Christal Wang: Affordable, culturally competent ADHD coaching

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Episode 191 with Christal Wang.

“Everyone shimmers differently. It’s all about figuring out what is the unabashed, unapologetic, sparkling version of you.”

Christal is the co-founder and CEO of Shimmer, the first-ever comprehensive behavioral tech platform for adults with ADHD. Chris started Shimmer after she was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, and she is now on a mission to create a more neuro-inclusive world for all neurodivergent individuals.

Chris is a recognized Forbes 30 Under 30 entrepreneur with a strong belief in using business as a force for good. As a queer neurodivergent AAPI woman, she is deeply invested in advocating for and supporting these communities.

Christal shares how her Asian upbringing and cultural stigma around mental health diagnoses initially delayed her ADHD diagnosis. She also talks about the challenges she faced in finding affordable, culturally competent ADHD care and coaching, which inspired her to create Shimmer.

We also talk about the unique strengths of ADHD entrepreneurs, including drive and a desire to challenge the status quo, and we chat all about the amazing resources and support that are offered at Shimmer, including personalized 1:1 video coaching, productivity tools, and learning modules.

Shimmer Deal: Use code WOMENADHD for 30% off the first month of adult coaching, teen coaching, or any product!

Website: www.shimmer.care

Instagram: @adhd.christal; @shimmer.care

Links:

Brainwaves podcast

Christal Wang 0:00
A lot of people think that therapy and coaching are the same, or they don't really understand or the whole medical realm and coaching, but coaching is so different and has a completely different set of outcomes and purpose as to why, why it exists.

Katy Weber 0:17
Hello and welcome to the women and ADHD podcast, I'm your host. Katie Weber, I was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 45 and it completely turned my world upside down. I've been looking back at so much of my life, school, jobs, my relationships, all of it with this new lens, and it has been nothing short of overwhelming. I quickly discovered I was not the only woman to have this experience, and now I interview other women who like me, discovered in adulthood they have ADHD and are finally feeling like they understand who they are and how to best lean into their strengths, both professionally and personally. Hello, hello. Welcome back to another brand new episode of the women in ADHD podcast. Here we are at Episode 191 in which I interview crystal. Wang crystal is the co founder and CEO of shimmer, the first ever comprehensive behavioral tech platform for adults with ADHD. Kris started shimmer after she was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, and she is now on a mission to create a more neuro inclusive world for all neurodivergent individuals. Chris is a recognized Forbes 30, under 30, entrepreneur with a strong belief in using business as a force for good, as a queer neurodivergent AAPI woman, she is deeply invested in advocating for and supporting these communities. Chris shares how her Asian upbringing and cultural stigma around mental health diagnoses initially delayed her ADHD diagnosis. She also talks about the challenges she faced in finding affordable, culturally competent ADHD care and coaching, which inspired her to create shimmer. We also talk about the unique strengths of ADHD entrepreneurs, including drive and a desire to challenge the status quo, and we chat all about the amazing resources and support that are offered at shimmer, including personalized one on one video coaching, productivity tools and learning modules. You can find a link to shimmer in the show notes, and if you use the code women. ADHD, at sign up, you'll get 30% off the first month, and that applies to adult coaching, team coaching, or any product. Again, use the link in my show notes for 30% off when you use the code, women. ADHD, Okay, without further ado, here is my interview with crystal. Well, welcome Chris. Thank you so much for joining me. And let's start with your diagnosis, because it wasn't that long ago, right? It was 2021

Christal Wang 2:50
it was actually 2022 so two years ago, just a little bit over two years ago.

Katy Weber 2:55
Wow. Okay, and what was the timeline between your diagnosis and founding shimmer

Christal Wang 3:01
so pretty much right away. So basically, I was looking, the short story is, I was looking for a specific behavioral solution that I, after a while, figured out didn't really exist, and then I partnered with a few coaches who are first two coaches, and that's how shimmer was born. But I feel like it's a pretty ADHD thing to just go and solve your own problem with a small business.

Katy Weber 3:25
I know, right? I'm like, we don't have ideas. We start new businesses. That's what I always say. But yeah, I think it's a very ADHD thing to do, to just be like, within a few months, to completely rehaul your life and start something new.

Christal Wang 3:39
Yeah, I was thinking about that when I was listening to some of your podcasts over the last few weeks as well. I was like, wow, it's wild that you got to do this. Over the first few years of you discovering more about your ADHD and all podcasters get to do that.

Katy Weber 3:55
Oh, my God. It's, it's how I've learned about like, I feel, I totally feel like I'm getting my PhD in ADHD, just through these conversations, because it's been so valuable. And my editor, even my podcast editor, Emily, I'll shout out to you like she always says that she feels like she's getting free coaching by listening to the episode. So yeah, we'll get into all that, because I have coaching questions that'll come up later. But first, I want to hear about your diagnosis. You were in grad school at the time. What was happening in your life that led you to start thinking you should look into this? Yeah,

Christal Wang 4:30
so without going into the childhood stuff, since I think we're gonna go there, I think there was kind of two really big moments for me. The first one actually wasn't the diagnosis. The first one was, I was in grad school during the pandemic, like right after the pandemic, where they kept promising, obviously it wasn't their fault, but they kept promising that we're going to go in person. So we kept having that hope hanging above us, but then we weren't. And so everything we did was online, every single course, everything was single. Socializing event, and I was just stuck behind this computer, and I just could not focus on class. I kept just switching to another tab and realizing that I had missed, like, full chapters or full segments. I would get cold, cold all the time and not be able to know what was happening. So I actually ended up dropping out of grad school after three months. So that was pre diagnosis, but that was a really big struggle, which I think around that time, Tiktok started getting me. Tiktok started sending me the signals that, here's ADHD, here's the symptoms, and only about a year or two after that, so I don't so I guess that was like, I would call it like the marinating phase of like I now am aware of what ADHD is. I definitely see myself in it, but I have not, I guess, had that trigger to seek a diagnosis. And the diagnosis point was actually when I had actually already started shimmer, which used to be support groups. It used to be a different business model, support groups for loneliness and for anxiety throughout the pandemic, and I had no boss, no structure. Our team started growing. I needed to put structure on other people, and I was constantly dropping the ball and things, people were constantly getting upset at me, and I just didn't have structure. And that was when things started snowballing. And that was actually when I sought the diagnosis, not because I was struggling, but because I was creating a lot of chaos and struggle around me. And that was when I was like, Okay, I need to do something about this. And I had the marination of years, maybe not years, maybe like a year or so of marination in my head already. And that was when I started seeking the diagnosis, when all of the structure was gone. Added onto that, everything was online, yeah? And I had no in person interaction, right? Yeah. I

