In this episode of “Translating ADHD,” hosts Ash and Cam announce significant changes for the podcast. Cam shares his decision to leave the show after almost five years and 217 episodes, explaining that he wants to explore new opportunities in the ADHD coaching realm.
Both hosts reflect on their journey, acknowledging how their combined perspectives have enriched the podcast and their coaching practices. They discuss the challenges of generating new content and the invigorating feeling of exploring new paths. Ash assures listeners that the podcast will continue with him at the helm, though it will undergo changes and might include new perspectives and formats. He commits to having new episodes by January 2025 and invites listener feedback and ideas for future content.
Cam and Ash emphasize their ongoing commitment to the ADHD community, highlighting their desire to provide accurate information and support. They conclude by expressing gratitude for their journey together and excitement for their individual future endeavors.
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Episode Transcript:
[00:00:00] Ash: Hi, I’m Ash. [00:00:03] Cam: And I’m Cam. [00:00:04] Ash: And this is Translating ADHD. So listeners, this is our third to last episode in this season, and there are going to be some changes coming next season. And so, Cam, why don’t you take it from here and start with your news? [00:00:22] Cam: Thanks, Ash. So my news is that I’m going to be leaving the podcast. And this is not an easy decision, but we’ve been doing this for two seasons that have spanned almost five years. [00:00:39] Ash: That’s some ADHD math for you. [00:00:41] Cam: Oh, ADHD math. And as I said, it wasn’t an easy decision, but I felt that I have other things that I want to do and that we had done an amazing thing here, Ash. We’ve done an incredible thing. Remember, we committed to one year. [00:01:00] Ash: One year, and we’ll see what happens from there. That was the only commitment we made to this was one year and we’ll take it from there. We’ll take it as it comes. And we got four more years doing this together out of that that we never could have anticipated. [00:01:18] Cam: So, Ash and I were been talking about this and sort of realizing that recently it’s just, it’s been a little bit more difficult to come to a topic. And so that was coming into play a little bit. It’s like, here we are. And it’s like, I counted it up, we’ve done 217 episodes. That’s a lot of content on ADHD. [00:01:42] Ash: Remember when 200 episodes seemed like an impossibility by the way. [00:01:47] Cam: Doing this weekly coming and sitting in this chair. And it’s been amazing. It’s been incredible. But I’ve been thinking about, same realm. I’m not going off to the Falkland Islands to raise sheep. Uh, I am going to be still in this area of ADHD and coaching.I got a Venn diagram here and just sort of how ADHD and coaching overlap. And, and I’m going to be in that space. And we’ll talk in a couple episodes about where you’re going to find me. And we’re also going to talk about how the Translating ADHD podcast is going to move forward, because it will move forward, and Ash is going to take it and run with it.
And it’s so fascinating that as we’ve been discussing this, the word’s invigorating. It’s that we sort of with this, we are both invigorated and it might be a news you don’t want to hear, but all good things come to a close, you know. I know that it’s like when a door closes, you find a window to open. I think closing this door that both Ash and I get to open new doors.
And I’ll say, you know, the benefit will be you have this podcast, and you’ll have whatever the entity is that I am involved with. One is around the center, coaching excellence and really in that area and teaching and training coaches.
I’m deeply committed to that. I’m deeply committed to getting accurate information out into the world about ADHD coaching. So you’re going to see me. Things will change, but not a lot will change in that both Ash and I will be moving forward.
And you said it. It’s like journey thinking – this idea of that both of us are well versed in practice in this idea of journey thinking, that coaching mindset, and this is a chapter that is closing. And in doing so in order to open new chapters, you have to close chapters. So we’re having some closure and some completion here, if you’re sitting there like, what happened? Was there a tiff or did something happen? It didn’t. We’re on great terms, and we look forward to collaborating in different creative ways going forward.
[00:04:06] Ash: Cam, I love that you bring journey thinking into this because this past week – Cam delivered the news to me a week ago as of the recording today – and this past week has been a real exercise for me in walking the walk of, okay, here is a change that I didn’t anticipate. What’s the opportunity here?I am now on a new stepping stone on the foggy pond that I did not anticipate. What am I seeing here? And that day I wasn’t seeing a lot. A week later, some fog has cleared. So listeners, I want to start by saying what’s what I do now, because I don’t want to leave you in the dark. This show will continue. It’s going to look pretty different than it looks now, and I’m still working that out.
So when I know, you’ll know, but I’m seeing this as an opportunity to try some things. The one of the big realizations that I came to as I was thinking about this news and starting to see the opportunity is that the title of the show Translating ADHD. Well, you’ve been listening to Cam and my take on ADHD are combined to take for five years.
