Getting Unstuck and Speaking ADHD Truth to Power with Maggie Isely
Maggie Isley is a designer, coach, and speaker. She’s the co-founder and creative director of 929 Studios, where she works with businesses around the world to form cohesive brand identities. She is also the co-founder of Be Unemployable, a podcast and educational brand for neurodivergent entrepreneurs with our new best friend of the show, Jamie Cutino. Maggie joins us today to talk about her work with neurodivergent entrepreneurs and how to get unstuck in our professional growth.
In her recent TEDx Talk, she discussed her revelation that business plateaus are rarely just business problems. Working exclusively with a neurodivergent population, she found a connection between people becoming stuck in their own professional growth and their current state of healing from past trauma.
-
Pete Wright:
Hello, everybody, and welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast on TruStory FM. I'm Pete Wright, and I'm here with Nikki Kinzer. Hello?
Nikki Kinzer:
Hello, everyone. Hello, Pete Wright.
Pete Wright:
How you doing?
Nikki Kinzer:
I'm glowing.
Pete Wright:
You look great.
Nikki Kinzer:
Not because I'm pregnant.
Pete Wright:
No. No. You have a nice, warm light about you today. You're still tweaking-
Nikki Kinzer:
I'm working with some new lights.
Pete Wright:
... but it's very exciting. Oh, it's so exciting.
Nikki Kinzer:
They're not set yet, but I feel the glow coming on.
Pete Wright:
You do. You feel the glow. It's right there.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right here.
Pete Wright:
Well, we're very excited about that. And we are also going to continue our conversation today about being an entrepreneur with ADHD, particularly in the neurodiverse space. And we have a fantastic guest that is actually a throwback, a callback guest to two weeks ago when we had our fantastic guest, Jamie Cutino on. So, we're continuing that conversation with her business partner. I can't wait to talk about that.
Before we do that though, head over to TakeControlADHD.com. You can get to know us a little bit better. You can listen to the show right there on the website or subscribe to the mailing list, and we will send you an email each time a new episode is released. You can connect with us on Facebook or Instagram or Pinterest at Take Control ADHD. But to really connect with us, join us on our ADHD Discord community.
It's super easy to jump in the general community chat channel. Just visit TakeControlADHD.com/Discord and you'll be taken right over to the general invitation page. If you're looking for a little bit more, particularly if this show has ever touched you or helped you to understand your relationship with ADHD in a new way, we invite you to support the show directly through Patreon. Patreon is listener supported podcasting.
With a few dollars a month, you can help guarantee that we continue to grow the show, add new features, and invest more heavily in our community. And speaking of Discord, my goodness, once you get into Patreon, a lot of channels open up, so many channels. It is really, really fun. And yeah, once here, you can join me and Nikki for individual... not individual, but for coffee with Pete and coaching with Nikki.
We talk about technology and ADHD coaching once a month. It's really fantastic. So, head over there, Patreon.com/The ADHD Podcast to get started. Nikki, we have some news.
Nikki Kinzer:
We do. We have some news. So, if you are a Patreon member and you're listening to this episode early, like right now, a benefit offered to our Patreon supporters, group coaching enrollment is still open. So, if you're listening to this early, it is still open. There are still spots available for both groups, the ADHD Book Club and Breaking Down the Overwhelm with ADHD.
However, space is limited and spots are filling up, so don't wait to sign up. There is room right now, but the deadline to enroll is next Wednesday, February 22nd. So, if you're listening to this, after February 22nd, definitely put your name down for our waitlist for the next group that are coming up.
Pete Wright:
Outstanding. It looks like it's going to be a great season of groups. We're very, very excited to get those started. So, get your name in quick. And also, I don't know if you knew this, Nikki, we're talking about business today.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. And you know-
Nikki Kinzer:
And what better tool can you have as a business person?
Pete Wright:
You can't.
Nikki Kinzer:
Whether you are a business owner or just in anything, it doesn't even have to be business.
Pete Wright:
It doesn't have to be.
Nikki Kinzer:
If you're writing on a computer-
Pete Wright:
You should have this tool.
Nikki Kinzer:
... you should have this tool.
Pete Wright:
But I want to talk about how I use it specifically for a few features of my business. We're talking, of course, about my best software friend, TextExpander, one of my favorite invisible tools in my tool chest. It's always there running in the background, waiting for me to type an abbreviation or a snippet in TextExpander speak. And when it sees that snippet, it goes to work instantly expanding from just a few characters on my keyboard to words, sentences, paragraphs, entire pages of text.
