ADHD Life Coach Jessica Heimsoth on Becoming Unbroken Strategy and Faith

I want to thank you for listening and for subscribing to Faster Than Normal! I also want to tell you that if you’re listening to this one, you probably listened to other episodes as well. Because of you all, we are the number one ADHD podcast on the internet!! And if you like us, you can sponsor an episode! Head over to https://rally.io/creator/SHANK/ It is a lot cheaper than you think. You'll reach... about 25k to 30,000 people in an episode and get your name out there, get your brand out there, your company out there, or just say thanks for all the interviews! We’ve brought you over 230 interviews of CEOs, celebrities, musicians, all kinds of rock stars all around the world from Tony Robbins, Seth Godin, Keith Krach from DocuSign, Danny Meyer, we've had Rachel Cotton, we've had  the band Shinedown, right? Tons and tons of interviews, and we keep bringing in new ones every week so head over to https://rally.io/creator/SHANK/ make it yours, we'd love to have you, thanks so much for listening!  Now to this week's episode, we hope you enjoy it! —— Jessica Heimsoth is a life coach who helps Christian ADHD moms (and dads!) stop putting off their dishes, devotions, and dreams. Her 1-1 coaching practice, Every Thought Captive Coaching, utilizes a “triune” approach (get it?) to achieving any goal: faith, mindset tools, and structure/ADHD strategy. When she’s not helping clients build side-hustles, manage overwhelm, stop yelling at their kids, and deepen their relationship with God, she’s living a blissfully introverted life with her husband and two young daughters. When possible, she ventures out into the world to enjoy a good long run, a wine-tasting class, or a karaoke contest.  She loves German Shepherds, white chocolate, a liberal use of sarcasm, and anything caffeinated.  Today we learn what led her to coaching and how she manages her ADHD life. Enjoy!  —— In this episode Peter and Jessica discuss:   1:54 - Intro and welcome Jessica Heimsoth! 2:36 - Are you ADHD, or do you just help people who have ADHD? 2:58 - What made you decide to go to therapy & figure out what was going on?  4:05 - What kind of problems are most of your client base having/what in common?   3:38 - Therapy is never a waste; unless perhaps your therapist throws items at your head. 4:05 - What kind of clients come to see you? 4:45 - On having ADHD, the tendency to bucket things, and how not everything is wrong just because one thing might be heading in that direction. 5:52 - What are some of your client’s biggest issues when it comes to finances, etc? 6:51 - On the stigma of ADHD and the false picture of being broken. If your clients are believing they are, how do you make them understand that they are not?    8:40 - On getting stuck down the rabbit-hole; the false belief that if you have ADHD there’s nothing you can do to make things better; how we are our own worst critics. 9:10 - On undoing years of mental programming/conditioning. 10:30 - On assisting/teaching clients to get out of their own headspace of being broken, or their worst critic and to leave that “all or nothing” mindset, and coming back from that ledge. 13:20 - Planning time to question during productivity/ to avoid paralysis via analysis   14:10 - What’s your #1 piece of advice you give to those with ADHD?    14:45 - How can people find you?  @everythoughtcaptivecoachinG on INSTA  Facebook and via her website https://www.everythoughtcaptivecoacH.com/  15:09 - Thank you Jessica!  Guys, as always, we are here for you and we love what the responses and the notes that we get from you. So please continue to do that, tell us who you want to hear on the podcast, anything at all, we’d love to know.  Leave us a review on any of the places you get your podcasts, and if you can ever, if you ever need our help, I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via [email protected] or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterThanNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse!  15:18 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits TRANSCRIPT:  — Hi guys. My name is Peter Shankman. I'm the host of Faster Than Normal.  I want to thank you for listening, and I also want to tell you that if you've listened to this one, you probably listened to other episodes as well of Faster Than Normal.  We are the number one ADHD podcast on the internet, and if you like us, you can sponsor an episode.  Head over to shank.mn/sponsor  - that's shank.mn/sponsor. It is alot cheaper than you think. You'll reach... God about 25….30,000 people in an episode and get your name out there, get your brand out there, your company out there, or just say, thanks for all the interviews we brought you over 230 interviews of CEOs, celebrities, musicians, all kinds of rock stars all around the world from we've had... God, who have we had...we've had Tony Robbins, Seth Goden, Keith Krach from DocuSign, we've had Rachel Cotton, we've had  the band Shinedown, right? Tons and tons of interviews, and we keep bringing in new ones every week, so head over to shank.mn/sponsor  grab an episode, make it yours, we'd love to have you, thanks for listening.  