lived inside each other's lives for a long time. But I think certainly with the people that we work with, have to, you know, this is holy ground. We have to be really respectful that everyone we work with is robust enough to deal with their own stuff.
Amy's asking a great question here. In your experience, do people open up about their neurodiversities or is it something you cover in contracting? How do you open up the conversation? Who wants to go first? I just feel like with the top of the rollercoaster, who's going to jump first? Everyone's different, right? Everyone's different. I noticed that some people come say, and that's the first thing they want to say. I find some people come and they know, but they don't choose to disclose.
I find that some people Everybody's different. Everybody's different. But I wouldn't... I would never... I never would talk about it, but I also noticed that I am out about it being in my world, which I think enables people to talk about it if they want to talk about it. So I've written stuff, we've got podcasts about it. I have been heard to be okay about it being in the space. And I think that's enough. Because Otherwise, what else do we have to talk about in that initial thing?
Yeah, think just people knowing that it's okay to be yourself and it's okay to be human and it's okay to just say what you want to say and not what you don't want to say is enough without asking it directly. Because I think asking it directly is quite challenging. Why are you asking anyway? Because we're all different. Why are we asking? Why are we asking? Because that's just more data. What are we going to do with that data? said that first Nathan. I don't know. I forget.
There's so many wise people around us. For the notes on the podcast, Claire Pradik said this many years ago. No, but it's really important though because actually there's a real challenge with data isn't there? Because if we've got If we're coaching and we're doing great work, we're not processing, we're responding, we're noticing, we're doing that. And data has to be processed. We've got to process it.
So that's distracting us from what we're supposed to be doing anyway, let alone what the data is. And I think how we're asking matters too. It's like, are we asking that directly using these labels or are we... asking, so like in a real practical sense when something I do when people book in a call with me is one of the questions in my booking form. Is there anything else that I should know about any accommodations or things that would help us along on this journey?
And I forget the exact wording, it allows people an opportunity to disclose if they feel like disclosing and to add to that in a more abstract sense based on what you were saying, Claire, about how I think there's something about framing here about like how you're kind of out in the world about it.
And I think what's interesting about the three of us and what we're bringing to this, this research and project and collaboration is that we've got three very different kind of ways that we're, we're presenting ourselves. And so I don't have, I think on my website, I don't even think the word neurodivergent or neurodiversity appears at all, but I do. And that's not entirely intentional, but Yeah, I do meet a lot of people who are in this space.
And I don't think anybody would, anybody who knows me would suggest that I have a neurotypical brain either. So, but there's just something about even without saying it, even without the traits, the labels, the names that, that it comes across, right. And that people feel the, the comfort or the space to, to be able to disclose or not. But I think that's, that's part of it, that framing.
And then Nathan, of course you have a different, you know, where you're very, it's part of your branding and your whole presentation. And that has a different response to it as well. Yeah. And it's interesting you say that Kim, cause when I thought up the name for the, for the business, it wasn't because I wanted to be this neurodivergent coach in the sense of say I'm It was because a friend of mine said, I want to refer some work to you and you've got this stupid name for your business.
It doesn't mean anything. Can you find something that makes sense? So I just did my Google search and the Neurodivergent coach was available and .co.uk and .com were there. So thought, I'll just grab that. And I thought he was just talking about me, but no one sees that. No one sees that. No one sees that. brilliant bit of marketing, no one's understood that, it's just about me, it's nothing to do with them. I'm being flippant, sorry, but it's quite funny how this stuff works out isn't it?
Of course the penny drops when you speak to someone who goes, yeah but this is what you've done. And it's fine, but it's just like that's not, maybe that's a bit about the neurodiversity bit, I don't know, but I didn't say that, I just thought it was a good name that kind of talked about me a bit. So we're coming towards the end of our time. There's a great question here. What about if you are a neurodivergent coach? How much should you share about how that may come into the space?
You sort of half responded to that Nathan, haven't you? Yeah, I think probably a bit like you, Clay, you know, I'm out there, you know, I've not been unclear about who I am. think if it matters and it's useful, then it comes back to what does this mean for this conversation. It's probably a useful place to go. But that's, is that the bit you were thinking of Claire when you sort of said, I sort of half said it?
Well, you sort of half answered it by saying that you described yourself as, named your business the neurodivergent coach because that was about you and then nobody cared. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, so my thoughts on it, yeah, probably nobody gives a bunk is actually really, unless there's something specific you need to bring into the space to make it work. No one cares, I don't think. I think there's something about personal credibility and connection, isn't there, and who trusts who.
So, yeah, one of my inquiries about why do so many people who come to me, why are so many people who come to me neurodivergent? I haven't thought about whether I was at all. until there weren't any other options. so much money and supervision trying to explore this question, we'd run out of, you know, because I think the straightforwardness probably is an attraction for people. But it's the same thing about I wouldn't disclose that my dad died.
