March 29, 2024 • 48 mins
Ever felt like your mind runs on a different operating system than everyone else's? Discover the powerful connection between neurodiversity and their specific coaching needs with my guests, Kate Arms and Tracy Winter, the dynamic duo behind the Neurodiversity Coaching Academy. As we unpack their personal narratives, we illuminate the emotional rollercoaster of living at the intersection of intense intellect and divergent thinking. Kate and Tracy’s candid sharing reveals the often-overlooked psychosomatic layers of giftedness, and their mission to address the unique coaching needs of this underserved community.
This episode takes us behind the scenes of the Neurodiversity Coaching Academy, where Kate and Tracy have crafted an inclusive coaching environment that's all about embracing the rapid learning and distinct needs of neurodivergent minds. Their approach, backed by the International Coaching Federation (ICF), is more than just a service—it's a lifeline for those who may have previously encountered the harm of ill-informed professional guidance. From monthly masterclasses to mentor coaching and coaching supervision , we delve into the academy's offerings and discuss the value of our coaching philosophy, designed to resonate with the fabric of neurodivergent thinking.
As the conversation unfolds, we examine the nuances of coaching neurodivergent clients, from navigating their unique 'stuckness' to leveraging their out-of-the-box solutions. We highlight how coaching diverges from therapy, focusing on the forward momentum and actionable change that clients can enact in their lives. Kate and Tracy also reflect on the profound impact that earlier awareness of gifted complexities could have had and the transformative power of coaching informed by their own journeys. For those eager to learn more about our Neurodiversity Coaching Academy’s resources, the episode wraps up with where to find our masterclasses and how to connect for mentorship opportunities.
Resources:
neurodiversitycoachingacademy.com
Sign up for the Neurodiversity Coaching Academy Newsletter
Kate Arms at katearms.com
Tracy Winter at nerdcoa.ch
Would you like to work with me 1:1 as your gifted and 2e coach? Please send me an email at hello@giftedunleashed.com or find more information about my coaching offer on my website giftedunleashed.com/coaching
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Nadja Cereghetti (00:02):
Hello and welcome to Gifted Unleashed,
where we talk about the giftedand twice exceptional brain and
how it affects our thinking andexperience of the world
differently.
There are a lot of stereotypesand stigma around the term
giftedness and I'm here tochallenge those.
I'm here to raise awareness andto have a conversation around
the topic of what it means to bea gifted and two-year adult.
Common experience among giftedfolks is that they feel out of
(00:26):
place.
They don't quite fit in.
They're too sensitive, toointense, too emotional, too
overexcitable and too deepthinkers about the world and
about themselves.
So if you have been called toomuch about anything, then this
show is for you.
My name is Nadja.
I'm too loud, too colorful, toobubbly, too bossy and I love to
talk too much.
So name is Nadja.
(00:48):
I'm too loud, too colorful, toobubbly, too bossy and I love to
talk too much.
So welcome to my world and I'mso happy you're here.
Hello and welcome back toanother episode.
Today we have Kate Arms andTracy Winter on the show and I'm
so honored to have both of themhere on my show.
It's the first time we recordbasically a podcast episode with
three people.
Unfortunately, the audio was alittle bit off, but I hope you
(01:13):
will still enjoy this episode tothe max, because it has a lot
of nuggets and Kate and Tracyare sharing a lot of insights.
Together, Kate and Tracyfounded the Neurodiversity
Coaching Academy and they'rehere today to talk a little bit
what that means.
What is Neurodiversity CoachingAcademy?
What are they offering and whyis it needed, and which hole in
(01:36):
the market are they filling withtheir services?
So I don't want to say too much, I just hope you enjoy this
episode, and there are all thelinks and the resources in the
show notes and also at the endof the episode we will mention
them again.
So enjoy this episode.
I'm really hoping this servesyou well.
Welcome, tracy and Kate.
(01:58):
I'm so excited for both of youto be here and, with our tech
issues, we heard that Kate'smicrophone is picking up a
little bit too intensely, soshe's trying not to get too
excited and you know asking ifthe people is very difficult,
but we're going to try to makethis work.
The first episode with threepeople at the same call, so
(02:22):
welcome for you both to be hereand I'm so excited.
Thank you, and I would like foryou to introduce yourselves and
introduce each other, so thefloor is yours, Kate.
Do you want to start?
Kate Arms (02:39):
Yeah, sure.
So for people who are listening, this voice goes with Kate, and
I'm going to introduce TracyWinter to you first.
So Tracy Winter is myco-founder for the
Neurodiversity Coaching Academyand I know we'll talk about that
work a little bit.
But more than that, she is afriend and a real joy to hang
(03:01):
out with and to nerd out on allthings human development and
neurodiversity.
She makes me laugh, she keepsmy academic work rigorous, she
is more scholarly in trainingthan I am, and so she keeps me
honest.
Yeah, it's a joy to be herewith you, Tracy.
Tracy Winter (03:21):
Thank you.
Thank you, Kate and Nadja.
Thank you for having us here.
First of all, yes, weappreciate the opportunity.
So this is my partner andfriend, Kate, the Neurodiversity
Coaching Academy.
Like she said, I love workingwith Kate.
The first thing is you noticeher brilliance and her ways of
putting concepts together in newways that I hadn't thought of,
(03:44):
and that's so fun to then riffoff of.
We two laugh together in newways that I hadn't thought of
and that's so fun to then likeriff off of.
We two laugh together, andwithout that this partnership
would never work.
But beyond that, she has wisdomand sort of like bodily wisdom
that she brings to all of ourwork, and so it's this very
integrated kind of knowing thatinforms everything that she does
(04:05):
and it's just gorgeous to getto interact with, and I feel
really lucky that we get to dothis together.
Nadja Cereghetti (04:12):
Oh, and I feel so lucky to have you both here
today and tell me a little bitabout your journey and how you
started working together andwhat you're offering now in this
gifted and neurodivergent space.
So, Tracy, do you want to sharejust a little bit more about
(04:32):
how you discovered this topic ofgiftedness and why you're
working in this space?
Tracy Winter (04:39):
Sure, so I don't remember not knowing about
giftedness.
I was identified when I wasabout four and skipped a grade
back then and then my mother gother education specialist, which
is like halfway to a PhD ingifted education, and she
created and ran a program forgifted students in a school
district for 20 plus years.
(04:59):
My sister was identified asgifted, you know, super early,
just like I was.
So like, how did I come togiftedness?
I don't know how not to knowabout giftedness, it was just
too early.
So I've always been aware ofsort of the smarts part of it.
And then the more that I doveinto it in my graduate studies,
the more I learned about all ofthe other parts of giftedness
(05:20):
the emotional, the, you know,imaginational.
So some of this, some of thissomatic or psychosomatic types
of stuff that comes, you knowthe Javrosky intensities
basically, and that reallyhelped put so many pieces of a
puzzle together for me.
So in my graduate studies, mydegrees in human development, a
PhD in human development, and Iwrote my dissertation on the
(05:42):
self-concept development inhighly gifted adults, sort of
the social, emotional piece forhighly gifted adults, and how
the reflections of other peoplefor sort of our understanding of
ourselves or don't.
So, yeah, it's sort of likecoming into the family business
in a way, because it's like Ialways thought that I go into my
sort of family business ofbecoming a lawyer like my dad
(06:03):
and it turns out I went theother direction.
But yeah, it's sort of all inthe family in that way, and then
that was sort of my entree intoneurodivergence, was getting
diagnosed with ADHD in themiddle of writing my literature
review and then it sort ofsnowballed from there.
So, yeah, so gifted has alwaysbeen a part of my conception and
part of my identity, because Ialways knew that I was different
(06:24):
.
Nadja Cereghetti (06:31):
It was really obvious that I was different.
Oh, and you already just talkedabout twice exceptionality
gifted and ADHD and that thiscreates another level of
complexity, and we're going totalk about this today.
And, Kate, I'm so excited tohave you on the podcast for the
first time and would you alsolike to share.
(06:51):
How did you tap into this topic?
How did you know aboutgiftedness and neurodiversity in
general?
Kate Arms (07:01):
Well, thank you, it's a real pleasure to be here and,
yeah, I'm happy to tell alittle bit about my journey.
So I'm the complete opposite ofTracy.
I had no idea that giftednesswas a thing until I was a parent
of a kid who wasn't fitting inand I was trying to figure out
why the things that I wasreading didn't apply.
And he currently is identifiedgifted autistic ADHD.
(07:23):
So I landed smack in the middleof twice exceptional space and
the developmental pediatricianwho worked with us to help
support him in the intakeinterview said so of the people
in the family, who does thischild remind you of?
And the answer was me.
Family, who does this childremind you of?
(07:50):
And the answer was me.
And so, really, I didn't starthaving language to talk about
giftedness until I wasdiscovering how to apply it as a
parent.
The history is all there.
Looking back, it's so obvious.
I had existential crisis atfive.
I had going to school alreadyable to read and knowing the
(08:10):
math curriculum for the firstthree years of school.
Before I got to school, I hadto take an IQ test to get into a
program where the cutoff to getin was the 130 IQ, and I just
soared through that.
In fact, I was bored through it.
It wasn't until I was well intomy parenting journey exploring
this, that somebody said, hey,there's a qualitative difference
(08:32):
between being gifted and beingmoderately gifted, and extremely
gifted and profoundly gifted.
