In this episode, I sit down with ADHD coach Corie Wightlin to explore how ADHD shows up in young athletes — and how parents, coaches, and athletes themselves can turn potential challenges into performance advantages. We dive into practical tools for emotional regulation, goal setting, motivation, and building resilience in the face of mistakes.
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Chapters
00:00 – Introduction
01:45 – Biggest challenges ADHD athletes face: time management, organization, working memory, hyperfocus/hypofocus, and motivation
05:38 – Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (RSD) and its impact on performance and relationships
10:50 – Turning mistakes into problem-solving opportunities
12:29 – Corie’s personal experience as an ADHD athlete and how coaching styles impacted her
16:09 – Coaching athletes to be “coach-proof”
18:58 – Goal-setting strategies for ADHD athletes and the importance of “falter plans”
23:54 – Building motivation through novelty, interest, urgency, and challenge
28:53 – Leveraging visual learning and verbal processing effectively in coaching sessions
34:26 – ADHD as a superpower: hyperfocus, resilience, and strengths-based coaching
35:22 – The role of mindfulness and self-compassion in performance and life
45:43 – Emotional regulation as a core ADHD challenge and strategies to improve it
51:27 – Harnessing emotional intensity for better performance
56:48 – Key takeaway for parents of ADHD athletes
🔗 Connect with Corie Wightlin:
Website: https://wightlincoachingservices.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wightlincoachingservices/
🔗 Connect with Michael Huber:
Website: https://michaelvhuber.com
Newsletter: https://michaelvhuber.com/newsletter
HS to College Transition Preparation: https://michaelvhuber.com/course
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michaelvhuber
Michael Huber (00:01.73)
Hey Cory, how are you?
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (00:03.725)
I'm good. How are you, Michael?
Michael Huber (00:05.846)
I'm doing great. Thanks for joining me on the podcast. I invited, if you're listening, I invited Corey to be on, she is an ADHD coach. Is that correct? Am I getting that right? Yeah. Yeah. And so the reason why we connected is, is I've been having the experience of working with ADHD athletes much more. And I wanted to learn from Corey some things that I could do. And I wanted her to be able to share her experience.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (00:17.507)
That is correct, yes.
Michael Huber (00:35.598)
as a coach and individually personally to help educate everybody so like What maybe you could talk about? think I know the answer what inspired you to become an ADHD coach?
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (00:48.877)
Yeah, well, I am in an ADHD family. I have ADHD, my kids have ADHD, my dad has ADHD. And so I was an educator. was a teacher and an educator for a long time. And I really worked closely with kiddos that were neurodiverse. And I saw that the tips and the tricks that we were telling families and kids and even the adults in their lives weren't working for them.
because they weren't necessarily personalized or ADHD or neurodiverse informed. And so I decided that that was something that I wanted to do. So I went and got certified and have been working in this particular role for about five years now and supporting families and teens and adults in building those tools and systems that make things a little bit easier and make life.
feel less overwhelming.
Michael Huber (01:45.794)
Yeah. Yeah. And so I guess from the adolescent population, the teen population, which is my primary population for coaching, what are some of the biggest challenges that you see them have as athletes, specifically, if you deal with athletes?
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (02:02.539)
Yes, I have a lot of high school and college athletes that I coach and my 16 year old is a pretty intense water polo player and she has, she was diagnosed ADHD when she was four. So we've been on her ADHD journey for a long time. And some of the big struggles and challenges that I think athletes that with ADHD face are time management, right?
Very timeline ADHDers that we either think we have all the time in the world or no time. And that's a struggle when you're trying to get in all your reps and you're trying to do all your practices and also trying to do school and be social and all of those things. Organization is another big one. So it's not just organization of like your practice stuff and your team stuff, because we all know that is a struggle too.
I tell the story that my daughter last year was MVP of her whole league for water polo. And then also on her team, she won, most likely for, to forget your cap suit and goggles. So those two, those two things can go hand in hand, right? But it's also organization of thoughts, right? Remembering the plays, being able to execute them, being able to process information quickly, in real time.
Another big one is working memory. And so that goes along with that organization. So working memory is being able to hold information in your brain long enough to execute it, to organize it, and then to execute it. And if you think about it in a game standpoint, right, if you play a team sport, there's a lot of information coming to you at all times that you need to hold and then figure out how to execute. And I think another really big one is hyper-focus and hype.
So hyper-focus is just being like totally dialed in. You're focused on one thing. You don't know the rest of the world is around you, which can be awesome in sports, but we also can go into hypo-focus where we're focused on everything. And that can be really distracting. That can pull us away from being in the zone. So those are some of the big ones. And then of course, motivation, right? So ADHDers don't harness
Michael Huber (04:04.066)
Yes.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (04:22.393)
and have motivation in the same way as neurotypical people. And it's because of the way that we don't regulate our dopamine and our dopamine is our regulation chemical in our brain, right? And so it's not that ADHDers don't have enough dopamine, it's that we don't regulate it well. And so there can be days where athletes feel like, love my sport. I, you know, I'm passionate about it, but I just can't get to the gym.
or I just don't want to go to practice day and I don't know why. And it causes a lot of shame and a lot of, you know, feeling, feeling really bad about themselves and wondering why everyone else can just get up and go when they don't want to. So those are, those are some of the biggies that I see both in the athletes that I work with as a coach and in my own kiddo.
Michael Huber (05:09.271)
Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, I was telling you before we hit record that I was just on a phone, a phone call or zoom with a athlete. And one of the things he was telling me as we were wrapping up and I was getting onto our conversation was, you know, he can really hyper fixate on mistakes and he has ADHD diagnosis. Right. So like the mistake he said, like I fixate on the mistake, it becomes a distraction and I can dwell on that mistake for days.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (05:27.158)
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Michael Huber (05:38.645)
Right? Which is not only affecting his performance on the field, but it's affecting his life. So like, is that something that you find that comes up for your clients?
