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- [00:01]
Alex Pellettier
They were given the diagnosis and they were shown the DSM and they can see the symptoms and like okay, that sounds like me, but it's not shown how it applies to their life of what does ADHD and finance looks like? Oh my impulsive spending is related to my adhd. Mind blowing. And if someone had helped them make that connection or provided that education, it would have changed how they were approaching it.
- [00:28]
Katie Weber
Hello and welcome to the Women and ADHD Podcast. I'm your host Katie Weber. I was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 45 and it completely turned my world upside down.
- [00:39]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
I've been looking back at so much
- [00:41]
Katie Weber
of my life, school, jobs, my relationships,
- [00:46]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
all of it with this new lens
- [00:47]
Katie Weber
and it has been nothing short of overwhelming. I quickly discovered I was not the only woman to have this experience and now I interview other women who, like me, discovered in adulthood they have ADHD and are finally feeling like they understand who they are and how to best lean into their strengths, both professionally and personally.
- [01:07]
Podcast Announcer/Narrator
So before we get started, just a quick reminder. After this episode is over, make sure to head over to womeninadhd.com, our education and advocacy hub for neurodivergent adults like you. At womeninadhd.com, you'll find all the resources you need to help you better understand your brain so you can thrive. You can book a free consultation with any of our fantastic team of certified adhd coaches. At womeninadhd.com, you'll also find tons of free infographics, recommended self tests, my self guided course, hey, It's ADHD and much more. Okay, here we are at episode 208 in which I interview Alex Belletier. Alex is the Senior Manager of Coaching at Shimmer, an ADHD community and coaching platform that's redefining what support can look like for ADHD brains. You might remember Shimmer from when I interviewed their founder Crystal wang in episode 191. I'll put a link to that episode
- [01:58]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
in the show notes if you want
- [01:59]
Podcast Announcer/Narrator
to hear more about Shimmer. Now, Alex does not have ADHD herself, something she is very open and transparent about and we talk about that in this episode. She has spent years working with neurodivergent kids adults and now leading a team of over 50 ADHD coaches at Shimmer. She brings a background in coaching, psychology, clinical psychology and health and wellness to her work and she's passionate about delivering strengths based, efficient evidence, informed support that actually feels good to ADHDers. So in this conversation we talk about what coaching Psychology is and why it is such a powerful fit for adhd, the difference between therapy, coaching and healing work, and how they can all complement each other. We also talk about why so many of us are misdiagnosed with depression first, and how overwhelm, executive dysfunction and chronic frustration can get mislabeled. We talk about the ebb and flow of ADHD symptoms across the lifespan, hormones, menopause, grief and temporary neurodivergence. And we talk about how Shimmer structures its coaching, body doubling, community and AI tools to be genuinely ADHD friendly and shame free. And we discuss the promises and risks of AI for neurodivergent people and what good guardrails actually look like. If you've ever wondered whether you're struggling enough for it to count, questioned what's normal, or felt confused about where ADHD ends at, the environment, hormones and capitalism begins, this episode is for you.
- [03:25]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
Well, hi Alex, thank you so much for joining me and I'm really excited to have you here. I'm a big fan of Shimmer.
- [03:31]
Alex Pellettier
I'm so excited to be here.
- [03:33]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
So I guess we'll start with like, what got you into ADHD coaching.
- [03:38]
Alex Pellettier
Yeah, it's actually something that I didn't necessarily see myself going into at the start of my career. So originally, and I think it's pretty common for coaches to originally think that they want to go into therapy. So I started more on the clinical side pursuing that. And in the midst of it all I came across the concept of coaching psychology and that stuck out to me. The idea that we focus on the best parts of ourself and our potential and not everything has to be a healing journey, but just recognizing what means most to us. And that sounded like everything that I wanted to do. So I transitioned into more health and wellness and mental health coaching. And what I saw in that was a lot of the clients I were seeing had ADHD and sort of fell into this like mental health bucket of I don't know what resources are available to me. I don't feel like anything speaks well to me. I sort of feel like I'm grasping at straws here. And that's when I decided I want to transition to ADHD coaching because I felt like I just wasn't doing who I was seeing the best service that I could. So I started studying ADHD coaching, getting supervision for it, fully transitioning, and I've been here several years now, about four years into my ADHD coaching journey and would not go back. It's been fantastic.
- [04:52]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
That's amazing. I mean yeah, as somebody who started coaching before I even knew I had adhd and I was actually working as a binge eating recovery coach. And you know, once I realized the connection between ADHD and binge eating, but also the relationship between ADHD and coaching and how what a like fantastic modality coaching is, I always, you know, I felt like I wanted to go back to all of my old clients and tell them, you know, we all have ADHD because it is like, like you said, like I think ADHD and coaching go really, really well together. And a lot of my clients had had negative experiences in therapy because, you know, we're so often diagnosed with depression before we're diagnosed with adhd. So that's really fascinating. I'm kind of taking the other route, which is I started out as a coach and now I've gone back to become just to get my license as a mental health counselor, to be able to kind of incorporate both, right. To incorporate that healing journey and the like re parenting that a lot of us do with an adult diagnosis with the more practical side of like, well, now what? How am I going to get stuff done? And yeah, that's really interesting. Do you find you draw from some of the clinical side still when you're coaching?