Here's how it works. You store it. First, you keep your most used emails, phrases, messages, numbers, URLs. You put them in the TextExpander library. Then, you assign each of those phrases, words, et cetera, an abbreviation. Then, you share the library potentially with other people that you work with. And then, you expand it. As you're typing, you type the abbreviation, boom, it opens up to the entire email that you just stored.
Now, how do I use TextExpander for my business? It's going to seem stupidly obvious when I say this, account and routing numbers. My goodness. You need to set up an ACH deposit with a new client? TextExpander knows my bank account number. How about that routing number? I know, I know it's in the footer on the website of my bank. I know it's there, but why should I have to go fishing when TextExpander knows it? I have a client that I have to bill each year, and they're in the Netherlands.
They need my incoming wire transfer instructions that includes both that account and routing number, plus a SWIFT number. SWIFT number? Who remembers the SWIFT numbers? TextExpander does. That's right. And I set up all my snippet abbreviations in my snippet library with dollar signs at the beginning to make sure that they're easily grouped together in a massive snippet list and super easy to find when I use the forward slash search shortcut to bring up the snippet search window.
So, even better, I'm on two teams that both use TextExpander, and I hope you'll explore the team features too. The way TextExpander says it, your team's knowledge is at their fingertips, including those important numbers that others on your team might need to use. Get your whole team on the same page by getting information out of silos and into the hands of everyone that needs to use it.
Share your team's knowledge across departments so your team is sending a unified message to your customers and isn't spending time reinventing the wheel. TextExpander is available on Mac, Windows, Chrome, iPhone, iPad. And for listeners of the ADHD Podcast, you can get 20% off your first year of service. Just visit TakeControlADHD.com/TextExpander and you will be whisked over to our page on their website where you can get started.
Again, if you get started now, you'll save 20% off your subscription. The way we work is changing rapidly. Make work work the way your brain works by saying more in less time and with less effort using TextExpander. Our great thanks to the TextExpander team for sponsoring the ADHD Podcast. And now, Nikki, I think we should get to business. Shall we get to business?
Nikki Kinzer:
Let's do it.
Pete Wright:
Let's go find Maggie. Maggie? Maggie Isley is a designer, coach and speaker. She's the co-founder and creative director of 929 Studios where she works with businesses around the world to form cohesive brand identities. She's also the co-founder of Be Unemployable, a podcast and educational brand for neurodivergent entrepreneurs, with our new best friend of the show, Jamie Cutino.
Maggie joins us today to talk about her work with neurodivergent entrepreneurs and how to get unstuck in our professional growth. Maggie, welcome to the ADHD Podcast.
Maggie Isley:
Thanks for having me. I'm psyched.
Nikki Kinzer:
Wow. Where do we start? I watched your TED Talk. It was so good. And what I love, there was a couple of different takeaways, but I think one of the things I really want to dig into today especially is that connection between therapy and coaching. Because what you said about clients coming to you, feeling stuck and feeling like it's a business problem, resonated so much with me and what I do with my own clients too.
So, I definitely want us to dig into that, for sure. But why don't you tell our audience a little bit about who you are and how you got onto your own podcast with Be Unemployable, which we love the name, and your whole business. So, yeah, give us a little background information about you.
Maggie Isley:
All right, awesome. So, I always draw blank when people ask me that because I'm always like, "I don't know." I don't know anything about myself. Thank you so much for-
Nikki Kinzer:
Who am I?
Maggie Isley:
Right. I'm like, "I have no idea." Whatever you've heard, it's probably true. Yeah, I do have my own podcast. I used to have a pod... well, I have two podcasts. And I have one with my husband, and that's what really got my feet wet. And then, I have this one and it's used to be called-
Pete Wright:
Wait, wait. I'm sorry, I have to stop. A podcast with your husband? What's that like?
Maggie Isley:
Amazing.
Pete Wright:
Is it really?
Maggie Isley:
Yeah. We started it one day. So, one day we went out for dessert. We just went to this little, it's a pub underneath a really fancy restaurant. And he said, "I want to do something creative with you." And it was years and years ago, like 2017 maybe. And he was like, "I want to do something creative." And I was like... we were trying to come up with ideas and we talked about maybe a script, a screenplay.