But there have been occasions in the last six months, where somebody's really talked deeply about about the death of a parent, where It has been absolutely the right thing to say in the moment where I've said, I don't understand how that is for you, but I understand how that is for me. Just to say there's a little bit of a connection here. Because does it affect who we are? Well, we are who we are, aren't we? And we do what we do, how we do it. And that's not to do with labels or anything.
So Kim, you were born outside of the UK and that will impact. Some of that culture will impact how you do what you do, but you don't, I'm sure, I've never heard you go, I'm not British. Well, you might be. I know. You said don't even know if you're British. Lucky you. maybe you want to be two of, if you want to be two, maybe this isn't the two you want to be. But that's a political discussion. Yeah. Or maybe never.
I love that you said that, Claire, about, can I just pick up that little bit you said, where you said, actually, I know a bit about it, but it might be different. different words, but you know, I've got some experience, but it's not the same. know that. Yeah, it doesn't, but I've got a bit. that, you know, I just want to offer that. So I've got a bit. I've done. It's not the same as yours. So does that help us sort of move this conversation forwards?
Cause there's a credibility thing, isn't there? But I think there's something about not. It needs to be not too big and not too small, I think. I'm just curious for our people in our live audience and those of you who are not in our live audience, those of you who are listening at home or out for a walk or wherever you are, I'm really interested to know what insights have you had in this conversation as we wrap up. live audience, do pop in the chat the insights you've had.
Nathan and Kim, what are the insights that we've had? No pressure. There's something for me about, this, like how much we, we center ourselves or our labels or what's happening, how much we name it or put it up front. And I've thought about that in, new ways and from new angles, just based on all the various ways that we've touched upon that, you know, when is it useful to, to say something. you know, about our own experience or about who we are or to name it in some way. And when is it not?
Maybe, maybe that doesn't need to be front and center. Yeah. Nathan? I think the insight is just that, again, it's that idea actually with dealing with individuals, we're working with individuals, unique, wonderfully made human beings. And that's going to be huge difference. So it's just for me, it's the insight is that the challenge to say well actually if that is true what do I need to do to best serve that in the work that I'm doing.
For me the insight is about... which bit of my humanity needs to be enough in the public domain. that it creates a sense, that it creates a sense of connection with people because... People work with people and I'm just, my insight is do I need to look around my life and notice if there is there anything else that needs to be open? Some nice, lovely stuff in the chat. Somebody's currently being diagnosed or not, I love that, and interested in becoming a coach.
The insight has been that there are different approaches to coaching as and with neurodivergent people. The sentence I have experienced, but it might be different is gold. So I think what I want to say to you is, you don't need to train to be a neurodivergent coach to be being a great coach. You're a coach who is, who is, or might be, or might not be neurodivergent. And you'll be working with people who are, aren't, might be, or might not be.
Someone else, the insight, it's validated my thinking and leaves me with a sense of confidence in myself that I'm enough to work with any individual who comes my way. that's so beautiful. I think that is so motivating for us, as we go off and do our writing in our cupboards. Someone else, don't be random and make it simple. Love that. I think that the idea of being enough is key instead of giving ourselves a hard time that we are not expert enough.
Just being present to them better is what this is all about. Lovely. Interesting discussion. Thank you. I think Nathan's insights into his dyslexia, autism, ADHD is only part of who you are, not all of who you are. It is one human to another with all their and my life experience. Nice. As a new coach in training, to be assured that our clients, people, sorry, you've just pressed my, the people we work with, the people.
To be assured that our people are the experts on their own neurodivergence and they can let us know if they like and tell us what they need from us as a coach. I am also thinking of how much I can share of myself to also create trust and allow others to feel that they could be 100 % authentic in the space we create. And someone else loved the discussion and really felt I was in the space in there with you. Thank you for answering my questions. Totally agree with Naomi. This session was amazing.
Well, thank you. You've been amazing. And what we've discovered, lovely live audience, is it feels really lovely, doesn't it, to have you with us? And we'll definitely have live audiences again. And we will definitely download all your questions and comments and they will be super useful to us as we position this thing that we're doing, which will probably come out in 15 years time, given that there's neurodivergence in the room. We know what enough is. know what enough is.
So everybody, thank you for coming to the Coaching Inn. There'll be contact details in the show notes. And the most functional of the three of us has set up a webpage where you can go and if you give us your email address, we'll keep you in touch with with the writing process, because we want you to be part of this process. Because we want to produce something that's relevant and useful and all the above. Thank you, Kim. Thank you, Nathan.
Thank you, everybody in the live audience, everybody at home. Thank you for listening. We hope you laughed as much as we did, because if you didn't, you probably already switched off. you want to be part of the journey and know what's going on and throw in questions and observations, do sign up for the mailing list big in the show notes. Thank you everyone for coming for the coaching in. Enjoy the rest of your day.
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