My Former Life Coach Helps Us Shift Focus
Back in 2017-18, I worked with life coach Adela Baker of Mind Coach (Adela is also an ADHD coach, although she doesn’t work only with folks diagnosed with ADHD, and lately she’s doing a lot of executive coaching). Adela is a powerhouse: she’s the current Vice President and President-elect of the ADHD Coaches Association (ACO). She’s got all the accreditations and certificates. She’s the real deal. (Here’s her IG.)
She’s also my friend. We met when I taught high school at a conservative private school in New Orleans, where she had also taught Spanish and French. Turns out we both encountered many of the same problems (namely, being too liberal). Adela speaks English, Spanish, French, Dutch, and Italian. She’s so European (she lived in the Netherlands and her kids are half Dutch), so smart, and such a fun and supportive friend. She’s also a breast cancer survivor. I mean, there’s truly nothing this woman can’t do.
When we worked together it was a trade: I ran her social media and published her blog posts, and she coached me. A lot changed in that year. I set out as a digital nomad. I worked up the courage to begin introducing myself as “a writer,” not “a teacher who writes.” I learned to balance my creative writing, freelance writing, and online teaching.
So, yea, I think coaching is worth it. Insanely worth it. Having a cheerleader in your corner? An accountability buddy? Life changing. Have a friend like Adela, who can do all of the above? You’ve lucked out, big time.
I reached out to Adela during a rough patch this summer, just to catch up. But I soon realized I wanted to interview her for this series. She’s so happy and enthusiastic; I was curious about the concrete ways she maintains her positivity.
There are a few.
You won’t be disappointed.
Adela, as a coach, what is your advice for people who are spiraling into despair or fear during these difficult times, with the wars going on, the political stuff, etc.? How can we protect our peace and be our best selves during tough personal or political moments?
A: First of all, I don't advise because I'm a coach. However, I’m curious about what is going well in their lives. Because we have a negativity bias, and we tend to see all the negatives. And it's the negative that makes news. It's the negative that is exciting, especially for people with ADHD brains. But in general we want dopamine hits, and a psychological thriller is more exciting than just an average day. I had a client who once said, I'm sick of being overwhelmed. And I was like, if you don't want to be overwhelmed, what do you want to be? And she thought about it for a while. And she's like, I just want to be whelmed. She's like, I don't want to be underwhelmed because that's boring. But I don't want to be overwhelmed. I just want to be whelmed. But the brain fights being whelmed because whelmed — there's no excitement in whelmed. So let's look for some drama. Maybe let's create some drama where there is none. Or let's focus on the drama that's being served to us by the news every day. As opposed to: where in your life are things going well? Maybe you didn't win the lottery, but you can afford to pay your electric bill. That's worth celebrating. That's a privilege. Not everyone has that.
K: So celebrating and seeing the privileges that you do have.
A: Yes. It's a sort of gratitude practice. And in some cases, we've worked hard to make these things happen. We can honor that.
K: It reminds me of when we were chatting on the phone recently, and I was telling you the things that are stressing me out right now, the stories in my head that I'm telling myself. But then you shifted it towards looking at the gratitude and the privilege: you're so lucky that you get to go here and you get to go there, and you don't have to report to anyone, etc. I hadn't thought about it that way in a long time.
A: We get used to it. And it's not that we want to ignore the bad. Right? We're not ignoring the bad news, or we're not saying, oh, too bad, so sad that all these people are starving and I'm not. But we can't help another before tending to ourselves. If I am in such deep despair, then I am totally emotionally dysregulated, and then I don't have the capacity to turn that despair into action to do something about it. Which relates to your other question, about how do I protect my serenity and create positive energy so I can make an impact.
K: With politics, one school of thought is: why pay much attention to it and get worried about it when there's nothing you can really do? There's a balance between wanting to feel that you're aware of what's going on, not putting your head in the sand, while also protecting your peace. You recently said you don't look at the news in the US. You look at what news sources outside the U.S. are saying.
A: Yes. Well, it's a trust issue on my behalf.
K: I get that. One of my favorite substacks is by David A. Andelman,a journalist. His Substack is like, here's what is being said around the world about the U.S. He just gathers the headlines, and it's refreshing.