Katy Weber 6:49
mean, I was diagnosed during the pandemic as well. For you know, I wasn't in school, thankfully. But, yeah, it's so interesting how, you know, looking back through history, how we're going to look back at this time of covid and the pandemic and lockdown and the the mental health repercussions, especially with with ADHD diagnosis, is going to be super fascinating. Yeah, I think we're still learning every day. Yeah,

Christal Wang 7:13
it is truly phenomenal. I think we still, because we lived through it, it still isn't as wild as people who did not live through it and who are growing up are going to be like mom. Tell me about this. I can't believe that happened,

Katy Weber 7:30
right? You also mentioned loneliness and that this started as a support group. Is that, were those some of the symptoms that Tiktok you were relating to, or what was the algorithm telling you about yourself? Oh,

Christal Wang 7:42
so they always talk about the little boy who's bouncing off of walls. I am that little boy bouncing off of walls. I actually perfectly fit the stereotype of what ADHD looks like in childhood. And so I saw all of me and all of Tiktok, not just the woman in ADHD Tiktok, but just everything of ADHD. And then that set me down many different rabbit holes. And the reason I believe that I actually wasn't diagnosed as a kid, because I think that I had all the symptoms that I should have been diagnosed is actually because I grew up in an Asian family, which comes with all the different types of stigma and denial and expectations and different incentives as a kid that you're actually told to do or or indirectly or directly told to do. So I actually chalk my not being diagnosed up to being Asian more so than being a woman, which I know that for many folks who are women and have more inattentive symptoms have a really different experience

Katy Weber 8:44
than me. Yeah, now you've talked about the hesitancy about Western medicine and Western diagnoses and mental health diagnoses in the past, and I know you've also talked about like, mistreatment of doctors and medication and depression. So what, what was the reaction? Have you spoken to your parents about it?

Christal Wang 9:07
Yeah, so I'm queer, and I came out as being pansexual a little bit earlier on, and I bring that up because, because I did that now I can't say much to surprise my parents. When I told my mom this time, she was I was like, I have something to tell you. And she's like, Oh no, not again. What is this? And so she was more so just curious about what this thing was, she immediately went to start diagnosing my dad. When I was telling her, I feel like she wasn't even listening about me. She was like, Oh, that thing. Yes, your dad does that. That thing. Oh yeah, your does. Dad does that. And for context, they're, they're divorced, but friends and they, they like to to harp on each other a little bit. So it was actually very telling, because I was like, Well, Mom, you do know that it's really, it's really strongly genetic, slash hereditary, and it is likely that dad has undiagnosed ADHD. Right? And so it was actually a really good conversation, but I would not think that it would go that way having an Asian family, if I hadn't gone through the process that I went through with my family for coming out as being queer, which, in on the scale of things, I guess for for her, was larger.

Katy Weber 10:18
I love that perspective. And you know, we talk about, like, our parents not thinking it's ADHD, because they're like, Well, I do that. Your dad does that, right? Your grandfather did that. Your brother does that. So, like, how do you differentiate between what is a diagnosable disorder and what is just part of being human?

Christal Wang 10:37
Yeah, so I personally think it just has to do with like, the level of everything. I think everyone. The whole reason why all Tiktok is like everyone is ADHD now is because there's a lot of relatable symptoms around executive function, around the inattention economy that's happening right now. And of course, a lot of is relatable at a small scale, but if it's happening to you for your entire life if it is getting in the way of your functioning. I think the DSM says, like, officially to different areas of your life where it's impairing your functioning, if it's getting in the way of who you think you are. So for example, I think for a long time I identified as being a rebel. Rebel is the nice word, but I just identified as being a bad kid that other people's parents would be like, oh, like, don't hang out with crystal. Like you're going to get in trouble. So I think that when it gets to that level of extremity where it's it's spilling over into other areas of your life, your identity, if it's impairing multiple areas of your life. For me, throughout my life, it was different areas. I think that's when it becomes you may want to go to your healthcare provider to figure out if it's ADHD or if it's that just executive function. And I think that the line nowadays is a little bit a little bit blurry as well, and I know we'll get into it, and that's why I like things like coaching and behavioral solutions that don't make you pick. You don't have to be diagnosed. You just have to want to work on yourself and your executive functioning and and the whole of you that is you.

Katy Weber 12:04
I love that you said that. I talk about that with prospective clients all the time about, you know, the good news is, whether we're talking about genetic ADHD, whether we're talking about the trauma of being a feminist in post Trump America, you know, whether we're talking about menopause and hormones, it all comes down to executive functioning. And so there are very sort of cut and dry strategies to work with executive functioning. And so it's like you're going to benefit regardless, like you said, if we figure out down the line that we've all been misdiagnosed and it's just trauma, trauma or something else like the same strategies are going to work and be beneficial for anyone. If you have ADHD or not, because they target, you know, structure and executive functioning. So if you're struggling with those things, then these will will benefit you. I'd love that you call it shimmer. What was the origin of the name?

Christal Wang 12:57
So shimmer is about it. Everyone shimmers differently, so it's about figuring out what is the unabashed, unapologetic, sparkling version of yourself. So a lot of the times, I mean us with ADHD, we've been masking and pretending a lot of our life, and still do, even though now we're diagnosed and free, but we're still masking all the time, and that is, I would say, like when you're not fully shimmering. And one of our many slogans, because I just love to come up with slogans, is everyone deserves to shimmer. And so it really is just about you, being you and being that sparkly version of you, whatever that looks like. It doesn't have to be loud. Mine is loud, but not everyone's as loud.