Here's this week's episode, hope you enjoy it. — Hi everyone, welcome to the Faster Than Normal podcast. My name is Peter Shankman, I'm thrilled to have you here on another great episode, with another fun guest we're gonna be talking about and looking forward to learning from. Let's say, welcome to Jessica Heimsoth who is a life coach who helps Christian ADHD Moms and Dads stop putting off the dishes, devotions, and dreams. She has a one-to-one coaching practice.  https://www.everythoughtcaptivecoach.com/ utilizes a triune  approach…. and I probably said that wrong... to achieving any goal, faith-mindset, tools, and structure, ADHD strategy.  She…. let's see, when  she's not helping clients build side business hustles, managing overwhelm, stop yelling at their kids and deepen their relationship with God, she's living a blissfully introverted life with her husband, two young daughters. When possible, she ventures out into the world to enjoy a long run, a wine-tasting class or karaoke contest, and she's a fan of German Shepherds.  Okay, that’s good to know. Welcome, Jessica. How are you?  I'm good. How are you doing today?  Doing OK, so tell me, um, are you ADHD or do you just help them with? I'm definitely ADHD. I didn't think I wasn't for a very long time, um, because I was one of those good students that flew under the radar. Um, but adulting was where I hit a very big brick wall and then, um, and then here's the events that made me, um, seek a diagnosis. So I definitely have ADHD.  OK, and what kind of stuff was going on with you that made you decide to do it. Um, almost every aspect of my life was at a really low point. I was struggling with my marriage. I was, um, I was not writing novels, which is what I thought I wanted to do.  I was, um, damaging my health with energy drinks and staying up late and a lot of risky behavior. Um, my relationships were crap. Everything was kind of in the toilet and my faith was as well. So, like if you do one of those little life wheels you've ever seen people evaluating a life, all of mine were at like a two.  Um, and I was seeing a therapist, so that is where I was when I found out about this,  Yeah, most, most, uh, I find a lot of people who are surprised or at least who can  put a name to what they have, usually happens in a therapist’s office.  Yeah. It did for me having a ton of other people that I know it's like, okay, well this explains it.  I literally had my therapist throw a book at me and say, you should read this. I'm like, I'm like, okay. As I wondered if other people have therapists throw things at them, but you know,  Mine didn't, but I, I wouldn't have caught it if she had,  I’m special.  Um, tell me about the kind of clients that come to you, right? What are they…. what kind of problems are they having?   A lot of the clients that come to me, it's their…. the general theme is I, I know what I want to do, and I just cannot do it, like, it's very simple what I should be doing with my life, and I can't make myself do it. And, um, that almost everyone thinks that... is there just something wrong with me?  Like, I know I have ADHD, the ADHD meds or articles are not helping me. Why??? Like…. am I…. am I just doomed to be doing this for the rest of my life. Am I doomed to be, um, feeling broken and unable to achieve what I want? So that's what I see a lot of. And, you know, when they come to you and they're asking, you know, I get a lot of people who email me on a podcast or the book and they say, you know, I'm, I'm, I just can't do anything right  I think... I think that when you're ADHD, you have a tendency to bucket things, right? You know, it tends to, to, to put things into buckets and say, well, if this is wrong, uh, you know, everything is going wrong, right?  And I think one of the first things I've learned to do….explain to people, no, not everything's going wrong, right? This one thing is going wrong Yeah, and, and, and like even looking at it as this one thing is going wrong, as opposed to this one thing is not going exactly the way I want it to, but there's a reason for that, and I could discover what that reason is and I could improve it, right? We label it as wrong, and then what happens beyond that deeper than that is we decide that  only is it wrong, but we are wrong, like the whole,...your whole personhood, everything about you is just wrong because that one part of your life you've decided as wrong.  I heard a great quote once, um, that I've actually used on my daughter. I said…. she says I had a terrible day….Like did you really have a terrible day or do you have five minutes that was terrible and you're milking it.  Yeah.  24 hours. Which one?  I like that. But it's true. It's really, really true. What are the biggest things that, that your clients come to you with? I know that a lot of people with ADHD have serious issues with money, right? Saving, budgeting, planning, right? Not so much our fortes. Saving budgeting, planning, not so much. A lot of my clients actually tend to have someone else doing that for them, like their spouses. And they don't love that. Right. They feel like the child in their relationship, they feel like their spouses carrying the bulk of the, um, unpleasant tasks and they want to change that.  