- [06:13]
Alex Pellettier
I think in terms of drawing it's about a different application. So definitely still using cognitive behavioral coaching. So rather than cognitive behavioral therapy, it's just applied in a little bit of a different way. I'm sure you're well familiar with it or acceptance and commitment coaching rather than acceptance and commitment therapy. So it's drawing on clinical psychology disciplines but applying it in a different way where it's not that healing modality. And I think that's absolutely beneficial for many ADHDers of. We, we sort of have like this ecosystem of like the clinical side, the coaching side, including medication in that mix, the health and wellness elements. So I think bringing that all together, like many people benefit from different modalities. But yeah, because coaching psychology is sort of this mix between clinical psychology and organizational psychology depending on the type of coaching you're doing. But not a lot of people know within the United States that coaching psychology is a recognized field in other countries. So it's very popular within the uk, Australia, New Zealand. It has been recognized here, but it is its own discipline with lots of scientific journals and studies on it.
- [07:23]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
That is really fascinating. I will be perfectly frank. I've never heard the term coaching psychology, you know, together until until now. And it makes perfect sense because I've kind of as I've been thinking about my own journey with coaching and you know, bringing together coaching and therapy, which, from a therapy side, a clinical side, they're like, you know, you can't do that. Absolutely do not, you know, keep those two hats very, very separate. And in my head I'm thinking like, no, those two hats go so well together. And thinking about, like, how can I incorporate this in a ethical, evidence based way? And, and so, yeah, I'm like, now I have my new hyperfocus, I'm gonna go down a rabbit hole later on. Coaching psychology, I recommend it. Well, one of the things I keep talking about, like I said, so many of us are diagnosed with depression long before a diagnosis of adhd, when we're diagnosed in adulthood, right. And so often when you're depressed, you go on an, you know, you take antidepressant medications, you see a therapist, it's like, that's what you're supposed to do. And one of the reasons why I think it's been such a negative experience for so many people is that idea of like, I'm not necessarily depressed in the clinical DSM way of looking at depression. I'm depressed because I'm overwhelmed and I'm frustrated and I don't know what to do about it, right. And so I'm like, I keep hitting walls. And so I've often, like, even just in my classes and in the curriculum, I'm like, depression is taught in this very. It's talked about in this very specific way that's very, very different from my experience of depression. And many of the people I work with from, as a coach, their experience of depression, which is like, no, actually look for the frustration, look for the executive dysfunction, which is a term that nobody ever uses in the curriculum. Still, very few people, even still to this day, really understand executive functioning in the clinical world. From what I mean, I'm sure there are many people out there who do, but in terms of the curriculum with mental health counseling, it's not something that's talked about. So, yeah, like coaching psychology. Absolutely. That's super cool.
- [09:21]
Alex Pellettier
What you explained is very much what I saw within the mental health coaching space of people just feeling like, I don't feel like this is an internal thing I'm trying to work through. I feel like I'm trying to navigate my environment and I don't have the tools and education and resources to do it. I don't think this is something that's in my head. And that was a lot of conversations that we were having and hence why I kind of transitioned of this type of coaching isn't working for neurodivergent folks. This, this actually is not helping them move forward and getting to learn more about like defining ADHD coaching, what elements are present in it, how do you do it? Well and then I saw a huge transformation with my clients of like this is what I needed. And that's kind of what we hear at Shimmer too is clients and our members being like that this was the missing piece is like this is just what I needed.
- [10:09]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
Right. And then I'm actually feeling accomplished and I'm getting stuff done and that's when the depression starts to abate.
- [10:15]
Alex Pellettier
Right.
- [10:16]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
Which is like I am starting to see my view of myself. Right. When my self esteem is increasing. That's where I feel like the real mindset change can start to set in.
- [10:27]
Alex Pellettier
Yeah. And some people will have a co occurring diagnosis of there still might be depression, there still might be anxiety. We know that it's very common for both to exist, but it's not always the primary diagnosis that's going on of getting to address everything that's happening.
- [10:45]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
Yeah. So now my other question is how do you know you don't have adhd? Because I feel like most of the people I talk to who are interested in fascinated by like, you know, working with ADHD brains and just how they work. Like I feel like we all end up discovering that we have ADHD in the end, you know, Like I've lost count of how many teachers I've interviewed where they started out working with neurodivergent kids and then realized that, oh, the reason why I love working with them is because. Because I was also neurodivergent. Is this a question you ask yourself on the daily.
- [11:18]
Alex Pellettier
It is actually not. I know I'm the anomaly whenever I share I'm an ADHD coach that doesn't have adhd. Everyone has lots of questions of what are you doing in this space then? Which I think is really interesting. So I feel fairly confident I don't have ADHD in the fact that while I understand a lot of the symptoms, I know what it can look like. I live with an ADHD husband, so we got a neurodiverse relationship of learning to navigate that together of our lived experience is very, very different. And figuring out how we work on that together, how we make sure that he feels his best. I feel my best and create a life together. But also when I started my career, I was actually working with neurodivergent kiddos, ADHD and autistic kids. And I've loved it. But I've been in this space for about eight years, and I just don't think. I think I would have seen myself by now of, like, wait a minute. That sounds quite familiar to me. Um, I haven't had that experience yet. Well, I can relate to some of those instances of not knowing where your keys are at or feeling like everything's on fire. I think that's one of the things to talk about, is there's a threshold when it comes to getting an ADHD diagnostic, is those symptoms are more intense, they're more frequent. It's sort of like a perpetual thing that you're experiencing. And I just haven't had that experience. And I know sometimes to my clients, they feel a little frustrated when someone who is neurotypical or not meeting that threshold for ADHD says, well, I do that too. Of, it's not the same experience. And I never pretend, like, just because I've experienced that every now and then, that I understand fully what it means to go through life trying to navigate those executive function challenges. While I'm skilled in being able to support you and being able to do it and being a subject matter expert on adhd, there's still that barrier of lived experience. And I always want to recognize that and be honest with my clients about it. Of, I will not fully understand, but I know I can fully support you. And a lot of my clients resonate with that and appreciate a provider saying that, because sometimes they do hear it from their loved ones of like, oh, I do that too. And it's like, you just. You don't get it. That's not the same thing.