You're profoundly gifted.
This is why that class wasn'tenough for you, and so it's been
a late, late self-understandingprocess.
Nadja Cereghetti (08:47):
Yeah, and how was that for you?
Kate Arms (08:50):
You know, it's been really interesting because I
went through so much pain andidentity crisis, starting from
the time I was about 15 until Iwas parenting, until I was
parenting, and so getting somelanguage around it and getting
(09:11):
some vocabulary really just feltlike validation of everything
that I had been through beforeand it just let me breathe and
it let me Google to find mypeople.
Nadja Cereghetti (09:22):
Yeah, I can relate so much, just having this
vocabulary, having you know thekeywords and you just type that
in and something pops up.
And that's what I'm hoping todo with this podcast.
That's, people are Googling thewords and you know the
intensities and land here andhopefully get you know a whole
(09:44):
array of resources for them.
And the two of you are buildingalso something, a lot of
resources and building togetherthe Neurodiversity Coaching
Academy.
How did you two meet?
How did this collaborationstart?
How did it start to bloom?
Tracy Winter (10:08):
Well, I'd like to say it's Chris Wells' fault.
Yes, definitely, it's ChrisWells' fault.
Nadja Cereghetti (10:14):
That's a totally fair statement.
Kate Arms (10:17):
So, Dr Chris Wells of the Dabrowski Center, Tracy, I
don't know how you connectedwith her, but we connected
through the work that she'sdoing with the positive
disintegration and the studygroup that she's doing there and
the community that she'sbuilding.
Tracy Winter (10:33):
Yeah, so, and I connected with her through.
I met her at SENG, Supportingthe Emotional Needs of the
Gifted Conference in I don'tknow 2017, maybe in I don't know
kind of 17, maybe when we wereboth sort of in the throes of
our dissertation and weconnected around that and you
know Dabrowski and the rest iskind of history so.
But yeah, so it is Chris'sfault to some extent, because
(10:55):
Kate posted in you know Facebookgroup that's just for that
study group that she wasinterested in getting more hours
for her coaching and wasanybody interested?
And I was at a point where Ijust thought I've been
stagnating too long and I reallyneed some development help and
get moving again.
And, as other gifted peoplewill probably relate to, it can
(11:16):
be challenging for us to find atherapist or a coach who gets it
, who's ahead of us, who youknow, we don't think circles
around and because I knew thatChris Wells respected Kate, I
was like, well, let's try thisout.
So she became my coach is howwe met and she was my coach.
She continues to be my coach,actually, and we keep those hats
(11:37):
very separate.
And in our first meeting, ourdiscovery call, I said, you know
, I really zipped down.
What I want to do is I want toopen a school for neurodiversity
coaching not just ADHD coaching, because I'm already an ADHD
coach trainer.
And she said, well, me too.
And that was kind of the end ofit.
And then, about I don't know,eight or nine months later, she
(12:01):
said, okay, are we done withthis session?
Do you have some time?
I said, yeah, so we'd like puta bow on whatever the session
was she's like.
So I'd like to build thisschool and I'd like to do it
with you.
And I said, okay, let's do that.
And that was it.
That was it.
Here we are.
What's your recollection, Kate?
That's my, that's my burden ofthe story.
Kate Arms (12:30):
I don't remember telling you that I was
interested in doing it with youquite so early that that first
session story but that also sortof sounds like it probably was
about that time and absolutelythere was this process of
because I was your coach andthis was your dream.
There was this long ish it feltlike a long period where we
didn't talk about the fact thatthis was a shared dream of both
of ours, that I came incompletely with my coach hat on
and at some point you weregetting frustrated that you
(12:52):
weren't making progress on theacademy fast enough and I just
that was when I was like, can wejust take the hat off?
And can I say, would you makeprogress on this if we partnered
?
And that was the moment wherewe decided that we were going to
work together to make thishappen.
And it's been a delight and achallenge and we're learning so
(13:15):
much.
We haven't even really talkedabout what either of our vision
was until after we decided wewere doing it.
We didn't plan to do it.
Tracy Winter (13:24):
It's true we just sort of started and I feel
really fortunate ones untilafter we decided we were doing
it.
We didn't plan to work with you.
It's true, we just sort ofstarted and I feel really
fortunate, Like this is atestament to us contributing
stuff too.
But we've gotten along andbuilt on each other and not had
like like it's beenpsychologically safe, probably
because we already have thecoaching relationship from go.
So like we, I remember we builtour first presentation and at
(13:45):
the end of it we spent a lot oftime on one day on it and we
kind of looked at each other.
Kate Arms (13:49):
It was like that was kind of easy yeah, that was that
was fun to do oh, thank godyeah, oh, and like we agree with
each other, we actually doaccording with each other.
Tracy Winter (14:01):
yeah, like, oh, good thing, we align Awesome.
Kate Arms (14:06):
Now that we've advertised a year's worth of
masterclasses, it's good to knowthat we agree with each other.
Nadja Cereghetti (14:11):
And we're going to be able to create them
together, that people who aregifted, and especially gifted
something else, twiceexceptional, neurodivergent,
(14:36):
that it's important to have acoach that understands them.
But can you maybe justelaborate a little bit more why
it is important?
Because I talk to people and Itry to convince them.
If you look for a coach, if youlook for a psychologist, look
for somebody who gets this topic, and I don't always get through
to them.
So I would like to use thisopportunity to hear from both of
(15:01):
you why it is so important, doyou?
Kate Arms (15:05):
want to take the first go at it.
Tracy Winter (15:07):
Tracy Sure.
So I came at this from I wasI'd already been working for
another coach school as an ADHDcoach trainer and I kept looking
around and there are severalICI International Coaching
Federation accredited ADHDcoaching school.
There is nothing for any otherkind of neurodivergence and my
(15:28):
clients are mostly twiceexceptional.
I'm starting to get some thathave the autistic overlay as
well.
So I went and learned a bunchabout that and there are lots of
folks who call themselves acoach, who aren't necessarily a
coach the way that Kate and Ithink of it, with actual
(15:51):
training and principles andethics behind it, which is part
of being part of theInternational Coaching
Federation, and so I justthought this is a gap.
We need more people to do thiswork because I know so many
people I didn't know who torefer to before I met Kate.
If I wasn't the right fit forsomebody, I didn't know where to
send them.
There just haven't been.
There's more coming up all thetime, but there haven't been
(16:12):
enough people who understandmore than ADHD you know within
the coaching sphere.
So I just that lens isimportant because and the reason
that folks we recommend folksfind somebody who does get it is
your brain is like, our brainsare different, they're more
(16:33):
different from most people andthey're very different from each
other, and so you need somebodywho understands that and isn't
going to sort of cookie cutteryou or use the tried and true
techniques because tried andtrue, we've already done that
and it hasn't worked Right.
So like we need to come in withfewer assumptions and really
allow the client to beself-directed with us, sort of
(16:57):
look at guiding a little bit,partnering with them to sort of
cross those few ideas and a lotof people.
We've heard too many storiesabout neurodivergent folks or
gifted folks going to therapistsor going to coaches and
actually having been harmedbecause the reflections that
they're getting are not alignedand there can be sort of trauma
(17:20):
created if these things arehandled with the background and
the knowledge and theunderstanding that one being
neurodivergent and gifted whichis exceptional, choose your
language brings, but also thetraining of how to be a coach,
and so putting those two thingstogether I think is is familiar.
How to get the best shot withpolygraphs.
(17:41):
Okay, I've been talking for awhile, Kate.
What did I miss?
Kate Arms (17:46):
I don't think that you missed anything.
I think there are some thingsthat I'd like to sort of double
down on a little bit, because Ithink they're really important.
I think the first is in termsof if you are new to giftedness
and you're trying to figure outhow to work through this, and
especially if you're new totwice exceptionality, the reason
that you want to go and findsomebody who gets it and who has
(18:09):
training is that the risk ofsomebody harming you because
they don't get it is actuallyvery high.
And I think that that is themost important thing from a
client side that most giftedpeople, and especially twice
(18:30):
exceptional people so giftedplus something else actually
have been harmed by a variety ofthings in their lived
experience, whether it'sparenting techniques that
weren't really customized forthem, school techniques that
weren't customized for them, asocial environment that is
really not well designed foroutliers, and so there's trauma
(18:54):
in the system for almost everygifted or twice exceptional
person, and so any coach ortherapist has to come in with
the assumption that they'rewalking in trauma territory, and
it's shocking how manytherapists aren't actually very
good with trauma, actually verygood with trauma.
(19:17):
And the other thing that I thinkis really, really powerful to
know is most of the therapists Iknow who work with this
population have a very coachapproach to the way that they do
therapy.
Because a gifted person oncethey turn their attention inward
and start studying themselves,they learn a lot fast and even
if they didn't start out with anenormous amount of
(19:40):
self-awareness and an enormousamount of expertise, they become
experts very, very fast.
And for a therapist or a coachwho doesn't really honor the
expertise of their client, itcan be really triggering to the
therapist or the coach or thegifted individual to move so
(20:01):
fast.
It gets really bad for businessthat my clients develop really
quickly and so I have toactually be really skilled at
knowing that my gifted folks aregoing to come in and it may
take us a while to unlock stuff,but at knowing that my gifted
folks are going to come in andit may take us a while to unlock
stuff, but once we unlock itthey are running and I can just
(20:23):
sort of wave as they go.
