Today we dive deep into building inclusive environments for neurodivergent individuals. Dr. Kimberly and I explore the unique challenges and extraordinary strengths of individuals with ADHD and forms of neurodiversity.
When navigating relationships and work situations, it helps to clear up common misconceptions and use simple, helpful strategies.
Some individuals might need extra support, such as tools to help with memory and sensory needs and managing emotions, to help them reach their full potential. With this understanding, parents, educators, employers, and colleagues, all can help create supportive environments for their neurodivergent peers.
In return, people with neurodivergent traits such as ADHD bring creativity, innovative thinking, and unique problem-solving skills, which are needed in today's changing world.
Tune in below to find out how small shifts in understanding and communication can create an impact!
Dr. Kimberly: Hi, this is Dr. Kimberly Leonard, author of Visualizing Happiness in Every Area of Your Life and host of this podcast, Incredible Life Creator, and today I have Miss Anna Dafna with me all the way from London, UK. Welcome to the podcast!
Anna: I'm happy to be here, hi from London!
Dr. Kimberly: Yes, so I'm going to read your bio so people know who you are. Anna Dafna is a coach, mentor, and psychologist. She coaches people with ADHD to maximize happiness, confidence, and performance. She was frustrated watching neurodivergent people feeling unseen and unheard, missing important opportunities in life, and having executive challenges herself. Anna wanted to mentor them. She is well known for her unique ability to transform lives through holistic and neuroscience-based coaching, specifically designed for neurodiverse people. Anna started 20 years ago in her hometown, Athens, Greece, with one student. Then she moved to London, where her coaching hours exceeded 10,000, and where she worked with more than a thousand students in more than 10 countries to date. In 2024, Anna was recognized as the most supportive ADHD and executive function coach by the Business Elite Awards. In 2023, she was awarded as the best diversity, inclusion, and leadership development trainer by Business Awards UK, and in 2021, Anna was selected at the 500 Global Brains Awards as one of the top leaders recognized for their success, achievements, and dedication to helping others.
Anna is currently writing a book on how to manage ADHD, where she goes through how you can unlock confidence, inner resources, organization, productivity, and tap into a flow state of high performance. Her aim is to impact neurodistinct people on every continent so that they can go ahead and lead happier and more fulfilling lives with more mindfulness, confidence, and intention. As a result of this work, Anna wants to see a world with reduced inequalities, good mental health, and world-class coaching for everyone, irrespective of geographical location, cultural background, or diagnosis.
Wow, you have been just getting awards and helping people. I love to hear that!
Anna: It's very satisfying to be recognized for your work, but the most reward for me is when I see people have more confidence—people that are high performers but lack confidence. So often, people with neurodiversity don't believe in themselves at all most of the time.
Dr. Kimberly: Just so people can know you, we already read, kind of, your story, but how did you get into all this? How did this all start?
Anna: It started when I was a teenager and I couldn't focus at school because I found it too difficult, a bit boring. So I was just daydreaming, looking outside the window, doodling, and did very well at the subjects I was interested in. But for other subjects, I could not focus. I also suffered from performance anxiety, so before the exams, I was panicking and had physical symptoms. I could not do well because of that. I think a lot of people can relate to that and the stress that the school system can place on people who think differently, work differently, or might have a diagnosis of neurodiversity. It started like that.
So yeah, I couldn't focus, wasn't very organized with my schoolwork, essays, etc. Then I had the opportunity to mentor a student when I was 19 who was diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD, and I mentored him for a few years. He didn’t believe in himself, was not very good at English, but he did very well in the end. He managed to enter law school. But most of all, he managed to believe in himself, so that was very satisfying for me.
Then I decided I love psychology, coaching, and education, but not in the way it's done in the mainstream system, so I wanted to study all of these modalities and just do coaching for neurodiverse people. I moved to London, did a Masters in Psychology, then did some training in coaching, executive function coaching, and leadership, and started mentoring people of all ages around the world who had a diagnosis of ADHD and other neurodiversities.
Dr. Kimberly: Wonderful. So just so people know, what is neurodiversity? What is a person who has this, or is this? What is it?
Anna: A person who is neurodiverse is someone who thinks differently, outside of the box. They might have ADHD, for example, which is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or could have ASD, which is Autism Spectrum Disorder, or dyslexia. We now know, on LinkedIn, there is a skill called dyslexic thinking because people with dyslexia can think outside the box, can find solutions, and are very creative. But in the past, that was not recognized, so that's a good step. People whose brains are different—let's say it's not typical to what is considered typical. I don't think anything is typical anyway.
Dr. Kimberly: So how does this affect them in life?
Anna: People with neurodiversity might have executive function challenges, for example, challenges with organizing themselves, losing things, forgetting where they put their keys, their phone, their code, etc. For students, they may not be able to structure essays, organize their ideas on paper, or know where to start. They procrastinate a lot, cannot start on time, or finish projects last minute, and they get burned out. Or they can hyper-focus to the detriment of their emotional state, feeling overwhelmed, and being in a state of constantly doing things, not being in their body at all, struggling with awareness of time and flexibility. They also may have difficulties with self-awareness, which could be part of that. They feel overwhelmed, not confident, and inefficient. But on the other hand, there is this gift of thinking differently, and we know from a lot of famous people, like Richard Branson and Steve Jobs, that neurodiverse individuals, despite their challenges, are pioneers in their field. Many business owners and entrepreneurs are neurodiverse and have big ideas, but they delegate execution to others.
Dr. Kimberly: Exactly. So if someone's wondering if they are neurodiverse, how do we distinguish that? We have so much coming towards us—like social media, we're on screens, and that's really not healthy to be on screens all the time. There are things that can make even someone who is not neurodiverse have trouble with organization or overwhelm. How do you distinguish people who have neurodiversity?
Anna: Everyone could have executive function challenges, but the deeper the neurodiversity, the more profound the challenges in real life. There would be profound challenges, like detentions at school, behavior problems at school, miscommunication in couples, or the home being a total mess or chaotic. Some people are helped with medication, and you can start that route. Some other people don't want to go that route and opt for more holistic approaches. The best way, if you want to get diagnosed and that feels like a relief, is to go through a psychiatrist and his team and do a thorough investigation into neurodiversity and get the diagnosis if that's something you want. Most people with deep neurodiversity feel good about the diagnosis because they no longer feel like something is inherently wrong with them, like they are lazy, incapable, unlovable, or not good enough. These are the labels they hear from a young age.
Dr. Kimberly: So when they're communicating, you mentioned couples—does the neurodivergent person hear the communication differently from someone who isn't? Are they hearing it wrong, or just not getting it, or are they so much in their own world that they're not communicating? What's the dynamic?
Anna: It could be that they’re not able to pay attention to long sentences, losing attention or interest, or interrupting because they forget what they wanted to say, due to difficulty holding it in their working memory for long. Working memory is another executive function skill that could be affected. Many people with neurodiversity, especially ADHD, are very sensitive to criticism or feedback. They might feel overwhelmed by any situation and not be able to express it or process emotions, say what they need, initiate conversation, etc.
Dr. Kimberly: When you work with them, do you help them use their memory in a way so that they can actually hold more in their memory to communicate? How do you work with them?
Anna: Memory can be worked on through repetition. The brain can be shaped through repetition, and we can create new neural pathways and strengthen them with repetition. But it’s also about communication, and asking, "What do I need?" because I understand how my brain works. If you speak for five minutes, I might forget the point...
Listen to the full interview here.
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