Translating ADHD

This episode explores the core idea that ADHD brains are wired for context rather than linear order. Ash and Dusty explain how people with ADHD often struggle with outlines, step-by-step plans, and standalone documentation, because their meaning-making is dialogic and contextual. They describe common challenges—difficulty starting projects from an outline, trouble following instructions without the chance to ask clarifying questions, and cycles of avoidance or acting from desperation when outside pressures drive behavior. Practical examples include classroom learning, workplace documentation, and personal projects where contextual cues or real-time conversation make the difference between understanding and confusion.

The hosts also highlight the strengths that come from contextual thinking: creative problem-solving, rapid performance in crises, and the ability to bridge different perspectives. They show how coaching can help by surfacing hidden contexts—values, cultural expectations, and assumptions—that drive unhelpful patterns, so clients can choose actions aligned with what actually matters to them. The episode closes with a reminder that “simple” ideas aren’t always accessible without the right context, and that recognizing how ADHD thinkers search for meaning is key to better learning, productivity, and self-understanding.

Asher and Dusty explore how ADHD-related experiences—repeated negative feedback, rejection sensitivity, and a focus on weaknesses—undermine self-esteem and self-worth. They explain how people with ADHD often dismiss abilities that come easily, assume others are more capable, and measure themselves by low moments rather than by peaks of high performance. The hosts emphasize the importance of recognizing ADHD patterns (peaks and valleys), valuing strengths that feel “too easy,” and reframing accomplishments so people see their role in their own story instead of attributing successes to luck.

Those with ADHD also connect self-worth to relationships and boundaries: chronic people-pleasing and fear of rejection invite boundary-pushing others and can erode self-respect. Practical approaches offered include perspective work (imagining how you treat friends with flaws), inventorying where life already feels easy, and choosing relationships that match realistic expectations (e.g., not expecting people to be “on demand”). Together these shifts—understanding ADHD, celebrating strengths, setting limits, and changing perspectives—help rebuild healthier self-esteem and sustainable boundaries.

In this episode, Asher and Dusty introduce and unpack a practical coaching tool—“yours, mine, and ours”—designed to help people with ADHD (and their partners or coworkers) distinguish which parts of a conflict or problem they truly own, which belong to someone else, and where there’s real opportunity to collaborate. Asher explains how the model prevents the common ADHD pattern of blame-sponge behavior (automatically assuming fault), restores perspective, and helps people decide whether they can co-create a solution or need to make a different choice (for example, stepping away from a job with an immovable boss).

The hosts use real coaching examples—two business partners with different ADHD presentations and a client who left a job after recognizing her struggles were her boss’s responsibility—to show how the model shifts conversations from reactive guilt to clearer agency. Lastly, the hosts discuss how the framework helps in marital situations, especially when ADHD intersects with an anxious partner, by promoting healthier communication, individual pause-and-reframe strategies, and clearer requests for support.

In this episode, Ash and Dusty introduce the conversational labels "big brain" and "fast brain" as alternatives to inattentive and hyperactive ADHD descriptors. They explain how big brainers tend to get stuck in planning, perfectionism, and idea-generation—always needing the full picture before starting—while fast brainers rush into action, overcommit, and underestimate time and bandwidth. Through client stories and personal examples, they show how each style creates different practical problems (paralysis vs. toxic optimism) and why the internal experience matters more than external labels.

The hosts offer concrete coaching approaches: for big brainers, set committed milestones, decouple long-term product ambitions from immediate learning goals, and create low-stakes experiments to break inertia; for fast brainers, treat time and energy as finite resources, practice saying no from values, and build constraints that prevent constant overcommitment. They emphasize that few people are purely one type—many move between both—and the goal is finding the "middle gear": practical strategies that move projects forward while preserving presence, quality, and meaningful connection to others.

Asher and Dusty revisit the core coaching model—understand, own, translate—and show how it helps people with ADHD move from surface symptoms to real, usable solutions. They emphasize that common tips (planners, timers) often fail because they don’t address individual causation. Through concrete client stories—one about “hard emails” that caused compulsive inbox checking and another about preparing for a job interview— they show how coaching discovers the hidden emotional or cognitive drivers, creates language that makes sense to the person, and builds actionable, personalized strategies (calendar blocks, transition rituals, playlists, prepping materials).