Um, they will have, um, issues managing their household feeling like they want to do more tasks at home. Um, engage more with their children, maybe start a side hustle, um, or, or even just love their life. And they're just not happy, and they're wondering if that's, you know, the end, I just have to keep going like that. Um, so there's a wide variety of, of questions and just general, how do I get better at whatever I'm trying to get better at.  Do you find that, um, a lot of your clients or all of your clients, some of your clients, when they come in to you for the first time, there's a, there's a stigma behind ADHD and is one of the things that I've been trying to change, you know, since I started this podcast and wrote the book, but it's still very much out there and it's still very much a, I am broken scenario and do a lot of your clients come in and feel that way, and more frequently, what's the first thing you tell them, how do you… work that, so that they understand they're not? Yeah. I love that question. I think the, the way that I go about my practice is by showing each client, that what's...what's stopping them, what's impeding them from whatever they want, is not them, it is what, the sentences that they're thinking in their brains. Essentially, a lot of people are coming to me saying, I can't… and fill in the blank, right?  I'm broken or I can't do this. And what's super interesting about that is that when we offer a thought like that to our brain, when we say I can't, what our brains are designed to do is to take that and prove that it's right. Whatever you say, whatever you believe your brain is, is like, I got it. I'm going to go make sure that everything, all of the evidence that I find for you supports this theory. So everybody's coming to me and they're saying I can't, and what they don't realize, is that… that statement in their brain, which they believe is making them feel like ass. and then from that point, they're going, and they're not being able to follow through with things. They…. they're actively teaching themselves that they can't do things. And it's starting in their brain with this thought that they have. So that's where we begin, is we figure out what is it that you're thinking that your brain is trying to prove true to you, and how can we start to learn to believe something else about you? Because there are so many more wonderful things that are also true at the same time.  Yeah, totally true. And I think that we know what the big thing is, is that it's very easy for us, especially because the majority of us have been told so long that there's something quote/unquote, wrong with us, right? I think it's so easy to believe that. and to sort of go down that rabbit hole and say, there's just nothing I can do. There's nothing I can improve. There's nothing I can make better. You know? And, and we sit there and we wonder, uh, you know, how is it that I'm so broken when in fact it's not as bad as, as it's never as bad as we see it, right? We're our own worst critics always. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not even a question of good or bad. It's honestly just a, that's just an interpretation. And you nailed it when you said, like we've been told this for so long, because most of us have had somebody at least hint, if not directly tell us when we were very young,  like you can't do this, or you'll never amount to anything or why don't we not like maybe we should just do a tech school? Not that there's anything wrong with tech schools, but if your dream was to be something else, right? Um, and so somebody has told us a long time ago, you're disorganized, you're this you're that. And we started to apply that thought to the rest of our lives and that's all that we’ve…. that’s all that we believe since then, and it's  very automatic for us.  It FEELS true, it’s not true at all, um, if, if we start to look at what, like the skills that you actually have in your life, but because it's an automatic thing in our brain, it's difficult to change it. Yep, it really is. And I, you know, how do you work with, how do you teach people to, to get that out of their brain? Because a lot of times, you know, again, being our own worst critic, we're, we're the worst… uh, person in our own heads and, and, and we sit there and we take up space in our own heads that could be used for good things, but you know, one small failure, one small back step, oh, wow, that's it, I blew it, I'm never doing anything, I'm done. You know, I gotta move. I remember what's the joke is the, uh, I once raised my, I saw someone across the street who was waving at me. I waved back, but it turns out they weren't waving at me, and I was so embarrassed. I just kept my hand up, hailed  a taxi, went to the airport and moved to Bolivia, start a new life.  [laughter]  Right?  But it's… you know, we tend to go out on that, out on that limb, we tend to go it's either all or nothing for us. It always has been when you're ready. 10:41 - So, so how do you bring people back from that ledge?  