We were trying to come up with ideas, and somehow we settled on a podcast. It was before the market was what it is now. And we headed up and running in about two weeks. We didn't even have mics.
Pete Wright:
That's fantastic.
Maggie Isley:
We had nothing.
Pete Wright:
And you're still married?
Maggie Isley:
We've been married. It'll be 21 years this year.
Pete Wright:
Oh, congratulations. That's lovely.
Nikki Kinzer:
Wow. So, what did you guys talk about? Your marriage? Or did you guys talk about other things?
Maggie Isley:
All right. Are you ready for the title? Because it's still around. We've only done one episode this year, but we've done over a 100 episodes. It's called Couple Goals with S and M, because his name is Shawn and mine is Maggie. So, it's a comedy podcast.
Pete Wright:
Oh, my God.
Maggie Isley:
It's a podcast where he brings a topic and I bring a topic. And we do not share the same interests, so he has to listen to my topic and I listen to his. And then, we have our commentary on each other's topics. So, I like to talk about-
Nikki Kinzer:
I like the way you guys think.
Maggie Isley:
He likes to talk about comic books and movies, and I like to talk about true crime.
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, me too.
Maggie Isley:
Yeah. So, he hates true crime, and I'm not the biggest fan of comic books. I mean, I like the movies, but I'm not trying to read comic books. And I have learned so much.
Pete Wright:
My goodness, I love that so much. I mean, it's a total distraction-
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, that's right.
Pete Wright:
... but I feel like I can talk to you about couple goals with S and M for ages.
Maggie Isley:
Oh, my gosh.
Pete Wright:
That will be absolutely in the show notes.
Maggie Isley:
That was my foray, though, into podcasting. Then, I started Extraordinary Entrepreneurs, and that was my solo podcast. And I was like, "Okay, I'm going to do this. It'll be so fun." But that has just became me talking to myself. And I was like, "Well, this is a little bummer, huh?"
Pete Wright:
It's less fun.
Maggie Isley:
I was like, "There's nobody to talk to." So, my episodes were six minutes long of me going, "So, this is what I think today." And I was like, "I don't really like this at all." And I was going to bring on a co-host, and that didn't work out. And I met Jamie. If you've heard this podcast, you know the story. So, when Jamie and I were talking, and I was like, "So, are you asking me to go study? Or what are we doing here?"
Pete Wright:
That's so cute.
Maggie Isley:
And she came on and she was just a natural fit. But I had this whole vision where the podcast was going to become a big brand. And she was like, "I'm in." And I was like, "That's it. Then, you're the right partner for me."
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, yeah. That's great.
Maggie Isley:
And that's where we're at.
Pete Wright:
I want to talk about, and I recognize that I own the responsibility of completely distracting us with the whole S and M thing. But I want to go back to this transition that you made to that last point, which is you decided that your brain was going to be perfect for being an entrepreneur building brands. And a lot of people who listen to this show have not been able to make that switch. In fact, they look at their brains as a boat anchor toward their efforts to create something.
There is a lot of shame and self-doubt and all the things that go into creating new things in the world. And I'm curious how you managed to navigate through the complexities of your own identity to do good stuff.
Maggie Isley:
Well, here's the cool thing about boat anchors. You get to pull them up and move.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. I didn't even know that was going to be a leading metaphor, but I'm so glad you picked it up.
Nikki Kinzer:
I love it. They're temporary. They don't have to be... yeah, that's great.
Maggie Isley:
Yeah. That's the cool thing about boat anchors is you get to pull them up and move. You're not a tree. These aren't your roots that you have to abide by forever. So, my journey, if you haven't watched my TED Talk, and I don't expect you to have watched it to listen to this podcast-
Pete Wright:
But we'll put it in the show notes and check it out.
Maggie Isley:
Yeah. But you absolutely should because it's amazing, and I'm fantastic.
Nikki Kinzer:
It is. It's very good. Highly recommend it.
Maggie Isley:
But my journey was, I grew up believing that I needed to follow a certain path. We all do. I mean, I feel like we all grow up thinking, "Well, I'm going to grow up and I'm going to be a marine biologist," or whatever it is that you think you're going to do. And I did the same thing. I thought, "I'm going to grow up and I'm going to follow this path that my parents think are the best path for me." And it wasn't. It wasn't a good path.
