As season two comes to an end, Cam and Shelly reflect on their learning over the last year in hosting the podcast together. Cam appreciates the focus on practice in the episodes and reflects how he is using this approach to develop a lighter touch on moving his own initiatives forward. Shelly shares how she let go of pursuing or achieving “at the speed of capitalism” and regaining an important perspective on what matters most for her – to have more balance in her life.
Both hosts share about what they are looking forward to in the next season starting September 19th – more in-depth exploration of lived experiences, especially the interplay of ADHD and other conditions like anxiety and depression. Cam is also considering tinkering with the Mt Rainier Model. Cam has picked seven archived episodes for the break. Shelly and Cam invite listeners to listen and catch up or to also take a break and rejoin them in September.
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Episode Transcript:
Shelly: Hi, I’m Shelly.
Cam: And I’m Cam.
Shelly: And this is Translating ADHD. Really quickly before we get started on our last episode of season two, we do have another group coaching offering coming up for the fall. That class is Self Care and it will begin Wednesday, September 28th meeting at 8:30 PM. Eastern. We did schedule this class so that it would wrap up before Thanksgiving and we’re looking forward to seeing you there.
Cam, another season bites the dust.
Cam: that it bites the dust.
Shelly: don’t know. It kind of feels that way. We definitely both had to drag ourselves over the finish line in some ways this year. And not by the way listeners, because we’re not enjoying this work, but because. Life is hard. Life has been challenging for both of us in some ways. And life in general is challenging. The world’s tough right now for those of us
Cam: And so it’s good to persevere and show up. Maybe when we don’t feel like we have it 100%. It’s also good to take a break. And so we did this last year and we were able to come back fresh with new perspectives and learning and energy. So we’re gonna do the same again, is to pause for a sec or a few weeks and kind of really think about what is the next season. What does it look like? What’s in store? What can we do to, modify tweak? Adjust shift this thing. So we keep providing you with really good content.
Shelly: So, Cam I wanna start with some fun number stuff if that’s okay. It’s been quite some time since I’ve looked at the long-term trends of our podcast and how it’s doing. And I think it’s pretty interesting to look at. So in 2020, which was our first full calendar year of doing this podcast, we had a total of around 89,000 downloads for the year. In 2021, two hundred and seventy thousand. And here. A little over halfway through 2022, we’re already at 207,000. So I share this to say first and foremost, thank you, listeners. It is exciting to see this little project of ours grow and continue to grow in its third year. That’s amazing to me, we’ve so many episodes out there now, and yet we’re still growing.
People are still tuning in and listening and we know that a lot of our listeners listen to the whole catalog. Meaning we don’t get those one or two episode type listeners. People stay with us and listen to a bulk of the catalog that’s out there. And we that blows our mind. And we’re so grateful to all of you who are supporting the show simply by listening that unto itself supports our work.
Cam: Yeah. And re-listening right. That we’ll see in the discord community. Hey I, listened to this one again and I got more out of it and that’s what we see too. Is some repeat customers there. So as Shelly share sharing the numbers and our appreciation for all of you today, what we wanted to do is really do something that’s really important in coaching.
We do it in our group coaching classes, but we also do it with our individual clients too, is to pause at a higher level, right. To pause and look back and reflect what’s happened. What did we learn? And to start to pivot and look forward of what might be next, what’s our growing edge, where are we gonna challenge ourselves and each other to grow and expand. And so that’s what we’re doing today. And I think that as I was thinking about it, just looking back. maybe I’ll start by sharing what I’ve learned and we’ll do that. And then we’ll talk about what’s next. What do you say
Shelly: Yeah, I’ve got a couple of points learning to share too. So why don’t we take turns? What have you learned Cam?
Cam: I think, I think I just needed that. I just needed a, what have you learned, Cam? That’s what I was
Shelly: Y’all what’s so funny is Cam gets stuck and he’ll be like, can you just, prompt me and like, be like, so Cam, so you wonder why I… So Cam…so often it does do something for him in terms of helping the words come out.
Cam: don’t know, it’s a, it’s a context thing. it’s very interesting. And there’s nothing like again, when you try to do something by yourself and seeing the challenge of that, but so I was lining up the uh, archived episodes for our seven weeks off. So I was going back through our catalog and picking out the ones since last fall and then a couple others from before.