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (05:38.691)
Yes.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (05:45.229)
Mm-hmm.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (05:48.823)
Yes. So just in general, most ADHDers also experience something called rejection sensitivity dysphoria, RSD. And rejection sense RSD, rejection sensitivity dysphoria is this large reaction, both physical, emotional, and mental, those thoughts to either perceived or actual criticism or rejection. And so in athletes that often shows up, if you play this amazing game,
But there was the one thing that you didn't do correctly and you feel like you let your team down. feel like you let your coach down, maybe your parents down. And then our brain just ruminates and fixates on that over and over and over. And, the really hard part with RSD, well, there's several hard parts, obviously, but one of the really hard parts is that it kind of is like self feeding, right? Cause the more that our brains make those connections of, I messed up.
that means I'm a black player. I had made that mistake. That means that my teammates aren't gonna be able to rely on me the more that that beast grows. And so it kind of does take over. So unless we put in really intentional strategies and tools to interrupt it, to reframe it, to help ourselves see, you know, from the big picture, it's almost impossible to get out of. And it doesn't just affect them in.
sports, right? It's socially on the team, you know, this couple of players went out after the game and they didn't invite me, nobody likes me. I'm not really, you know, part of the team. And then that also can be really hard as well. So RSD is a huge challenge for young, well, all people with ADHD, but particularly young athletes in terms of that mental component.
Michael Huber (07:16.973)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Huber (07:27.725)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Huber (07:40.984)
Yeah. I mean, just when you're talking about that idea of sensitivity, rejection, right? Like I can't imagine being more sensitive to rejection, right? Cause even if you're not neurodiverse, we're all sensitive to rejection, if it's a, if it's magnified, right? Like with coaching, right? If you have a coach who's, I think we even talked about this before. Like if you have a coach that's
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (07:53.568)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (08:03.117)
Yep.
Michael Huber (08:05.245)
Really, you know, either like really abrasive or like they ignore you, right? It could be really, really traumatic and hard to sort of figure out like how do I manage this situation? And coaching is such a big thing, right? For any young athlete. But if you have a coach that's not aware of how to handle this or they're doing something that's diametrically opposed to what they should be doing, it can really have an effect not only on performance, but just on the
the mental health and well-being of a young athlete. It's a really, really tricky thing, I would imagine.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (08:41.313)
For sure, for sure. So one of the things that I always say is, you know, there's this, this movement for growth mindset, which I will 100 % believe in. And for kids with RSD or with a, you know, ADHD, really they're interchangeable. The research shows that up to 98 % of people with ADHD have RSD. So they're, they're definitely, they're definitely besties, but what can happen is
Michael Huber (08:57.229)
Mm-hmm.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (09:08.087)
this growth mindset is, you just haven't done it yet. You just need to try harder. just, you know, you just need to give it more. but when they are, when their RSD is triggered by a coach yelling at them or being like, I can't believe you made that mistake again, or whatever it might be, they really go into survival mode. go into fight, fight or freeze. And when we are in survival mode, we know that our brain does not care about growth mindset.
Michael Huber (09:12.941)
Mm-hmm.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (09:35.385)
Our brain doesn't care about trying harder. Our brain is literally trying to survive. And so I believe that those techniques of you just need to try harder. You just haven't done it yet. Don't work for someone with ADHD unless you let them figure out how. So, you know, an example could be, I'll use water polo. Cause I watch a lot of it. you know, you, you took a shot. didn't, you shouldn't have taken, you should have done that next year pass. And the coach is like,
I can't believe you didn't do that extra pass. We could have gotten the goal and next time you need to take that extra pass. But what that child has already heard is like, you failed the team. And so they're not gonna hear anything else. Their brain isn't gonna be able to process. So instead you could say something like, hey, I noticed you didn't see the other player open. How can we make sure that before you shoot,
Michael Huber (10:17.101)
Mm-hmm.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (10:31.159)
You do a quick, you do a quick scan to make sure that nobody else might be has a better shot. How can I help you do that? And then it becomes this actual opportunity to learn and grow rather than, you know, hitting them with that trigger first and then just keep making them go completely offline.
Michael Huber (10:50.145)
Yeah, and I think you've said a bunch of stuff that I want to kind of drill into, right? Like the idea of having intentional strategies. I'm very big on that, right? Like let's be intentional with what we're going to do. Let's have a plan, and let's practice it. And I think to your point, what you just said was like that idea that it becomes a problem solving exercise that gets addressed incrementally over time versus it's not binary, right? In that moment, like.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (11:01.346)
Okay.
Michael Huber (11:20.193)
You made a bad decision in that moment, but there was a lot of decisions you could have made, right? There's no perfect decision. There's no right decision. There's no wrong decision. There's infinite decisions in a water polo match or a soccer game or a hockey game, right? Like, yeah, could you have made a better decision? Yeah. How can we make a better decision next time versus being like, you should have done this in that moment. And I think not only is it the understanding of what the individual is going through, but it's just that coach.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (11:31.715)
Yes.
Yeah.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (11:43.586)
Exactly.
Michael Huber (11:48.332)
having the empathy to be like, hey, that's a really hard thing they're doing, even though maybe I did it once before when I played water polo. Being able to be like, hey, I understand where you're coming from. Let's figure out how to do it better. What's the strategy for next time? And I think that is something that a lot of coaches struggle with just because they get so emotional about the outcomes that happen in a game because of what it means, whether it's we're going to lose the game, I'm going to get fired, I'm going to lose my job, whatever. And so they're not
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (11:54.286)
Yeah.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (12:02.722)
Yes.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (12:14.935)
Yep. Yeah, there's a lot on the line.
Michael Huber (12:18.049)
Yeah. Yeah. So like, I know that you, when we talked the first time, you told me about your experience as an athlete. So like, what was that like for you when you were a swimmer, I believe, right? So what was it like, what was your experience like being an ADHD athlete and sort of having that coaching and what did you learn from that?