And that thing Cam was talking about where we started to struggle is because what was initially so expansive, right? We think very similarly, but we use very different language. The ways that we articulate or put those ideas out there are so different. And the combination of Cam’s perspective and my perspective has led to some incredibly powerful stuff. Stuff that we have both carried forward into our coaching practices as regular language, and we’ll continue to do so.
And in fact, that’s what we’re going to talk about next week. We’re going to talk about some of our greatest hits, some of the really crucial thought leadership that has come out of this podcast by virtue of doing that together.
But what I’ve kind of come to is what was once expansive has become a little restrictive, right. That same thing that opened up endless possibilities five years ago and gave us five years worth of fantastic content is now kind of causing us to butt our heads to wonder what thread there is left to pull on. To wonder, is there a new or different or interesting way for Cam and I together to discuss this topic?
And so what I’m really excited for when it comes to the future of the show is, again, expanding on that idea of translating ADHD. Listeners, we hear time and time again that some of the most powerful content is just hearing your lived experience come out of someone else’s mouth in a way that you hadn’t thought about it before, using words that you wouldn’t have thought to put to it, but now you’ve got some language.
So what a great opportunity to invite some new perspective and some new language onto this show that is really at its core about putting language and perspective to this lived experience. So the show will continue. I do not know quite in what form. I do not know. White when our summer break usually ends around Labor Day, I’m not going to commit to having something ready to go by Labor Day, because rather than pushing something through for the sake of saying that the content exists, I want to make sure that what I’m putting out there, I feel really good about.
So the commitment that I will make – don’t remove the show from your feeds – because by January of next year, if not before, there will be new episodes of this podcast for you. In addition to that, for our patrons, particularly the ones that utilize the Discord, it will stay. It is still going to be there.
And I will be more actively participating in that platform as well. So that’s the part we do know, and the rest, again, when I have something I feel good about, you’ll know. And I am making a commitment to you that no later than January of 2025 there will be new episodes of this podcast for you. And if it can be done sooner, it will be done sooner.
[00:08:32] Cam: That’s nicely said. I really appreciate the part around language and perspective, giving language and perspective to this lived experience. Thanks. I know we’re going to do and talk about greatest hits next week, but just a teaser there around new clients come this knowledge with this experience of hearing someone else give language and perspective to a lived experience to normalize.It’s been amazing sitting in this place of journey thinking and completion to reflect back on this body of work, and what you and I have done for individuals with ADHD. But also the coaches and therapists who work with them, to cut through the confusion. And I love what you said, is like what you know about going forward with this, Ash, what I know about going forward for both of us is that both of us are committed to this community.
Both of us are committed to cutting through the BS because having accurate information of what is actually going on is just, it’s so fundamental in this age where there’s so much information and so many promises made – this technology or that program – that you can come and you have this trusted resources that you still have that.
It’s just getting multiplied, right? I’m going forward and something very similar of, you know, giving language and perspective to this area of ADHD and having a different ADHD experience. I don’t know what that is, Ash. That’s the scary thing. Because we may have been struggling a little bit, but this, this seat on Monday afternoon – it’s 2:30 local time – is very familiar.
That’s amazing to come and sit and to think about just that arc of where we were, and how do we do this, and to develop this skillset as a skillset here of first of all, talking into a mic, making sense, but also the skillset of the dance of how we work well with each other. We’ll sort of talk about that next week around greatest hits, but just that when we click and like, things happen. The magic happens in the chair. There’s a familiarity there. There’s a comfort there.
And I could have easily, I think, pushed through and let’s do another season. Let’s keep going. But there’s something tugging at me. And I think there’s something tugging at you too, Ash, of just that it’s sort of like, huh, we’ve been braiding. We’ve been sort of doing this braid, and I’m just doing hand gestures of sort of weaving back and forth the last eight or nine years.
I mean, it was five years that we’ve done the podcast, but we’ve been cooking up stuff and working with each other in different ways as a student and as a mentor-mentee before that. I mean, I think it’s probably going on nine years where we’ve been walking together on this journey. And so we come to a place of, oh, there’s different paths to explore. And we can do this and it not be some kind of setback or failure or, you know, feel bad about this. It’s amazing what we’ve done, and we’re going to continue doing that.
[00:12:20] Ash: I love that, Cam. And you’re, you are right. I am feeling that pull too. I’ve been telling you for the last year and a half that I’m feeling the itch for a new creative project, but I can’t quite put my finger on what it is. And I was trying to stay in journey thinking about that because I know that works.Listeners, this microphone I record Translating ADHD on – a show that started in 2019 – I bought it in 2014. In 2014. I knew I wanted to do a podcast, but I didn’t know what on. And it took other work to get there. And so here, again, I’m sitting with this pull, with sometimes this frustration, with sometimes…
Cam, I think I’ve, I think I’ve told you three or four or five times I know what it is now. This is what I’m doing. I’m doing this content or this or that, and nothing happens. Well, oddly enough, I think that this is what I was looking for.