Katy Weber 13:37
You know, I feel like people with ADHD often will use adjectives like glittery and sparkly and so, yeah, it kind of fits in with that whole narrative. So you mentioned that after you were diagnosed, you weren't finding the right care for you, right? So it's in terms of either culturally competent care or just affordable ADHD care. So what? What were you looking for and what was not serving you? Yeah. So

Christal Wang 14:10
a little bit of background. When I was diagnosed, I actually people always think I'm exaggerating, but I'm not. After my diagnosis, I was given 10 milligrams of Adderall, and told me to 10 milligrams per day, and was told to come back when I needed more or less. And coming from an Asian family who I remember when I got sick as a kid, my grandma would made make these orange bitter drinks that whenever I got a fever, she would just made from orange peels. She would like, cut orange peels all day, then put them into this disgusting drink, and I would have to drink it all day. And I was like, why can't I just have medicine like everyone else? I'm just dying here with my fever. But somehow, that's obviously an extreme, and I am not like that. I'm more. Culture, I would say that I'm half Western, half Chinese, but some of that is left over in my mind. So my natural inclination in any situation is to seek something that is either natural slash behavioral, first, and see how far I can go with that. And then if I need to layer medication, which I now do, take medication, but I didn't start with medication. So I was looking for something that was behavioral. I didn't know what I was looking for at the moment, so I had looked into both therapy and coaching, which were the two behavioral solutions that I found. And I looked into many, many different apps and different tools. I very quickly found, in the beginning that I wasn't looking for something that was an app, because I was looking for something that could go a bit faster by having another human on the end, and also, because it was all new to me and it was overwhelming, I wanted someone to just be able to bounce back on me, and I didn't want to just fall into Reddit rabbit holes all the time, which is what was happening in the beginning. So that kind of narrowed me down to therapy and coaching. And then I had tried both, and I had done many consultations, I think for coaches specifically, I did over 12 or 13 consultations. And so my challenge that I found with that was, now, I know a lot more about why this is the case, but I think every coach I talked to, they were so sure that they were the right coach for me because of the way that the I would say, maybe the landscape is set up, and I couldn't tell because they would all tell me that they were the right coach for me. And then also, what would happen, I had this like crazy Excel sheet with, like, 12 to like 12 that actually ended up talking to you, but like, more than 20. And I kept narrowing them down. And by the end, a lot of them didn't tell me the price, until I would get to, like, after the first call, and then I would lose their emails, and it was just this big chaotic thing. And then most of them were too expensive for me. Even the ones that I did like, I couldn't remember which one was the one that I liked. So the whole process was just like too much for me. And so what I kind of boiled it down to was I wanted something that was behavioral, and I wanted someone to, like, just ask me some questions, and then like, match me with the right coach. I also was looking for something a little bit more affordable, and I'm also, like, pretty techie. So I wanted something that would, like, guide me, guide me through things, and like, ping me if I forgot something. So those were kind of like the little pieces that I started with, but the biggest, biggest thing was the affordability. That was, like the number one thing that I was just, like, priced out or most of them, and I could think I could only afford, like, one or two of them. And by the time I figured that out, it kind of like the one or two of them, I couldn't really remember what I had talked to them, because I talked to them in the beginning. So long winded answer to say, I started with the affordability, and then I ended up partnering with two coaches who ended up both coaching me, which was perfect way to for me to start my coaching journey. And then we just figured it out, step by step, to figure out eventually what what shimmer is today, and it will continue evolving as well cool.

Katy Weber 17:58
That's amazing. It's just has so much ADHD written all over it.

Speaker 1 18:04
I love that. I was like, What are you going to say here? But yes, totally.

Katy Weber 18:08
Well, just the way that you sort of create this structure when it's not there for you, right? And you know, like, I've talked about that with my podcast too, where I, like, started the podcast before I even had my diagnosis, and I kept thinking, like, what am I doing? This is ridiculous, but it was like the train was on the tracks at that point, like I could not stop. I just had to. And, you know, I feel like that's when people are doubting whether they have ADHD or not, whether they've been diagnosed. Because I think self diagnosis is perfectly valid. Like, I'm like, if you're relating to everything you read and hear about ADHD in like, a visceral way, then that's your diagnosis, as far as I'm concerned,

Christal Wang 18:47
yeah, and I think similar to you at the podcast too, I think a lot of ADHD years that I've talked to now will relate. It's like, it's like, there's this invisible string that's like, almost pulling you, and you're just following the string, but like nobody else can see it, but you're having a great time following it. And so when you explain it to other people, sometimes it feels really windy and it doesn't make sense. But for you, in the moment, you're just, you're like, following what you needed, and you just kept following it. And that's how it ended up happening. I sometimes say it was, like, it's not that deep, like, I just, I just kept following exactly what I needed. I kept, just kept asking our members, like, what they needed, and I just kept following that with, I guess, like, ADHD intuition, right?

Katy Weber 19:31
Yeah, I know. And like, my resume is a total mess as a result. But like, that's one of those things that my diagnosis has allowed me to reframe, which is, instead of me looking at my resume and being like, Oh, look at what a hot mess I am. I can't stick to a job for two years and look at them all over the place, like, now I'm like, Look at this patchwork quilt that has led me to who I am today. I

Christal Wang 19:52
love it, yeah? It reflects you, which is beautiful, yeah,

Katy Weber 19:58
right. And it all makes sense in. Site, right? Like, you think about where you are in life, and you'd look back and you're like, Oh, yeah. Like, every single one of these pieces was necessary and made sense, yeah? So in terms of cultural competency, because I know that's something you know, in terms of, like, the intersectional nature of ADHD, what were some of the things that you were looking to meet with shimmer that you weren't necessarily receiving from the community at large.