Nadja Cereghetti (20:26):
Thank you for elaborating and reemphasizing
that actually, if you don't seekout somebody that's trained in
this topic, can cause more harmthan actually help you, because
everybody obviously goes withtheir best intention seeking
help and then the oppositehappens and then they give up.
(20:48):
I talked to people who said, oh, I went to therapy but it
didn't help.
Yeah, because you didn't seekout the gifted specific
therapist.
Or yeah, coaching didn't workout for me.
Yeah, now we know a little bitmore why.
So you're created theNeurodiversity Coaching Academy.
(21:10):
Who is it for and what do youoffer?
Tracy Winter (21:14):
Who is it for and what do you offer?
Okay, so it's for coaches.
Kate Arms (21:26):
We have very explicitly chosen to align
ourselves with coaches who wantto be connected with the
International CoachingFederation model or at least are
happy with their approach tocoaching.
So coaches who have analignment with that approach to
coaching.
What we're offering right nowis intended for people who are
already coaches, so we're notoffering how to be a coach 101
(21:47):
kind of stuff.
We're offering how to be abetter coach and a more
inclusive coach and specificallylooking at the pieces about how
to make sure that you'reaccessible to your
neurodivergent clients.
And the really cool thing isthat if you're accessible to
your neurodivergent clients,you're accessible to everybody,
(22:09):
because what works for the realcustomization and
trauma-informed and realsensitive work for them works
for everybody.
So it's really just goodcoaching training, but with that
eye of here's why it'simportant to have that nuance.
And right now, what's currentlyavailable is a monthly
masterclass on that topic andwe've got coach mentoring and
(22:32):
coaching supervision starting inMay and more in the works, but
nothing else launched yet.
Tracy, did I miss anything?
Tracy Winter (22:43):
No, do you want to drop the teeth?
Go ahead.
I know I kind of just did.
We are working on creating aspecialization program.
We are working on creating aspecialization program.
So you know a big chunk ofcontinuing coach education
credits which we have to look atthe ICF, to be confidential and
(23:04):
like a deeper training programthan the master classes are
going, so that you can sort ofre-specialize and say I'm
specialized in neurodiversity,inclusive coaching.
So that's coming up.
I won't put a date on it, butwe're working on it.
Nadja Cereghetti (23:17):
So if somebody is interested and thinks like,
oh, that's something I want tolook out for, do you already
have like a sign-up link?
Or how do people stay incontact with all this
information that you just teasedout?
So there's the monthly class,and then there's the mentor,
coaching and coachingsupervision and what you just
(23:39):
mentioned.
How can people stay on top ofwhat's happening?
Kate Arms (23:44):
So right now we do not have and this is a lack on
our part an easy place to signup to get on a newsletter, and
so I'll just sort of put thatout there that we don't have.
What we do have is, on theneurodiversitycoachingacademy.
com website, direct registrationfor the masterclasses, and the
easiest way to make sure thatyou stay in the know about
(24:06):
what's coming up is to connectwith Tracy or me or the
Neurodiversity Coaching Academyon LinkedIn, and if you send an
email to info atneurodiversitycoachingacademy.
com, we can take your emailaddress and put you on the
mailing list.
Once we've actually got thatset up and started.
Tracy Winter (24:26):
We're working on it.
It's very close.
Kate Arms (24:29):
We don't have a newsletter.
Nadja Cereghetti (24:30):
Yet we don't have a newsletter.
Yet.
(24:50):
When something drops and signup, if I'm a coach, and well, if
you're listening to my podcast,probably they're neurodivergent
.
But if somebody wants to doyour programs, do they have to
be neurodivergent themselves, orno?
Tracy Winter (25:12):
no, we don't have pretty much any gatekeeping.
I mean, Kate has just describedwho we're designing these
things for and also you'vegotten some paraphrases in.
You've gotten some justinterested parties looking in,
so you know we're open toeveryone.
We are not going to give you anarrow diversion to test before
you come in.
You know like we want everybodyto have access to this
(25:35):
information as easily aspossible, which is why we keep
the cost of our masterclass solow and we have recordings that
you can buy from seeing $10 thatwe've been charging for
masterclasses Because theimportant part for us is more
people knowing more aboutcoaching for neurodiversity and
passiveness, so that there'sless harm done.
Nadja Cereghetti (25:57):
Yeah, thank you, and you just mentioned the
masterclass recordings.
If somebody missed the last fewthat were amazing, by the way
they can still access therecording.
Tracy Winter (26:08):
Yes, just go to the website and you can order
them there.
Nadja Cereghetti (26:11):
Awesome.
So, Kate, you mentioned whatwe're doing is basically good
coaching.
We teach good coaching and thatworks for all your clients, but
for your neurodivergent clientsespecially.
Do you want to share a littlebit what that entails so that
also people that are listeningare like what is coaching and
(26:34):
why should I get aneurodivergent coach and what do
I need to look for for goodcoaching?
Kate Arms (26:40):
Yeah, I think that's a really great question, and I
also want to sort of just pausefor a moment, because I was
thinking about this before wegot on this call.
The way that Tracy and I areapproaching developing
curriculum for coaches revealsour level of giftedness, because
what it is that we have done iswe have, between us, collected
(27:06):
an enormous number of coachingtools and we have actually
distilled the patternsunderneath why these tools work.
And so what we're actuallyextracting is we're actually
extracting the patterns andteaching our students what those
patterns are so that they canthen customize them for the very
(27:28):
different brains and nervoussystems that they encounter
while they're coaching andnervous systems that they
encounter while they're coaching.
And so what we're doing isactually quite different than
most coaching schools, whichstart with here's a tool, here's
a tool, here's a tool, here's atool, here's a tool.
Once you've used enough tools,you can then sort of branch out
(27:49):
and expand, and so ourgiftedness and our pattern
recognition and our ability topull things apart is very much
why we're doing what we're doing, and so for gifted people who
want to become coaches, likethat's a pitch that we actually
understand why this works, wellenough to teach why it works
(28:10):
rather than just having to trustthat it works, which makes a
difference.
So really, why it works is acoach creates a relationship
that is focused on the client,and it's focused on the client
in a couple of different ways.
One is that we trust that ourclients are creative,
(28:36):
resourceful, intelligent, ableto solve problems.
We also assume that if they hadbeen able to solve it by
themselves, they wouldn't havecome to us, so they only come to
us with the problems thatthey're finding hard in the
moment.
And so, as a coach, part ofwhat we do is we believe that
they have the power to solvethis problem if we help them
(28:59):
figure out how to get unstuck inthis moment.
And we help create aconversation in which we
investigate why is it thatthey're stuck in this moment and
how can they get unstuck.
And then, once they're unstuck,if they don't already know what
to do, then we help them figureout what to do.
(29:20):
But quite often, particularlygifted or otherwise
neurodivergent clients come tous and they know what it is that
they should be doing and theyknow where the information is,
but they're actually just notsomehow getting to it, and so
often the just getting unstuckis the piece that is really
important.
And so we do this conversation,we do this sort of conversation
(29:45):
homework conversation, homeworkconversation, homework kind of
process, the homework piece andI'm sure it doesn't use that
word, I don't use that word withmy clients but there's coaching
session and there's in-between,and then there's coaching
session and then there'sin-between, and in the
in-between piece what makes itcoaching is that there's
something that the client takeson to do, to try to think about,
(30:08):
to explore during thein-between piece, and those
experiments in between, then thenext session we learn from and
those experiments in between,then the next session we learn
from.
And so it's this iterativediscovery process that is a mix
of self-inquiry and thenpractice in the real world.
You want to add to that Tracy.
Tracy Winter (30:26):
No, there's probably some doubling down I'm
going to do, but yeah, the way Ithink of.
People are often asking what'sthe difference between coaching
and therapy, and Kate just sortof put her finger on it.
In coaching we have some overlapwith therapy in terms of we are
looking at awareness.
We're, you know, looking at newperspectives.
We're excavating a little bitwhere some of the includes might
(30:49):
be or what's involved patternsmight be.
We're doing it more in a senseof like what's happening now and
what do you want to happen inthe future, more than digging
into the past and sort of likelearning how to deal with that.
So that's part one.
But we, like coaching, can beemotional and coaching can be
disruptive and uncomfortable,just like they're.
(31:11):
In those ways we can change offthe needs.
And then I think the biggestdifference is we, because change
often is.
And then I think the biggestdifference is we get sued some
new awareness and then we say,okay, what do you want to do
about that?
Right, and so I co-designexperiments.
That's mostly the client havingthe ideas and us sort of like
you know, making suggestions oror asking the questions that
(31:32):
will help you get to you deeperof an experiment.
And then they go.
Like he said, the in-between isreally important.
They go away and do the thingor they don't do the thing.
But he's right, I don't use theword homework, I use
experiments, because you can'tfail an experiment right.
You're data collecting.
So if you don't do the thingright, you don't do the
(31:52):
experiment or whatever you callhomework.
You haven't do the experimentor what other people call
homework.
You have it fail.
We have data that, whatever itwas, there's something missing
from it or there's somethingthat wasn't designed, aligned
with the way that you're goingto make you want to do it that's
new data.
Let's iterate, like Kate said,and see what to do next.
It's not yet again not makingit to a goal.