And just again this, focus on. Developing an effective practice. And I think that so often people with ADHD are looking for, or are offered, you know, these strategies and tips and hacks and that this practice mindset, whether it’s around resilience, whether it’s around mindfulness, whether it’s around again, moving through my list. Of items that I’m trying to move through every day, whether it’s identifying what that list is to synthesize all the different categories and pick that one thing and prioritize it’s a practice.
It’s a bit messy. for my own personal experience, I have, I think, gotten better at this. Myself, like lighter touches and that emotional expenditure of around blame or shame when I don’t do well, you know, I still don’t do well. And I still hear feedback that I don’t do well from internally and externally, but it’s my relationship with it, Shelly Just taking that into consideration and yeah.
This iterative process, this, yep. I got a do over it’s this thing, this thing called a do over and it’s just, served me and is serving me so well in this last year. So I appreciate the fact that we’ve been focusing on helping our listeners develop practices along with, again, awareness of what’s going on.
So instead of addressing that second barrier that we introduced in this last 10 months or so, or 11 months, the three barriers of awareness, action and learning. And so that’s where I am. It’s just appreciating practice and light touches.
Shelly: Love that, Cam and it’s been really interesting to watch you go through some of that too. Listeners, as you know, Cam started as my teacher and then as my mentor coach, and then as my coach. And sometimes we can put other people up on a pedestal. And when we first started this show, I did that with Cam. And so it’s been such great modeling for me to see you doing your own work, to see you having your experience in this and to see the results of that. And I’m so interested to see what you do next season, cuz I know that you’re wanting to maybe do some tinkering.
Ha ha ha.
Cam: ha.
Shelly: With the Rainier model.
Cam: Oh, wait you, I was gonna drop that. You dropped that.
Shelly: Listen, we can back it up if you want. I don’t
Cam: no, not at all. No, it’s good. Leave it in editor. Leave it in, sir. No, it’s great.
Shelly: Cam for me, my biggest learning this year is I don’t have to move at the speed of capitalism. I got. Real tangled up. If you remember, probably midway through this season in writing a book in doing some other things that I was interested in doing to the detriment of losing sight of my whole picture, meaning some of those things are important to me, but they’re not more important. Than some of the other things in my life. And I wasn’t seeing it that way. I was equating career success or the next level of my career, whatever that means with success overall.
And I got a pretty big wake up call there. I talked about this on an episode, right. I almost broke up with my partner because. I was so narrowly focused on what’s next. What’s next? What’s next? And so in the second half of this season, I’ve really slowed down. I don’t at all wanna say I’m coasting because I don’t think that’s the right word, but I’m also letting it be easy.
I haven’t taken on a lot of new clients this summer. I’ve had a couple fall off and I’ve just enjoyed having the space in my calendar because I can afford to do that for a little while. And so for me, the learning was my big agenda and my big picture, this work is part of it. But it’s not all of it. And if I let this work overtake the other things that matter to me, that’s moving away from a life that fits for me, not more towards it.
That was a really important realization.
Cam: I love that. I love that term. Moving at the speed of capitalism
Shelly: You can thank a client for that. It’s brilliant. And I love it. Ugh.
Cam: That is so good. this whole idea of more and consumption and achievement, and I think this is a great example of you doing that big signal work because you were, you are excited about a couple different projects. You were really excited about that book. And
Shelly: Still am by the.
Cam: still am and making connections there with a book editor and ideas and starting down that road and how that can be such a big signal. And here’s this nuance signal in the background quietly tapping you on the shoulder. Wait a second. Just, whoa. There’s more here. There’s more here. And so this is people talk about work life balance. This is what I think about with work life balance, or just balance, right? With ADHD. We have to be careful about our burn rate, of our just burning up that, you know, riding that arc pony from episode four. And just going at the speed of light, or as you say, the speed of capitalism and to find these controls of, you know, I can throttle back. We often have either neutral or fifth gear and here you’re finding a third gear. You’re finding something that’s sustainable, that you can see the scenery that you see. What else matters. It’s not all about achieving, which is out there in our society.