- [13:26]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
Right. And one. One of those is very deeply invalidating in terms of the experience, as opposed to the other way, where it's like, I may not understand what you're talking about, but I support you. And I think that's something we talk about on this podcast, too, a lot, which is the, you know, what is clinically significant and what isn't when it comes to struggle. Because we can be our own biggest gaslighters when it comes to how much am I actually struggling or even, you know, oftentimes I feel like for me, before my diagnosis, I didn't even have time to gauge the struggle because I was in such a state of overwhelm. And so oftentimes it's like, only when we are, you know, beginning to see through our life through this new lens, can we even determine, like, oh, this is not normal struggle. Right? Or this is, you know, this is A lot more than other people are going through. It's one of those questions we so often have, which is like, what is quote unquote, normal level of stress and what is a normal level of nervous system load? Or am I just a whiner? Or as our doctors say, do I just need a better night's sleep or do I need to eat more vegetables or go for a run or whatever? All the things that we're told in our life that are going to help us. Yeah. And I think also to that point, I think ADHD intensity can ebb and flow throughout our life too. Right? And so that's sometimes, you know, when I was really struggling, when I was diagnosed, I always joke, like, nobody gets their ADHD diagnosis because their life is going great and they're like, hey, I need a name for this. But also like, my life is in a considerably better place now because I have the tools and the support and I've been able to change my viewpoint and all of that. So I sort of often wonder, like, well, when does it stop being adhd? If it's like, is it still clinically significant? If you're able to manage it, then what do we call it? Like, is ADHD really just how we are labeling or diagnosing a level of distress in a human being as opposed to, are we diagnosing and labeling a neurodivergent brain that is, you know, inherently dopamine deficient and working on like interest based, you know, structures? So that ends up being a really
- [15:43]
Alex Pellettier
interesting conversation because those that are neurotypical in a neurodevelopmental sense of the brain followed a relatively average timeline, not a normal timeline. We're going to say average amongst the population because a lot of times when it comes to ADHD or autism, people say a delayed development. I don't think that's the right language to be using by any means. It is a different development. It is not delayed. It is developing in a certain way for a certain reason, but it is different than the average. You can actually cross into a threshold where you're considered neurodivergent for a little bit, but it's not in a neurodevelopmental sense. So a lot of women going through menopause will experience executive dysfunction, and previously they were neurotypical. But during that phase, the hormonal levels and executive function challenges change to where they're actually tipping into neurodivergent. They're different than the average in the population now or period of intense grief, you may go into A level of distress that would categorize you as temporarily neurodivergent, but it's not a neurodevelopmental thing. So we know with autism, adhd, dyslexia, that's not something that you're going to outgrow, grow. Most people are going to see symptoms throughout their entire life range. But there are periods of, and I talk to this with my clients as well, of sometimes I'll hear people say, ADHD feels worse right now. I'm not sure why, it just feels different. And we'll talk about hormone changes, especially women on their cycle or going into like, perimenopause menopause, post menopause, what that looks like, those going through grief or really big life changes where the systems that were supporting them and helping compensate for some of those challenges no longer work because the environment, environments change and it feels like they have to reset it up. And all of a sudden these things that were supporting and structuring their environment aren't able to do that. So it feels like everything's just gotten worse. And it's because the supports have now changed. So it is interesting to talk to people about the ebb and flow and like, the nonlinear nature of it for those that have a neurodevelopmental diagnosis versus those that might be very temporary and they're not neurodivergent, but they're presenting as it because of the level of stress or hormonal changes.
- [17:55]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
Yeah, I really appreciate that distinction because I think it addresses a lot of the questions we tend, I certainly ask all the time, which is, you know, those questions of like, is this adhd or am I an angry feminist living in a capitalist society and, you know, menopausal, and all the things where it's like, who knows, right? Like, it just feels like this morass of, of factors that it could never parse. And so I like that in thinking about the ebb and flow, thinking about it in terms of like, not whether or not my brain is ADHD or not, but like, where do I fall in the neurodiver developmental spectrum right now based on my interaction with my environment.
- [18:37]
Alex Pellettier
Yeah, we also know that within one adhd, there's going to be ebb and flow of feeling more intense or less intense in certain periods, or two ADHDers are going to experience ADHD fairly differently. Of course, there's commonalities of. There is a symptom list of most people are going to relate to those different clusters of inattention or hyperactivity or impulsivity but where they're feeling the intensity might be a little bit different. One person might be. And this is a controversial word, but a lot of my clients will use it, feel impaired by their ADHD if this is actually a huge limitation. And some people are going to feel like, hey, this actually works really well for me. I love my ADHD brain and have very different perceptions of what it means.
- [19:19]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
Yeah. Well. And I was actually just talking to a client yesterday about, like, operating outside of my current capacity. Right. And understanding that my capacity is going to change. And so am I operating within my capacity right now? As opposed to, like thinking about this version of yourself that existed 20 years ago or two weeks ago that was able to do something you don't feel able to do right now. And how can we, like, reframe that in a way that feels like you're operating from a place of wisdom and intuition as opposed to a place of failure?