Christal Wang 20:26
Yeah. So I think a big part of our like user experience is like, maybe like neurodivergent competency, or ADHD competency. I think the struggle with a lot of experiences that are created by ADHD years is that even though there's good intentions, it's almost like, oh, it's obvious. Someone with ADHD created this because it's a little bit jumpy, and so that's something that I'm really cognizant about our experience as well, is that, like, I always want to, like, include everything on, like, our app or on our page or on our onboarding flow. And I'm like, no, there needs to be one. Every time someone opens a page, there should be like, an obvious next step. And the inspiration I use is actually Docusign. Someone said this, and I can't find the source, but they say that DocuSign was actually created for people who are neurodivergent or people with ADHD, because it's so easy to navigate. You're like, next, I sign here. Next, I sign here. But then it works for everyone. And so I love that mentality, because that's how we also think about our user experience. It's like, does if this works for people with ADHD, it's very clear there's always, like a next step, and people are always excited. There's always something delightful. It's also going to work for everyone. So that's like the ADHD competency side, and then I think cultural competency, I try with shimmer to make sure that, well, first of all, that our coaches are diverse and culturally competent, and also trained to be culturally competent beyond the cultures that they're in. So with shimmer, we train our coaches on, for example, like we recently had one on queer slash LGBTQ competence, and we do bipoc competence. And so what that really means is that either we can match you, if you would like, with someone who understands your experience and has ideally lived through it. So I, for example, I may want to be matched with an Asian American Coach, or I may want to be matched with a queer coach that is usually the best version for someone, because then they don't need to explain all the things. I mean, we That's why most ADHD coaches have ADHD, because people don't need to, like, explain everything. You're like, no, no, I get it. You don't even need to finish your sentence. And so that's the first level. But beyond that, if they aren't that culture, then also making sure that they're aware. So we do a lot of events, like we did an API panel recently, a Latinx panel recently, a queer panel. So really, just like advocacy for the various cultures and how those cultures specifically intersect with ADHD, so that everyone is aware, every our coaches come to these and we invite the general public as well to hear all these experiences, because growing up with being Asian, having Adichie, is completely different from any other experience, and it shapes how my symptoms were, how people reacted to me, what I view as success or not success, and so that's really important for me and a coach. I mean, the example that's overused, but I think a lot of people relate with is when, like, a non Asian therapist says, like, Oh, your your mom has, like, crossed your boundary, like, or your aunt has crossed your boundary, like, you should just cut them out of your life. And so for someone who's Asian, it's like, it's like, no, like, I can't that's, that's not how being Asian works. So that's like the overused example, but I think it's the most relatable one, and that's, there's, there's many, many microcosms and like micro examples of that that if you view that one as like understandable, then you can kind of build down to like, smaller and smaller ones until, hopefully most of our coaches can understand like down to like a medium kind of level. And then we, we at least use that as as a starting point. And if someone needs to switch coaches, then they need to switch coaches.

Katy Weber 24:08
How do you address just the idea that needing a coach or a therapist is even outside of what is possible, sometimes with especially with Asian American culture, yeah.

Christal Wang 24:22
So it's interesting, because with Asians, a lot of us don't, yeah, don't even, even if we have the means, there's also, like, a lot of culture around like frugality and what we spend money on and not spending money on ourselves. And so even if we have the money a lot of Asians will actually not even even spend on coaching and therapy. And so that is really difficult, and we actually see it as a reflection of like the amount of coaches who are Asian as well. There are not enough Asian American coaches and therapists. As with other bipoc populations. So I think a lot of what we do, which is why I think coaching is almost a little bit of a, in my opinion, like a gateway into potentially other helping professions. Is, if you look at our website, we try to not make it look healthcare e we try to not make it look like, Hey, this is for patients or this is for sick people. It's like this is empowering. This is for you to get to your next stage. You could be totally content with your life. We're not saying that you're there's something wrong with you, but you could still want to work on that next goal, that next promotion, switching careers, getting to a better place in your life, figuring out what routines are already working for you so that you can solidify them to draw on them later, if you ever become in the situation where things are harder, so really just is around framing, or positive framing to match better with what coaching actually is, which I think there's a lot of misconceptions, as you probably know. I think a lot of people think that therapy and coaching are the same, or they don't really understand or the whole medical realm and coaching, but coaching is so different and has a completely different set of outcomes and purpose as to why, why it exists.

Katy Weber 26:11
Yeah, right. But I also found the reason why I'm back in school now to become a therapist in addition to coaching, is because I feel like they go hand in hand with ADHD more specifically than anything else. And so as a coach, when I pivoted into ADHD coaching, yeah, we were working on smart goals. Yeah, we were doing all of the things that I was doing, but we were also, like, way more talking about relational and emotional past, right? And it's like, you can't avoid it as much as you want. And that's where I was, like, I am, like, constantly wading into unethical, murky territory with my coaching, but I love it, and I'm super curious, and I want to talk about it. So I was like, Okay, let me just go, you know, give me three years and I'll and then I'll feel better if I've got, you know, some more letters behind my name. So I'm like, that's one of the things that I always caution with ADHD coaching, is like, you have to really have boundaries in terms of ethics, in terms of what you're talking about. And I think I would feel much better like having you know, I will feel much better knowing that I have a lot more confidence in terms of, you know what I was doing, and just being like, I don't know if I'm trained for this, but here we go, and I don't feel like that's a very responsible way to have a relationship with a client. Yeah,

Christal Wang 27:29
I totally agree. And this is something our team talks about a lot. When we dream about the future, we always dream that there's going to be ADHD therapists and coaches. Like, well, sorry that there are already, but people who are trained in therapy and coaching, because they go so hand in hand, and right now, there's so often where we hit the boundaries of coaching and we need to refer out to a therapist, which is obviously great, but it would be awesome too, if you could have one person to go to who could be able to do both of those things, and you kind of just Know which sort of contract you're in at which time. But yeah, i i It is not out of the realm. So I got credentialed as a coach this year, and is definitely not out of the realm that I will also go back to school for therapy at some point. So I am totally on board with you, but I always try not to do everything today, Chris, not everything I

Katy Weber 28:20
know, right, that's the hardest thing is that this is taking three years, and I'm like, can we just, like, do it already? It's but I'm appreciating the slowness of it all and how methodical it is, because I feel like it's just, it's helping me to evolve as a human

Unknown Speaker 28:37
I can imagine, but so, you

Katy Weber 28:38
know, but one of the things I realized very quickly after starting this podcast was that, like the guests, I was interviewing women who were diagnosed in adulthood, I was seeing way more of the multiple degrees, super high achieving women who were had anxiety and depression and but did not do poorly in school, or even, you know, Were not even, you know, in the principal's office, right, right? Like they were, like good girls who were very, very bright and very high performing, and then it just sort of caught up to them in terms of their anxiety and depression. And so I'm curious, like, how has your diagnosis changed your view of yourself, or in terms of being an entrepreneur and a investor and high performance, I don't, I know people don't like that term. I don't know. I haven't come up with a better term. I