I didn't like it, didn't like it one bit. And I had to follow it for a very long time before I realized that it wasn't the right path for me. So, when someone feels stuck, that's normal. That's not bad. It's a normal part of being a person. If you continue to stay stuck, that's where there's a problem. And that's what my talk was all about is how coaches and therapy really go hand in hand, how coaches identify the issue because we get to see you more than a therapist does.
We get to see you all the time. We get to see you in the thick of it, whereas therapists might only get to see you once a week or once every other week. And they don't get to see you when you're dealing with a work problem or dealing with whatever it is. They get to see you when you come in and go, "So and so did this, and it triggered me, and this happened." When you come into therapy, or at least when I come into therapy, I have a list.
"This happened, and I want to talk about it right now." Whereas a coach has a very different view. So, for me, I'm able to go, "Hey, I think this might be stemming from this. Can you take that to your therapist and see what comes up?" And all of a sudden, you unravel an issue you didn't know was there. But to me, you're walking around with a giant sign over your head.
Nikki Kinzer:
What was so interesting about your talk, and I know you work with entrepreneurs, but I really related it not only to my clients who are entrepreneurs, but to clients who are just in jobs that they don't like or they feel stuck or they feel trapped and they're really unhappy, but they're not really sure how to get out or if they can get out. And that's really what resonated too.
So, I want to know more about the trauma. You talked about trauma and you talked about how it goes into business. Go into further detail. I'm really interested in that.
Maggie Isley:
I did talk about that in my TED Talk, and I'm hesitant to talk about it too deep because again I am not a licensed therapist.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's true. Right, right. We're not a therapist. Yeah.
Maggie Isley:
Everybody know coach, and this is something else that I say very loudly in my TED Talk. Coaching is not the same as therapy. Please, everybody. And I know you guys know that, but I always want to say that.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, no, very important.
Maggie Isley:
It's not a replacement. They go hand in hand. They skip off into the sunset together. Fantastic. But trauma impacts everything. It isn't just, "Oh, I had this. It happened in my childhood. But don't worry, I'm going to go color and this should fix it. I'll just heal my inner child, and I should be fine." Okay. That should help some things.
But when you show up at work, you settle for a lot less because you are always a people pleaser at home. These tendencies that... I have a cat on my lap, so if we hear meowing-
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, I love that.
Pete Wright:
Cute.
Maggie Isley:
But these tendencies that you developed from your traumatic experiences, they show up in your business. They show up in your life. They show up by settling for less when you're miserable in a job in a 9:00 to 5:00. I mean, our friend Jamie, who we all love, they showed up when she wasn't willing to go out and sell her services at the beginning because of rejection issues. Trauma is prevalent well after Big T and Little T. I mean, it's prevalent in our lives.
For me personally, I'll gladly speak to my trauma. I was raised by narcissists. So, for a long time, being me was a horrible, horrible thing to be, like being myself. When I did my TED Talk, it's on three different channels on YouTube. It's on the TEDx channel, it's on my channel, and it's on Case Western Reserve's channel.
Pete Wright:
Sure.
Maggie Isley:
My family that I no longer speak with attacked me publicly in the comments.
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, geez.
Pete Wright:
Oh, dear.
Maggie Isley:
And that right there tells you what it's like to run a business when you still have trauma.
Pete Wright:
Why did they attack you? Because they're not through their trauma?
Maggie Isley:
The comment was, "You sound like someone who had," and they left comments in their real names too. "You sound like someone who hasn't worked or who blames everybody else for their misfortunes." Now, as people who have heard my talk, my talk is about accepting radical responsibility.
Nikki Kinzer:
Absolutely. It's a complete opposite of that.
Pete Wright:
It's the exact opposite of that.
Maggie Isley:
And they talk about how I need to learn how to accept responsibility for my life. And I'm like-
Pete Wright:
So, they didn't actually listen to-
Maggie Isley:
My friends. My friends. So, trauma impacts every part of your life, whether or not you've healed from it or not. It's a muscle.
Pete Wright:
It's a muscle. And that's the thing that gets me when we talk about this stuff, is the insidious nature through which, as you say, capital T, little T, trauma insinuates itself into the operation of your business. How can you be a capital E or lower KC entrepreneur if you are still dealing with your own trauma and you can't recognize it as such?
Maggie Isley:
Exactly. It's very important to have another set of eyes, whether that be... it doesn't have to be a coach if you're not comfortable with that. It could just be your best friend, your spouse, someone who you trust to keep an eye on you and say, "Hey, that reaction, you were very triggered. That was a trauma response." That's not-
Pete Wright:
Someone who you're not afraid to hear from when they say things that could potentially be disruptive.