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (12:29.773)
I was a summer, yeah.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (12:37.569)
Yeah. So I was really lucky to have some pretty amazing coaches that, followed me all along. And when I was growing up, which was great. And then I got to college and I had not such an awesome coach. And, what happened very quickly is it was definitely that trigger, right? So my coaches growing up knew that maybe I needed to have things explained again. They knew that I had.
the tendency for perfectionism, which a lot of ADHDers have, which goes along with that RSD. So they were, they were careful with my corrections. They were careful after I had a bad swim of, you know, walking me through what I did well and walking me through what I could do next time and helping me, help me learn and grow from it. And then I went to college and my first college coach was kind of the exact opposite. was sink or swim.
you know, pun intended. And it was very much, you know, you have to be perfect. Otherwise you don't get to travel or, know, you make one mistake or you're late for one practice and you're, you know, you're, you're off the roster for the weekend. And there was no extra explaining. There was no listening. There was no understanding of hard days. And it made me really hate the sport. I started to.
really think like, why did I do this? Why did I come to college to swim? This is terrible. And I ended up transferring and going to a different school where I had a coach much like the coaches that I grew up with who understood that I might be needed some extra time to process when they gave me oral directions or I was going to have days where I was super locked in hyper-focused. Those were the best practices, the best meets. And then they were going to
days where it was kind of really hard for me to focus and I might get out and go, you know, use the bathroom 10 times during practice because I was having a day and they allowed me to ride those waves and it made me love the sport again. It made me a much better swimmer than I had been in the previous year. And so I think that what I really learned and then when I was a swim coach, what I really learned is that there's no one size fits all.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (15:03.127)
Right. So what, what really motivates some kids and support some kids in loving the sport. Cause you know, there is so much on the line and there is a lot that these kids, a lot of pressure, you I'm in the middle of recruiting with my daughter. get it. And in the end, like, I hope our goal as adults is that they love the sport, like that they love playing, they love swimming, they love what it is. And so.
Michael Huber (15:25.677)
Yeah.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (15:29.817)
As a coach, as a swim coach, what I learned is that my main objective is when kids show up on that deck, that they feel supported, that they feel heard, that they feel like they love it. If they're having a bad day, they know it's okay to have a bad day. If they're having a great day, they know, okay, today's the day you're going to push it and you're going to rock it. And to do that, you have to understand how their brains work.
Michael Huber (15:41.325)
Mm-hmm.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (15:55.517)
And if we have coaches, which like my first college coach, who didn't really care how his athletes brains work, and he just cared about the outcome. I don't think that you are really, you know, supporting the whole athlete.
Michael Huber (16:04.085)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Huber (16:09.431)
Yeah, and I would agree with that wholeheartedly. think the reality of it is, is there's probably more coaches who are only focused on the outcome and they're not really focused on supporting the whole athlete, which is where I think coaches like us come in, is where we're, the way I would describe it, and I'd be curious to hear your take on this, is like, I'm really big on coaching the athlete to coach themselves, right? I heard someone say yesterday, I've said this like four times in the last 24 hours,
I heard someone, saw something on social media, which most of it's, But this is really good. It's like, I want you to be coach-proof. And I love that, meaning like, we don't control who the coach is. The coach is going to do what the coach is going to do. They're the authority figure. It's their program. But can I operate in the world without reacting to everything that the coach does, knowing that there's only so much I can control, and I have the tools and the strategies to be able to manage that, right? It doesn't have to be, I don't have to be perfect.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (16:47.192)
I love that.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (17:05.816)
Yes.
Michael Huber (17:07.565)
I can just settle myself in my own way and that one size doesn't fit all the way, that unique way of like, hey, I know this is not right or good or it's not helpful, but I have a way to move through it and navigate it and regulate it and be okay. That's a really hard thing for a young person to do, but if we can teach them to do that in a way that works for them, that's a home run, right? Because unfortunately we can't make all these coaches be...
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (17:27.513)
of
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (17:32.025)
for sure.
Michael Huber (17:34.687)
as educated and empathetic and caring as we'd like them to be.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (17:38.775)
Yes, 100%. And that's, mean, that's a life skill. Cause again, what do we want from our young athletes? Life skills, right? The skills that I learned from being a competitive swimmer for 18 years, add someone with ADHD or time management, motivation, goal setting. We are terrible at setting goals. ADHD, we can set the goals great. Like thinking forward and, and seeing them to the end is so hard for us.
Michael Huber (17:48.599)
Yes.
Michael Huber (18:05.558)
Right.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (18:08.665)
So all of those things that I learned showing up every day, even when things are hard, all of those things that were instilled in me as an athlete have helped me tremendously as an adult with ADHD, like more than I could probably ever explain. And so I also think that too, right? That I love that being coach proof, because you're gonna be coached your whole life. You're gonna have a boss, you're gonna have colleagues, you're gonna, right?
And so being able to build those skills that work for you, not what mom and dad tell you that works for them, not what your older brother worked for him, but actually work for you, aren't just going to help you on the field. You're a sophomore, you're in high school, but are going to help you in your first job, are going to help you as you, as you go through life. So I, I agree. I think that is such an awesome way to look at it.
Michael Huber (18:58.497)
Yeah. Yeah, so I want to, mean, goal setting is just such a common thing, right, in our vernacular as coaches, just in the world, right? So like, but specifically with that, right? Like, is it something where if you're working with an athlete or you're working with a client you're coaching, like, is it about really breaking things into smaller pieces or is that too, like, too much of an oversimplification?
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (19:07.107)
Yeah.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (19:24.093)
No, that's definitely the very first step, right? So when we have like long-term goals for ADHD, a couple of things happen. One, we lose novelty really quick. So a goal might sound really exciting, but unless we get the immediate return, that novelty wears off really fast. So having those smaller chunks, and this is something that I work on all the time with my clients.
All the C words with my clients is making sure that they have those smaller goals that they can be successful in. And sometimes it's literally like, okay, today my goal is to make sure I bring my swimsuit, my cap and my goggles to practice so I can actually get in the pool. And then, then we celebrate that. Okay, what's my goal tomorrow? My goal tomorrow is to, you know, not let any shots get past me. Okay, great. What's your goal the next day? Rather than.
My goal is to get a D1 scholarship. That's just, we, well, one, that's kind of out of our control. So I don't really love that goal because it's, it's not in our control whether we do it or not, but also, that's just, that's just too broad and overwhelming. So yeah. So breaking it up to small successes. The other thing is making sure that we have a falter plan. So as we go along to, you know, to achieve our goal, things don't,
Michael Huber (20:24.599)
Yes.
Michael Huber (20:30.274)
Yes.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (20:51.159)
go perfectly. We know that life gets in the way, things happen, things are out of our control that happen. And so when I work with my, my ADHDers, what ends up happening is as soon as things don't go right, their brain's like, see, you can't do it. We should just give up. The motivation drops, the dopamine drops, and then it becomes really hard. So I always have at least a couple of fulcher plans put into place for when that happens.
So as soon as you don't wanna go to practice one day or you were totally tuned out in a game, you know, we say, that's the sugar for the falter plan. What are you gonna put into place so that you don't totally just derail your whole plan?