(32:13):
In other words, I don't inspireoften my clients.
Nadja Cereghetti (32:16):
Well, thank you for elaborating and, if I
hear correctly, thatneurodivergent people get stuck,
but sometimes on different endsor in different ways than
nonurodivergent people, so thatcoaching works for both, for all
(32:45):
people?
But when you're neurodivergentyou might get stuck on things
that for the general populationseems more easy to get over, or
there's a lot of good advice outthere that might not work.
Did I understand that correctly?
And you help them get unstuck?
Kate Arms (32:56):
Yeah, yeah, people get stuck.
Getting stuck is human.
One of the things thatsometimes you hear people say
about gifted people butneurodivergent people of various
sorts, is that what's easy foreverybody else is hard for me,
and what's hard for everyoneelse is easy for me, and so
that's very much true.
(33:17):
That, like, whatever's hard foryou is what you should bring to
coaching.
Whatever is easy for you youdon't need to coach for, unless
you really want to get likeminutely amazing at it and then
you might want to coach Likethere are elite athletes who are
trying to get like the littletiny bit of extra performance
out of themselves who usecoaches, but for most people
(33:40):
it's the places.
Well, I mean, even for them,that's the place they're stuck,
like they want that little piece.
So what you bring to your coachis where you're stuck.
Tracy Winter (33:47):
It's.
To me it's not only the contentof what they bring that might
be different, but the part thatwe are trying to get at with our
classes is the way theymaneuver through those stuff
places, the way they get to theother side, and that is going to
be different, and maybedifferent from a way they've
tried before so like what, whatmy clients tell me actually
(34:09):
happens in coaching.
Over the course of the wholething is they learn how to work
with their brains in ways thatthey were not before, instead of
like arguing with them right orbeing in conflict, which makes
them then able to unstickthemselves that much more
readily because their brains areflowing more.
So, yeah, it is getting pastthe stuckness.
(34:31):
It is also learning how to getpast the stuckness, and it's
also learning how to get pastthe stuckness in a sense Very
much.
Nadja Cereghetti (34:40):
So I assume then also the solutions the
clients come up with are also alittle bit more out of the box
than you would see in othercoaching sessions probably.
Tracy Winter (34:54):
I honestly I don't coach very many not
neurodivergent people anymore.
I used to, but like not so muchanymore, so I'm not sure I can
compare.
Yeah, but I mean I always saythe best thing about coaching as
a job is I get to be curiousand surprised all day long, so
they continually surprise mewith the ideas.
(35:14):
What do you think, Kate?
Kate Arms (35:16):
Yeah, I mean, I think that the thing that I notice is
that I will be in a coachingsession and I will be hearing
what's going on and I'll beasking questions and my brain
will be sort of dropping session.
And I will be hearing what'sgoing on and I'll be asking
questions and my brain will besort of dropping in how I would
solve the problem.
And then I ask a question thatis what do you think will help
you accomplish this over thenext week?
(35:37):
And they have frequently myclients have very clear this is
what I'm going to do and I'mgoing to do it this way and I'm
going to do it this way and doit.
And it is so different fromwhat I would have done if it was
my premium.
Tracy Winter (35:50):
Yeah, that's the surprising part, right Like
that's the fun of surprise.
Kate Arms (35:54):
Yeah, and it's a real reminder about just how
different we all are and whatworks for one of us works for
one of us.
Nadja Cereghetti (36:05):
And what's the beauty in coaching is that you
get coached as the person andnot the problem, as I learned
right, and so, as you said,getting unstuck can be very,
very individual.
Yeah.
Kate Arms (36:21):
Yeah, one of the things that sometimes comes up
in the conversation about how iscoaching different from therapy
is that a lot of people findcoaching actually very healing
and very therapeutic.
And being coached as the person, not as the problem, is the
heart of why coaching can havethis incredibly therapeutic
(36:42):
impact.
Incredibly therapeutic impactbecause so often everybody who's
trying to help us is so helpfulthat the fact that we have a
problem, they like want to divein and help us solve the problem
.
Nadja Cereghetti (36:56):
Yeah and again .
You get a lot of good ideas andsuggestions, but if they worked
for me, I would have already,you know, applied it as the
client right.
Kate Arms (37:06):
Right, everybody, everybody, very generously tells
you what they would try in yoursituation.
Tracy Winter (37:15):
That's one of the things that clients often come
in with is they're expecting usto have solutions.
Nadja Cereghetti (37:20):
They're expecting us to have the have
the thing for them.
Tracy Winter (37:24):
And I always say to them, expecting us to have
the thing for them, and I alwayssay to them you've Googled this
how many times, like if therewere solutions out there
somewhere external to you, thatwould work, you wouldn't be
talking to me.
So I don't have your solutions,but we can figure them out
together.
Kate Arms (37:40):
Yeah, I've been doing a bunch of coaching right now,
recently with parents of giftedto twice exceptional kids and
I've been doing one-off sessions, which is really fascinating,
to try and figure out how to bereally helpful just in a one-off
session, little intake form,and I say, on your intake form
(38:08):
you put a huge amount of stuffin.
We've got 50 minutes together.
We're not going to solve allthese problems and it's a relief
to me because it means I don'thave to understand your child in
order to help you, because youdon't have time to explain your
child to me.
In 50 minutes you'll just getstarted.
But the cool thing is you haveexpertise about your child and
so all I can do in this 50minutes is I can help you think
(38:29):
about how you think aboutsolving the problems that you
will then take with you toexperiment with with your child
parent coach to tell themthey're expecting me to give
them some vocabulary to use totalk to their, their kid that's
going to get through to them,and I'm like there are no words
(38:52):
that are like I cannot labelmagic wand, I cannot give you
the phrase that is going tounlock your child is now
successful.
Nadja Cereghetti (39:00):
I wish I could oh yeah, and I think it's
important to set expectations.
You know, I get questions likeoh, I have a coaching question
for you.
Blah, blah, blah, blah blah.
How would you do it?
I'm like that's not a coachingquestion, that's a mentoring
question.
But yeah, how would youapproach it?
Putting it back, so yeah, myfavorite coaching question.
Kate Arms (39:24):
What do you already know about that?
Nadja Cereghetti (39:28):
Oh, thank you so much for sharing your
insights of coaching and bestpractices and why it's important
to get a neurodivergent coachif you're neurodivergent
yourself and what you'reoffering and I'm looking forward
to all that you're doing.
Is there anything else that youwould like to share, something
you wish people know orsomething you wish you knew
(39:50):
earlier?
Kate Arms (39:55):
I think the thing that I wish I'd known earlier
about being gifted and thiscomes into my coaching and Tracy
alluded to it earlier when shejust introduced me, when she
talked about embodiment and thebody and the thing that I wish
that I had known earlier is thatthe best thing that I can do
(40:21):
for my ability to feel goodabout myself in this world is to
make friends with my body.
Nadja Cereghetti (40:29):
Do you want to elaborate a little bit more?
Kate Arms (40:32):
So, in the gifted context, we get so rewarded for
what our brain does, and so weover-index on the problems we
can solve by thinking throughthem.
And so many of the things thatwe really want out of life a
sense of ease, a sense ofconnection with people, a sense
of joy, love those aren'tproblems you can think your way
into a solution of.
Tracy Winter (40:54):
Those are problems that live in our bodies and our
embodied relationships, and Ididn't learn to love my body
(41:21):
enough to get wisdom from it anduse it in those relationships
until I was far older than Iwish in retrospect what's coming
up for me in my coachingEvening?
I wish I had really understoodthat I'm bringing value by being
there with my client.
It's not about getting themsomewhere, it's not about
solutions.
It's about relaxing intoyourself and feeling I can be
(41:50):
here and you know just being atthe same time as the client is
being stressing about whichquestions to ask, or will they
get to where they want to go, oram I deciding?
I found these kinds ofquestions which I think a lot of
feeding coaches you know dealwith.
If I could have learned that alittle quicker, I could have
been a better and I'm stilllearning that because that's
what you do, right.
Nadja Cereghetti (42:07):
Thank you for sharing that and I think me, as
in my own journey, as you know,starting out with coaching, I
feel like, yeah, I'm here toprovide solutions or not to
provide solutions, but theclient is here, they want a
solution quickly.
And yeah, not getting trappedin coaching the problem, but
(42:28):
really being there for theclient and coaching the client
and being there.
So thank you for reemphasizingthis Tracy.
Thank you so much for sharingand for being here, and I will
put all the links that youprovided me with for your
(42:48):
Neurodivergent Coaching Academywebsite, but also your personal
websites or your own businesswebsites, for your individual
businesses is what I meant.
I will put them in the shownotes and people can find you
and connect with you on LinkedInand hopefully join your
(43:10):
masterclasses.
Tracy Winter (43:12):
Thank you so much, and I can testify from the
client role that Kate is anawesome coach.
So please, please, check herout.
Have a conversation with her.
She does work such amazing workthat I've never seen before, so
definitely check hers out andboth of you.
Nadja Cereghetti (43:31):
Obviously, you're both open for new clients
at the moment.
Yep, oh, wow, okay, so mylisteners hopefully listen and,
yeah, you might not soon havemore slots open.
So thank you so much.
Tracy Winter (43:49):
Thank you, nadja, thank you very much for having
us.
Nadja Cereghetti (43:53):
Bye.