Christal Wang 29:30
don't either, but I agree that there. I don't know what the better term is. But okay, first I wanted to share this Tiktok. I saw it that you reminded me of, but it basically had like a small cup, which is essentially, like the expectations and like things that you have to do as a kid. And then they like pour, like water on it. Oh, sorry, yeah, the sorry, the water is what you need to do as a kid. And they pour it, and then it, like, goes, it stays inside. Side, and then there's this other bigger cup, where it's like, you being an adult, and like, they show, like, the amount of water, of stuff you need to do, and they pour it over and they're and it just completely overfills. And it's like, this is like, what it is to be an adult, and you just have so much more that you need to do. You need to, like, do your finances. You need to get your stuff in order. There's not, like, a clear benchmark of, like, what success means. And so obviously your water is going to overflow. And then they draw this parallel with, like, ADHD or autism or any other neurodivergence where, like your water is coming faster, and like the cup is also smaller. So I will, I need to find it, because I'm probably not doing a great job describing it, but it, it really helped. Hit home for me, the concept of this catching up. This a lot of people who are doing fine when they were a kid, and then it kind of caught up because their coping mechanisms weren't good enough. And the other thing I also wanted to add was that I definitely was not a good kid. I was a I was a bad kid with good grades. Um, somehow, somehow that happened. I still have these little memories of me getting kicked out of like, ballet class, or, like, I used to, like, sharpen my sharpened my pencil near the door of the classroom, and when the teacher looked away, I would just, like, run out of the classroom. Like, I don't know why I did these things, but then I was just, I guess, very good at just cramming. I used to just read textbooks in like, a day and not sleep in a night and not sleep, and then word vomit it the next day on the piece of paper, and then a day later, someone would ask me something from it, and I I just didn't remember anything, because I just inhaled it too fast. But anyway, small anecdotes, your question was around, oh, how has my identity changed? Or how I view my ADHD as an entrepreneur? People with ADHD and neurodivergent people in general have one of the most important ingredients to be an entrepreneur. It's that drive. And I guess two things, it's the drive, and it's also not being okay with the status quo, because the status quo has, like not served them correctly. And when you're so sure that the status quo is wrong and that or that you can do better, and you can be a part of a small part of the world being better, and you believe that to your core, because you've lived through it. I think that's like the most important ingredient. There's obviously all these other stuff around, like organization and like all the other executive functioning things that need to happen, but I think those are things that you can get better at. I think you can't, like, have a person who doesn't have that drive and doesn't have that inherent like, want to change something and want to make the world better, to be able to create what someone neurodivergent can so I think I've definitely, in a long journey come to reframe ADHD in entrepreneurship as like the essential ingredient. Not to say it's like, it's definitely not like a superpower, or like anything like that, but it's the essential core ingredient. And now I just need to, now that I'm confident that I have this essential ingredient, I need to solve for all these other things, but, but that's a way better situation than having all the other things and not having the, like, core, central ingredient. So I think that was the biggest reframe for me that I now love who I am, which includes ADHD,

Katy Weber 33:14
yeah, I love how you put that, because it's true. You know, we really do. Like, if you have a problem you drop everything to solve. Yes, right? Like, you did that with your business, right? And, and I feel like that is such an essential part of of, like, the, you know, I always talk about Sisyphus, how we are pushing the boulder up the hill, because for us, pushing the boulder up the hill is fun, right? Like, you know, getting to the top of the hill is boring. We don't spend very much time at the top of the hill before we found another hill, right? And like, it's so it's like, that's what fuels us, is to solve problems. The flip side of that is the fact that, like, our negativity bias is out of control because of ADHD. So we're always looking for the next problem to solve when it's us, like, We are the biggest problem to solve, and so we're always going to focus on what's wrong with me. What am I not doing? Why did I you know, what's missing? And you know, I always use the example of my son coming home with his 92 and being like, I only got a 92 and you're like, What is wrong with you? But it's like, I'm also like, it's like this generational question of like, what's wrong with you, right where you're like, why can't you just be normal? But it's like you're just even that is just like, Why am I always focusing on what's missing and what's negative? And it's like I never really thought about those other side of that coin, that as being that entrepreneurial, drop everything and put everything you have into fixing this. Because, you know, I feel like they're coming from the same quadrant of our brain. No,

Christal Wang 34:48
exactly. I used to say this all the time whenever I would be, like, get in fights with people. But, um, I think every trait that any individual has, like, I say that there's like, a front and the back of the hand. If you're spontaneous, that's the positive side. The negative side is you're probably like, also a little bit flaky or forgetful, whatever you want to call it. And like, if you love yourself and if someone if you love someone else, you have to love both sides of the hand, like, you cannot split them apart. There's always going to be a front and the back of the hand. And so I think that, like, a lifelong journey for ourselves is loving every single negative aspect that is, or at least accepting the negative aspects that are attached to our positive traits. Because if you were to be like, Well, would you get rid of your positive trait? If you get rid of the negative one, if you sat down and thought long enough about it, you probably wouldn't, because the positive traits are what makes you

Katy Weber 35:42
you, yeah, that you're reminding me of the what's the movie, the red panda movie?

Christal Wang 35:50
Oh, I know what you're talking about. I'm not good with movie names, but I know what you're talking about. I

Katy Weber 35:55
can't figure it right now. It's red something, but I don't remember what it's called, and I'm so excited. It takes place in Toronto, which is super awesome. I'll look it up and put it in the show notes. You all know what I've talked about the Disney movie. It's

Christal Wang 36:06
called turning red. Right, turning red. Thank

Katy Weber 36:08
you. Yes, turning red. Yeah, I just Of course you did, because you can't help yourself. This is real time ADHD, so let's get back to shimmer, because I want to find out about the how it works. It's an app, you know? So you go, okay, so if you go to shimmer, dot care, and you you get matched with a coach, right? Let's walk me through the process here.