- [19:52]
Alex Pellettier
Yeah. And it's hard to stop and be able to get that reflection because a lot of times it feels like there's things to address now. But even asking yourself, what is my capacity? Can be a huge difference. But it's so hard to stop and think. That's the question I need to ask myself.
- [20:06]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
Right? Yeah. Which is why it's always nice to have a coach, to have those conversations with.
- [20:11]
Alex Pellettier
It is to ask, what is your capacity? And someone goes, oh, I don't know. And you're like, let's start there. Before we look at what's on your list, let's start with what you feel capable of, where your energy's at, and doing energy management of. Sometimes you're doing a lot of things that drain you and there is nothing sustaining you. There is no self care. And then that also starts addressing one of the problems of, oh, I'm just depleting myself. No wonder I'm so exhausted of. We have to take care of ourselves too. And sometimes it's hard to stop and even notice you're not taking care of yourself.
- [20:45]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
Right. Yeah. I call that whack a mole mode. Or just like the treading water. Right. Like, if I'm treading water, I'm not even able to ask myself strategic questions like, what am I going to do next? Or what am I going to tackle? Like, I'm absolutely in present mode, reaction mode. And so I'll often think to myself, like, if I'm asking myself questions about, like, where do I want my business to go next? Or do I want. Like those are questions that come from at least a base level of regulation. So I could at least applaud that as a reminder of like, okay, I wouldn't be asking these questions if I wasn't in a better state than I might have been at another time.
- [21:26]
Katie Weber
One thing I hear from guests and listeners all the time is this. Once you learn you have adhd, you start hyper focusing on fixing everything. New planners, new timers, new product productivity systems, new routines that promise they'll finally fix your focus forever. And sometimes they help, but often they don't stick. Because what we're really missing isn't another productivity hack. It's a deeper understanding of how our ADHD actually works so we can work with it. That's why I've been recommending the app Inflow. Inflow is a self help app designed specifically for adults with adhd, especially those of us who were diagnosed later in life and are still to going connecting the dots. Think of it a little like Duolingo for adhd. Each day you get a short interactive lesson you can complete in just a few minutes. And these small lessons actually make a big difference. The app walks you through real life topics like time management, improving focus, rejection, sensitive dysphoria, burnout, managing money, relationships, hormones, all the stuff that actually shows up in everyday life. What I appreciate most is, is that it's grounded in evidence based research. Inflow was founded by a psychologist who specializes in ADHD and has ADHD himself. And Inflow is an official partner of organizations like ADA and Attitude Magazine. If you're curious whether it might be helpful for you, a great place to start is with Inflow's free ADHD Traits quiz. You can find it@womenandadhd.com Inflow Again, that's womenandadhd.com Inflow
- [22:56]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
so how did you end up working with Shimmer and heading this team of how many coaches are there now? Do you know?
- [23:02]
Alex Pellettier
There's 51 right now. Okay, so a good amount and I do want to shout out all of our coaches in this. We do have a kind of long vetting process in our hiring process. So about only 3.4% of people who apply will actually become a Shimmer coach. So we have a very, very talented team. We're really excited to be able to show what ADHD coaching is, can be. But for my personal journey, I joined shortly before the launch. So I joined Shimmer in July 2022 starting as an ADHD coach. I didn't move into management until about May 2023. So I was with them for eight or nine months before kind of Moving up a little bit and that just being more kind of light coach supportive if they had questions about policies, how to handle some smaller client situations. And transitioned full time at the beginning of 2024, where I overtook the hiring and quality assurance process, coach mentoring. So anytime there's a difficult case consultation or I just. I don't know if I have the skill helping the coach develop that skill. So that's been almost two years. I've been more managing the care and coaching department, which has been so great to be able to see the inner workings of it. But I would say it was kind of like a slow, incremental process, which is almost exactly what you would want to see of slowly being able to develop new skills over time.
- [24:24]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
Right. Yeah. Which is often something we're not very capable of on our own with adhd. Right. Yeah.
- [24:31]
Alex Pellettier
I would say how my trajectory within Shimmer went was fantastic of being able to make sure I was competent at each level and had really wonderful people helping me get there.
- [24:42]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
Yeah. That's one of the things that I wish the coaching field had more of, which is peer support and supervision. Right. Which is like. It really does, you know, I think one of the complaints about the coaching world is that it's the Wild west and there's so many different certifications. We don't know who's, you know, certified in what. And oftentimes people will just, like, wake up one day and say, I'm a coach. And there's not really any kind of vetting, but there's also not a lot of, like, community among coaches too, unless you create it yourself. So I love that Shimmer is offering that. There's the client side, but then there's also the professional coach side too.
- [25:22]
Alex Pellettier
Yeah, absolutely. Mondays, we have roundtables that coaches can come, ask questions, learn what their peers are working on, anything that they're noticing in their sessions. We have monthly trainings, we have open office hours with the co founders. We do try to make sure that everyone feels really supported because like you said, Wild west, even within certification, certifications are not created equally of there are. So one of the most popular coaching credentials is the ICF credential. I am an ICF certified coach. I'm a professional certified coach with them. But there are different training programs within it, and someone who has a PCC and another person who has a PCC can have an entirely different background on what their coaching education looks like. So it is really hard to navigate when you're a client. And that's something that I've Seen from a lot of my members is I, like, shimmer because I don't have to guess what the credential means or what they know of. Like, someone else has figured this out for me. And I think that's sort of an uphill battle for private practitioners is how do I differentiate myself from other people who are just calling themselves a coach? Or I know that their background isn't as robust as mine, but we have the same credential of how do I really get to articulate that? You get stuck as a coach. A little bit of, like, shoot, there's so many acronyms. How is the member or how is the person I'm trying to track supposed to know what I'm saying?