I hope you enjoyed this episodeas much as I did, and if you
want to learn more about theNeurodiversity Coaching Academy
by Kate Arms and Tracy Winter,then please go to
neurodiversitycoachingacademy.
com.
You will find information on alltheir amazing online
masterclasses, which are reallyaffordable, and you can also buy
(44:15):
the replays for the ones youhave missed, and they're really,
really amazing.
And they also offer the mentorcoaching and coaching
supervision for coaches who wantto embark into the
neurodiversity space of coaching.
So I can highly recommend, andyou can also find the link to
sign up there on the website andalso sign up for their
(44:38):
newsletter.
So at the time of the recordingthey didn't have the newsletter
, but now they do have one, soyou can also find that
information on their website andalso more about themselves, and
you can also find links totheir personal websites, which I
also link in the show notes.
So I hope you had a wonderfultime listening, I hope you
(44:58):
learned a bunch and I'm again sograteful for your time, for
listening, for being here withus, and I'm wishing you just a
wonderful time and I see younext time.
Bye, thank you, thank you,thank you.
Hello and welcome to Gifted Unleashed,
where we talk about the giftedand twice exceptional brain and
how it affects our thinking andexperience of the world
differently.
There are a lot of stereotypesand stigma around the term
giftedness and I'm here tochallenge those.
I'm here to raise awareness andto have a conversation around
the topic of what it means to bea gifted and two-year adult.
Common experience among giftedfolks is that they feel out of
(00:26):
place.
They don't quite fit in.
They're too sensitive, toointense, too emotional, too
overexcitable and too deepthinkers about the world and
about themselves.
So if you have been called toomuch about anything, then this
show is for you.
My name is Nadja.
I'm too loud, too colorful, toobubbly, too bossy and I love to
talk too much.
So name is Nadja.
(00:48):
I'm too loud, too colorful, toobubbly, too bossy and I love to
talk too much.
So welcome to my world and I'mso happy you're here.
Hello and welcome back toanother episode.
Today we have Kate Arms andTracy Winter on the show and I'm
so honored to have both of themhere on my show.
It's the first time we recordbasically a podcast episode with
three people.
Unfortunately, the audio was alittle bit off, but I hope you
(01:13):
will still enjoy this episode tothe max, because it has a lot
of nuggets and Kate and Tracyare sharing a lot of insights.
Together, Kate and Tracyfounded the Neurodiversity
Coaching Academy and they'rehere today to talk a little bit
what that means.
What is Neurodiversity CoachingAcademy?
What are they offering and whyis it needed, and which hole in
(01:36):
the market are they filling withtheir services?
So I don't want to say too much, I just hope you enjoy this
episode, and there are all thelinks and the resources in the
show notes and also at the endof the episode we will mention
them again.
So enjoy this episode.
I'm really hoping this servesyou well.
Welcome, tracy and Kate.
(01:58):
I'm so excited for both of youto be here and, with our tech
issues, we heard that Kate'smicrophone is picking up a
little bit too intensely, soshe's trying not to get too
excited and you know asking ifthe people is very difficult,
but we're going to try to makethis work.
The first episode with threepeople at the same call, so
(02:22):
welcome for you both to be hereand I'm so excited.
Thank you, and I would like foryou to introduce yourselves and
introduce each other, so thefloor is yours, Kate.
Do you want to start?
Kate Arms (02:39):
Yeah, sure.
So for people who are listening, this voice goes with Kate, and
I'm going to introduce TracyWinter to you first.
So Tracy Winter is myco-founder for the
Neurodiversity Coaching Academyand I know we'll talk about that
work a little bit.
But more than that, she is afriend and a real joy to hang
(03:01):
out with and to nerd out on allthings human development and
neurodiversity.
She makes me laugh, she keepsmy academic work rigorous, she
is more scholarly in trainingthan I am, and so she keeps me
honest.
Yeah, it's a joy to be herewith you, Tracy.
Tracy Winter (03:21):
Thank you.
Thank you, Kate and Nadja.
Thank you for having us here.
First of all, yes, weappreciate the opportunity.
So this is my partner andfriend, Kate, the Neurodiversity
Coaching Academy.
Like she said, I love workingwith Kate.
The first thing is you noticeher brilliance and her ways of
putting concepts together in newways that I hadn't thought of,
(03:44):
and that's so fun to then riffoff of.
We two laugh together in newways that I hadn't thought of
and that's so fun to then likeriff off of.
We two laugh together, andwithout that this partnership
would never work.
But beyond that, she has wisdomand sort of like bodily wisdom
that she brings to all of ourwork, and so it's this very
integrated kind of knowing thatinforms everything that she does
(04:05):
and it's just gorgeous to getto interact with, and I feel
really lucky that we get to dothis together.
Nadja Cereghetti (04:12):
Oh, and I feel so lucky to have you both here
today and tell me a little bitabout your journey and how you
started working together andwhat you're offering now in this
gifted and neurodivergent space.
So, Tracy, do you want to sharejust a little bit more about
(04:32):
how you discovered this topic ofgiftedness and why you're
working in this space?
Tracy Winter (04:39):
Sure, so I don't remember not knowing about
giftedness.
I was identified when I wasabout four and skipped a grade
back then and then my mother gother education specialist, which
is like halfway to a PhD ingifted education, and she
created and ran a program forgifted students in a school
district for 20 plus years.
(04:59):
My sister was identified asgifted, you know, super early,
just like I was.
So like, how did I come togiftedness?
I don't know how not to knowabout giftedness, it was just
too early.
So I've always been aware ofsort of the smarts part of it.
And then the more that I doveinto it in my graduate studies,
the more I learned about all ofthe other parts of giftedness
(05:20):
the emotional, the, you know,imaginational.
So some of this, some of thissomatic or psychosomatic types
of stuff that comes, you knowthe Javrosky intensities
basically, and that reallyhelped put so many pieces of a
puzzle together for me.
So in my graduate studies, mydegrees in human development, a
PhD in human development, and Iwrote my dissertation on the
(05:42):
self-concept development inhighly gifted adults, sort of
the social, emotional piece forhighly gifted adults, and how
the reflections of other peoplefor sort of our understanding of
ourselves or don't.
So, yeah, it's sort of likecoming into the family business
in a way, because it's like Ialways thought that I go into my
sort of family business ofbecoming a lawyer like my dad
(06:03):
and it turns out I went theother direction.
But yeah, it's sort of all inthe family in that way, and then
that was sort of my entree intoneurodivergence, was getting
diagnosed with ADHD in themiddle of writing my literature
review and then it sort ofsnowballed from there.
So, yeah, so gifted has alwaysbeen a part of my conception and
part of my identity, because Ialways knew that I was different
(06:24):
.
Nadja Cereghetti (06:31):
It was really obvious that I was different.
Oh, and you already just talkedabout twice exceptionality
gifted and ADHD and that thiscreates another level of
complexity, and we're going totalk about this today.
And, Kate, I'm so excited tohave you on the podcast for the
first time and would you alsolike to share.
(06:51):
How did you tap into this topic?
How did you know aboutgiftedness and neurodiversity in
general?
Kate Arms (07:01):
Well, thank you, it's a real pleasure to be here and,
yeah, I'm happy to tell alittle bit about my journey.
So I'm the complete opposite ofTracy.
I had no idea that giftednesswas a thing until I was a parent
of a kid who wasn't fitting inand I was trying to figure out
why the things that I wasreading didn't apply.
And he currently is identifiedgifted autistic ADHD.
(07:23):
So I landed smack in the middleof twice exceptional space and
the developmental pediatricianwho worked with us to help
support him in the intakeinterview said so of the people
in the family, who does thischild remind you of?
And the answer was me.
Family, who does this childremind you of?
(07:50):
And the answer was me.
And so, really, I didn't starthaving language to talk about
giftedness until I wasdiscovering how to apply it as a
parent.
The history is all there.
Looking back, it's so obvious.
I had existential crisis atfive.
I had going to school alreadyable to read and knowing the
(08:10):
math curriculum for the firstthree years of school.
Before I got to school, I hadto take an IQ test to get into a
program where the cutoff to getin was the 130 IQ, and I just
soared through that.
In fact, I was bored through it.
It wasn't until I was well intomy parenting journey exploring
this, that somebody said, hey,there's a qualitative difference
(08:32):
between being gifted and beingmoderately gifted, and extremely
gifted and profoundly gifted.
You're profoundly gifted.
This is why that class wasn'tenough for you, and so it's been
a late, late self-understandingprocess.
Nadja Cereghetti (08:47):
Yeah, and how was that for you?
Kate Arms (08:50):
You know, it's been really interesting because I
went through so much pain andidentity crisis, starting from
the time I was about 15 until Iwas parenting, until I was
parenting, and so getting somelanguage around it and getting
(09:11):
some vocabulary really just feltlike validation of everything
that I had been through beforeand it just let me breathe and
it let me Google to find mypeople.
Nadja Cereghetti (09:22):
Yeah, I can relate so much, just having this
vocabulary, having you know thekeywords and you just type that
in and something pops up.
And that's what I'm hoping todo with this podcast.
That's, people are Googling thewords and you know the
intensities and land here andhopefully get you know a whole
(09:44):
array of resources for them.
And the two of you are buildingalso something, a lot of
resources and building togetherthe Neurodiversity Coaching
Academy.
How did you two meet?
How did this collaborationstart?