A: It's hard to know what to trust. We don't want to get to the point of despair where we're just hiding under the covers. Because we're not being of service that way, either. But to be obsessed with it and just ranting about it is also not helpful.
K: Lately, every time I go to The New York Times website to see what's going on in the morning, it sets the tone for my day. And I think: Adela does not do this. I mean, what if I did my writing before I checked the news?
A: We get to decide what energy we want to have that day. What is going to support that energy?
K: And if you're driven in your career or you want to make art, you need to protect your energy so you can do those things. Which is a good segue to social media. You recognize the harmful effects of social media on our mental health and productivity, kids and adults alike. What's your advice for breaking that addiction?
A: Again, I can't tell you what to do, but I am curious about how you really want to be spending your time. If you had the ability to dictate how you spend your time every day, you wouldn't say, oh, I'm going to spend five hours on social media today. You wouldn't say, oh, I'm going to wake up in the morning and lie in bed looking at my phone for several hours scrolling. You wouldn't choose that. So what are you going to choose instead? If you could define your ideal day, what would that look like? That’s not to say that you can't do it because maybe you do want to scan the news or catch up with friends. So what would be the best time to do that? The best way to do that? What would be the maximum amount of time you want to spend on that? We want to foster and nurture connections. And, of course, you and I live an ocean apart, so we're limited in our method of connecting. But we also want to connect with people in real life.
K: I spend a lot of time online in my apartment and on social media. Then I’ll remember to go outside and go to a cafe in Paris and sit there — even if I have to bring my laptop to do work — and have a coffee and remind myself that I live in Paris. Because I can get really caught up in the virtual world.
A: And “caught up” is exactly the right term. We’re just floating down this river, without a rudder, without paddles. We're just allowing ourselves to float as opposed to deciding, wait, what is the course I want to take? How do I navigate to get there? So I get curious. If you're not spending hours on social media, what are you doing instead? What do you choose to do instead?
K: It reminds me of when we were when you were coaching me back in 2018, and you taught me about time blocking on Google Calendar, which was very intentional. It was very much like: what do you want to be? A writer. So you're going to wake up, you're going to write for, I don't remember, three or four hours, and then you're going to do your grading for an hour or two, and then you're going to do the next thing. That's still the method I use. I track my hours that I spend, but not as intentionally. The intentionality could be a way to get over the addiction.
A: Well, you recognize that it's an addiction. For some people, it is, and for some people, it isn't. But it's an addiction when you have no control over it, and it's preventing you from doing more good than more harm. It's designed to be addictive. Psychologists were hired to make it addictive. It's like the tobacco industry. When it came out that tobacco caused lung cancer, many adults quit. Like, oh my god, this is killing us. Teenagers, who are rebels, did not quit. Like, oh, we don't care that it's bad for you. So the message had to change. They changed it to: the tobacco industry is conning you. The tobacco industry has created an addictive product so you keep spending your money so they make money. That's when teenagers started to quit. Because they said, no, you're not going to control my brain, tobacco company. This helps if we look at it like, okay, why would I give my serenity to some algorithm? Why would I give my life to some company controlled in China or in Silicon Valley? For free! Why would I do that?
K: And it does affect your serenity. It can change your mood in an instant. You can see one image and just spiral into despair.
A: I can choose to give my attention to the things that are important to me, or I can give my attention to some rando online. Why would I do that?
K: And yet I do do that every morning and every night alone in my bed, because I'm single. It almost feels comforting! It's jarring to not wake up with that or go to sleep with that.
A: Because it's more uncomfortable to sit in the solitude of your own thoughts. And that's where the creativity lies.
K: Yes. I try to do a little meditating, to sit with that quiet. I guess as we get older, there's more anxiety, more things to spiral out about, and so you can't just zone out and write a poem as easily anymore, or think about things as you fall asleep. You want to shut that off because it's so difficult, so uncomfortable. But you're right. Most of the great artists were sitting in that uncomfortable place and making their art. Wow. That's heavy.
A: Boredom is uncomfortable. We hate to be bored. We're used to being entertained and stimulated. And our culture says you need to be productive at all times. If you just take a break and stare at the clouds for ten minutes, you're wasting time, you should be doing all these things, look at your to-do list. But maybe staring at the clouds is part of your process.
K: Especially if you feel you have some art that you need to make, of any kind. You have to be bored.