Shelly: And for me, I had to realize it’s not about achieving at all. If I write a book that makes me a bunch of money. Cool. I like money. It’s a nice thing to have, but that’s not why I’m writing this book. I’m not writing it to make money. I’m not writing it to say I’m an author. I’m writing it because I have something to say, that’s the purpose I ultimately needed to connect back to is I have something to say and I can take my time in saying it.
Nobody’s rushing me at this point. Nobody’s breathing down my neck, demanding that I finish this book. So what is the hurry? Why do I feel like I have to sacrifice other things to have more time to write? I don’t.
Cam: it’s sort of a tone that we’ve taken with this. In the sense of let it be easy and how we approach the podcast. Now you were talking about the numbers earlier, right? That was 89,000. In that first year, those were hard fought numbers. there was a lot of efforting, in that first year, because we were so new at this. And now. There’s something to be said about practice, to be sitting in the chair, looking at each other, kind of anticipating in that these half-hour products. That’s what they are. It’s a product, it’s a thing it’s out there in the world. It’s a meaningful completion that the amount of work it takes for us has become less.
Less efforting, even when we are not quite sure what we have. I used to have, again, a little bit of anxiety, a little frustration with myself.
Shelly: a little bit, A little bit, Cam. Y’all, let’s be real. If we didn’t have a topic nailed down by Monday morning, Cam was deeply unhappy with that situation. Because you felt like you needed that time to know what you were going to say.
Cam: yes.
Shelly: and now you don’t always need that. And you know how to distinguish when it’s a topic that you want some time to chew on.
And when it’s a topic that we can just hit the ground running on. And in fact, we’ve done that a number of times where we’ve sat down and we’ve started to do topic X, and we’ve both said, let’s step back. Think on this one a little bit more. This is one of those that cam needs to walk around with for a week.
And instead let’s pivot over to topic. Why? When we say that this has gotten easier, it’s a number of different things. Number one, we have an editor. Number two, we have an assistant. So we have outsourced a good chunk of the work outside of the show that goes into making this show work. But number three, you and I just keep getting better at doing what we do together.
We know each other to a level now where I can call out when I see a topic like that and say, Hey cam why don’t you park this one? Let’s see if I can come up with something and take the lead this week. We’ll come back to that one next week, two years ago, that might have been a, we gotta stop. We gotta reschedule.
We gotta record on a different day. And now it’s just not that hard.
Cam: Yeah. So again, back to practicing in this situation, like having a good plan B, right? It, yeah, that’s something that’s been I don’t remember the last time that we had to reschedule because we didn’t have it that day. remember when if neither of us had a sense of what it was, we would just go ahead and, yep.
Let’s try later in the week and that’s not the case. So yeah, it’s you and I getting better, in working with each other, which is fun.
Shelly: What’s the magic here. It’s the consistency. It’s the consistency. It’s the fact that we’ve been doing this consistently for three
Cam: So absolutely agree there. And here’s a chance to kind of look at what’s next. Right. What, listeners can anticipate in the next season when we come back in September we alluded to that last week when we talked about the interplay of ADHD and these other factors and how context matters or rather individual context matters.
Shelly: Before you say more? I just wanna let our listeners know that just as we did last year, we will release a back episode that cam has hand-picked. So episodes that we feel are worth a re-listen or a revisit from our catalog over the next seven weeks. So if you’re part of your habit and your practice is being with this show weekly, do know that there will be something there for you.
Cam: Yeah. And if you wanna take a break like us, put it in your calendar, we’ll be back on the 19th with fresh episodes for the next season. So now we’re gonna pivot to kind of that growing edge. And again, back to this is what we do in coaching is to pause occasionally, to look at the. And to pivot to what’s next?
What can we anticipate? Where is our growing edge? For the show and for us individually, as we look at this and Shelly already let it, she let it out of the bag already. that was my big drop, but it’s okay. The thing that I’m looking at is possibly tweaking the Rainier model. Because I notice there’s still a lot of confusion about it, some confusion and frustration, and I don’t see it that way.
To me, it’s pretty simple. There’s this thing that’s there that we don’t see, and it basically keeps us at manifestation or at. And it’s very difficult for us to get to causation, whether it’s ADHD, whether it’s our lived experience, whether it’s our environment, it’s that first barrier of awareness. Awareness and the third barrier of learning.