- [26:43]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
Yeah, good point. I will admit, like, that was one of the, I guess, motivations for me to take the clinical side, which was like, I will feel a lot better with the structure and the licensing and also just having those letters behind my name. Yeah.
- [27:01]
Alex Pellettier
100% a barrier to entry signals to other people. Like, you put in a lot of work. Of course, there's, like, access issues with trying to get it, but when it comes to licensure, it is kind of one of those gold standards of this person met a certain criteria. And coaching is missing that in a lot of cases.
- [27:19]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
Right. And my coaching background was not in ADHD coaching. And so I felt like I came to. Even though I've pivoted and work with a lot of ADHD women because of my podcast, and they, you know, I feel like my podcast is, like, five years of phenomenological evidence of my work with clients. So, you know, that has to stand for something. Even though I don't have an ICF certification, but also, like, having that imposter syndrome all the time, which was like, I have to go back and relearn a lot of this stuff that I've already independently learned through my own interest. And I think a lot of ADHD people experience that. Like, that, like, I go by my own interest, but I don't necessarily, like, fit in an academic environment. Right. And so we have, like, all of these weird, random expertise. You know, I like, call it the patchwork quilt of various backgrounds and certifications and things that we've. We've done based on our interest, but at the same time, like, understanding and appreciating, like you said, that barrier to entry. That's, like, the official way that proves, like, I've done this work.
- [28:25]
Alex Pellettier
Yeah. And I think within kind of going back to, like, the difference of what we're seeing. Other parts of the world in the US within coaching is. So there is. You can become a chartered coaching psychologist within the uk. It exists within the British Psychological Society. So that's kind of their gold standard of saying you have to be able to meet certain educational experience requirements to have this Chartered psychologist title. We don't have it within the us so it's one of those things where it's really hard to become aware of what does exist and how to be able to access that. Because again, like it's just not publicized of what can coaches become or what routes are there available? I think there's the very popular routes and there's lesser known routes where it's
- [29:06]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
like, well, that's interesting too, right? Yeah, absolutely. But I do love the fact that Shimmer, does that work for you? As somebody who's like, could very easily get overwhelmed by the research and spend
- [29:17]
Alex Pellettier
weeks and weeks looking at different people of which one makes more sense.
- [29:21]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
Right. So walk me through the process a little bit. When if somebody is signing up for Shimmer care, it's not just the one on one coaching. Right. Like there's the whole app and support system as well. So what are people signing up for?
- [29:35]
Alex Pellettier
So we actually have two tiers. I'll talk about the coaching first for those that are ready and wanting human support of like, I would love to meet someone on a weekly basis that really understands me, understands what I'm trying to talk about and really develop a personal plan. So there's the weekly coaching, but in addition to it, we have daily body doubling sessions for those that are not familiar. I imagine your listeners are familiar with it, but it's kind of like virtual coworking, but being able to do different tasks. But it might not be work. You might be folding your laundry or doing your dishes or responding to the emails you don't want to be responding to, but you're doing it because other people are in it. We have a bunch of people in our community, so you get to be able to meet other Shimmer members who are on their ADHD journey too. And people that understand what you're working on is hard of like, yeah, no, I don't want to do my laundry. So there's multiple times a day you can come together with other people. We have weekly workshops on different topics. So just last week we had Dr. Sharon Saline.
- [30:32]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
Yeah, I've had her on this podcast.
- [30:34]
Alex Pellettier
Yeah, I'm sure you have. That doesn't surprise me.
- [30:36]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
She was actually another one who did not have adhd. I think she made a B was the first like non ADHD guest I ever had, but she has since been diagnosed with.
- [30:45]
Alex Pellettier
I was gonna say I thought she did have adhd.
- [30:47]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
She was diagnosed like relatively recently. Recently within the last few years. But at the time she was still questioning.
- [30:54]
Podcast Announcer/Narrator
Yeah.
- [30:54]
Alex Pellettier
So we had her in talking about ADHD and the winter blues of feeling maybe a little more emotional during the wintertime, less sun, less being out, not wanting to be in the cold weather or maybe the pressures of the holidays and the side effects or consequences of those. We have authors come in for ADHD books where, you know, like Jesse Anderson, who wrote Extra Focus, we'll have him come in and people can ask questions about the book or his journey. So there's weekly ways to meet other leaders in the ADHD space, people that are advocates and actually build more personal relationships with them, which is really lovely. We have independent learning journeys. So some people might call them modules. They're not meant to be teaching lessons or someone's talking at you. It's meant to be a lot of reflection you can do on your own of what are my strengths, how do I think about strengths? So rather than just reading a book about strengths, it's asking you questions to kind of pull that out of yourself. And it's meant to be able to be done in 10 to 15 minutes. So really just trying to find a way that we can support everyone. Whether you want to be in a call with someone, whether you want to do something on your own time right before bed, and you're like, hey, I just want to spend like five minutes doing something for myself. And we also have a new app called Indie. I don't know if you're familiar with it yet, but it's a bunch of different modules to be able to support. So like, hey, I need help with solving a problem. It'll actually go through the Combi model of behavior change. So learning about your capabilities, the opportunities and motivation to help you break down a problem strategically to find the next step, how do I reflect on my day to learn more insights about what I've experienced. So we're really trying to build it out in ways that are like low friction, high demand. How intense do you want your learning to be? And make sure everyone feels like they can create customized support.