I think that this is an excellent opportunity to just have some fun with this platform and do something a little different and also try some stuff, right? Try some stuff out, see what’s resonating with you all, see what’s not. So we’re going to get a little experimental here, and we’re going to find out together what a great version of this show moving forward looks like.
And that initially scared me. That loss of comfort, that loss of routine, this well-oiled machine that we’ve crafted over five years. It was a terrifying thought to go from known to unknown, but now I see the opportunity in that and I’m genuinely enthused by it. I’m stoked. You’re stoked. Everybody’s stoked. So if nothing else, the message here is everybody’s stoked.
Like, is there a problem between us? Absolutely not. This is something we both are ready for. This is the right moment for us to step onto separate stepping stones for the first time in a pretty long time in our respective careers.
[00:14:42] Cam: We’re talking about, I want to try some things, try it out. There’s a, I think there’s some shared values here that may have been stagnating a little bit for both of us. And that is creativity. Curiosity and an element of play, right, to try things, to step into this, a playful place.And, I think coaches know this all too well, is that when you’re learning coaching, it’s sort of fun and easy at first. Then it gets hard because you get into that conscious, incompetent place, and we’ve gone well past that. We got into this, we know how each other works. We can bring up these topics and I think delivering still a good product.
But as you said, there’s an itch there to scratch in the realm of creativity, playfulness, and, for me, it’s learning. I know that there are peers of my age who are looking at sheep farms on the Falkland Islands. I mean, I’m no doubt, I’m coming up near 60. And yet I’ve got more to do. There’s threads to be pulled here. And is there certainty there? No, right? There’s, there’s a certain amount of risk. We’re not risk-averse. We don’t tend to be risk-averse individuals.
What Ash and I are honoring here is a desire to go explore and try new things. I remember the early days of being completely overwhelmed with this whole thing. And I listened back to us in the first 25, 30, 40 episodes. It was sort of like two high schoolers doing the weather report in the morning at school, you know. And for lunch, we’re having the boiled ham.
[00:16:39] Ash: It is eye-opening to go back and listen to those early episodes relative to where we are now, knowing that you can hear some of the struggle and knowing how much more struggle was going on behind the scenes. Neither one of us had done this before in this way, and we were learning how to talk to and work together, too.And you talk about pulling on threads. The Translating ADHD sweater that is comprised of Cam and Ash is a little threadbare, and now we’ve got two brand new sweaters, you and I. Whole bunch of new threads to pull on. So we’re back to it’s expansive again.
[00:17:15] Cam: It’s really interesting to kind of, there’s a teaching element, right? It’s going to be a teaching element. That’s what I do. That’s who I am. I’m an educator as much as I am a coach. And the thought of, like, looking into a camera and not necessarily collaborating with someone real-time in a right, but something more along the lines of a Khan Academy approach where you’re teaching and diagramming, that’s really scary. But it’s also like kind of cool, right?And it’s like, I really appreciate you saying that earlier because it’s probably not going to be great at first. And it might be bad, but I know that it’s going to, there’s that learning curve and getting up to this place of competence, and it’s worth the risk. It’s worth trying things out.
[00:18:11] Ash: Before we wrap, I want to mention something that you said before we started recording, and that’s that what a completion this is. And what a gift that after working together on this show for five years after working together in so many forms and being so integral to each other in our careers for nearly a decade, that we are reaching this completion as friends first, as colleagues and appreciating that we’ve both grown immensely in this time together.This was such a worthwhile endeavor, you and I doing this work together in so many ways that we’ll get into over the next couple of episodes, but let’s just take a moment. And I guess maybe we should wait until two episodes from now to do this, but to appreciate that we’re at choice, both of us.
And what a completion from a one year, let’s just see, to five years and all the growth that you and I have had as professionals in that time in terms of our language, our understanding of ADHD, our ability to articulate ADHD and ADHD coaching. And in terms of our listeners and so many of you that we’ve heard from and how you’ve been positively impacted by this work that we’ve done.
[00:19:38] Cam: That’s a lovely way to lead us out today, [00:19:41] Ash: The last thing I will say, listeners, is now more than ever, you’ve got my ears. So if you want to drop a line to hello@translatingadhd.com and toss out whatever your idea is for this show or an episode, or just something you’d like to see, or see expanded on, drop it my way. I am all ears. I am right now enjoying being back at the 10,000 foot view where it’s like, Ooh, there are literally infinite possibilities right now.So by all means, if you have an idea, you’ve been sitting on something you’d like to see happen in the next iteration of this show, drop it my way. I’d love to see what you have. And until next week, I’m Ash.
[00:20:25] Cam: And I’m Cam. [00:20:27] Ash: And this was the Translating ADHD Podcast. Thanks for listening.