Christal Wang 36:33
Yeah. So in a nutshell, it's one on one ADHD coaching. But how it works is, you get to the website, you answer a few questions that will help us understand what sort of coach you might be a good fit with. Then you'll get shown either two or three coaches that you may like. And then you can browse through their profiles. Take your time. We'll provide a good amount of information about them, their style, how they can help you. And then you pick one of them. And then once you pick one of them, then you pay. And then after you pay, you go inside. And then once you're in the app, you can either use the app on your web or your mobile. And that was really important to our members, because when they want to type a lot, they want to do on the web, but when they just want a notification, they want on their phone, so you can do it on either. And then you go through a series of onboarding questions, which that is actually the start of the coaching already. So we found that a lot of the time, some things that people weren't ready to open up to their coach right away, because it's a new relationship, but it would be so helpful for the coach to know. So you're able to do that actually before you meet your coach in a journaling format that we facilitate, and you also do a couple of assessments on your executive functions, around your focus areas in your life and what your goals would be. And also, there is going to be a little a few kind of little videos on like, what coaching is. How do you get the most of it, all of this that we've discovered are things that are really important to making that first meeting really great with your coach. And then after that, you meet essentially every week with your coach. So you'll meet over video, which is in our app, which is Weber mobile, and then you meet every week. And then in each one of those sessions, basically your coach is doing ADHD coaching. They help you figure out what you want your future goals to be, what your vision of your life looks like, and then help you break that down and work backwards from it. So in a typical session, you're either working on something that gets you towards your goals, or you could be problem solving on something that just like came up that week. It really just depends on on the person and what's going on in the in their session. So it could be something more internal, or it could be something more external. It could be like looking at your morning or night time routine, your calendaring, learning a new strategy, potentially around time blocking, whatever your focus is, it'll look different for every single person. And then, in addition to the one on one coaching, you also have access to my favorite part of the app is actually the the to do list. So the to do list is you set your to do's after each session with your coach, and then when you finish it, it messages your coach every time you check something off. And then your coach, depending on what you've agreed on, will either like, celebrate you or like, kind of like, gently nudge you if you didn't do it in a few days. So there's, like, actual, real human accountability, and that's for me, accountability is the biggest motivator, and coming from someone you respect in a way that doesn't take them a lot of time as well, because we're very respectful of the coach's time, we've kind of built the tools to enable that. So there's that, and then the last two pieces is body doubling. So every day, we have body doubling running in the app. So you can go with other people who have ADHD. We're also working on their ADHD to get things done. And the last piece is, then there's a bunch of learning modules in the app too. So if you want to learn about procrastination, ADHD in the brain, rotation, sensitive, dysphoria, whatever it is, your coach can either assign it to you, or you can discover it yourself, so that your coaching really is continuously happening as much as you really want. It

Katy Weber 40:00
to be happening. I mean, it's amazing that you can keep it so affordable with real humans. Are they? Are they well compensated? Like, how do you pay them?

Christal Wang 40:15
Yeah, so this was, like, one of the first problems that I got obsessed with solving so basically, we interviewed, I want to say, like over 50 or 60 coaches to try to discover why coaching was so expensive. And a big part of it was because most coaches spend, depending on the level of the coach, like, upwards of 50% of their time doing things like posting on Instagram, like figuring out how to do the website logistics, like scheduling, rescheduling cancelations and then having an empty slot. So we ensure that our coaches don't have any of those. They basically log on in the morning and they coach into whatever they want to coach, and then everything else is taken care of for them, with our with our tech solution, and so for us, it's like we can continue to every week we're looking at more things from the coach that we can help automate or make it easier for them, and also how to change the systems better so that people don't cancel, people don't ghost, how to motivate people to get to sessions, how to send the Right notifications at the right time, so our designer pretty much spends all of her time just looking at the coach side and the member side and essentially looking for the most efficient way to do all of this, while not removing the humanity part of it. Because I think what a lot of tech solutions do, in my opinion, too much is that they go too hard on efficiency, and then there's like no human involved anymore. And of course, that's efficient, but if you have people with ADHD, it's really hard to stick to anything that doesn't have a human and the the quality of the coaching goes down. So until, until I get proven wrong, I'm not, I'm not for AI coaching yet. Oh

Katy Weber 42:00
my god, no. I mean, you know, it's like, it's fine, but I feel like, you know, one of the things with ADHD is that novelty wears off really quickly with anything, and that's where I think, you know, that's where you hit the wall of awful, of just like, yeah, no. Like, I'm super into this. And I am whole, you know, I'm like, spreadsheets and whole hog and new planners and everything, and I'm starting a creating a new me, and, like, I'll do anything for like, two weeks, and then all of a sudden, it's just, you wake up and you're like, yeah, no, I'm done, yeah, totally, right. And so that's where I feel like the human relationship is so integral to, like, show up, you know, because it's like, if I can't show up for myself, at least I can show up for the other person, right? And coaching kind of helps you, until you're able to become accountable for yourself, you rely on being accountable to somebody else. Okay, well, that's good to hear, and I'm sure it's really nice for coaches to not have to, you know, work with a company that's finding them the clients, right? Because it's true, like you spend so much, it's like, so, you know, every entrepreneur will complain about like, I didn't, I didn't go to Marketing School. I don't want to dance around on Tiktok reels like I want to do the stuff I'm interested in. I don't want to spend all of this time having to market myself, right? It's a real drudge when you're a small business entrepreneur.

Christal Wang 43:14
Yeah, no, definitely.

Unknown Speaker 43:17
Speaking from experience,

Christal Wang 43:19
yeah, no. Our coaches love that they don't need to do all those things. And then also, I think what a lot of ADHD coaches are also missing, and what, obviously, I'm biased, but why they they love being on our team too, is is that camaraderie that they had when they were in an ADHD coaching school now, I mean, all of our coaches are on this like massive slack, and have multiple meetings a week where they do they do different trainings, they do different discussions, they problem solve together, and they send resources to each other. And I think, as someone with ADHD, which most coaches are having, that community is also makes such a big difference to your day to day, being able to work, and also, especially if the community is facilitated, and you don't need to do anything, you just need to show up. Oh,

Katy Weber 44:02
my God, right, I know that's the best kind of friendships are the ones where you're like this plan for you to show up. Yes. Well, speaking of community that you know you you mentioned that this started as a support group during the pandemic dealing with loneliness. Is there a community element to shimmer in terms of clients, because I guess there's also the anonymity scent, like, how does that work? Yeah, that's