And so, look at me, I’m already making it complicated, Shelly. oh my God. I have work to do
Shelly: Cool. This is gonna
Cam: I know anyway, so. I’m such a, I don’t know. This might be very difficult.
Shelly: such a big brain. isn’t that classic big brain manifestation right there.
Cam: Oh my God. Yeah. And just the fact that it’s like, everything is changing all the time, but this is where I wanna kind of challenge myself to. Address this dissonance. I have a sense of, this is really simple. We keep bumping into this thing and have frustration to get to causation. And so I am the metaphor guy and developing a picture of some sort or a model it’s gonna help people appreciate the dilemma more. To see what the opportunity is for them. So that’s what I’m looking at is to the model doesn’t have to be something that lives under a glass dome and is untouchable. It was constructed and we can deconstruct it and make it better. So that’s what I’m looking at is like, how do we make this.
So it’s more palatable, easier to digest so that people can appreciate the true impact of ADHD. And so they can take a step in the right direction for them to create the change they want to create.
Shelly: very different Cam than season one. Cam who was not willing to lift up that glass stone at all.
Cam: Well It, yeah, I mean, it was sort of like a, it was a vision that was really powerful and like, don’t mess with my vision.
Shelly: Yeah. So again, do you see listeners? How Cam was attached to that? And there was a story there, and now there’s an opportunity to revisit and do something different. That’s gonna be fun. I’m excited.
Cam: So how about you.
Shelly: We were just talking about how the practice and the consistency of doing this work has served us so well. And that’s, what’s on my slate for next season is during the break, adjusting my website so that it will have a blog so that I can practice writing because who the heck am I? I preach practice to all of my clients.
An incremental change and developing consistency over time. So who am I to go from zero to writing a book? I can take some steps between, and that step between looks like cultivating a practice around writing.
So for those of you that are readers, check out my website. When we come back. Probably not before then, because my goal is to start a consistent blogging practice. And what’s interesting is I’ve never been able to make myself blog before. It’s just not my thing in terms of content creation, but now that I’ve detached from the outcome is blogging as a way to get clients or as a way to get people to read what I write.
And instead just attached to practice. And honing the craft of writing itself, getting better there, developing consistency around writing weekly. I’m kind of excited about it.
Cam: That’s awesome. Yeah. Something that I would say the beginning of my coaching, but no, it wasn’t the beginning. But committing to writing and that writing practice was hard, but so rewarding because many of the stuff that I use now with my clients that I bring to the podcast, like rebel,
Shelly: Succeeds.
Cam: succeeds, the three barriers, which is inspired by AEC and AEC is a model that I used. To teach all of my ADHD coaching students that all came out of writing a blog. so it’s still there. And um, it’s awesome. I love that. It’s looking at it as a practice, looking at it as a middle step and really detaching from.
Cam: Yeah. So I look forward to being one of your first readers,
Shelly: Thanks, Cam.
Cam: Yeah.
Shelly: Gosh, what support looks like? And I look forward to supporting you in whatever way I can, which I’m sure we’ll figure out together as you rethink retool, play with work with. Our model, your model, really? But
Cam: It is our model.
Shelly: Our model, but your baby.
Cam: There you go. Yeah.
Well, and also I just going back to, I have something to say. is so powerful. Right? So whether it’s through a blog or through the podcast or some other avenue, that’s what I’m looking forward to.
Shelly: Awesome. Listeners, we’re so stoked for next season. Next season, we’re really gonna dive into context, which is where we kind of wrapped here. Deep deep dives. Can’t wait to dig in. Actually, can’t wait. Really looking forward to this seven-week break, let’s be real, but looking forward to coming back. Already excited about what we’re gonna talk about and refreshed from the time off.
So once again, thank you to each and every one of you listening to this episode, to each and every one of you who has ever downloaded an episode left a review, told somebody else about us or done anything else to support the show. You all are the reason we keep doing this work. It’s not about us. We put this out there not knowing if our message would resonate. And when we found that it did, that’s what keeps us going. The knowledge that we are making a difference. That’s the part that matters. So until September 19th, I’m Shelly.
Cam: And I’m Cam.
Shelly: And this was the translating ADHD podcast. Thanks for listening.
