Ep #104: The Neurodivergent CEO Mind

Hey coach, you are listening to episode 104 of The Confident Coaches Podcast, the one where you accept that perfect human CEO brain of yours. Let’s go.

Welcome to The Confident Coaches Podcast, a place for creating the self-confidence you need to do your best work as a life coach. If you want to bring more boldness, more resilience, and more joy to your work, this is the place for you. I’m your host, Amy Latta. Let’s dive in.

Hello coach, how are you today? It is the first week of November and we are coming off of the entire month of October. I ran an entire connection series because I realized that that was so important to my path to 100K, was really learning how to connect as a way of attracting clients to me, signing clients, growing my business, helping as many people as possible.

So if you have not dove into the last four episodes, this episode doesn’t have anything to do with that, but I do want to make sure that you have dove into that work and really just found some really subtle mindset shifts on what happens when we make connection our goal.

As opposed to meeting as many people as possible right this moment from a really graspy, needy energy, and I hope you like me, and I hope you want to work with me, please, please, please. And instead, let’s go meet people. Let’s go tell them what we do, how we help people, and let’s connect.

And I think you’re going to see in this episode a way that I am, myself personally, extending some connection out to you all out there. It’s really kind of funny, so many of these podcast topics come directly out of coaching sessions. And this is one that came out from a couple of weeks ago, some work that we’ve been doing in the July Confident Coaches Mastermind. And then it’s really fun because it came up in my own mastermind meeting.

So if you all don’t know, I personally am a member of the 2 Million Dollar Group, which is a mastermind run by Stacey Boehman. And we meet quarterly and we actually just met in Louisville just last week. And then I run my own mastermind, Confident Coaches Mastermind, which is the path to 100K. It’s for coaches who want to create that first 100K in their business, but can’t seem to get over themselves in order to get there.

And what’s so interesting is that on the surface you might think that these would be entirely different masterminds. And in some way, they are because the things that you are doing at that $2 million level, you don’t need to be worrying about when you are just trying to get your first paid clients or you’re just trying to get clients on a consistent and regular basis.

So in that sense the work is very different. But mindset wise, mindset wise you’d kind of be surprised how much crossover there is in thinking. Now it’s not the same exact thinking. Because the thinking that I was working through on my own path to 100K, I’ve worked through most of those thought errors. And I’ve dug below the surface from there and worked at deeper and deeper layers.

And because I’ve worked through those top layers it’s like the more coaching I get, the deeper I get into my own emotional and personal growth. And the more people I attract, and the bigger my business grows, and then I just keep, as my business grows and as I set higher goals, that just gives me new, deeper emotional work to work through. It’s still the same mindset plus action plus evaluation, by the way, that hasn’t changed.

But some of the mindset work has shifted a little bit. The action work has definitely shifted, and then the evaluation work is similar, but it also goes a little bit deeper. So it’s a lot of like so very different and also exactly the same thing. Is that clear as mud right there? It should be super clear right now. It’s exactly the same work and yet completely different and not at all the same.

But I think the most important thing that keeps coming up in the coaching sessions in CCM is that there’s this misconception that there’s not a lot of drama in that room. And I’m like, “No, there’s shit tons of drama. It’s just new layers of drama or fresh layers of drama that we’ve uncovered that we didn’t know.”

Or that somehow our brains function very differently. And so this is what I want to talk about right here, is how a CEO mind functions and how we think it should be functioning versus how it actually functions. And to just really talk about what it means to have that CEO mind.

What makes somebody have a CEO mind versus just a regular old mind? What’s the difference between you as a possible brand new coach or a coach who has been working at this for a few years, but hasn’t quite gotten that consistent growth under your feet, versus a coach who’s selling 10, 20, $50,000 worth of coaching a month.

So if you walk away with anything from this one podcast episode, the most important thing you could possibly know is that there is no difference between the CEO brain that you have now and the CEO brain you will have in the future.

Now, what? Wait a minute, how is that even possible? Because it seems like all I’m ever telling you, what you we hear so much in the coaching circles and in the coaching world is that the only thing different between where you are now and where you’re going to be in the future is how you think, right? So obviously, doesn’t there have to be a change in your mind?

Now follow me here, the brain that you have now isn’t any different than the brain you will have in the future. What’s different is what you do with that brain. It’s not so much that you’ll manage your thoughts differently, as much as you’ll become so much better at learning which ones you choose to believe and which ones you choose to let go of.

It’s not that you manage your emotions so much better, it’s that you’re going to learn to manage how you react to the emotions that you’re experiencing. It’s not that you’re perfect, and all of your actions all of the time, it’s that when you find yourself engaged in action that you don’t want to be in, you work through the drama that’s under the surface so that you can move forward.

Your brain is going to be the same. You’re going to have the same mind as you do now. Meaning you’re going to have a very human brain who fears the worst, who experiences anxiety, who throws temper tantrums. The same brain who has drama, and doubt, and fear, who worries about what other people are going to think what other people are going to say.

What’s different is not the presence of all of those things, but your ability to see it, to hear it, and to be able to move on from it so much faster. Your ability to stop indulging in those things, to stop diving into those pools of doubt and inadequacy.

