Brandon Gimbel (00:00)

The general tendency of the psychiatrists in my practice is to want to try to treat anxiety first. And once we can treat that anxiety and improve that person's balance, then we will see what is left of the question of ADHD.

Maggie Schwalbach (00:15)

One of the examples that I give, and I think it's easy to remember, is I talk about Amy the Amygdala. Have you ever heard this before? Amy the Amygdala. And I'll say the prefrontal cortex, executive function, the brain's management system has a secretary. So there's the CEO going to do their job. They go in their office and they say to Amy the Amygdala, "Amy, only interrupt me when it's extraordinarily important. I need to focus. I need to get work done. Only interrupt me when it's crisis." Amy's not trained. Amy perceives everything as a threat. So in comes the UPS person and Amy calls, "Need to interrupt you!" Ring, ring, ring, ring. The shadow on the wall. A dog barking. What happens? The CEO can't do its job. So it's not, do we focus only on Amy? We know that she keeps interrupting, but I think another way to look at it, because we know the brain is connected, is that executive function can continue to exist while Amy's being trained. The CEO still needs to learn their skills to do what they do. And the CEO can learn to ignore some of Amy's calls. That's what I'll say to clients. So I love that it can be "both and." That's how I approach coaching.