Maggie Isley:
Yup. You need to have that other set of eyes to really keep you in check, essentially. Because it happens to me, and I've been working on this for years, and it's still happening. But it's worth it to me to continue to... I still go to therapy.
Nikki Kinzer:
Sure. Yeah.
Maggie Isley:
Otherwise, that comment would have made me being like, "Don't tell anybody about my TED Talk. It's a secret." But instead, I'm like, "That's a perfect example of what I was talking about in my TED Talk."
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right, right.
Maggie Isley:
That's exactly what I was referring to.
Pete Wright:
Is there any data to support just how many people are struggling with this kind of stuff in starting their own businesses and running their own businesses? How is that?
Maggie Isley:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
I mean, is it possible to track that?
Maggie Isley:
So, I have an entire folder, and I actually had to provide it. So, when you give a TEDx talk, you can give like a, "Hey, this is my personal story." That's fine. That's great TEDx talk. But for the TEDx talk I gave, where it does border on scientific, you have to provide-
Pete Wright:
The receipts. Yes.
Nikki Kinzer:
Some stuff for research.
Maggie Isley:
You have to provide. So, I have an entire folder, if anybody would like to see it. I have a whole folder of scientific studies. The studies of people who just have a hard time holding a job from the trauma that they've, and it doesn't have anything to do with the outlying issues that can come with trauma, which would be your addiction issues and the other things that come with that.
People who experience trauma are more inclined to just lose a job, just lose a job, not even not be able to start a business. Once they're able to overcome things like that, then they have a hard time starting a business. And then, when you look at the fact that trauma has loose connections, not confirmed, this is something I also researched, with neurodevelopmental disorders, that's something they're currently studying.
Again, not confirmed. Please don't put my name next to that. But because of the frontal lobe-
Nikki Kinzer:
And this is what you were talking about in your TED talk though, right? About the executive functions, how those are affected, and then you have ADHD on top of that. There's a lot of chaos going on there.
Maggie Isley:
Trauma affects your entire brain. And when it affects your brain to begin with, then you add in our neurodevelopmental disorders, the ability to start a business, the ability to hold a job. That's why, to me, being unemployable is a feather in my cap. I don't fit in, and I'm okay with that because I'm a product of what I had no control over when I was younger, but I found a way to make it work.
Nikki Kinzer:
It's so inspirational. So, I'm really curious about in your own experience, because I know neither one of us, Pete or I are not therapists either. So, we totally get where you're coming from, but from your own experience, what-
Pete Wright:
It would be awesome if I was a therapist and just never told you.
Nikki Kinzer:
And just never told me that? That's weird.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, I kept it a huge secret. Also, I'm an astronaut.
Nikki Kinzer:
After 20-plus years of us knowing each other?
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. Guess what? No, but I'm curious, from your own experience, Maggie, you noticed this about yourself, and so you knew you had some healing to do. You knew that there was therapy that you needed to help break open your own business. What does that look like? Because I'm curious to know, and maybe this is black and white thinking in a way.
What does it look like to be stuck and then say, "Hey, I'm talking to you as a coach, but I think it'd be really helpful for you to go to a therapist too." And then, now the doors are opening. What does it look like when you go through that door?
Maggie Isley:
For the client or for me?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. Well, for you because you went through it or your clients' experience, whatever you've seen. I'm just curious where that transformation happens.
Maggie Isley:
So, I can take you back a little bit further if you really want to go deep.
Pete Wright:
Sure.
Nikki Kinzer:
Sure. We're willing to go deep.
Pete Wright:
So deep.
Maggie Isley:
Let's go so deep, you guys.
Nikki Kinzer:
So deep.
Pete Wright:
So deep.
Maggie Isley:
So deep right now.
Pete Wright:
Oh, my God.
Maggie Isley:
Let's do it. So, listen. Not correct. So, the way I figured it out, the way that I understood that this was the connection, me personally, is we were foreclosed on in 2010, and my husband was afraid to tell me. Yeah. Now, my husband is amazing. Like I said, 21 years of marriage this year. And it was over a very small dollar amount, like $5,000, small. It wasn't a mortgage. It was association dues at a condo.
Pete Wright:
Oh, my goodness.