How did it start to bloom?
Tracy Winter (10:08):
Well, I'd like to say it's Chris Wells' fault.
Yes, definitely, it's ChrisWells' fault.
Nadja Cereghetti (10:14):
That's a totally fair statement.
Kate Arms (10:17):
So, Dr Chris Wells of the Dabrowski Center, Tracy, I
don't know how you connectedwith her, but we connected
through the work that she'sdoing with the positive
disintegration and the studygroup that she's doing there and
the community that she'sbuilding.
Tracy Winter (10:33):
Yeah, so, and I connected with her through.
I met her at SENG, Supportingthe Emotional Needs of the
Gifted Conference in I don'tknow 2017, maybe in I don't know
kind of 17, maybe when we wereboth sort of in the throes of
our dissertation and weconnected around that and you
know Dabrowski and the rest iskind of history so.
But yeah, so it is Chris'sfault to some extent, because
(10:55):
Kate posted in you know Facebookgroup that's just for that
study group that she wasinterested in getting more hours
for her coaching and wasanybody interested?
And I was at a point where Ijust thought I've been
stagnating too long and I reallyneed some development help and
get moving again.
And, as other gifted peoplewill probably relate to, it can
(11:16):
be challenging for us to find atherapist or a coach who gets it
, who's ahead of us, who youknow, we don't think circles
around and because I knew thatChris Wells respected Kate, I
was like, well, let's try thisout.
So she became my coach is howwe met and she was my coach.
She continues to be my coach,actually, and we keep those hats
(11:37):
very separate.
And in our first meeting, ourdiscovery call, I said, you know
, I really zipped down.
What I want to do is I want toopen a school for neurodiversity
coaching not just ADHD coaching, because I'm already an ADHD
coach trainer.
And she said, well, me too.
And that was kind of the end ofit.
And then, about I don't know,eight or nine months later, she
(12:01):
said, okay, are we done withthis session?
Do you have some time?
I said, yeah, so we'd like puta bow on whatever the session
was she's like.
So I'd like to build thisschool and I'd like to do it
with you.
And I said, okay, let's do that.
And that was it.
That was it.
Here we are.
What's your recollection, Kate?
That's my, that's my burden ofthe story.
Kate Arms (12:30):
I don't remember telling you that I was
interested in doing it with youquite so early that that first
session story but that also sortof sounds like it probably was
about that time and absolutelythere was this process of
because I was your coach andthis was your dream.
There was this long ish it feltlike a long period where we
didn't talk about the fact thatthis was a shared dream of both
of ours, that I came incompletely with my coach hat on
and at some point you weregetting frustrated that you
(12:52):
weren't making progress on theacademy fast enough and I just
that was when I was like, can wejust take the hat off?
And can I say, would you makeprogress on this if we partnered
?
And that was the moment wherewe decided that we were going to
work together to make thishappen.
And it's been a delight and achallenge and we're learning so
(13:15):
much.
We haven't even really talkedabout what either of our vision
was until after we decided wewere doing it.
We didn't plan to do it.
Tracy Winter (13:24):
It's true we just sort of started and I feel
really fortunate ones untilafter we decided we were doing
it.
We didn't plan to work with you.
It's true, we just sort ofstarted and I feel really
fortunate, Like this is atestament to us contributing
stuff too.
But we've gotten along andbuilt on each other and not had
like like it's beenpsychologically safe, probably
because we already have thecoaching relationship from go.
So like we, I remember we builtour first presentation and at
(13:45):
the end of it we spent a lot oftime on one day on it and we
kind of looked at each other.
Kate Arms (13:49):
It was like that was kind of easy yeah, that was that
was fun to do oh, thank godyeah, oh, and like we agree with
each other, we actually doaccording with each other.
Tracy Winter (14:01):
yeah, like, oh, good thing, we align Awesome.
Kate Arms (14:06):
Now that we've advertised a year's worth of
masterclasses, it's good to knowthat we agree with each other.
Nadja Cereghetti (14:11):
And we're going to be able to create them
together, that people who aregifted, and especially gifted
something else, twiceexceptional, neurodivergent,
(14:36):
that it's important to have acoach that understands them.
But can you maybe justelaborate a little bit more why
it is important?
Because I talk to people and Itry to convince them.
If you look for a coach, if youlook for a psychologist, look
for somebody who gets this topic, and I don't always get through
to them.
So I would like to use thisopportunity to hear from both of
(15:01):
you why it is so important, doyou?
Kate Arms (15:05):
want to take the first go at it.
Tracy Winter (15:07):
Tracy Sure.
So I came at this from I wasI'd already been working for
another coach school as an ADHDcoach trainer and I kept looking
around and there are severalICI International Coaching
Federation accredited ADHDcoaching school.
There is nothing for any otherkind of neurodivergence and my
(15:28):
clients are mostly twiceexceptional.
I'm starting to get some thathave the autistic overlay as
well.
So I went and learned a bunchabout that and there are lots of
folks who call themselves acoach, who aren't necessarily a
coach the way that Kate and Ithink of it, with actual
(15:51):
training and principles andethics behind it, which is part
of being part of theInternational Coaching
Federation, and so I justthought this is a gap.
We need more people to do thiswork because I know so many
people I didn't know who torefer to before I met Kate.
If I wasn't the right fit forsomebody, I didn't know where to
send them.
There just haven't been.
There's more coming up all thetime, but there haven't been
(16:12):
enough people who understandmore than ADHD you know within
the coaching sphere.
So I just that lens isimportant because and the reason
that folks we recommend folksfind somebody who does get it is
your brain is like, our brainsare different, they're more
(16:33):
different from most people andthey're very different from each
other, and so you need somebodywho understands that and isn't
going to sort of cookie cutteryou or use the tried and true
techniques because tried andtrue, we've already done that
and it hasn't worked Right.
So like we need to come in withfewer assumptions and really
allow the client to beself-directed with us, sort of
(16:57):
look at guiding a little bit,partnering with them to sort of
cross those few ideas and a lotof people.
We've heard too many storiesabout neurodivergent folks or
gifted folks going to therapistsor going to coaches and
actually having been harmedbecause the reflections that
they're getting are not alignedand there can be sort of trauma
(17:20):
created if these things arehandled with the background and
the knowledge and theunderstanding that one being
neurodivergent and gifted whichis exceptional, choose your
language brings, but also thetraining of how to be a coach,
and so putting those two thingstogether I think is is familiar.
How to get the best shot withpolygraphs.
(17:41):
Okay, I've been talking for awhile, Kate.
What did I miss?
Kate Arms (17:46):
I don't think that you missed anything.
I think there are some thingsthat I'd like to sort of double
down on a little bit, because Ithink they're really important.
I think the first is in termsof if you are new to giftedness
and you're trying to figure outhow to work through this, and
especially if you're new totwice exceptionality, the reason
that you want to go and findsomebody who gets it and who has
(18:09):
training is that the risk ofsomebody harming you because
they don't get it is actuallyvery high.
And I think that that is themost important thing from a
client side that most giftedpeople, and especially twice
(18:30):
exceptional people so giftedplus something else actually
have been harmed by a variety ofthings in their lived
experience, whether it'sparenting techniques that
weren't really customized forthem, school techniques that
weren't customized for them, asocial environment that is
really not well designed foroutliers, and so there's trauma
(18:54):
in the system for almost everygifted or twice exceptional
person, and so any coach ortherapist has to come in with
the assumption that they'rewalking in trauma territory, and
it's shocking how manytherapists aren't actually very
good with trauma, actually verygood with trauma.
(19:17):
And the other thing that I thinkis really, really powerful to
know is most of the therapists Iknow who work with this
population have a very coachapproach to the way that they do
therapy.
Because a gifted person oncethey turn their attention inward
and start studying themselves,they learn a lot fast and even
if they didn't start out with anenormous amount of
(19:40):
self-awareness and an enormousamount of expertise, they become
experts very, very fast.
And for a therapist or a coachwho doesn't really honor the
expertise of their client, itcan be really triggering to the
therapist or the coach or thegifted individual to move so
(20:01):
fast.
It gets really bad for businessthat my clients develop really
quickly and so I have toactually be really skilled at
knowing that my gifted folks aregoing to come in and it may
take us a while to unlock stuff,but at knowing that my gifted
folks are going to come in andit may take us a while to unlock
stuff, but once we unlock itthey are running and I can just
(20:23):
sort of wave as they go.
Nadja Cereghetti (20:26):
Thank you for elaborating and reemphasizing
that actually, if you don't seekout somebody that's trained in
this topic, can cause more harmthan actually help you, because
everybody obviously goes withtheir best intention seeking
help and then the oppositehappens and then they give up.
(20:48):
I talked to people who said, oh, I went to therapy but it
didn't help.
Yeah, because you didn't seekout the gifted specific
therapist.
Or yeah, coaching didn't workout for me.
Yeah, now we know a little bitmore why.
So you're created theNeurodiversity Coaching Academy.
(21:10):
Who is it for and what do youoffer?
Tracy Winter (21:14):
Who is it for and what do you offer?
Okay, so it's for coaches.
Kate Arms (21:26):
We have very explicitly chosen to align
ourselves with coaches who wantto be connected with the
International CoachingFederation model or at least are
happy with their approach tocoaching.
So coaches who have analignment with that approach to
coaching.