Michael Huber (21:29.387)
Right.
Michael Huber (21:35.59)
Yeah. Yeah, I love it. And that's something I talk to athletes about. I would say it a different way, but having a planned response. I just had this conversation with a young man who's going to college to play baseball. He's one of my clients, and he has ADHD. And I asked him what his biggest concerns were. And he's very, very, very mentally sharp and tough.
more so than an average kid, probably because of his experiences, right? Some of which is ADHD, right? He's like sort of more resilient because of it, right? And we can get into like the positives and the superpower element of it. But when I asked him like, what's his biggest concern about going to college, he was like, well, yeah, if I, if I don't get the playing time I want, I could see that being a problem, right? And so that's kind of where I want to go with him is like, Hey, let's have that planned response of like,
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (22:07.329)
Yes. Yes.
Michael Huber (22:31.903)
It's very possible that you're not going to play as much as you want rather than pretending like that's not a reality. Let's actually think about it and go like, if this happens, what are we going to do? What's going to happen if very realistically you're not playing as much as you want to. And rather than letting be that, that be the thing that sort of saps all your motivation because you're like, I'm getting up at 6am every day to lift or practice and I'm not playing. How am I going to keep the focus on? Like, how do I do something today? That's going to get me.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (22:42.712)
Yes.
Michael Huber (23:01.857)
to where I want to go tomorrow. And how do I not let that derail me, right? Now, is it going to be foolproof? No. But if we're thinking about it being intentional ahead of time, we start to practice it and build in that foundation, it's going to be a lot more likely for it to get executed when they get there versus just being like, well, wait till we get there. And then you get there, and it's like, craters.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (23:06.797)
Exactly.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (23:26.197)
100%, 100%. And something that I would add specifically for ADHDers is in those FALTER plans, I always make sure to have at least a couple of the four big motivators. it's novelty, interest, urgency, and challenge. Those are the big four for motivating an ADHD brain. So, you know, when we're thinking about, okay, I'll use that example, right? You're not going to get enough playing time that you think you should have.
Michael Huber (23:30.326)
Mm-hmm.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (23:54.167)
That's going to drop your motivation. Right. Exactly. Like it's really hard to get out of bed at five in the morning as a college student, even extra hard. If you're like, well, I know I'm not even going to play this. Not even going to see the field this weekend. So then adding in, okay. So with your falter plan, how can we add in some novelty? How can we add in some interest? How can we add in some urgency or challenge? So maybe instead the challenge can be instead of the game, maybe the challenges, you know what I'm going to.
do 12 reps with that weight instead of 10. Or I'm going to see, maybe interest is, you know what, on the way to the gym, I'm going to listen to like my, my new favorite album and I'm going to pump myself up. another interest could be, okay, after I go to the gym, I'm going to go and I'm going to get the best breakfast burrito on campus that I can. And I'm only going to do it. I'm only going to allow myself to get that breakfast burrito if I go to the gym. Right. So.
Michael Huber (24:45.655)
Yes.
Michael Huber (24:51.761)
A reward, building in a reward.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (24:53.929)
Yeah. So, so having those big four as part of that falter plan helps our brain then to just kind of reignite some of that dopamine that is probably dropped because you don't have that natural reward of getting to see the field. So you have, you have to build in those other. Exactly. Yeah.
Michael Huber (25:11.575)
Yeah. Manufacture, you have to manufacture it in a lot of ways, right? You're not, you're not getting it from the source that's out of your control. So you got to take it back and go, Hey, I'm going to create the challenge. I'm going to create the novelty. I'm going to create the reward and I'm going to go do this. And it's going to be, I'm going to do it myself to get that, that dopamine hit back up to kind of keep going versus letting it crash and then staying in that, which I would imagine has
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (25:33.226)
Exactly.
Michael Huber (25:41.102)
pretty significant negative knock on effects, right? Where you can start to become depressed because your dopamine levels drop and you don't know how to like get yourself back into that place where you feel like, okay, I'm ready to get back at it. Is that, I've kind of just poked my head into the research a little bit. I'm starting to do more like reading. So it was like, is that like, is depression sort of a sort of element or sort of component of like those dopamine crashes?
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (26:08.865)
Yeah, depressive symptoms are definitely. So in fact, a lot of college kids and young adults are diagnosed with anxiety or depression instead of ADHD. And then what's interesting is like the SSRIs don't work or like just kind of kind of take that job, but they still have those symptoms. And then if they're diagnosed with ADHD and they get on the ADHD meds, all of sudden those symptoms don't completely go away because we're human. live in a world.
but are so much better. So that misdiagnosis of depression or anxiety is a huge challenge for ADHDers because, and then it builds another shame spiral, right? Cause you're like, I'm on this SSRI, I'm diagnosed with depression and I still can't do it. Like what, there's something really wrong with me. Yeah. So it really, that is the depressive symptom. And the difference with
Michael Huber (26:58.487)
Yes, something's wrong.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (27:05.269)
dopamine, because everybody, neurotypical people, their dopamine drops too, right? All people have days where you're like, I don't want to do it, right? I don't want to go to gym. But what the difference is, neurotypical people can harness it up. So I call it the green zone, right? So the green zone is the dopamine where we are regulated, our attention's regulated, our motivation's regulated. And then the high zone is when those times where you're like really, like really hyped up.
Michael Huber (27:13.547)
Yeah, of course.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (27:34.649)
Or you're hyper-focused or you're super excited or you're super angry. And then the low zone is where it's just that those depressive, I can't get on bed and there are typical people for the most part, maybe they have a day or two, but then they're like, okay, I'll go to the gym tomorrow. Or they like, okay, I'll set a five minute timer. Then I'll get up and do it. And they're, they're dopamine. can pull themselves up back into that green zone. ADHD is that is really, really, really hard.
physically almost impossible. there's, you know, there's even like a bunch of memes on Instagram that's like, I want to do the thing. It's making me anxious not to do the thing, but I can't do the thing. And that's because we can't naturally pull our dopamine out. So exactly what you just said, I always say we borrow dopamine from something else. Then what is something that does give you dopamine and borrow it for the thing that you don't have dopamine for?