Christal Wang 44:27
something that we have been very thoughtful and careful about. So I think there definitely will be more in the future as we figure it out. But right now, there's body doubling in the app, which you could go to, which just shows your first name, and you can be camera off, on whatever you want, but you you don't have to. So not all of our members use that tool of body doubling. And then what we do to make it more I guess, like you can choose how much you disclose, is we do a lot. I think now we're up to maybe a little bit more than one a week, but we do public facing events. Where all of our members are involved, but also all the public is involved, and it's on Zoom, and you can change your name, or some of them, we do it where it's like the webinar style, where you can't even see who else is in there. So we have those opportunities. They're at different, differing levels, but they but there is a small sense of community within the app. And then we have our newsletter slash newsletter slash podcast. It's a video newsletter, which now we think that it's just a podcast. It's called brainwaves. We started Trina's on all the episodes. But, yeah, I started as a newsletter. I don't know it just, it just snowballed. But yeah, there's, there's different, different levels of community, and we're quite thoughtful about that, because, as you mentioned, like, not everyone wants to shout at the rooftop that they have ADHD, and that's totally fine, right?

Katy Weber 45:48
Yeah, yeah, I love that. You're like, that's the other thing with ADHD. It's like, Oops, I accidentally started a new business overnight. Whoops, yeah.

Christal Wang 45:59
I mean also so Trina and Orion and Noel are the three who are doing the newsletter slash podcast, and they, they all have ADHD. Most of our team does, but specifically that team all has ADHD. So it was, it was funny watching that thing snowball, because it was originally on an initiative. We had, like, a little initiative card, and it was called newsletter, and then, like, slowly, the name kept changing until it became like brainwaves, podcast, newsletter.

Katy Weber 46:25
I love brainwaves. It's great name. Very clever. Okay, so it's shimmer. Dot care, correct, yes, is where people can find you. Obviously, I'll have that link in the show notes. And do you have a name for ADHD, if you could rename it to something less bizarre and clinical, you

Christal Wang 46:44
definitely sent me down a rabbit hole with that question. I probably thought about it for way too long, and I was reflecting on what I feel like the challenges with it are. And I do think that there is like, at first I went down the thought of like, there's definitely like the topical challenges, it just feels like it doesn't cover it doesn't cover everything, and it doesn't necessarily even cover the right things. Then there's the disorder, which makes it feel like, so scary, but then I ended up just simplifying, going back and looking at other things, I think, like, schizophrenia, autism, diabetes, like all of these, like, they don't have, like, all these letters, like, trying to, like, exhaustively cover what this thing is. So I don't know if I will even like this tomorrow, but I landed on the word wavy. I don't know if it came from brainwaves, but I was like, I would like to go out and just be like, yeah, like, I'm neurodivergent, and specifically, I'm wavy. I felt like it kind of like philosophically encompassed ADHD, but I don't think it would go by any sort of doctors or clinicians. So it's just, I'm just throwing an option into the hat. Plus,

Katy Weber 47:51
I love the vision of, like, a straight line, and then the way we lie next to it. That's how it feels when you're talking about neurotypicals, where you're like, I don't know who those stereotypicals are, but it's like they're the straight line. Yeah, exactly. And I think it also talks about like, progress too. Like, you know, like, progress isn't linear. Progress is all about like, peaks and valleys. And so I like the brainwave, yeah. And

Christal Wang 48:14
I also like how wavy is. There's so many different there's only one straight line, but there's so many. You can have infinite types of, like, wavy lines, and that shows, I think, the diversity within ADHD as well. Because, yes, it's ADHD, but like, everyone has such a different type of ADHD, even though there's things that are same. So I kind of like that about the wavy line, right? And

Katy Weber 48:37
you and you know, what else is wavy? Have you ever seen those images of, like, the old brick walls that they used to make. And like, they were in like, English countryside, they would have, like, the wavy wall was actually a stronger wall than a straight wall, and it used fewer bricks. And so there was, like, as farmers would, I don't know if it was farmers, I don't know. So whoever was building brick walls in the old countryside would like, make them wavy instead of straight, because they had more fortitude, or something, which I'm like, I like that allegory.

Christal Wang 49:03
It kind of reminds me of, I don't know if you know this, but I recently found out that, like, earthquake safe buildings are actually, like, wavy, and the reason why they're earthquake safe is because they can wave and versus, like, the super rigid ones will just, like, fall over if an earthquake happens. So I was like, wow, okay, like, even these buildings are, like, wavy and stronger and more resilient. Yeah, I

Katy Weber 49:26
was just gonna say it's, like, flexibility and resilience. I like it. There's we could do a lot with this.

Christal Wang 49:31
Okay, nice. I got my first vote for when I, when I petitioned this.

Katy Weber 49:35
Well, we could probably think of, like, what would wavy? Wavy could probably stand for something as an acronym, because, like, my only thing, I haven't come up with a good name either. I always ask other people, and I'm like, I don't know what you would call it because, but you know, one of the nice things about ADHD is that it's easy to Google, so if you call it anything else, like vast or any of the other options that have been put out there, it's like, well, you're also still going to have to, you're also still going to have to. Google ADHD, whenever you put in fast like you have to be careful about what to call it.

Christal Wang 50:05
When I submitted my whole thought process into chatgpt, two other options it gave me were, yes, I went down a rabbit hole, but attentia was one, and then mindora was another one, all right, which I don't know. I feel like wavy is better, but I just wanted to throw up, like I literally submitted my whole thought process and they came up with those two. So

Katy Weber 50:30
I love it. Well, okay, that's fine. It sounds a little bit like a Disney Kingdom attention, but yeah, but yeah, I don't

Christal Wang 50:39
think it would solve the problem, because it feels like an even shorter version of 80. Shorter version of ADHD, like, not shorter, but just one part of all those four letters. Well,

Katy Weber 50:47
and then again, it's like attention is such a straight, you know, it's so variant, right? Like nobody, you I haven't met anybody with ADHD who has a attention deficit, because you, you know, you go down rabbit holes. We hyper focus. It's just, it's that variability element. So that's

Christal Wang 51:02
why I think it needs to be something a bit more like vague and philosophical. Because, well, bipolar actually is it visualizes it, so that's actually a pretty good one. But borderline schizophrenia, diabetes, I'm not sure if they all mean something. I would need to look into it. I'll probably do that afterwards. Yeah,

Katy Weber 51:21
well, even when Asperger's was was on the way out, right in terms of, like, we don't want to, we don't want to name something after a Nazi, understandably. But then I was like, Huh? I wonder where. I wonder what the etymology of autism is, and it's actually also problematic. It's just like, buried a little bit deeper, and I'm trying to remember now, now I'm going to have to go down that rabbit hole and put some links in the show notes, but I'm like, I'm pretty sure there are, were some, like eugenics doctors in there somewhere, way back when, in terms of who, you know, because all all white men in lab coats before a certain age were awful. So like, Whoever named it? I mean, Whoever named it was probably an awful human. Who are we kidding? But anyway, I was like half of autism doesn't get the same scrutiny. But anyway, yeah, but it would be nice to have a sort of a neutral word that is neither positive or negative. Is just a way of identifying yourself now, which I guess neurodivergent really has taken that spot.