Maggie Isley:
And he was afraid to tell me because of my reaction. And that's when I knew that there was more to me and needing therapy and healing. And now, I wasn't working. I was working for a company, but I knew that I needed therapy and I had a choice to make. It was either I heal or begin healing or I kick him out, which is what most people would do. Most people would be like, "You've got to go. This is unacceptable."
I can't open my door and see some guys saying, "Hey, your house goes to auction in two days. Why are you still here?" Which is exactly what happened. And I'm nearly... it was not good. So, in that time, I had two small children and went, "No, I'm the problem here." I mean, yes, we needed open communication, but the reason, when I asked why he didn't tell me, he said it was because he was afraid of me.
Nikki Kinzer:
Hard to hear, I'm sure.
Maggie Isley:
Horrible to hear. And when I realized that and I began my journey, that allowed me to see all of the red flags in everybody else. And I'm also autistic, which then made me realize how many patterns I was seeing without understanding them. And when I walked through that door into healing and I understood, "Hey, I'm a lot smarter than I think I am. I'm a lot more aware than I think I am, and I really want to be better." And I went on that journey.
I started my business six years later. We own this home. We own the home we're sitting in. We broke six figures in 2020 after being foreclosed on 10 years earlier, a decade earlier. And I'm able to help my clients with this because I've been through it. I've been through that moment where someone says, "Hey, I'm afraid of you. Hey, I can't talk to you." And then, you go from there. Go ahead. Sorry.
Nikki Kinzer:
And you go from there. What is so amazing about that is, I don't know if it's the reflection piece of, okay, wait a minute, it's me. I feel like Taylor Swift, the song, "Hey, it's me. I'm the problem." Yeah. Cue the Taylor Swift song, please.
Pete Wright:
If only we can afford the license fees.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes. But what I think is so inspirational about that, Maggie, is that it's possible and I think it's really important for people to hear that, is that first reaction could have been walls going up. Like you said, you're kicked out. I can't believe you deceived me like this, however you're taking it. But to be able to actually have that self-reflection and awareness of, "Wait a minute, this isn't how I want to be perceived by him either. This isn't what I want."
And that almost kind of goes into what you were talking about in this personal responsibility of this information that you now have about yourself. You knew you needed to go to therapy. Can you talk a little bit about that more? Because the personal responsibility really hit me too when I was watching you.
Maggie Isley:
Yeah. Personal responsibility is something that people throw around now, at least I hear it a lot, and I hear it almost as a victim blame mentality. And I wanted to bring it to the stage in a different way. It's not that. It is a look at yourself, see if there's something you don't like, except responsibility. "Hey, this part of me sucks. What is that about?"
And then, see what the root cause is because yes, you can change superficially, but look, until you figure out what that root cause is, you're going to revert. I know because I still have moments where I revert, and it's a human nature. It's human nature. It's okay. This is a shame-free zone. It's okay. But that therapy helps.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. I mean, the way you talk about... the way you just spoke about seeing those patterns that unravel around you once you become aware of it, I mean, to me, so that's like the better mine half of it, right? It's like, "Oh, I'm looking for a Volkswagen and now all I see are Volkswagen. So, suddenly, everybody must be thinking about Volkswagens." But the truth is, that can become an incredibly powerful tool, once you're aware of it, to learn from the patterns around you.
And with our spectrum of neurodiverse brains around this show, the idea that we can actually harness that frequency illusion to help us learn something about ourselves is really, really important. And I think it's okay to deeply invest in learning new things about yourself, even if it's for a short or medium term, because you'll be changed on the other side of it.
That just sort of feels like, rather than carrying on the fact that... I could choose to feel shamed about my past experience. I could totally choose to do that and that would suck. I could also just choose to learn from it and see what my life would be like if I decided to maybe try and break some of those patterns.
Maggie Isley:
Exactly.
Nikki Kinzer:
It's like what we were talking about with the anchor. You have the choice to pull up the anchor. And I think when we're talking about responsibility, it empowers you because it gives you that choice of, I don't have to be stuck. I don't have to sit here and be unhappy. It gives you that empowerment to make a different choice or to do something different.
Maggie Isley:
Absolutely. And I couldn't agree more.
Nikki Kinzer:
What kinds of things do you do with your clients as a coach? I'm curious.
Maggie Isley:
So, we go literally everywhere from concept of a business all the way through. They're hiring, they're growing, they're scaling. Because I do own an agency, a branding agency, that's how I started. Actually, how I started was a blog, but that's another time. But I do everything. So, last month, I had a client here for 10 days, and we shot video for her. It's actually not a course, it's like a digital download kind of thing. We shot videos and we did all that for her offer.