A: Or any type of creative problem solving. What's possible when you trust that the answer lies within you?
K: Which is probably one of the reasons why, in Julia Cameron's book The Artist's Way, she's such an advocate of morning pages where you handwrite three pages. That's your meditation time. You're setting your intention for the day. You’re creative problem solving on the page, and you might even be a little bored if you don't know what to write about. All of it rolled into one.
So, next question: can you share with us your biggest tips and techniques for the executives you coach?
A: The answer is no, I don't have generic tips that work for everyone. I guess I'm curious. I don't quite understand. What is the problem?
K: Oh, there's that curiosity again! Let me ask you in a different way. You don't have generic tips and tricks; I respect that. I guess I'm coming at it as a freelancer who's looking for more clients, but also as a writer. And I'm thinking about my writer friends, those of us who just can't do the work, in part because we're spiraling out about politics and yada yada. I see other writers publishing book after book, and I'm like—
A: There's the problem. You're comparing yourself.
K: Oh.
A: What does your success look like? What would success look like to you?
K: Well, that's interesting because a long time ago when you were coaching me, success was living in Paris, being able to work from wherever, traveling around, having all kinds of adventures, writing about it. And I am doing that. I can also say that one of the things I wanted was time to do my own writing, and I do have that, I’m doing some writing and sending work out.
A: So what you just shared, using yourself as an example, is that you are successful already according to your own definition. You are able financially to meet the requirements to maintain your lifestyle. You don't have a crystal ball. You can't see that you will always have a security blanket. However, the evidence shows us that you have been able to find the finances and maintain your lifestyle for how many years now?
K: All my adult life. On my own.
A: On your own. So the evidence shows us that all by yourself, you have been able to make it work. You have achieved the dream life. So I'm curious, what if you could look at the evidence and trust that you will figure it out every time?
K: Sometimes I make it by the skin of my teeth.
A: That's your process.
K: Oh! Maybe I need a little chaotic excitement for my process to work. My mom is like, maybe you should move back and get a real job like a normal adult?
A: That would be so boring!
K: I know! And I guess I can't be bored, which is also why I'm single. I'm uncomfortable with boredom. Oh my god! It all circles back around.
A: But also what circles back around is other people's definition of what success means. Other people's definitions of what life should look like. That works for them, great. And this works for you. You don't know if they're happy. All you know is what you see posted. They might be succeeding in the eyes of society and secretly miserable. And you might be failing in the eyes of society and be very happy.
K: I am usually pretty happy, but something happened this summer where I just got scared of all of it collapsing. And the AI stuff really freaks me out. But I don't want to be a person who's scared. I want to be brave, excited, and optimistic.
A: So what makes you brave, excited, and optimistic?
K: Art, and books, and writing, and reading other people's writing! That community of writers and readers.
A: What's the difference between being inspired versus being competitive, comparing yourself to others and feeling inferior? How do you differentiate between the two? A dead writer is more inspirational than a contemporary writer. Isn't that awful? But the reason is because, oh, I can't compete with you, you're dead. Whereas oh, you're my contemporary? Now it feels competitive. Who’s winning the race? But there is no race.
K: There is no race! People are making books out of their experiences, which is beautiful and community-building and the purpose of art. Yet something creatives might struggle with right now is the futility of art, a sense that there's no point in making art right now. We have big dreams, but it could feel silly and useless to spend time on them. As a coach, what's your advice for that mindset?
A: How important is it to you personally? How does it align with your core values? How is it important to your authenticity?
K: That’s really good. I recently looked at my vision statement and purpose statement that I developed with you. And in fact, I'm right on track, doing things that are aligned: I want to build community, and I'm offering online writing workshops. It is exactly what I wrote when I was working with you.
I wrote this — as a foundational step in Adela’s coaching program — in Nov. 2017.
A: I love that you kept it. Isn't that beautiful that over time, you can live in alignment with that purpose through different activities? Like, building community, for example. There are so many ways you can build community. Some can generate revenue, or just be volunteer, or be social.
K: It’s a good practice to get really clear on your core values, and then try to do what is in alignment with them. To use them as a check-in.
A: And remembering that they're different for everyone. Someone's core value might be around health. Someone else's might be tied to their faith. It's not that one is better than the other. They're super personal. They can succeed on their own terms, and I can succeed on my own terms. Who am I to judge if you want to spend all of Sunday at church or all of Sunday at the gym or all of Sunday at the bar? You get to choose.