- [32:42]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
I love all of that. That is amazing. I mean, one of the things you were talking about with the co working and the body doubling is just the like the shame free space that I love as well. Right. Like you said, nobody's going to question the fact that I have to show up to a body doubling session in order to fold my laundry.
- [32:58]
Alex Pellettier
Right. Like, not at all.
- [33:00]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
You know, nobody's going to say just do it. Yeah. And so I think like the shame free elements to all of this support. Right. And not questioning like why you might need this I think is such a refreshing place to be, you know, that it's not a matter of like, we're going to solve this and fix you and send you off on your way that there's like these, you know, we're trying to make the supports and structures as easy as possible and as available as possible. Right. So that you don't feel like you have to spend any time questioning should I or shouldn't I even use this? Right. Like, do I deserve to use this or should I work harder? I'll have women who are like, you know, clients who will talk to me about hiring a clean a cleaner and obviously a house cleaner is, costs money. So there's a certain level of privilege just to hire somebody. But they will often have to like explain to me the arduous decision making process that got them to hiring a cleaner. And I have kids and I work full time and like the millions of reasons and I'm always like, you don't
- [33:58]
Podcast Announcer/Narrator
need a reason, you don't have to justify.
- [34:00]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
You just don't like it. And that's totally fine. Right. Why wouldn't. I don't understand people who do like it. So. But yeah, like I think a lot of the time we spend so much unrecognized energy justifying why we might need structure and support as opposed to just like being in an environment where that's second nature.
- [34:19]
Alex Pellettier
Yeah, 100% right now.
- [34:21]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
I'm curious. Speaking of like the shame free support, you know, AI has become so popular in terms of like shame free support for a lot of neurodivergent people. Is Shimmer incorporating AI in any kind of way or what have your thoughts been about the increase in using AI to kind of develop structures for us?
- [34:45]
Alex Pellettier
Yeah, so Shimmer does incorporate AI, so we do that in different ways. Within the coaching session we have AI note taking, you have to opt in so it's never going to happen automatically. We 100% respect your privacy and we have a lot of things in place to to make sure your information goes nowhere. It stays in our closed ecosystem and it's de identified. But we also know it's hard to remember what happened during a coaching session. Three days later. If it feels really great during it you feel really motivated and three days later you're like, I am not sure what we talked about. So it's really nice to have the notes available for you right afterwards. So that's one of the way that Shimmer integrates AI. And then our indie app, which is a free resource, is predominantly an AI resource. But we're not using generic. I almost, I don't know if I should call out companies there. I almost said we're not using generic AI. We're actually creating the different agents and we're putting in ADHD education scientific models into the reasoning. So when you're talking with it, it can explain the science of ADHD or it can explain compi or can explain a hierarchy of needs. And it's not generating random things and making guesses. We have kind of those strict guardrails of. This is when you say, I don't know, this is what you pull from. This is what you don't make conclusions about. And I think with AI there is a lot of potential, absolute lot of potential, because it can reduce a lot of things that are, I would say, executively not necessary. So, for example, if you're going into leadership and you're trying to figure out ADHD in leadership and who are people that you'd like to emulate, who do you see doing? Well, maybe you want to redo your LinkedIn background. The two hours looking at different LinkedIns for people that match your job description, that's actually not helping you move forward. Someone being able to scrape it and saying here are four for you to look at and then you finding the patterns, that's actually what's going to help you move forward. Knowing that you need XYZ Planner with these different capabilities, spending the three hours looking for it is actually not helpful. Having options presented for you to choose from is helpful. So ownership still stays with the person. I think where we go into really questionable territories when people don't feel autonomous in their decision, it doesn't feel like they're developing skills. I think that's bad AI use. But there are ways that it can offload and kind of equal the playing field of this doesn't need to be done by me, but I still hold the authority of it. I don't think most AI machines or organizations right now are particularly neurodivergent friendly. I think they actually can do a lot of harm. From what I've seen. I think we all have seen the news stories where unfortunately, because mental health support is not super accessible, ADHD support is not super accessible. It's a free option, of course, you're going to go to it. And I never want to demonize people using AI for support. I've done it too. But there are kind of trade offs with it. There are some perils that you have to be aware of. And it's really hard to know when it's going into a dangerous territory. So that's sort of what we're hoping to do with Indy, is create a safe space where it has very hard guardrails and says this is something that we can help offload, whether it's looking at resumes or thinking strategically through a problem. But we feel pretty strongly mental health support should stay with mental health practitioners that can hold the space for the person in the room and just making sure we do that with as much duty of care as possible.
- [38:12]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
Yeah, yeah. It's a fascinating landscape right now and
- [38:16]
Alex Pellettier
changing every single day. You think you have an opinion one day and then something comes out within two weeks and you're like, I have to rethink this whole thing of how do I see that working within my discipline?
- [38:27]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
Right, Absolutely. And like, who are the adults in the room too? Knowing that Shimmer is creating these guardrails would be really reassuring for somebody who also is feeling like this is a super helpful tool and I'm using it a lot. But I also don't know, you know, everybody's telling me it's bad and I don't know if I should trust it. And, you know, where do I fall on this? And so having. Having meaningful conversations about the pros and cons, I think is important, as opposed to just being like a I bad or. Or AI good. Right. Which seems to be where we're polarizing nowadays.
