Flexible Planning for Leaders with ADHD: Thriving on Your Terms

In this episode, Eric is joined by Skye Rapson from New Zealand!  Skye is a mom and an academic with over 7 years experience working in adult education.  She has studied in various fields, including psychology, sociology, and public health, and is now a doctoral candidate in population health.   After getting diagnosed with ADHD at the start of her doctorate, she has since dedicated time to researching and disseminating ADHD studies, focusing on supporting others with strength-based neurodiverse-friendly tools and systems.  Skye also founded Unconventional Organization which provides strength-based research-backed online coaching for clients with ADHD.  Learn more at Instagram: Topics/Questions in this Episode: What is the aversion to “structure” when you have ADHD?  What is the most important ingredient in the “recipe” for ADHD management?  How does self-criticism impact our ability to get things done?  What helps us to acknowledge and identify our self-criticism?  How do we adjust our sense of what we’re working on?  Skye runs an organization with neurodiverse people for neurodiverse people.  What is the most fun about it, and what are the challenges?  What are some of the alternative tools (other than email) that can be used to navigate with a neurodiverse team?  “Bring your worst self to coaching” – Why is this important?  What is the difference between motivation and activation?  “Being an adult means you need a lot of dopamine.  Sprinkle dopamine everywhere in your life! It’s not just about the work.” – Skye Rapson What does “dopamine-down” mean?  Mind-ready and brain-ready: What’s the difference?  How can we alleviate self-doubt when setting goals?  Resources & Honorable Mentions: ADHD reWired Episode:   Article:    Tool:   Tool:   Tool: :  Tool: – free website blocker   Check out the Other Podcasts on the ADHD reWired Podcast Network: with Brendan Mahan with Will Curb with MJ Siemens Registration for the winter season of ADHD reWired’s Coaching & Accountability Groups is happening soon!  Go to  to get your name added to the winter interest list! 

My transition from corporate life to becoming a solopreneur has been one of the most interesting, fulfilling, challenging, and rewarding thing I have taken on.⁠

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In this episode, ⁠I share the difference between a mindset of a scattered solopreneur v.s. Focused solopreneur, with you. By no means, am I perfect in the way I run my business but over the years, one thing that I made sure of is to walk the talk and also to share with you what I am learning along the way.

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So if you are a business owner, take the time and reflect on your vision, your skills, mindset, make sure you have the right support system in place to launch your business to the next level. ⁠

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You started this because you are passionate about a cause, don’t let your brain limit you, grow your mindset. You are more than capable! ⁠

I would love to hear from you:

Can you do me a favor? Pls take a few minutes and rate this show or even better it would mean so much to me if you wrote a quick review, I thank you in advance. Is there a topic you want to learn more about? Or do you have a question about a challenge you are facing with your ADHD? Leave me a voice mail https://www.speakpipe.com/Coachcathy super easy todo, Record, Listen, and push Send. I will respond in my upcoming episodes.

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In today’s episode, Danielle Sullivan joins the podcast! Danielle is the founder of Neurodiverging Coaching, which offers sliding scale neurodiversity-affirming coaching options for the community.  Danielle is also a certified Positive Psychology coach, a certified Parent Coach, and a certified trauma-informed specialist!  They had intended to remain in academia to work on gendered disability and religion, but then pivoted after she was diagnosed as autistic around age 30 after her eldest child was also diagnosed.  In looking for resources for herself, she found very little, and began producing the Neurodiverging Podcast to try and develop and offer resources for others like her. In this episode, you’ll hear about communication nuances and unpacking the challenges and adaptability for people with both ADHD and autism across different social contexts, managing the home, exploring home dynamics and practices for managing a neurodiverse household, and the importance of non-judgemental regulation. Then, you’ll hear discussions about advocacy, ableism, confronting ableism, burnout and understanding burnout with sensory overload, burnout strategies and prevention, and explorations with technology and ADHD.  Learn more about Danielle and find their podcast at Neurodiverging.com Questions/Topics:  [00:01:36] Episode Summary [00:03:21] Introducing Danielle [00:06:29] Sensory differences, being the “difficult child”, stereotypical presentations, and exploring autism as an adult [00:09:53] A discussion on politeness norms and how environment can affect presentation  [00:13:28] Coping with variables and novel situations  [00:15:08] Managing a neurodivergent household, sensory mismatches, overwhelm, and regulation strategies  [00:19:34] “What if I just do one more thing?”  [00:23:53] Raising awareness around autism in adults: What is Neurodiverging all about?  [00:27:53] Industries attempting to accommodate [00:29:13] A discussion on internalized ableism  [00:33:04] Overly formal speech, chronic ear infections, and asynchronous development  [00:37:37] A discussion on burnout: neurotypical vs. neurodivergent burnout  [00:41:33] Recognizing burnout, autistic behaviors, and the effects of a dysregulated nervous system [00:45:19] “If you can name it, you can tame it.”  [00:46:30] Danielle’s go-to strategies for managing burnout and burnout prevention  [00:47:03] Learning about your own sensory systems and triggers  [00:48:49] An ADHD moment…   [00:49:42] Addressing physical stress, emotions in the body, and closing the stress-cycle  [00:53:29] Words of wisdom and closing thoughts  Resources & Honorable Mentions: Book: Burnout – The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski, PhD and Amelia Nagoski, DMA   🌟 Go to adhdrewired.com/Patreon where you can get an uninterrupted listening experience of this show and bonus content when you become a Patron at $5 a month or more! You can even join Eric every 4th Tuesday of the month for a Patron-only monthly coaching call at $25 a month!  🌟 Looking for real-time accountability? Want weekly check-ins to keep your momentum going on your most dreaded tasks or projects? Go to adultstudyhall.com to join our ADHD-friendly body-doubling community! 🌟 Interested in group coaching and want to take your ADHD management to the next level? Go to coachingrewired.com to get all the up-to-date information on the upcoming season of ADHD reWired’s award-winning Coaching & Accountability groups!