And instead you’re going to see the pool, you’re going to hear the calls, you’re going to hear the invitations to jump into that pool and be able to say, “No thanks, I’m good. I’m not going to go there anymore. I’m done with that. I’m bored with that pool, I’m going to go over to this pool instead. The pool where we don’t indulge in shit. And instead, we just bathe, and we soak, and we luxuriate in all of the possibility instead.”

And it’s fun because what started this as a possible podcast topic was coaching one of my July, members of the mastermind around her worries that she doesn’t have the mind of a CEO because she has temper tantrums on a regular basis. “I don’t want to do this. This is stupid, I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to do what Amy told me to do. I hate these exercises that she’s given us. I do not want to do this work.”

And my client was making the presence of all of that, “I don’t want to, you can’t make me” kind of energy, she was making the presence of that kind of energy mean that she wasn’t a good CEO. She was making those things mean that there’s a problem. I can’t be a powerful CEO in my business who makes really powerful decisions, and also have “I don’t want to, you can’t make me” energy going on. Right?

This is what she was presenting to me as fact. And I was like, “But why? Why can’t you? Why can’t you have both in your brain? Why can’t you have a brain that throws temper tantrums and doesn’t want to, and also be able to make powerful decisions? Says who?” I mean, it came as a big shock when I offered to her that maybe the presence of that kind of energy wasn’t a problem.

What if she was a brilliant CEO capable of making many powerful decisions in her business? And being very forward thinking, and being able to answer her own problems, and solve her own problems and answer her own questions and really use that powerful part of her brain to engage in some Gigi thinking, and what she does know and what she is sure of. And she can also 100% expect that her brain is absolutely going to throw a temper tantrum before she gets there. That’s just going to be part of her process. And none of that’s a problem.

I actually advised her to schedule in her temper tantrum. I’m like, “Let’s expect that. You’re going to start there. Build in an extra 10 to 15 minutes, or just know that the first 10 to 15 minutes of anything you do is going to be you throwing a temper tantrum, where you allow your brain to get all of that out of its system.”

Let it tell you all of the ways that it’s not going to work and how you don’t want to do it and how you’re not capable. And just get it all out. Doesn’t that feel so much better, rather than trying to make it go away because we think it’s a problem that it’s there?

What if we let it show up to the table? Let it have it’s say, get it out of your system, and then move forward from there. And once we’ve done that mindset piece, we’re going to take action from that place. And then we’re going to evaluate the work that we’ve done.

And so many of you have it in your head that the temper tantrum part, that neurodivergent part of you shouldn’t be there. And really what you’re saying is that the human part of you should not show up in any of this. And I’m like, “But why? Why shouldn’t we be human, and also show up?”

Just because you’re aware that that’s not thinking and feeling that serves you, doesn’t mean that it’s going to stop showing up. Because it’s part of who you are. Your work is to let it to no longer stop you from how you want to show up in the world.

The more you fight the presence of all of that doubt, angst, fear, anxiety, depression, overwhelm, I don’t want to, the longer that it takes to do the mindset plus action plus evaluation work that’s going to get you to the business that you want. Remember, the process of your path to 100K is super simple. It’s mindset, plus action, plus evaluation. And so in your mindset work, how do you want to think about yourself as a CEO brain that might function differently than the person sitting next to you?

Just today in my October group, right now I do run two groups at a time that overlap. Next year, I’m not going to do that. I’m just going to have one group at a time. We’re only going to launch mastermind twice a year as opposed to four times a year. But right now I do have two different groups.

So my July group, I was coaching somebody on that, her temper tantrums that she throws before she goes to do anything. And in my October group, just today before I went to record this podcast, somebody in the October group shared a quote that’s from inside our path to 100K workbook, which is a workbook that you get when you join the mastermind.

And it says, “Your fears of being behind, of comparing and despairing, of running out of money, running at a time, of pissing people off or saying the wrong thing, it’s all normal. It’s not unique. It’s simply mind drama to work through and you have the tools to work through it.”

Now your variation of how that shows up for you might be unique to you. But it’s not unique to have a brain that does whatever it’s going to do. That’s going to have depression, or bipolar, or anxiety, or throw a temper tantrum, or have ADD, or ADHD, or lack of focus. So your CEO mind is absolutely going to look like whatever it looks like now.

What is going to change is your reaction to that. How quickly you process what that human part of your brain brings up for you. How quickly you ask for coaching on that. How quickly you move through it. Your ability to not let that humaneness that is you, stop you from being the powerful CEO that is also you.

And this is why we say the number one thing that you can invest in is in your brain. Not so that you are changing your brain so much as you are changing your reaction to it. How you work with it. How you make your brain work for you.

Now, doing this work over a long period, yes, you might actually be changing some structural things in your brain. Some reconfiguring neural pathways, learning how to heal parts of your nervous system. There will be some physical changes that do happen over periods of time, but that is actually done faster by accepting that nothing about your brain has to change right now, only your reaction to it.