Earlier today, I booked another four days with a client. She's coming into town because I do have a studio that I work out of. And she's coming here so we can do some pictures because we've done her website, and I don't like any of the pictures she has. So, she's coming to town. So, yeah, we do everything from, "Hey, this is my idea." And when you have ADHD, it's difficult to narrow it down to an idea.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Hey, this is my thousand ideas that I have, so yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
How do I do this? So, you're helping them write that down?
Pete Wright:
Yeah. I'm curious how your clients relate to not just the creative ideas and the production ideas, but the counseling ideas, the ideas that say, "Hey, let's get over the lower T trauma so that we can get to the creative stuff." What's the experience like talking to people who maybe haven't been spoken to the way you speak to them?
Maggie Isley:
I literally tell them that this is how we're going to communicate in a, I call it a clarity call. It's essentially a discovery call or a sales call. But I will not take on a one-on-one client until we've had one of those. And I talk to them like that in a call, and I see how they react. And I will not... this is where I'm a little different than a lot of people when it comes to, and I'm using air quotes for everybody who cannot see me, sales calls, because I will not let you sign up with me the same day we speak. I want you to process everything that we talk about.
Pete Wright:
You need a waiting period.
Maggie Isley:
You need to process everything we talked about. And because ADHD people like myself are very impulsive, you will give me your card when we hang up. I know if you want change as badly as I want to change, that you are going to be like, "Let me pay you now." And absolutely not, you cannot pay me now. I need you to process everything I said to you, how I spoke to you, because I am harsh. I'm not harsh. I'm not like, "Get your butt up at me."
No, I'm not like that. But I am like, "Hey, tell me a little bit more about this, that, and this, that. I think it's stemming from this, this, this. I need you to go to therapy. I know you want to build your business tomorrow, but you're not ready for that." And I also ask clients to stop working with me until they process things. So, I have clients leave after three months because I don't want to work with them anymore until they process things.
Pete Wright:
There's a whole vibe to that. Not only are you modeling good truth to power behavior that's like, "Hey, as a creative partner and 1099, I'm willing to say things to you that maybe you're not accustomed to hearing from people that you are paying. I'm going to break through an entitlement wall that you might expect as a service provider. I don't really have much respect for those entitlement walls."
"But also what I want to do is treat you how to speak to yourself. I want you to recognize patterns that need to be broken if you're going to break through to some new level of success." Are you able to take all of your own advice?
Maggie Isley:
Sometimes. Other times, my husband literally will say to me, "Do you know what you just said to the client?" Because he can hear me and he'll be like, "What you said to your client was this, so why are you doing this?" And I'm like, "Okay, okay. I get it." So, I'm pretty good, but I am human. So sometimes, or I show up. I showed up to my therapy on Monday and said, "Biological brain knows this. I know all of this, and I cannot seem to get past that, even though I'm well aware of it."
And she said, "Oh, that's because you're thinking with your anxious brain, not your logical brain. So, maybe as soon as you flip that around, you'll be able to process it."
Nikki Kinzer:
That's so true.
Maggie Isley:
And I was like, "Oh, thanks." Okay. And I've been fine since then. As soon as she said that to me, I was like, "Well, that clicked. Okay. Got it."
Pete Wright:
Right. It's amazing how often it's just a search for the right metaphor, the right idiom that clicks into a puzzle piece into your brain to unlock that feeling of resolution. It happens to me all the time.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's my big takeaway here, because I have an anxious brain. And I need to ask myself, "Is this my anxious brain or my logical brain?" And I know when the anxious brain comes. It's easy to see. I'm worried about everything, so it doesn't hide.
Maggie Isley:
And it was so silly because I was just like, "Oh, my gosh, this is goofy. I don't know what's going on." And she was like, "Oh, no, it's fine. It's just you're thinking."
Nikki Kinzer:
This is what you're doing.
Maggie Isley:
This is what you're just thinking with your anxious brain right now. And I was like, "All right. Well, I guess you can have the rest of your 45 minutes back because I'm done. I'm fine. I don't need you the rest of this time today. I'm doing okay."
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, you helped.
Maggie Isley:
And it's just like, we're done here. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. So, that's my hardest part, is having that and having my husband who knows me so well be like, "You aren't doing what you are supposed to be doing." And then, I'm like, "Oh, thanks."
