Empowering Adults With ADHD – Exclusive Interview With Robynne Pendariès

Robynne Pendariès, an American who has lived in France her whole adult life, brings her 18 years of experience as a Professional Organizer to her present passion of online coaching for adults with ADHD. After a few years of organizing people's homes and offices, Robynne realized that many of her clients had been diagnosed with ADHD (and subsequently her husband and teenage daughter as well). Without realizing it, Robynne had been helping people with neuro-divergent brains for many years, and she went back to school to obtain formal training as an ADHD coach. Robynne partners with clients in a thought-provoking process, to create sytems in order to find each person's "life that fits".

Robynne Pendariès, ADHD Coach for adults

Introduce yourself! Please tell us about you and your life, so we can get to know you better.

After a peaceful childhood growing up in Philadelphia, and an enriching four years at Tufts University majoring in child psychology, I flew to Paris one week after graduation to be with my “then-boyfriend-now-husband”. Although I dreamed about becoming a family therapist, life got in the way and I ended up learning new skills as a clothing buyer. I subsequently raised my two bilingual, bicultural kids here in Paris (not a shabby place to raise children)! When both of my kids started school full-time, I created my own business as a Professional Organizer (17 years ago). It was quite obvious to me that most people dreaded organizing, yet it was actually a passion for me! Other things I love to do are fast walks with friends, listening to The Mel Robbins podcast, and practicing mindfulness while baking banana bread in my sunny kitchen.

What inspired you to start providing ADHD coaching services, and what sets your coaching approach apart from others in the field?

After a few years of in-person space organizing with clients, I noticed that many of them had a different way of relating to their papers, their clutter, their time…I couldn’t put my finger on it, but none of my traditional “organizing hacks” and systems worked with them. Well, it turns out that these clients had ADHD! I was inspired to learn more about their neurodivergent brains and was determined to find a different way to help these clients get organized and stay organized. Fast forward to about 3 years ago when my daughter was diagnosed with ADHD before leaving for university. After a difficult start on campus, she began to work with an ADHD coach there. It turned out to be a great fit and extremely helpful for her and inspired me to go back to school to become an ADHD Coach myself! What makes my ADHD coaching unique is the Professional Organizing experience which I bring to my coaching sessions. I have a hands-on understanding of how adults with ADHD relate to their physical clutter, emotional clutter, “body clutter” and even computer clutter. In addition, living with my daughter and husband (who both have ADHD) has fine-tuned my empathy and my partnering skills, to in turn help my clients maximize their personal and professional potential.

Can you describe the typical journey or process that a client undergoes when working with your coaching services, from initial consultation to achieving their goals?

The first step is a “discovery call” on Zoom, to determine if coaching is a good fit for the person. Some people come to coaching after years of being disenchanted with therapy and are looking for an alternative to help them take action and move forward. Other people come to coaching after a late adult diagnosis, as an alternative to taking ADHD medication (“pills don’t teach skills”, we coaches like to say!). Others combine ADHD coaching and therapy (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or COGMED, for example) to get effective results.

The second step is to sign up! I typically work with people one session per week. This allows time in between sessions for the client to “experiment” with new action steps, with my support and accountability if they wish.

Each client brings a topic to the session: the client is the one who decides! We explore the topic together, I ask questions to help the client connect the dots and improve awareness of their strengths and challenges, how their ADHD shows up, to understand what is getting them stuck, etc. Then the client will choose their “action steps” for the next session and share with me any takeaways from the session. Each ADHD coaching session has structure to it, and within this structure/framework, there is enormous flexibility to uncover what makes each person tick and how each person can create their “life that fits”.

Once a client has reached a goal, there are always more goals to be achieved. But ADHD coaching is more than just achieving a goal. It is about the process, about discovering one’s own thought process, one’s own strengths, values and needs…to create this “life that fits”.

Could you share a success story or testimonial from a client who has benefited from your coaching services, highlighting the transformation or progress they experienced as a result of working with you?

My oldest client is one of my favorite “success stories”…she had been treated for years for depression and anxiety disorder, when in fact she had been living her whole life with ADHD as the root cause of her mental health issues. Our work together was truly collaborative and transformative, in my humble opinion, but I imagine she would agree with me! I am proud to share with you her testimonial:

“ADHD Coaching with Robynne has been (and continues to be) a very useful and positive experience for me. She helped me define my goals and then proceeded to help me explore the issues in my life that seem to keep me from pursuing or achieving those goals. When Robynne listens, she does so with her ears, her mind, and her heart. I have rarely felt so "heard" as when I was in a coaching session with her. She asked questions that revealed issues I had never realized were there and helped me to acknowledge a facet of myself I had never seen before. Perhaps, above all. Robynne is without judgement. She always creates a safe place for me to be truthful. She is kind, smart, and is dedicated to helping me find answers for myself. She really did coach me in seeing how much easier life could be, when I decide I wanted to make it so.”

If you could change one thing about your industry, what would it be and why?

That’s an easy question to answer!

I would change the name “Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder” to something else…I literally can’t think of a worse name. It completely confuses people and misrepresents the true characteristics of this type of neurodiversity. I might even go as far as to say that the word “disorder” is a misnomer. Might it be possible that there are people whose brains are wired differently than much of the population, and why does that mean that it is a “disorder”?

If and when the name “ADHD” changes, then hopefully people’s mentalities will change as well…and hopefully soon there will be a better understanding of neurodivergent brains and a greater acceptance of those whose brains are wired differently than the majority of the population. I am on a mission to create awareness, increase understanding and break the stigma about ADHD…especially here in France!

To find out more about Robynne's services, please visit her website.

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