This episode is one honest back and forth between ADHD Coach and my good friend Sherri Cannon, and me. We each have some aha’s and do some existential pandemic pondering.
Sherri talks about the hairballs of unresolved stuff in our past that can block growth and stop us from becoming better versions of ourselves.
Then we talk about the times we want to let go and vent to a friend, but instead, tell ourselves how together or busy our friend is – who are we to complain?
Self-compassion and curiosity (which Cathy has been making friends with recently ) are essential. These keep us from endless ruminating and all those mental self-beatings.
At 22 mins, you might relate to our experience about the challenges for ADDers in making friends AND the goodness of discovering that lots of different types of friendships feed us.
Stay around (@33mins) for the close as we dive into a whole new topic on cognitive hangovers and talk about what kind of help our uniquely wired brains most need from us.
We felt that this was an important conversation to be shared publicly, as we often see this topic come up in our work with ADHD brains. So we hope that this conversation sparks a new insight for you and also know that you are not alone making sense of your complex brain wiring, we see you, we feel your struggle and are here to support you. 
Connect with Sherri Cannon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sherricannon/  
Connect with Cathy Rashidian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cathyrashidian/

There are the 6 perspectives of late in life diagnosis of ADHD for professionals/entrepreneurs ⠀⁠⠀

My ADHD is:⁠⠀

1. holding me back from living my life Victim ⁠⠀

2. best under stress, I don’t want to change Resist⁠⠀

⁠3. it is what it is! I am doing the best I can Rationalize ⁠⠀

4. putting my needs first for once and take care of me! Self – Compassion ⁠⠀⠀

5. finding out how I can make the most of my brain Opportunity⁠⠀

6. I am the creator of my own destiny, I choose to take charge of my brain Creator⁠⠀

I am sure you can relate to each of these lenses/perspectives but … ⁠⠀

which one has the most energy for you and is leading your emotions/behavior? ⁠⠀⠀

Well, there is a way to measure this and once I learned about my actual perspective and how it was impacting me it was a game-changer on how I manage my ADHD. ⁠⠀

You’ve taken personality tests… but now it’s time for an attitudinal assessment. ⁠⠀You’re probably familiar with personality tests like Myers Briggs, DiSC, and Enneagram. ⁠⠀

⁠These valuable tools can help you understand your strengths, embrace your weaknesses, and discover how you can work to your full potential. In that way, they typically support a “work with what you have” approach to adapting your behavior and pursuing personal excellence. ⁠⠀⠀

I have been using an effective tool to truly measure how an individual currently perceives and approaches work and life (it shows which number is their primary perspective) then we start the work to move to the next level. Just one level of shit can make a huge change in their life.

As part of my coaching process, I use an assessment that has been a critical part of creating Transformation for my clients who are able to move past their diagnosis and harness the assets of their ADHD brain. ⁠⠀

If you want to know more about the Energy Leadership Index Assessment go to readysetchoose.com or book a call with me to learn more. ⁠⠀

In this episode, I am addressing wellbeing and recent news about my health. I am going to share with you how I am approaching this news and also will be sharing some tools and prompts. If you are dealing with any health issues currently I welcome you to download the worksheet that I mention in this episode. Sometimes it helps when we have the right questions to get us curious about what we are really feeling and thinking when it comes to illness. I hope you find the worksheet beneficial. I thank you in advance for listening to this episode and I hope you find a few nuggets that you can apply to your wellbeing. Access to the worksheet