- [39:03]
Alex Pellettier
Yeah. And I don't think it's categorical. I think it's the way that we use it, which one we're using. It can even come down to the prompting behind it of how good is the prompt that whether it generates a hallucination, so fake information or actual science. And I think right now we're at a place where a lot of it falls to the user to have to know those things. And I don't think that's fair. I don't think the average person is going to know. I. If you had told me two years ago that I would do AI prompting, I would have laughed. I would have been like, I don't know anything about it. And then I have immersed myself in it because that's what the community needs and that's what my role is changing and evolving into. And I've Become aware of how hard it is to know how to do it well. And I think more organizations should take ownership of what do we do on the back end to protect the user.
- [39:51]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
One of the things that fascinates me too, about the human brain, the capacity of the human brain. Because I always argue that the more we use AI for the mundane executive tasks, it frees us up for higher learning. Right. Whereas there are certain MIT studies that suggest that the more we use AI, the dumber we're getting. And I completely disagree. But, you know, one of the things I love about the human brain is our capacity to adapt. And like, you know, thinking about, you know, the very first film, the Great Train Robbery, people were running from the theater because they thought the train was coming for them. Right. And I, and I feel that way about AI. Like, already we have begun to recognize, like, what is AI slop. You know, whereas like a year ago I would have thought, wow, that's really compelling. How did this person know this about me? Or something? And now it's like, we're getting much better at recognizing AI slop. I am very worried about, like, photorealistic videos and images, but I do think, you know, I feel like I have to trust that we are going to get better at recognizing that stuff the more we're exposed to it, because you can already tell when there's an AI photograph of somebody. Like, I feel like we are adapting very quickly to a lot of this stuff too.
- [41:00]
Podcast Announcer/Narrator
Yeah.
- [41:00]
Alex Pellettier
And I, I do hope to see regulation change of what legislature says to that companies can or can't do or consequences for doing things that are ill intended with AI.
- [41:10]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
Yeah.
- [41:10]
Alex Pellettier
As much as I'd love for that to emerge first and then AI evolve, that's not going to be the case. And we've seen that in other industries too. It's not just with an AI. This might feel like a bit of an archaic example, but like, when it came to, like, child movie actors, there was no regulations. And unfortunately it took a decade or two for people to be like, hey, we have to put something in place here. I think with AI, we're catching that very quickly. Overseeing different infrastructure, starting to come out with recommended usage and guidelines in the APA making, so the American Psychological association making recommendations for the use. So I think the industry is recognizing, hey, we have to have some sort of recommendations here or legalities around this, which I'm excited to see.
- [41:57]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
Back to Shimmer and coaching and your journey. Like what? I guess, you know, what are some of the things you love about working With ADHD clients.
- [42:07]
Alex Pellettier
Big question, many things. The first is I, you know, I want to be cautious here that I don't want to make a statement about every ADHDer in this. But what I've seen is one, an incredible level of resilience of hey, I've had these really negative experiences. I attribute a lot of it to not knowing about my adhd, not feeling supported in my environment and I think it could be very easy to get stuck in that of feel it was unfair because it absolutely was. It absolutely was. But you hear people say like I know I can be better. I know that wasn't right, I'm going to do this. There is like this anxiety, incredible sense of like ownership and capacity and agency of I'm not going to let anybody get in my way and even myself, I'm not going to limit myself of I'm angry and I'm going to do this or I'm sad and I'm going to do this. And I think that's one of the most beautiful things I see in a lot of sessions. And it doesn't always start that way. Sometimes there is like confusion and grief at the beginning of I don't know what this means for me and especially with the confusion is at least what I've heard from a lot of my clients and other coaching clients is they were given the diagnosis and they were shown the DSM and they can see the symptoms and like okay, that sounds like me, but it's not shown how it applies to their life of what does ADHD and finance looks like? Oh my impulsive spending is related to my adhd. Mind blowing. And if someone had helped them make that connection or provided that education it would have changed how they were approaching it. But they didn't have that information because it wasn't explained. And so I think that's part of what you see in the ADHD coaching space as well of now that those things have been linked together they're approaching it and taking ownership of it of like well, if I had known this and then they're coming up with their own ideas. So it felt like sometimes there wasn't hope of I don't know why this is happening. Well, now I know why and now I'm going to try something and people come back and I'd say I think that I feel like I'm getting excited to talk about there's a lot of energy of people feeling like it's almost like a puzzle that they're solving. It's an emotional puzzle, really emotional but you can tell, like there's resilience and creativity and there is a deep community. Even though the coaching session is me and that person, you can hear how they talk about being in the ADHD community. They talk about themselves, but they talk about those that have a similar experience. And there's just like this inherent belonging or connection which is also I think a really beautiful thing to see. And I see in workshops too of people who don't know each other saying, hey, me too. You got this. Like, that's beautiful to share. What a win. People are genuinely rooting for each other in a way that I don't think we see in the general population. I think sometimes the world can be a little bit competitive and isolated. And I don't see that in the shimmer community at all is it's people saying, hey, we're in this together, let's go. And they've never met before. And I think that's one of my favorite things too.