The hosts also explore ownership and self-advocacy: accepting ADHD as an ongoing part of life without falling into “all my fault” or “not my fault” extremes; learning to separate past patterns from present progress; and translating self-knowledge into clear requests and boundaries with others (partners, coworkers). They describe how externalizing—talking aloud, journaling, or “talking at” someone—helps clients notice patterns, pause reactive cycles, and practice communicating needs so supports can be reshaped rather than expecting to simply “fix” oneself.

This episode revisits the coaching concept of journey thinking and why it’s especially useful for people with ADHD. Rather than fixating on a distant outcome or an idealized destination, journey thinking asks you to stay on the current “stepping stone,” notice what’s actually happening, and get curious about the next possible step. Asher and Dusty explain how detaching from outcomes reduces magical and all-or-nothing thinking, makes small wins visible, and protects motivation when progress is slow or messy.

They walk through real coaching examples: reframing career identity by valuing advocacy work, making small workplace changes (notifications, meeting timing, tracking commitments) that dramatically reduce overwhelm, and using gut sense plus staged information-gathering to find a middle path in big decisions. The hosts offer two practical mantras — “I’m here now” and “What can I do?” — and emphasize starting small, measuring success beyond outcomes, and building resilience by keeping yourself in the picture.

Ash and Dusty discuss how ADHD traits (hyperfocus, justice sensitivity, rejection sensitivity, and perfectionism) shape the way people approach allyship. Ash opens with a vivid story about feeling unintentionally objectified at a conference after coming out as transgender, illustrating how well-meaning curiosity and requests for education can put emotional labor on the person with a marginalized identity. Dusty describes common ADHD patterns—the over-eager ally who wants to demonstrate knowledge, the panic after a misstep, and the tendency to seek drama online—and explains how those patterns can derail genuine support. Both emphasize that intention alone isn’t enough: allies must match intent with respectful action.

They offer practical guidance for managing capacity and making meaningful choices: focus on a few causes you can sustain, donate or volunteer locally, and pick moments where conversation can lead to real change instead of getting into futile online fights. Learn independently rather than relying on marginalized people to educate you; when interacting, meet people as people first and let them set the boundaries for how much their identity becomes the topic. Small, thoughtful actions (checking safety, providing accessible spaces, following diverse voices) often create outsized positive effects and are more valuable than performative gestures.

In this episode, Ash and Dusty explore the intense overlap between ADHD and early gender transition, focusing on how sudden, widespread change taxes executive function and identity. Ash describes the real-world disruptions—wardrobe overhaul, haircuts, public outings, bathroom access, and safety concerns—that made routine tasks overwhelming. He discusses how ADHD can make introspection and identity work harder, and why finding queer and trans communities provides essential context, normalization, and compassion during that liminal period.

He also addresses medical and emotional factors: the practicalities of hormone therapy (scheduling, dosing forms like gels that require stillness), how hormones can alter attention and emotional experience, and the increased need for logistical planning and accessible care. Both hosts emphasize the importance of supportive networks, adaptive strategies (including coaching and somatic outlets like kickboxing), and small, present-focused steps to move forward while navigating the fog of transition.

In this episode, Ash and Dusty open the season by revisiting Ash’s transition and how it has intersected with his work helping people with ADHD. Ash describes transition as a liminal, between-states process that forced reexamination of identity, relationships, and public context. They discuss how coming out shifted social dynamics, revealed hidden “masks” shaped by social expectations, and resurfaced—rather than erased—questions about self that ADHD can complicate: weak identity formation, dissociation, sensory issues, and social coping strategies.

The hosts connect these experiences to coaching practice, explaining how Ash’s personal work sharpened a professional specialty: helping neurodivergent clients clarify who they are so ADHD becomes more manageable in practical ways. Ash shares concrete moments that mark growth (feeling more able to choose how to present and when to be visible) and a culminating story from a concert that illustrated a change in belonging.

This episode is a rebroadcast. Dusty has handpicked episodes from the archive to air while she and Ash are on their annual summer break. New episodes resume in September!

Asher and Cam were invited to present at the Annual International Conference on ADHD in Maryland. In this mini-episode of the podcast, they offered their ADHD coaching perspectives to discuss how nuance, distinction and curiosity can help us live more authentically.