Michael Huber (28:32.055)
Yeah.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (28:33.273)
I watch a really silly reality TV show every time I do the dishes. I cannot do the dishes without it. Like you could, you know, tell me my life depended on it and it would be dragging. But as soon as I put on something like Love Island, I'm like, now I can do the dishes because I'm borrowing that dopamine. Exactly.
Michael Huber (28:53.067)
Right? Yeah, it gives you that feeling, right? Yeah. Something I wanted to ask you about, because this is something that I've been experiencing a lot, so you probably have some insight on it. And I know one of the sort of general generalizations about ADHDers is that they tend to be, not always, but tend to be visual learners. Right?
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (29:04.097)
huh.
Michael Huber (29:19.711)
And I'm always thinking about when I'm working with an ADHD athlete, how do I incorporate visual learning? But one of the things actually that I've noticed is they love to talk. And they talk a lot. And as a coach, I struggle at times. I don't want to cut them off. I want to listen. I want to be attentive. I want to understand. I want to feedback to them what I'm hearing. And I want to let them go and tell me what they have on their minds. But sometimes it does meander.
from a coaching perspective, what's a good way to of narrow in or focus in on some of the key elements of a coaching conversation to get them to sort of really kind of harness it is a good way to put it.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (30:02.681)
Yeah. Yeah. Uh, the verbal processing that is like the ADHD verbal processing. I, um, you know, I taught for a really long time in my ADHD years. They would just follow me around. Like if I was on the playground at recess duty, you know, just talk, talk, talk. They almost don't even, you know, and I'm a verbal processor and I get it. Like, I don't really even need anyone to listen. so, um, a couple of things that, that I recommend is.
Michael Huber (30:25.485)
Yes.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (30:32.045)
saying, okay, hold on one second, take a breath. I want you to think about what you're trying to say.
And see if you can do it in one or two sentences, but just take a breath. You don't have to do it right now. Right. Like just, and I'm going to give you a few minutes to just think about if you, and that gives their brain time. Cause really what it is, it's the prefrontal cortex and ADHD is like, we're not really, it's not really the strongest part of our bodies. And so that's where ideas are organized. Right. And because it's not super strong.
We don't have that mental space to organize those ideas. Plus our brains work so fast. That is a superpower of ADHDers. We are fast thinkers, usually very witty, usually can have like really quick comebacks. Right. And so what's happening is all of these ideas are flooding that prefrontal cortex and the prefrontal cortex like, don't, I don't know what to do with that. So I'm just going to get it all out. So if we, if we help them learn how to take a breath.
Michael Huber (31:31.478)
overwhelmed.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (31:39.927)
and then think and process and then say it and give them the constraints of, I want you to try to tell me in like just two sentences, see if you can do that. Then it gives their brain a, like basically like a syntax map. So, okay, you have two sentences, where can you fit this idea in? And sometimes, you know, sometimes it's like, I can't do it in two sentences. Okay, let's see how few you can then, right? Let's see.
Michael Huber (32:06.038)
right.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (32:08.289)
And that can be really helpful. Another thing is I really, really, really love voice notes for ADHDers. Right. So maybe even before practice, or if you're going to have a one-on-one with your athlete, say, Hey, these are the questions we're going to go over. This is, know, I'm going to talk to you about some feedback about X, Y, and Z. I'd love to know what you think about, you know, that one game. Could you do a voice note and send it to me?
before we talk. And what that does, it's almost like pre-writing if you're gonna write an essay, right? It helps them get all of those ideas out verbally. Then you can listen to it and think like, okay, I see where they're going. And then you can have much more intentional and targeted questions for them. So it's not as open-ended.
Michael Huber (32:43.277)
Right.
out.
Michael Huber (33:01.643)
That is a fantastic idea. I love that. Yeah. Because like that is something when I hear you saying that, I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, yeah, if I did that before a coaching session and I had a sense of where their consciousness was and what they're thinking about, like I can sort of funnel it down for them before we get there. We don't spend the time just talking because that does happen. Like realistically, I get into sessions where like
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (33:20.632)
Yeah.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (33:25.229)
Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Huber (33:28.941)
We're supposed to go 40 or 45 minutes. We go an hour because I'm not cutting them off. And we're just talking. And I want them to be able to express themselves. But I'm not sure how to channel it. And that's a really good way to do that, which that's gold right there for me, taking that away. Yeah. So I guess I want to go to the superpower side. Because I think the thing that
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (33:46.603)
Awesome. Awesome. Yeah.
Michael Huber (33:57.214)
I see in coaching, just generally working with athletes is there always is this sort of natural tendency to focus on the deficiency, right? In anybody, any athlete, what do I need to fix? What's wrong? What's wrong with me? What's wrong with my game? What do I need to fix versus, hey, what are my strengths? Like, let's talk about strengths. I'll say to an athlete, hey, tell me what you're good at. And it's like a trick question that stumps them. They don't know what to say. They can tell you all the things they don't know how to do well.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (34:09.528)
Yep.
Michael Huber (34:26.839)
They're getting negative feedback on, but they can't tell you their strengths. So this idea that ADHD is a superpower, which I totally see that ability to hyper-focus and do some of these things that are really, really valuable for high-level performance, how do we harness that? It's a big question, right? But what are some of the things that we can try to tap into with ADHD that's going to really magnify their strengths?
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (34:55.373)
Yeah. Well, so the first one that I think is really important and not always talked about with ADHD is a mindfulness practice. There's so much research. I mean, we know mindfulness for athletes in general is gold, right? But there's so much research that ADHDers benefit from mindfulness tenfold. So mindfulness helps to strengthen that prefrontal cortex.
Michael Huber (35:10.871)
Yes.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (35:22.359)
that we talked about, that's where all those executive functions live that are so tricky for us. There's even a research study that shows that eight weeks of daily mindfulness dramatically increase the gray matter in the prefrontal cortex. So that's pretty awesome. It also helps to make the amygdala, which is that fight, or freeze. It also helps to shrink that and make that less active. So we can move on and be more resilient and not get caught up.
the other thing is that it helps us with being able to harness that focus. So some days, right, we can show up and be super hyper focused and just, you know, laser in our games. And I'm sure that you've seen that, you know, I definitely have seen that with ADHD athletes where you're like, they are on fire today. They are just in the game. They're in the zone. but unfortunately we can't always harness that.