And what you’re investing in when you invest in coaching, when you invest in confidence coaching the way that I outline it is you’re investing how you react to your brain. Now next week, I’m going to dive into some skills that elevate your CEO mind, what it looks like to step out of student energy and into CEO energy. What I see as like the top skills that I lean on, that I see in my successful students in the mastermind.

But for this week, I really just want to offer for each of you out there that the way your brain thinks right now is perfect. Even if it is ADHD, even if it is bipolar disorder, or any neurodivergent, non-neurotypical functioning. It doesn’t need to change in order for you to have the CEO mind. In order for you to have a powerful brain that can make decisions and think clearly and be able to write compelling words out into the world that attract your ideal client and help as many people as possible.

And I know this is true and this is factual because this is me. This is me right here. I’m Amy, I’m 47 and a half years old, I’m a confidence coach for coaches. I have a coaching certification and a master coach certification. I’ve created over $1 million over the course of my coaching career in coaching revenue that represents literally hundreds of paid clients whose lives has changed, and thousands of other people whose lives have changed just by listening to this podcast and attending my free trainings, maybe even somebody like you right now.

And yet, I have ADHD and I have anxiety. I know mental health month or mental health day was last month, and I would have loved to have put this message out there at that time. And I could think that that was a problem. When I think having ADHD and how that shows up in my life, when I think that’s a problem, I would make it a problem that I’m weeks late.

I’m here now and I think it’s really important to share an example of somebody who has anxiety. Not anxiety on the F line, a feeling that comes from how I’m thinking about a circumstance. But anxiety as a circumstance in and of itself.

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve played this little anxiety game. It’s like I wake up in the morning and I’m looking for the thing that’s going to be dramatic and traumatic, and possibly be the thing that blows up on my face and ends everything. I don’t really even understand how to express this in words. As I’m saying it out loud, I’m still not quite conveying what it feels like. Because inside my body it truly feels like life and death.

And I experience this literally every single morning. What fire do I have to put out? What’s the thing that I need to be obsessed and worried about and overthink about so that we don’t all die? What’s the thing that’s going to be awful and traumatic and terrible if I don’t go fix it right now?

Because if I don’t, if I don’t micromanage every possible situation that could possibly go wrong, and I’m not even consciously sure what I think is going to happen. But subconsciously it’s anxiety and it’s fear. And it’s we are in danger and it’s we are not safe. I work through that every single morning.

And after years of trying a variety of calendaring programs and time management tools, and even my own coaching school even puts out a well-known time management program, I had to finally accept that my squirrel brain, my shiny object syndrome didn’t work with those programs. And that maybe that’s not a problem. Maybe my brain and how it works isn’t something to fix.

Maybe my CEO mind has a neurodivergent component to it and it’s perfect. That those systems may work for other people, and other people might find help from them. Maybe other people might use those systems to help them manage their ADD and their anxiety, but it’s not going to work for me.

So my CEO mind has ADD and anxiety and the relief, the relief I feel from no longer trying to fix that part of me, and instead just allowing that it’s part of who I am. And it’s what makes me uniquely me and special, and what if, what if that’s actually an attribute to my CEO mind, not a detriment? That changes everything.

I want to offer to you that whatever you’ve got going on in that beautiful brain of yours, it’s perfect. You don’t have to fix how you think in order to be a CEO. In order to help people, in order to attract those people, in order to build a business. Your work has to change how you react to that thinking. How you react to those feelings, how you react to how you’re showing up in the world and what you make that mean.

I know that I have spent the bulk of my coaching career trying to fix this part of my brain and make it something that it’s not. And I have built my successful career, not because of that, but in spite of that.

And only this year through lots of brilliant coaching that I’ve gotten on this side of the table in self-coaching, and coaching in my mastermind, and coaching with my one on one coach have I really been able to see this doesn’t have to change. My brain actually doesn’t have to change at all. It’s perfect exactly how it is.

And when I allow for that, when I build in for that, when I build a business around Amy Latta’s brain that has ADHD and anxiety, and I let those things join me at the table I go so much farther, faster because I don’t make the presence of those things a problem. It changes everything. And I invite you to let it change everything for you too. And to accept that beautiful brain that you have inside.

Now go take that beautiful brain of yours and let however it functions show up at the table and work with it rather than against it. Because we are still in the midst of a connect 100 days, the last 100 days of this year. Of making connection a priority and sharing on social media all the different ways you are connecting with yourself, you’re connecting with your people around you that are not business related, and how you’re connecting and deepening client connections.

How is that showing up for you? I want you to commit to that connection a day for 100 days or for the rest of this year. Include @Iamamylatta and #connect100days. And then by January 12th capture all of those connections, take screenshots for me, drop them into a Dropbox or Google Drive and send those over to me. And I’ve got some good stuff, I’ve got a connection prize pack coming your way.

All right my friends, all right my little neurodivergent CEOs. Or neurotypical, so much love for the neurotypicals too. It’s like love for all of the minds, no matter how it shows up. I love every single one of those beautiful human brains out there listening right now. And until next week, let’s go fuck some shit up.

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Thanks so much for listening to The Confident Coaches Podcast. I invite you to learn more. Come visit me at amylatta.com and until next week, let’s go do epic stuff.