Nikki Kinzer:
I had a time where my husband had heard me too, and he was like, "So, is everything okay? You sounded really upset or frustrated." And I'm like, "You weren't supposed to pick up on that. Really? Was I?" Oh, no, if he picked up, but I think it's because he knows me so well. He could tell that the level of my voice was going different ways. I hope my client didn't realize that, but I know what you're talking about.
Sometimes it's very helpful though to have that other person be like, "Hey, check in with yourself. What's going on?"
Maggie Isley:
He would call me to the carpet. I love it. I mean, he's really fantastic.
Nikki Kinzer:
Awesome. I am so glad that we met Maggie and Jamie.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, I know. What a dynamic duo.
Nikki Kinzer:
I'm so happy that you're in my world now.
Pete Wright:
Totally.
Maggie Isley:
I was so excited. Jamie was like, "You don't understand, you have to listen to this podcast." I was like, "Okay, okay, okay."
Pete Wright:
I feel like it's hard to wrap up and ask you for, given the complexity of the way we deal with our efforts to build great things in the world just writ large, it's hard to ask for one, give us a piece of advice for listeners out there everywhere to tell us what to do. But I wonder if we could reflect back to your call, the call you're describing, that clarity call.
Is there a question that you ask clients that you could ask listeners today that you find spurs the right kind of internal reflection on what might come next?
Maggie Isley:
Yeah. My question is always, if you were daydreaming, you're just sitting there daydreaming about that perfect life, what does that day look like to you? You don't have any kind of preconceived notions about what you do in a day right now, your daily life today, and your feelings today have no impact, what is that perfect day in the life? What is it? Because that's our goal in working together is achieving that.
Nikki Kinzer:
Is where that is, what that looks like. So, them visualizing it and talking it out loud is also such a great thing because they get to actually process. And if you're working with a lot of ADHDers, which I'm as assuming you do because you work with a lot of neurodivergent brains, they need that processing. They need to verbally talk about what they're looking at because they may not even know.
I mean, I can see asking that question and a lot of people saying, "I don't know what that is.
Maggie Isley:
Oh, my gosh. Yeah. And that's me. When you ask me to tell you about myself, I'm like, "I'm 41." Done.
Nikki Kinzer:
I have two kids and I'm married. I know those things.
Maggie Isley:
Forty-one. I have two kids. I have three dogs. What else would you like to know?
Pete Wright:
Obviously a cat.
Maggie Isley:
Right. I have a cat that's always on my lap. I like plants. But I do, I have people start there. And when they're like, "I don't know," and I'm like, "Okay, well, what does the morning look like? Are you waking up alone? Do you have somebody in the bed with you? Do you have blackout shades? Or is there light shining through?" And I start to prompt them. But I want to hear what that perfect day is like so that way we can get there.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's great.
Pete Wright:
Lovely.
Maggie Isley:
And then, once I know what they want, I want them to have clarity as well as me.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. That's lovely. Well, Maggie, you're wonderful. Thanks for hanging out with us.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes, thank you so much.
Maggie Isley:
Thank you.
Pete Wright:
Tell us where folks can find you and all the right places that we should put in the show notes.
Maggie Isley:
Oh, my gosh. Find me at maggieisley.com. Find me on Instagram at Maggie D., like Diane, Isley. And I don't know where else you want to find me. You can find me on my podcast, Be Unemployable. You can find me everywhere. I'm everywhere. You can find me on Facebook, it's Maggie Isley.
Pete Wright:
Everywhere.
Nikki Kinzer:
Awesome.
Maggie Isley:
I'm literally everywhere. You can find me wherever you want. Google my name, I show up.
Nikki Kinzer:
We'll put a couple of places in the show notes and we'll start the trail of breadcrumbs. Eventually, they'll be at your house. Maggie Isley, thank you so much. We so appreciate you. I hope this is not the last time we talked to you on the show. You're wonderful. Thank you.
Maggie Isley:
Oh, my gosh, amazing.
Pete Wright:
Thank you everybody else for downloading and listening to this show. We thank you for your time and your attention. Don't forget, if you have something to contribute to this conversation, we're heading over to the show talk channel and our Discord server, and you can join us right there by becoming a supporting member at the deluxe level.
On behalf of Nikki Kinzer and Maggie D., as in Diane, Isley, I'm Pete Wright. We'll see you next week right here on Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast.