It's not like something we, it's not a switch so can turn it on and off, with mindfulness, we can learn when our attention has wandered or we can learn when we're in that hypo focus where we're like focused on everything and we can be aware of it and we can learn to bring our focus back to the, to where we are to the game. So the big one.
Michael Huber (36:36.705)
Yeah, mindfulness is a big part of what I like to be able to do with any athlete, regardless of who they are. And I actually, one of the research articles that I did read was specifically about how mindfulness impacts ADHD as adolescents and adults, right? yeah, the concept makes a ton of sense to me in that when we're aware of what's going on in our mind, we're much more equipped to make a decision about what to do with it.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (36:43.351)
Yeah. Yes.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (36:54.56)
Yeah, awesome.
Michael Huber (37:06.955)
versus letting it pull us in a direction and we don't know we're there. And now we're just getting dragged off into the distance, which is when somebody might fixate on a mistake and it's taking them days to sort of overcome it. We might not even realize we're fixating on the mistake in the moment. We might reflect back on it, but we don't really know what's happening. It just sort of drags us along until something happens to change randomly versus, hey, I have the ability to actually notice it and come back to my breathing, right? And focus on my breathing as an anchor.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (37:34.434)
Yes.
Michael Huber (37:36.864)
as a way to move off of that fixated thought that's not helping me, right? And so that is definitely something that I have the intention to do more with my ADHD athletes. And I think the research that you reference, particularly the amygdala piece, I think is great, right? That fight, fight, or freeze sounds like it's magnified for ADHDers in a lot of ways, right? So that ability to physically manipulate
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (37:37.059)
Yeah.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (37:42.146)
Exactly.
Michael Huber (38:06.155)
the gland that dictates the alarm system that goes off in your brain to shrink it to make it less powerful sounds like a really, really valuable thing to be able to do.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (38:16.633)
100%. And again, life skills, right? Not just when you're in the game, but, but in life. and, and, you know, a subset of mindfulness that is extremely important for ADHDers. In fact, when I'm working with clients, this is usually where we start is the building of self-compassion. So self-compassion is different than self-esteem or self-confidence. Self-esteem comes from outside, right? I had a great game. I'm a great player. My coach.
Michael Huber (38:20.641)
Yes. Yeah.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (38:44.953)
told me that I had an awesome practice. I'm a good player. My parents, you know, are proud of me. All of those kinds of things. Where self-compassion is no matter what is going on around us, no matter what kind of game we had, no matter what kind of race we had, we treat ourselves with kindness and love and respect. That doesn't mean we don't have, we have to like it, right? It's different than being like not caring that we had a bad game, but it's giving ourselves
love and respect and kindness, regardless of how we perform. And it's not easy. It's very hard to build, especially in ADHD years. So another, you know, like a little side fact that goes along with this is research shows that kids with ADHD have 20,000 more negative messages by the time they reached middle school than neurotypical kids. 20,000 more. So you think about what that does to a developing brain and a developing self-sense.
Michael Huber (39:40.439)
Mm-hmm.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (39:42.795)
And so it's really hard to be compassionate to ourselves because we've been given these little micro aggressions really that we, you know, aren't as good as everyone else. So we're always forgetting something or we're always messing up or whatever it might be. And so self-compassion first comes with mindfulness, realizing when you aren't being kind to yourself and then really practicing speaking to yourself and treating yourself like you would someone you really love.
Michael Huber (39:51.373)
Mmm.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (40:11.363)
So maybe a teammate that you just, you adore that you think the world of what would happen if they had a bad game or your little brother or your cousin or your best friend. And so one, you know, one exercise that I do is I have folks think about, and I do this with high schoolers, a time that they messed up and I have them write down everything that they said to themselves. Then I say, okay, now think of a time someone you really love or care for.
Michael Huber (40:14.263)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Huber (40:35.213)
Mm-hmm.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (40:41.089)
messed up. What did you say to them? And I have them write it down and then I have them see the difference. And so then I have them tear up the ones they said to themselves and keep the one that they said to the other people and then start practicing. Yeah. And obviously it's not a, it's not like this magic wand, right? We don't live in like a magical world where all of the sudden you're self compassionate, but the more you practice that, the more we create those neurological connections. So the easier it gets.
Michael Huber (40:52.151)
write and use that for themselves. Yeah.
Michael Huber (41:07.423)
Exactly. Yeah. we've, and you know, my instincts were right in the sense that like the way that you're explaining it is exactly the way that I think about it and the way I try to explain it as well, which is, you know, I'll go back to the conversation I was having before we started recording with this other person. And I said to him, said, have you been doing this sport for 10 years and you've been operating, your operating system has been running on the same premise of like,
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (41:24.793)
Thank
Michael Huber (41:35.68)
negative coaches, negative self-talk, you're learning all these things, it's not going to change overnight. And so I guess as a practical question, knowing that to be true, you're programmed for a certain period of time and now you get involved with a client, how do you communicate to them that it is going to require a little bit of time and patience to try to progress forward, but it's not going to change overnight?
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (42:05.329)
Yeah, I think exactly what you just said. You know, I think I tell them like you've had X number of years of creating these neurological pathways one way. And it's not going to take that many more years to change it, but it's not going to be something that you try once that it's, takes persistence, it takes practice and it, takes a lot of, you know, patience and compassion.
I always encourage them to get some sort of accountability buddy, whether it's me or someone on their team or a parent that, you know, that they can let them know, this is something that I'm trying to do. And that person can help them, you know, in the time when they're, call it their lids left, right? When they're, they're not able to access those, those, that compassion that person can be there to help remind them.
Michael Huber (42:55.671)
Yeah, right.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (43:00.867)
so that it can happen a little more quickly. I did that with my daughter. She just finished junior Olympics and in the semi game, she made a mistake. it, you know, it wasn't her fault, but you know, something happened and the ball got stolen and she got in the car and was just so beating herself up so badly. And she wasn't able to access any of the tools that we've worked on. Cause she was, she was split. She was super upset. And so I was able to ask.
their questions, you know, what else happened in the game? What else did you do in the game? You know, did anyone else make a mistake? How do you feel about that person? Right. And it was able, she was able to then bring her lid back on and realize that there was a whole, you know, four quarters and that two seconds of the game didn't, you know, make or break the outcome. so.
having someone else on the outside that can be that support for you as you're building these tools can be really, really, really helpful. Because it's really hard to do on your own, especially if you're an adolescent and you have all the other things going on in life as well.