What we're offering right nowis intended for people who are
already coaches, so we're notoffering how to be a coach 101
(21:47):
kind of stuff.
We're offering how to be abetter coach and a more
inclusive coach and specificallylooking at the pieces about how
to make sure that you'reaccessible to your
neurodivergent clients.
And the really cool thing isthat if you're accessible to
your neurodivergent clients,you're accessible to everybody,
(22:09):
because what works for the realcustomization and
trauma-informed and realsensitive work for them works
for everybody.
So it's really just goodcoaching training, but with that
eye of here's why it'simportant to have that nuance.
And right now, what's currentlyavailable is a monthly
masterclass on that topic andwe've got coach mentoring and
(22:32):
coaching supervision starting inMay and more in the works, but
nothing else launched yet.
Tracy, did I miss anything?
Tracy Winter (22:43):
No, do you want to drop the teeth?
Go ahead.
I know I kind of just did.
We are working on creating aspecialization program.
We are working on creating aspecialization program.
So you know a big chunk ofcontinuing coach education
credits which we have to look atthe ICF, to be confidential and
(23:04):
like a deeper training programthan the master classes are
going, so that you can sort ofre-specialize and say I'm
specialized in neurodiversity,inclusive coaching.
So that's coming up.
I won't put a date on it, butwe're working on it.
Nadja Cereghetti (23:17):
So if somebody is interested and thinks like,
oh, that's something I want tolook out for, do you already
have like a sign-up link?
Or how do people stay incontact with all this
information that you just teasedout?
So there's the monthly class,and then there's the mentor,
coaching and coachingsupervision and what you just
(23:39):
mentioned.
How can people stay on top ofwhat's happening?
Kate Arms (23:44):
So right now we do not have and this is a lack on
our part an easy place to signup to get on a newsletter, and
so I'll just sort of put thatout there that we don't have.
What we do have is, on theneurodiversitycoachingacademy.
com website, direct registrationfor the masterclasses, and the
easiest way to make sure thatyou stay in the know about
(24:06):
what's coming up is to connectwith Tracy or me or the
Neurodiversity Coaching Academyon LinkedIn, and if you send an
email to info atneurodiversitycoachingacademy.
com, we can take your emailaddress and put you on the
mailing list.
Once we've actually got thatset up and started.
Tracy Winter (24:26):
We're working on it.
It's very close.
Kate Arms (24:29):
We don't have a newsletter.
Nadja Cereghetti (24:30):
Yet we don't have a newsletter.
Yet.
(24:50):
When something drops and signup, if I'm a coach, and well, if
you're listening to my podcast,probably they're neurodivergent
.
But if somebody wants to doyour programs, do they have to
be neurodivergent themselves, orno?
Tracy Winter (25:12):
no, we don't have pretty much any gatekeeping.
I mean, Kate has just describedwho we're designing these
things for and also you'vegotten some paraphrases in.
You've gotten some justinterested parties looking in,
so you know we're open toeveryone.
We are not going to give you anarrow diversion to test before
you come in.
You know like we want everybodyto have access to this
(25:35):
information as easily aspossible, which is why we keep
the cost of our masterclass solow and we have recordings that
you can buy from seeing $10 thatwe've been charging for
masterclasses Because theimportant part for us is more
people knowing more aboutcoaching for neurodiversity and
passiveness, so that there'sless harm done.
Nadja Cereghetti (25:57):
Yeah, thank you, and you just mentioned the
masterclass recordings.
If somebody missed the last fewthat were amazing, by the way
they can still access therecording.
Tracy Winter (26:08):
Yes, just go to the website and you can order
them there.
Nadja Cereghetti (26:11):
Awesome.
So, Kate, you mentioned whatwe're doing is basically good
coaching.
We teach good coaching and thatworks for all your clients, but
for your neurodivergent clientsespecially.
Do you want to share a littlebit what that entails so that
also people that are listeningare like what is coaching and
(26:34):
why should I get aneurodivergent coach and what do
I need to look for for goodcoaching?
Kate Arms (26:40):
Yeah, I think that's a really great question, and I
also want to sort of just pausefor a moment, because I was
thinking about this before wegot on this call.
The way that Tracy and I areapproaching developing
curriculum for coaches revealsour level of giftedness, because
what it is that we have done iswe have, between us, collected
(27:06):
an enormous number of coachingtools and we have actually
distilled the patternsunderneath why these tools work.
And so what we're actuallyextracting is we're actually
extracting the patterns andteaching our students what those
patterns are so that they canthen customize them for the very
(27:28):
different brains and nervoussystems that they encounter
while they're coaching andnervous systems that they
encounter while they're coaching.
And so what we're doing isactually quite different than
most coaching schools, whichstart with here's a tool, here's
a tool, here's a tool, here's atool, here's a tool.
Once you've used enough tools,you can then sort of branch out
(27:49):
and expand, and so ourgiftedness and our pattern
recognition and our ability topull things apart is very much
why we're doing what we're doing, and so for gifted people who
want to become coaches, likethat's a pitch that we actually
understand why this works, wellenough to teach why it works
(28:10):
rather than just having to trustthat it works, which makes a
difference.
So really, why it works is acoach creates a relationship
that is focused on the client,and it's focused on the client
in a couple of different ways.
One is that we trust that ourclients are creative,
(28:36):
resourceful, intelligent, ableto solve problems.
We also assume that if they hadbeen able to solve it by
themselves, they wouldn't havecome to us, so they only come to
us with the problems thatthey're finding hard in the
moment.
And so, as a coach, part ofwhat we do is we believe that
they have the power to solvethis problem if we help them
(28:59):
figure out how to get unstuck inthis moment.
And we help create aconversation in which we
investigate why is it thatthey're stuck in this moment and
how can they get unstuck.
And then, once they're unstuck,if they don't already know what
to do, then we help them figureout what to do.
(29:20):
But quite often, particularlygifted or otherwise
neurodivergent clients come tous and they know what it is that
they should be doing and theyknow where the information is,
but they're actually just notsomehow getting to it, and so
often the just getting unstuckis the piece that is really
important.
And so we do this conversation,we do this sort of conversation
(29:45):
homework conversation, homeworkconversation, homework kind of
process, the homework piece andI'm sure it doesn't use that
word, I don't use that word withmy clients but there's coaching
session and there's in-between,and then there's coaching
session and then there'sin-between, and in the
in-between piece what makes itcoaching is that there's
something that the client takeson to do, to try to think about,
(30:08):
to explore during thein-between piece, and those
experiments in between, then thenext session we learn from and
those experiments in between,then the next session we learn
from.
And so it's this iterativediscovery process that is a mix
of self-inquiry and thenpractice in the real world.
You want to add to that Tracy.
Tracy Winter (30:26):
No, there's probably some doubling down I'm
going to do, but yeah, the way Ithink of.
People are often asking what'sthe difference between coaching
and therapy, and Kate just sortof put her finger on it.
In coaching we have some overlapwith therapy in terms of we are
looking at awareness.
We're, you know, looking at newperspectives.
We're excavating a little bitwhere some of the includes might
(30:49):
be or what's involved patternsmight be.
We're doing it more in a senseof like what's happening now and
what do you want to happen inthe future, more than digging
into the past and sort of likelearning how to deal with that.
So that's part one.
But we, like coaching, can beemotional and coaching can be
disruptive and uncomfortable,just like they're.
(31:11):
In those ways we can change offthe needs.
And then I think the biggestdifference is we, because change
often is.
And then I think the biggestdifference is we get sued some
new awareness and then we say,okay, what do you want to do
about that?
Right, and so I co-designexperiments.
That's mostly the client havingthe ideas and us sort of like
you know, making suggestions oror asking the questions that
(31:32):
will help you get to you deeperof an experiment.
And then they go.
Like he said, the in-between isreally important.
They go away and do the thingor they don't do the thing.
But he's right, I don't use theword homework, I use
experiments, because you can'tfail an experiment right.
You're data collecting.
So if you don't do the thingright, you don't do the
(31:52):
experiment or whatever you callhomework.
You haven't do the experimentor what other people call
homework.
You have it fail.
We have data that, whatever itwas, there's something missing
from it or there's somethingthat wasn't designed, aligned
with the way that you're goingto make you want to do it that's
new data.
Let's iterate, like Kate said,and see what to do next.
It's not yet again not makingit to a goal.
(32:13):
In other words, I don't inspireoften my clients.
Nadja Cereghetti (32:16):
Well, thank you for elaborating and, if I
hear correctly, thatneurodivergent people get stuck,
but sometimes on different endsor in different ways than
nonurodivergent people, so thatcoaching works for both, for all
(32:45):
people?
But when you're neurodivergentyou might get stuck on things
that for the general populationseems more easy to get over, or
there's a lot of good advice outthere that might not work.
Did I understand that correctly?
And you help them get unstuck?
Kate Arms (32:56):
Yeah, yeah, people get stuck.
Getting stuck is human.
One of the things thatsometimes you hear people say
about gifted people butneurodivergent people of various
sorts, is that what's easy foreverybody else is hard for me,
and what's hard for everyoneelse is easy for me, and so
that's very much true.
(33:17):
That, like, whatever's hard foryou is what you should bring to
coaching.
Whatever is easy for you youdon't need to coach for, unless
you really want to get likeminutely amazing at it and then
you might want to coach Likethere are elite athletes who are
trying to get like the littletiny bit of extra performance
out of themselves who usecoaches, but for most people
(33:40):
it's the places.
Well, I mean, even for them,that's the place they're stuck,
like they want that little piece.
So what you bring to your coachis where you're stuck.
Tracy Winter (33:47):
It's.
To me it's not only the contentof what they bring that might
be different, but the part thatwe are trying to get at with our
classes is the way theymaneuver through those stuff
places, the way they get to theother side, and that is going to
be different, and maybedifferent from a way they've
tried before so like what, whatmy clients tell me actually
(34:09):
happens in coaching.
Over the course of the wholething is they learn how to work
with their brains in ways thatthey were not before, instead of
like arguing with them right orbeing in conflict, which makes
them then able to unstickthemselves that much more
readily because their brains areflowing more.
So, yeah, it is getting pastthe stuckness.
(34:31):
It is also learning how to getpast the stuckness, and it's
also learning how to get pastthe stuckness in a sense Very
much.
Nadja Cereghetti (34:40):
So I assume then also the solutions the
clients come up with are also alittle bit more out of the box
than you would see in othercoaching sessions probably.
Tracy Winter (34:54):
I honestly I don't coach very many not
neurodivergent people anymore.
I used to, but like not so muchanymore, so I'm not sure I can
compare.
Yeah, but I mean I always saythe best thing about coaching as
a job is I get to be curiousand surprised all day long, so
they continually surprise mewith the ideas.
(35:14):
What do you think, Kate?
Kate Arms (35:16):
Yeah, I mean, I think that the thing that I notice is
that I will be in a coachingsession and I will be hearing
what's going on and I'll beasking questions and my brain
will be sort of dropping session.
And I will be hearing what'sgoing on and I'll be asking
questions and my brain will besort of dropping in how I would
solve the problem.
And then I ask a question thatis what do you think will help
you accomplish this over thenext week?
(35:37):
And they have frequently myclients have very clear this is
what I'm going to do and I'mgoing to do it this way and I'm
going to do it this way and doit.
And it is so different fromwhat I would have done if it was
my premium.
Tracy Winter (35:50):
Yeah, that's the surprising part, right Like
that's the fun of surprise.
Kate Arms (35:54):
Yeah, and it's a real reminder about just how
different we all are and whatworks for one of us works for
one of us.
Nadja Cereghetti (36:05):
And what's the beauty in coaching is that you
get coached as the person andnot the problem, as I learned
right, and so, as you said,getting unstuck can be very,
very individual.
Yeah.
Kate Arms (36:21):
Yeah, one of the things that sometimes comes up
in the conversation about how iscoaching different from therapy
is that a lot of people findcoaching actually very healing
and very therapeutic.
And being coached as the person, not as the problem, is the
heart of why coaching can havethis incredibly therapeutic
(36:42):
impact.
Incredibly therapeutic impactbecause so often everybody who's
trying to help us is so helpfulthat the fact that we have a
problem, they like want to divein and help us solve the problem
.
Nadja Cereghetti (36:56):
Yeah and again .
You get a lot of good ideas andsuggestions, but if they worked
for me, I would have already,you know, applied it as the
client right.
Kate Arms (37:06):
Right, everybody, everybody, very generously tells
you what they would try in yoursituation.
Tracy Winter (37:15):
That's one of the things that clients often come
in with is they're expecting usto have solutions.
Nadja Cereghetti (37:20):
They're expecting us to have the have
the thing for them.
Tracy Winter (37:24):
And I always say to them, expecting us to have
the thing for them, and I alwayssay to them you've Googled this
how many times, like if therewere solutions out there
somewhere external to you, thatwould work, you wouldn't be
talking to me.
So I don't have your solutions,but we can figure them out
together.
Kate Arms (37:40):
Yeah, I've been doing a bunch of coaching right now,
recently with parents of giftedto twice exceptional kids and
I've been doing one-off sessions, which is really fascinating,
to try and figure out how to bereally helpful just in a one-off
session, little intake form,and I say, on your intake form
(38:08):
you put a huge amount of stuffin.
We've got 50 minutes together.
We're not going to solve allthese problems and it's a relief
to me because it means I don'thave to understand your child in
order to help you, because youdon't have time to explain your
child to me.
In 50 minutes you'll just getstarted.
But the cool thing is you haveexpertise about your child and
so all I can do in this 50minutes is I can help you think
(38:29):
about how you think aboutsolving the problems that you
will then take with you toexperiment with with your child
parent coach to tell themthey're expecting me to give
them some vocabulary to use totalk to their, their kid that's
going to get through to them,and I'm like there are no words
(38:52):
that are like I cannot labelmagic wand, I cannot give you
the phrase that is going tounlock your child is now
successful.
Nadja Cereghetti (39:00):
I wish I could oh yeah, and I think it's
important to set expectations.
You know, I get questions likeoh, I have a coaching question
for you.
Blah, blah, blah, blah blah.
How would you do it?
I'm like that's not a coachingquestion, that's a mentoring
question.
But yeah, how would youapproach it?
Putting it back, so yeah, myfavorite coaching question.
Kate Arms (39:24):
What do you already know about that?
Nadja Cereghetti (39:28):
Oh, thank you so much for sharing your
insights of coaching and bestpractices and why it's important
to get a neurodivergent coachif you're neurodivergent
yourself and what you'reoffering and I'm looking forward
to all that you're doing.
Is there anything else that youwould like to share, something
you wish people know orsomething you wish you knew
(39:50):
earlier?
Kate Arms (39:55):
I think the thing that I wish I'd known earlier
about being gifted and thiscomes into my coaching and Tracy
alluded to it earlier when shejust introduced me, when she
talked about embodiment and thebody and the thing that I wish
that I had known earlier is thatthe best thing that I can do
(40:21):
for my ability to feel goodabout myself in this world is to
make friends with my body.
Nadja Cereghetti (40:29):
Do you want to elaborate a little bit more?
Kate Arms (40:32):
So, in the gifted context, we get so rewarded for
what our brain does, and so weover-index on the problems we
can solve by thinking throughthem.
And so many of the things thatwe really want out of life a
sense of ease, a sense ofconnection with people, a sense
of joy, love those aren'tproblems you can think your way
into a solution of.
Tracy Winter (40:54):
Those are problems that live in our bodies and our
embodied relationships, and Ididn't learn to love my body
(41:21):
enough to get wisdom from it anduse it in those relationships
until I was far older than Iwish in retrospect what's coming
up for me in my coachingEvening?
I wish I had really understoodthat I'm bringing value by being
there with my client.
It's not about getting themsomewhere, it's not about
solutions.
It's about relaxing intoyourself and feeling I can be
(41:50):
here and you know just being atthe same time as the client is
being stressing about whichquestions to ask, or will they
get to where they want to go, oram I deciding?
I found these kinds ofquestions which I think a lot of
feeding coaches you know dealwith.
If I could have learned that alittle quicker, I could have
been a better and I'm stilllearning that because that's
what you do, right.
Nadja Cereghetti (42:07):
Thank you for sharing that and I think me, as
in my own journey, as you know,starting out with coaching, I
feel like, yeah, I'm here toprovide solutions or not to
provide solutions, but theclient is here, they want a
solution quickly.
And yeah, not getting trappedin coaching the problem, but
(42:28):
really being there for theclient and coaching the client
and being there.
So thank you for reemphasizingthis Tracy.
Thank you so much for sharingand for being here, and I will
put all the links that youprovided me with for your
(42:48):
Neurodivergent Coaching Academywebsite, but also your personal
websites or your own businesswebsites, for your individual
businesses is what I meant.
I will put them in the shownotes and people can find you
and connect with you on LinkedInand hopefully join your
(43:10):
masterclasses.
Tracy Winter (43:12):
Thank you so much, and I can testify from the
client role that Kate is anawesome coach.
So please, please, check herout.
Have a conversation with her.
She does work such amazing workthat I've never seen before, so
definitely check hers out andboth of you.
Nadja Cereghetti (43:31):
Obviously, you're both open for new clients
at the moment.
Yep, oh, wow, okay, so mylisteners hopefully listen and,
yeah, you might not soon havemore slots open.
So thank you so much.
Tracy Winter (43:49):
Thank you, nadja, thank you very much for having
us.
Nadja Cereghetti (43:53):
Bye.
I hope you enjoyed this episodeas much as I did, and if you
want to learn more about theNeurodiversity Coaching Academy
by Kate Arms and Tracy Winter,then please go to
neurodiversitycoachingacademy.
com.
You will find information on alltheir amazing online
masterclasses, which are reallyaffordable, and you can also buy
(44:15):
the replays for the ones youhave missed, and they're really,
really amazing.
And they also offer the mentorcoaching and coaching
supervision for coaches who wantto embark into the
neurodiversity space of coaching.
So I can highly recommend, andyou can also find the link to
sign up there on the website andalso sign up for their
(44:38):
newsletter.
So at the time of the recordingthey didn't have the newsletter
, but now they do have one, soyou can also find that
information on their website andalso more about themselves, and
you can also find links totheir personal websites, which I
also link in the show notes.
So I hope you had a wonderfultime listening, I hope you
(44:58):
learned a bunch and I'm again sograteful for your time, for
listening, for being here withus, and I'm wishing you just a
wonderful time and I see younext time.
Bye, thank you, thank you,thank you.
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