You start, you actually start to look at the gray area, right? So you said we're, we're very all or nothing, which we are, and part of that is just because it's easier to be all or nothing, right? If, if you're one or the other, your brain doesn't have to work as hard. The grey area is harder to maintain, but what you want to do, is to start to investigate the grey, and you do that by asking questions.  Not like high pressure questions, like what's wrong with me, but questions that make you feel really curious about what might be going on or, um, where.. like where, if you're, if you're believing well, I'm super disorganized, well we might say, OK, well, which parts of my life are organized? Where is it that I actually reveal a lot of organization? Um, or no one likes me. Well, how is that true? Have I met everyone? I haven't met everyone and do.. I have... they all told me they don't like me, um, so you start to ask yourself questions and this actually changes your brain chemistry.  I Googled this. last week…. questions to release serotonin and dopamine in your brain. And if you spent any time on https://www.additudemag.com/...you know that those neurotransmitters are a little bit wonky.  Have you ever listened to my Podcast?  {laughter}  I have. Yeah.  I mean live on dopamine, serotonin and adrenaline. .every single way to get it…. That's it…. questions are like a very cheap drug for you, Peter.  No question about that's true. It's fascinating when you think about it, because it allows you to get exactly, there are so many ways that you can get exactly where you need to be. in your brain, right? Understanding sort of what you have to do to get those chemicals in a positive way. And, uh, it's anything I could add questions to the mix as well.  Yeah. Yeah. I'm guessing that you do a lot of that. Um, maybe consciously, maybe not, but when you're, when you are investigating a new business endeavor or, um, or even back in your past when you were like, I wonder what's possible for me, could I do that? And you've probably naturally gravitate towards questions for yourself and, and just allow your brain to explore. Would you, I would say yes. I think outside of that is, you know, there's two sides of that. The first one is that I also tend to really go fast… uh, when I come up on, uh, you know, I want to run with it immediately, right? And so the questions tend to come later. Um, I find that the biggest issue I have is, you know, sometimes moving too fast.  For me. It's the, the, the problem is if I start asking myself questions, then I start going down rabbit holes.  Rabbit holes, then nothing gets. done. Yeah, so that, that's a good example of, so the question helps you get into the grey area and then what we all need to do is have, have hard stops for ourselves. Like have, uh, um, one of the things that I'll use is like you get a certain amount of time to think about something and then that's it for the day, right? Like then.. then you get to plan for that thinking time tomorrow or, um, or that decision making time tomorrow. So we can set up our lives with structure. If we have a habit of running with something like that. That's a good idea… that’s a really good idea.  Yeah, I mean I think the…. again, the  biggest problem is that you're sitting there and you're like, okay, this sounds really interesting, let me look at it. As I say, joke, you know, I’m looking up something about how to fix a toilet and it's been six hours and I'm, I'm still researching, um, you know, Roman sewage canals on Wikipedia and how they were started. So, yeah, it's, it's difficult to sort of let yourself think of that much. You have to have that, um, that ability to shut that off and then scheduling those a great is a great way to do that. 14:10 - Um, what's your number one piece of advice you give to people that ADHD?    My number one piece of advice is that if you will just start with the possibility that you can change and improve, that is all you need. Um, it's just that belief..  it is, it is possible that I could get better at this thing that I want. Um, and, and then let that take you, like live that belief in your life and go after it, because what you will find is you don't always know exactly where your life is going to take you, but as long as you believe that improvement is possible, you're going to find something amazing.  I just believe that, and I want you to do that as well.  I love it.  Jessica Heimsoth, How can people find you?  You can find me on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/everythoughtcaptivecoaching/ and you can find me at my website, which is https://www.everythoughtcaptivecoach.com/ you take off the “ing”on that last one.  Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much Jessica, for being on Faster Than Normal, we do appreciate it.  Uh, guys, you’re listening to Faster Than Normal, as always, you know what to do. Leave us a review, shoot us an email, send us some guests or anything you want to do. We're glad that you're here and we'll see you next week. Thanks for listening, have a wonderful day. ADHD is a gift, not a curse, try to remember that.  —— Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at petershankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week.