Michael Huber (44:06.381)
home.
Michael Huber (44:12.705)
Yeah, yes. And it's hard, right? When you're stressed out, right? This is something I talk about. When you're under stress and that fight, flight, or freeze kicks in, it's really hard to remember. You might have learned all these. It's like taking a test, right? Like you might have studied. You might have gone to class every day. You read the notes. And all of a sudden you get stuck on a question you don't know how to answer. All of a sudden, your amygdala alarm goes off, fight, flight, or freeze kicks in. And like you forget. Why? Because you're so overwhelmed with the emotion of, if I fail this test,
I'm not going to college or whatever. I'm not getting into the school I want. That you can't focus on just taking a breath and going, hey, it's just one question. Let's move forward. So that ability, yes. Right?
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (44:50.777)
Exactly. Our bodies literally don't want us to, right? Cause our bodies are reacting like we're getting attacked by a bear. If you're being attacked by a bear, you don't want to take some deep breaths and say, huh, I wonder what I should do right now. Should I talk to the bear? Right. You need to like get out of there. And so that is exactly what, you know, our brains and bodies are doing. They're taking care of us. They're just a little misguided.
Michael Huber (44:57.909)
Right? Exactly.
Hahaha
Michael Huber (45:07.969)
Get out. That's right.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (45:18.105)
Cause a missed shot isn't getting attacked by a bear or a heart problem on a math test isn't getting attacked by a but our bodies don't know the difference. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
Michael Huber (45:18.167)
Yes.
Exactly, it's not life and death. But it feels like it. It feels like life and death. Absolutely. Yeah. So I've got a couple more questions here as we wrap up. So one is, what's one thing that we haven't spoken about that we should know about ADHD or specifically adolescents?
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (45:43.211)
Yeah, so I think the big thing that we haven't really talked about is emotional regulation and attention. So those are two big ones. So we talked a little bit about it with RSD, but one thing that isn't really talked about with ADHD very much is the emotional dysregulation component. I like to say that ADHD is as much about emotional regulation as it is about attention and focus. So if
Michael Huber (45:49.229)
Okay.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (46:12.633)
we can't regulate our emotions the way neurotypical people can. And then you think in 88, or you think in adolescence, right? We already have struggles regulating our emotions in adolescence. So what is it that we can then do to help build those emotional regulation tools? And spoiler alerts, 88 years don't learn from natural consequences because we don't think ahead.
Michael Huber (46:26.413)
Yes.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (46:42.101)
And so what happens is we tend to have an outburst or get really upset about something or get really frustrated in a game. And then our coach is like, you're out, you're out of the game and think, okay, next time they won't get upset then I fixed that. But we're, we're like goldfish. We don't remember and our brains don't remember. the next game we get upset again. And the coach is like, Hey, I took you out last time and you're, you're, you know, pulling this again.
Michael Huber (47:10.519)
doing the same thing.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (47:11.947)
And it just, so building emotional regulation tools. And that goes along with the mindfulness, right? Cause we have to, can't, we can't do anything with our emotions unless we know that they're happening and helping us realize when we are triggered, what we feel in our bodies, because our bodies are the first alarm system that something's wrong and what our action tendencies are is really, can be really, really, really helpful.
Michael Huber (47:19.01)
Yeah.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (47:42.165)
in preventing that dysregulation. So helping us stay regulated before we even get dysregulated. And so I work a lot on that with parents with their kiddos, because they're like, I don't understand. I took away their phone for a week. I gave them the phone back. They did the exact same thing. They blew up at me, or they were super rude, or they threw a plate across the room, or big, big emotional outburst. And that's part of ADHD.
So learning those emotional regulation tools and helping our kiddos, our athletes in real time practice that and not relying on punishment or discipline to try to teach them those.
Michael Huber (48:25.451)
Yeah, so that's helpful. That's something I don't think I really understood or knew. But it also sounds like helping them recognize the pattern, right? This happens, my body feels this way, right? The action tendency, this is what I tend to do in these situations. So I can kind of know what's coming on and I'm aware of it.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (48:37.058)
Mm-hmm.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (48:50.509)
Yes. Yes.
Michael Huber (48:51.467)
so that I can do something different with it rather than it just happening and then looking like almost like you black out, you don't realize you did it.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (48:57.497)
100%. I actually even have a tool that I use called a trigger tracker. And so, you can track it's like, you use it after the fact, right? So you go back and you say, okay, what triggered my, my emotional dysregulation? What was I feeling in my body? You know, with my, were my muscles getting tense? And these are all literally fight, fight or freeze reactions. Right? It my muscles getting tense with my heart beating faster with my face getting hot. was I clenching my fist? Was I ready to fight?
And then comes the emotion. So what emotion was I feeling? Then what were my thought patterns? Like I wanted to punch that other player, whatever it might be, or I can't believe this is happening. I can't believe that rough is out to get me. What was my action? Maybe I did punch the other player and I got a red card, or maybe I screamed at my coach and he pulled me out of the game. And then, okay, when this trigger happens again, what do I want to do instead?
And so the more we practice noticing that and planning ahead, again, same thing, the easier it becomes. And I would not just use this tool just for sports because we can't isolate our emotional regulation, right? I would use it across the board, at home, with friends, with siblings, all around.
Michael Huber (50:11.403)
Right?
Michael Huber (50:16.607)
Yeah.
Yes, I would think the big one there would be how I react to my loved ones because they tend to be the ones that trigger us the most, right? There's the closest relationship. And do I want to say something that I'm going to regret to my mother or father or brother or sister because they can't control my emotions? Now, I don't, maybe I don't have full control over it. Maybe I don't mean it. But when you say something, you can't get it back, right? So unless somebody's super understanding, it's going to leave a mark. And so like if I can avoid
Having that reaction, it's going to be valuable to me in that social setting as well, familial setting, as much as it is athletically, right? So it's a tool that applies across environments.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (50:58.571)
And I think going back to the superpower, it can be a superpower, right? If you can harness all that adrenaline and endorphins that come with emotional dysregulation into your game, into your race, that is awesome, right? If you, instead of being overtaken by fear or overtaken by anger, you can figure out how to harness that and not let it get away from you.
Michael Huber (51:01.378)
Yeah?
Michael Huber (51:05.068)
Mmm.