K: Then we can circle back to the political stuff going on, and what do you do if your whole country's new values don't align with yours? I mean, do you stay and fight it out, or do you leave?
A: Or do you find your community that does align and support your values? That could be a small community, a city, a neighborhood, a group of friends. We're zooming in and zooming out. Going back to your first question, the planet is on fire, but my passion flowers bloomed again yesterday. That brings me joy. The tough little plant that the caterpillars tried to eat to death, she came back and she bloomed. Then the caterpillars turned into butterflies. So in the end, it was win-win. All of this story is happening in this one tiny corner of my garden. How do you zoom in to see the things that give you positive energy, or zoom out to see the big picture: like, wow, I have a roof over my head, I can pay my bills! Or I live in a community that has a lot of free events! Not that we want to put blinders on and never read the news and never know what's happening. But we also want to trust that we have that ability to shift the energy.
K: It reminds me also of Voltaire's book, Candide, where, at the end, he writes that you have to “cultivate your own garden.” We’re better community members, parents, friends, children, etc., when we’re tending to our own garden, nurturing our passions, and regulating our emotions. When I was having a hard time this summer, I was calling my sister and my mom a lot, crying. And my mom said she was staying up late worrying about me. You have a ripple effect when you are dysregulated like that! But then I started to find solutions and things that were making me excited again, like teaching the online writing workshops and this idea of interviewing you, and I began crawling out of it. Through purpose, through my core values.
A: It's interesting you brought up purpose, because it's how you translate that to action so you feel you have agency and you're doing something. Me ranting about the war isn't doing anything. What do you want me to specifically do? Am I going to email my representatives in congress? Now there's a concrete step that I'm doing. That is positive. I can't promise you it will make an impact, but it's better than doing nothing. Or here's an event that you can go to that is not in our neighborhood, where we're preaching to the choir, but actually on Capitol Hill in Baton Rouge. It's creating this positive energy so you then have a strong foundation to have courageous conversations and interactions. So you're not protecting yourself and staying in a bubble. You're getting clear on how you want to spend your time and your energy, doing something positive with it. And to tie it back to what you were saying, you found your positive energy again, and then you could translate it into action. Like, oh, now I'm offering a workshop. It's important to find the action.
K: And sometimes maybe it's just meditating. Actionless action. Just sitting in discomfort.
My final question is a little lighter: What are three things that are giving you hope and joy right now?
A: This may sound dumb, but rain. We had two years of this dry, super hot, two awful summers and a salt wedge. And it's nice to have a normal New Orleans summer again where we have daily afternoon thunderstorms. I’m excited about this mentorship group coaching program that I'm doing for other ADHD coaches, with another coach colleague of mine, Anna Marie Marino. And I'm excited about my trip to Amsterdam.
Actually, I don't know if I wrote those three exact things this morning, but I do have a little morning practice. I call it the “GEM practice,” and it's rather quick. I write three things I'm grateful for, three things I'm excited about (that I have planned or that I know are going to happen or coming up) and three very specific things I'm manifesting. GEM: Grateful, Excited, Manifesting. Sometimes I flip through my notebook and the things you wrote that you’re manifesting, they bump up so that you're excited about them, and then they become something you’re grateful for. For example, I’m manifesting that I’ll have my finances in order to go to my friend's wedding in the Philippines. And then, oh my god, I made it happen, I booked a trip, I'm excited about my trip to the Philippines! And then it becomes gratitude: I'm grateful that I had a wonderful trip in the Philippines. It's really magical.
K: I love your GEM practice. I'm going to try it! 💎💎💎
[Side note: I also love this meditative practice, the “Leibniz Stretch” by Robert Kelley Ayala, which asks us to believe that “this moment, with all its imperfections, is exactly as it needs to be in the best of all possible worlds,” and posits that, since “we spend all our days exercising our ability to find things that are wrong and unfair; why not stretch in the other direction, so we could expand our capacity for seeing the good and the beautiful?”]
Many thanks to Adela Baker of Mind Coach for taking the time to chat with me. You can learn more about working with her here.
https://kristindianesanders.substack.com/p/my-former-life-coach-helps-us-shift