- [45:06]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
Yeah, hear, hear to all of that. Like, I, I totally agree with the like grit element too of that. Like, and I, I often feel like that pick yourself up by the bootstraps mentality starts very young. Right. With a lot of barriers that you have to figure out how to get past. And you do become really good at problem solving and making the most of situations. And I think the flip side of that is then becoming incredibly self reliant and feeling like you should be able to do things without help and. Right. And having like a very kind of problematic relationship with support as though it's like it's failure. Right. And I think that's a lot of the things we have to unlearn in ourselves with as people with adhd, especially diagnosed in adulthood. But you know, I'm working with children right now and adolescents who are, and many of them, almost all of them are diagnosed with ADHD in childhood and they don't look at it with a strengths based lens at all. Nobody's talked to them about it through a strengths based lens. So they're looking at it as like, ADHD is the reason why I'm so bad at blank. Right. And that's kind of their understanding of adhd. It's that ADHD is the barrier as opposed to what are the barriers that are standing in the way of me and my greatness. Right. I'm the last person to call ADHD a superpower. But I also, like, I feel like so much of what makes us amazing is thanks to our ADHD brains. It's just the barriers that get in the way.
- [46:27]
Alex Pellettier
Yeah. And I think that's something that we also see as a whole when it comes to ADHD care is as practitioners, we all know a strength based lens is more effective than a deficit based lens of being able to leverage and build on your strengths, to achieve your goals and overcome barriers and is a better experience for everyone, everyone's on board with that. But as soon as it comes to like ADHD and someone comes to the room and of course they haven't done coaching yet, they don't know necessarily what it's going to be like and they say, I want to be less impulsive, I want to be more organized and you can tell like I want to fix these deficits. And the practitioner says, yes, we'll work on that. All of a sudden now we're doing a deficit focused coaching rather than strengths based coaching. And part of the coach's role is to do education around that of like, we absolutely can bridge those gaps, we can learn skills, we can do executive function coaching, but we're also going to learn what you're really good at and we're also going to see your best experience and what you've already accomplished and learn lessons from those. But there's something about when it comes to ADHD coaching that a switch flips and all of a sudden it becomes very deficit focused very quickly. Even though as practitioners we know strengths are stronger. So that's something I think as a whole, like we all have to get better at is just because you're coming in with symptoms that you're trying to navigate does not mean you're targeting those symptoms. It means you're acknowledging and creating structures around that to get to whatever your goal is.
- [47:59]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
Yeah, absolutely. I think of them as like side, side dishes. Right. They're kind of an inevitable result of the barriers that might be place in your way. So. But absolutely not anything to be, to define your life by. And yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I think there's, it's, I think there's a whole other interesting conversation there that I'm not going to get into about like toxic positivity in the coaching world versus strengths based and kind of what that looks like. So yes, they are not the same.
- [48:30]
Alex Pellettier
For anyone listening, they are not the same. Do not be deterred by a strength based approach. It is not the same as toxic positivity where we don't acknowledge the challenges. That would be a disservice.
- [48:42]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
Right? Yeah. Well, that's amazing. I love you guys and I think Shimmer is Such a great. Especially, you know, like you said, there are, you know, coaching is not related to insurance. It's cost prohibitive for a lot of people. And so having more accessible price points I think is wonderful. And I just, I think Shimmer does such a great job and I'm so glad you guys exist. So thank you so much for talking to me. So if people want to find you or reach out to you, is there. What's the best way to do that?
- [49:15]
Alex Pellettier
LinkedIn. I know maybe the more unpopular way to reach people, but LinkedIn. AlexPellettier I am very responsive on there. You can always reach me through Shimmer. You know, Shimmer Care. You can always reach me through the support channel there. My email, AlexHimmer Care. I have an Instagram, but I don't really post a lot. So LinkedIn's the best way to reach me.
- [49:36]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
Right. I feel like more and more people, myself included, are jumping ship and landing at LinkedIn as a less problematic place to exist online. Yeah, yeah, no, I'll put links to your LinkedIn profile with your permission in the show notes. But very fascinating. And I love coaching psychology. Like I said, I am going to go off and do my own research on this now because it sounds like, you know, one of those things where it's like I've been looking for the word for that, for whatever it is I'm really super interested in and have never really been able to put my finger on it. It sounds like I just did. So that's super cool. And thank you for coming on and sharing a little bit about your background and your journey and what you do.
- [50:19]
Alex Pellettier
Yeah, it's been great. The past 45 minutes have flown by. Who would have thought we'd talk so long? But it'd be great and I'd love to be back sometime.
- [50:27]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
Thanks, Alex. There you have it.
- [50:35]
Katie Weber
Thank you for listening and I really hope you enjoyed this episode of the Women and ADHD podcast. If you'd like to find out more about me and my coaching programs, head over To Women and ADHD.com if you're a woman who was diagnosed with ADHD
- [50:47]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
and you'd like to apply to be
- [50:48]
Katie Weber
a guest on this podcast, Visit Women and adhd.com podcastguest and you can find that link in the episode show notes. Also, you know, we ADHDers crave feedback and I would really appreciate hearing from you, the listener. Please take a moment to leave me a review on Apple Podcasts or Audible.
- [51:05]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
And if that feels like too much
- [51:07]
Katie Weber
and I totally get it, please just take a few seconds right now to
- [51:10]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
give me a five star rating or
- [51:12]
Katie Weber
share this episode on your own social media to help reach more women who maybe have yet to discover and lean into this gift of neurodivergency and they may be struggling and they don't even know why.
- [51:23]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
I'll see you next time when I
- [51:24]
Katie Weber
interview another amazing woman who discovered she's not lazy or crazy or broken, but she has ADHD and she's now on the path to understanding her neurodivergent mind and finally using this gift to her advantage.
- [51:36]
Podcast Guest/Co-host
Take care till then.