Michael Huber (51:15.469)
Yeah, I love that.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (51:27.129)
That's a, those are powerful chemicals rushing through your body that you can really, really use. think that was something that I actually saw a sports psychologist when I was 13, cause I, I was having a lot of challenges in my, in my races. And that was something that she helped me learn how to do. And I think that made me the swimmer that I was. I wasn't supposed to be a good swimmer. was five, two, I was not tall. I, and I was a pretty good swimmer. And I think.
Michael Huber (51:29.121)
Yes.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (51:56.025)
A huge part of that was I learned how to harness those incredible chemicals that my body threw at me because I had ADHD into my sport. So it can, that can be a superpower for sure.
Michael Huber (52:11.565)
I can't help but ask, how did you do that? Like, how did you harness it?
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (52:15.937)
Yeah. So, I mean, it was mindfulness. I didn't know it was mindfulness at the time. I just thought that these were like really cool things that I could do, but basically noticing, cause my, my thing was fear. I would get extremely nervous. I would get extremely fearful and I would shut down and then I'd have a bad race. And so taking about 10 to 15 minutes before my race, I had one song that I would listen to. and.
That would be my, like, I would listen to it over and over on a Walkman at the time. So I had like my mixtape and I would rewind and play an off, song. And so I'm really dating myself and I would just listen to it. And I would literally like every time I felt like it was starting to take over, I would literally picture it like coming into the center of my body. So I visualized it coming into the center of my body over and over and over.
Michael Huber (52:49.409)
Yep. I know it.
Michael Huber (53:10.507)
Wow, okay, that's awesome.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (53:14.017)
And I mean, I listened to that song a million times, probably. don't even know. And now I hear it and I get like, like a reaction to when it comes on the radio. I'm like, do I have to go swim 400 miles? but that was, that was how, how I did it. And now, you know, my daughter, we've talked a lot about that and what she does is she goes in the middle of a game, like when she can, obviously not in the middle of the place. She goes underwater and she like tightens up her muscles and then like shakes them out. it's.
Michael Huber (53:23.405)
That's pretty cool.
Michael Huber (53:28.877)
That's great.
Michael Huber (53:40.749)
because it like progressive, like a relaxation exercise.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (53:43.353)
Exactly. it's like, you know, sensory deprivation just goes underwater and I'll see it in a game. I'll see her go underwater and then like pop back up. Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Huber (53:49.751)
Right? She's like expunging the stress. She's like clenching and she's letting it go so she can relax. That's, that's really cool stuff.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (53:57.109)
Exactly. And then then I'll, I'll be, I'll even say, I'll be like, this next play is going to be awesome. Like what? Cause she's, she's able to do that. Where there's players on her team who are phenomenal players who don't do that. Right. And they get red carded or they get rolled and they, cause they, they don't know how to harness all of those big feelings that come with the sport, like water polo. Cause you're getting beat up. You get angry.
Michael Huber (54:19.671)
Yes, it's very, I've learned a little bit about it working with water polo athletes. It's physical as can be.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (54:25.419)
Yeah. And you get punched and you get scratched and it's hard to not get angry in a sport like that. So that emotional regulation. And then the other one is the tension, right? So we can hyper-focus, which is a phenomenal thing. Again, I think that's what made me a good swimmer. I I could harness that hyper-focus. I didn't know anything else that was going on. All I knew were those eight laps of that 200 breaststroke. Like that was all, it was nothing else in the world.
Michael Huber (54:51.668)
Yeah.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (54:55.405)
what's happening and we can do that in games as well, which is a phenomenal thing. What I think sometimes happens is when we're pulled into a timeout or if we're in the middle of a play and our coach yells at us to like go do something different, that's where we can get like, wait, what just happened? So helping our athletes as coaches, knowing that maybe we don't.
There's certain athletes that we don't yell at in the middle of a play, because that's actually going to hurt. Even if we want them to do something else, that might actually hurt the play, then help it. And also knowing if we pull them into a timeout, how to keep them focused. I love when, when coaches use whiteboards that kids can visually see, they're not just orally being told what to do and keeping it quick and simple and to the point can really, really help with that hyper focus, keeping them in that hyper focus.
Michael Huber (55:51.202)
Yes, so we won't get into that more today, but I feel like that's almost like a second podcast about coaching strategies, because I think there's a lot that could be learned for coaches who can really be better that way, just because they're not being taught. They're not learning that way. It's not there for them. so knowing how to do that or how to incorporate some of that stuff could be really valuable, especially as you have more kids who are in that space of
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (56:04.119)
Yeah.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (56:10.211)
Right.
Michael Huber (56:18.635)
neurodivergent. So last question, I usually, if I always ask this question, I'd say it's almost always, if there's one thing you'd leave or leave a takeaway with the listener, let's just say it's from the perspective of a parent. That's my guess is that it's probably who's listening here. Like what would be the one takeaway for like the parent of an athlete, of an ADHD athlete? What would you share with them?
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (56:21.483)
Yeah.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (56:41.496)
Okay.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (56:48.213)
that's such a good question. I think the big takeaway is that your kid is probably way harder on themselves than you could ever be on them. And so because, know, all the things we talked about with RSD and emotional dysregulation. so your job is to make sure that they know that their love and their worth is not dependent on how they play or how they perform.
and that you are happy to be there with them and you're happy to watch them play and that you're proud of them because I guarantee they are way harder, even if they're not showing it, even if they're pretending like they're apathetic, that they're being way harder on themselves than you could ever be. we know, like I said, that being hard on our ADHD kids doesn't actually make any transformation. So kindness and patience and modeling that compassion to them.
is I think extremely important for ADHD kids, all kids, but since we're specifically talking about our ADHDers, I think it's specifically our ADHDers.
Michael Huber (57:49.887)
All kids, but yes. Yes. More, probably more.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (57:57.593)
Yes, yeah. Thank you. Thank you.
Michael Huber (57:58.317)
That's great. It's great way to end it. Corey, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. It was a great conversation and I probably could have gone for another hour asking you questions. Thank you for being patient with me.
Corie Wightlin (she/her) (58:08.641)
Yeah, thank you. Yo, thank you so much. This was awesome. Wonderful. I love talking athletics and I love talking ADHD. So this is the perfect, perfect balance. Thank you.
Michael Huber (58:18.847)
It shows. Thank you so much.