Christal Wang 52:22
I do like the word neurodivergent actually a

Katy Weber 52:25
lot. Yeah, yeah, same Yeah. Um, it's just, yeah,

Christal Wang 52:28
not for ADHD specifically. But I mean, I was thinking when, when you put that question, I was thinking about, like, queer and pansexual too. It's like, I would tell someone who's queer that I'm pansexual, but I wouldn't like, open the stage to someone I didn't know being like, I'm pansexual, just like, I don't even know if you know what that means. So I would start with like, I don't know, like, be a bit more vague and say bi or then be a little bit more vague and just say queer or LGBTQ. If I feel like they're like, really not going to understand. And I'll just whip out all the letters,

Katy Weber 53:00
yeah. Yeah. I guess it depends on the audience too, right? And that's why I sort of feel like ADHD is, like the I always joke that it's the gateway diagnosis, because that's usually, like the first one, because it's so tied to behaviors, and so it's the one that most people get diagnosed with first. And then, although actually when you think of childhood, now, I'm just, I'm walking back on that statement, because I'm thinking about all the people who are diagnosed with dyslexia in childhood. But anyway, but this idea that it's, like, it's very behavior based, as opposed to, like, really getting into the neurodivergent brain and, like, what is it about your brain that is giving you? ADHD, right? Anyway, thank you. This has been really fascinating. I love that the this business has been growing and doing incredibly well over the last couple of years. So congratulations to you. Really quickly. Like, do you have any exciting things planned for the next few years? In terms of shimmer, yes,

Christal Wang 53:56
I mean specifics of next few years, as most people with ADHD, it's like hard to plan that far out. But yeah, the way we do things is we always just follow our members and follow our coaches when and try to just solve more problems. But yeah, I think that we actually just did a body doubling launch last week. So now we, I mean, it's, it actually had been live for like, a year already, but we finally want to do like a celeb like a celebration and a launch around it. So now we have body doubling. But yeah, I think that going forward, we will be building more features in the app that will help folks be able to do some elements of coaching throughout the week that will help augment their experience of coaching in the session. So really, I think one thing that is most different about how we do coaching too, is we try to extend that coaching throughout the week and be and be present with you where we can and where it makes sense, of course. So we're excited to to launch some more features there that will help, that will help all. Like, alleviate more time from the coach, so that the coach is really focusing their time on that, like, once a week, generative session with with the client. So there's always going to be new features coming out. I don't think I mentioned here. We actually do Audi HD coaching as well. So we do ADHD coaching and ADHD coaching. So if you're curious, come find us where I think our most interesting stuff is probably on Instagram. So shimmer, dot care me, and Trina make the content on Instagram.

Katy Weber 55:27
So yeah, that's that's an amazing person to have on your team. And yeah, yeah, I'll put the links to all of the Instagrams. And yeah, and if you find the Tiktok small cup cop coping mechanism video, let me know, send it to me. I'll put it in the show notes. Oh yes,

Christal Wang 55:48
I will definitely do that, because I did not do a good job explaining it. I like other ADHD er, often really, I know I really, really like something, and I remember how it made me feel but the moment I try to explain it or to name it, or to do anything with it, I'm sorry, but I swear I love it.

Katy Weber 56:07
I know, right? I say that about the plot of every book I've ever read. I'm like, couldn't tell you anything about it. I just know if I liked it or not.

Christal Wang 56:14
Yes, I don't know my favorite movies. I love that. I get to rewatch them again, but I can't remember them. I just know that they're my favorite. I

Katy Weber 56:21
know, right? Yeah. I was just, we were just like, going back and re watching black mirror. And I was like, I love the fact that I cannot remember any of these, and I know I've seen them. Yeah,

Christal Wang 56:32
the plot twist hits you like, harder than other people. And they're like, Wait, I thought you recommended I watch this.

Katy Weber 56:39
Well, thank you for spending this time with me. And yeah, thanks for everything you're doing with this business. It sounds amazing. And yeah, good luck to you.

Christal Wang 56:47
No thank you so much. I really appreciate the time. And if anyone's listening, I think number one advice is like, whatever your hyper focuses on, or whatever you're super passionate about, it, if you can find a way to, like, make it your job. Like, I know, Katie you, you're in that position. It's so amazing.

Katy Weber 57:06
And it usually changes every couple years too. So it keeps

Unknown Speaker 57:11
you on your toes. Thank you so much for having me.

Katy Weber 57:15
Oh, thank you, Chris.

There you have it. Thank you for listening, and I really hope you enjoyed this episode of the women and ADHD podcast. If you'd like to find out more about me and my coaching programs, head over to women and adhd.com if you're a woman who was diagnosed with ADHD and you'd like to apply to be a guest on this podcast, visit women and adhd.com/podcast guest, and you can find that link in the episode show notes. Also, you know, we ADHD ers crave feedback, and I would really appreciate hearing from you the listener. Please take a moment to leave me a review on Apple podcasts or audible and if that feels like too much, and I totally get it, please just take a few seconds right now to give me a five star rating or share this episode on your own social media to help reach more women who maybe have yet to discover and lean into this gift of neurodivergency, and they may be struggling and they don't even know why. I'll see you next time when I interview another amazing woman who discovered she's not lazy or crazy or broken, but she has ADHD and she's now on the path to understanding her neurodivergent mind and finally, using this gift to her advantage, take care till then you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai