Energy for Life Coach ADD / ADHD Coaching for Business Professionals


"ADD people are high-energy and incredibly good brainstormers. They will often happily work 12 to 15 hours by choice. The business community should not fear ADD. Instead, they should see that they have a potential gold mine here."
- Dr. Kathleen Nadeau, a psychologist who is ADD herself (from an ABC News Report)

WHY EXECUTIVES AND ENTREPRENEURS NEED AN ADD COACH

Coaching ADD business professionals is something I'm very passionate about doing. Every day I see and hear about talented executives not living up to their potential because their ADD traits continually get in their way.

It's a real shame --- and it doesn't have to be like that. I believe every businessperson, attorney, or other business professional out there with ADD can become far more productive and effective by working with an experienced ADD business coach, someone who fully "gets" ADD and also understands and speaks the language of the business world. Here's why:

ADD is not easy for the non-ADDer to understand because it presents two very different faces to the world. On the one hand, executives with ADD often come across as highly intelligent and creative; many are great problem solvers. They see connections and patterns that others don't, which can often result in innovative ideas for the workplace. Blessed with the gift of vision, they are especially suited to be entrepreneurs.

TROUBLESOME TRAITS

On the other hand those same gifted people may struggle with the kind of mundane tasks that the rest of the world does routinely. For example, they may have a hard time sitting still for long or paying attention, may blurt things out at inappropriate times, may get easily distracted, may tune out, run late, misplace keys or forget what somebody just said.

And that's just what you may see on the surface. Having coached ADDers for many years, I've seen behavior that can really negatively impact personal and company productivity and profitability. For example, I have a very successful client, an ADD attorney, who when she first started working with me years ago inexplicably had not paid her taxes for the previous five years. She just had a mental block about doing that. Talk about setting yourself up for trouble!

Another client, an ADD business owner, couldn't bring himself to fire an employee who clearly needed to be let go. The employee poisoned the atmosphere for nearly a year before he finally confronted the issue. ADDers are some of the world's premier procrastinators.

I have a client who is a doctor, who used to struggle incredibly with trying to figure out how to get all his work done. He just could not prioritize, that was his mental block. I see that inability to prioritize in a number of my ADD clients.

And then there are several ADD entrepreneur clients I have who have a reputation for driving employees crazy by trotting out new pet projects every few days, each of which is "urgent". The list goes on and on. Impulsivity is a classic ADD trait.

Why would these otherwise normal people behave this way? What's going on in their brains? The answer: a lot, and that's a big part of the problem. An attorney client of mine describes his ADD this way:

"It's like there's a popcorn popper going off in my brain 24 hours a day!"

What he means is his brain is always coming up with new ideas. The good news is he has a never-ending flow of ideas. The bad news is the flow of ideas is so continuous that it's very hard at times to stay focused on implementing any of them, let alone all.

[business people shaking hands]And that's where I know I can help. As an ADD coach and as someone who has owned several businesses and is mildly ADD myself, I know that ADDers are simply wired a little differently than the majority of people on this planet, and given the right kind of coaching, I know that these behaviors can be changed. I witness it every day.

The problem is, changing behavior is not easy, especially for those with ADD. That's why an ADD Coach can make such a difference. Adults with ADD often don't get much empathy from the rest of the world. And many have a strong tendency to really beat up on themselves for their shortcomings. So they benefit tremendously when they have someone who supports and encourages them, who gets that they're not weird or crazy, just wired a little differently. They need an ADD Coach who understands that they are more than capable of great things when supported with compassion and focused on playing to their strengths.

Drs. Edward Hallowell and John Ratey, in their 1994 groundbreaking ADD book, Driven to Distraction, had this to say about coaching:

"Your coach can help you get organized, stay on task, give you encouragement ... stand in your corner. A coach can be tremendously helpful in treating ADD."

HERE ARE TEN WAYS AN ADD COACH CAN BENEFIT BUSINESS PROFESSIONALS

  1. Help you prioritize more effectively
  2. Help you improve time and paper management
  3. Help you to break tasks into bite –sized chunks
  4. Help you build your career and life around your strengths, not your weaknesses
  5. Help you follow tasks and projects to completion
  6. Help you to get all aspects of your life more organized
  7. Help you put structure and routines into your life to function more effectively
  8. Encourage you, praise you, support you, especially in areas where you are capable but are lacking confidence
  9. Help you identify and change self-defeating behaviors
  10. Help you get rid of physical and mental clutter that drains your energy

READY TO GIVE ADD COACHING A TRY?
Click here: To Get Started

"We now have structures in place that are making things work well for us. Thank you so much!"
Nancy Asbury, Child Advocate
Atlanta, Georgia

ADD Coaching overlaps with several other specialty coaching areas. So you may also be interested in one or more of these related links:

Coaching Specialties
ADD / ADHD Coaching for Business Professionals | Career Coaching l Coaching For Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners and Professionals l Executive Coaching l Coaching For Highly Creative Types l Wellness Coaching For A Healthier Lifestyle

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Paul O'Connor
Executive, Career and Life Coaching For High Achievers
404-377-4712
paul@EnergyForLifeCoach.com

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