I am Samantha (Sam).

I completed my training with the iACT Centre as a Certified ADHD Life Coach in June 2024.

I got my Associate Certified Coach (ACC) with the International Coaching Federation in March 2026.

I work with ADHDers around self-esteem and confidence, job seeking, skill and talent identification, and seeking calm, rest and play.

I’m a late-diagnosed ADHDer. Learning, and learning to work with my ADHD, has profoundly changed my life for the better, and I want to work with you to do the same.

I became a parent less than two years after my diagnosis. ADHD was seen as an after thought through my IVF, pregnancy, birth and being a new parent – but I found having an understanding of it was critical to my wellbeing.

I live in Naarm | Melbourne on the unceded sovereign land of the First Nations people of the Kulin nation.

I identify as LGBTQIA+ and am body positive.

I do my best to honour the cultural safety and intersections of identity of the people I connect with.

I have experience in the arts, theatre, education, project management and paper pushing.

I could talk for hours about how good governance, counter-governance and risk management can free up your mental real estate.

I have had a number of amazing life experiences – creative, professional, and personal – as well as many struggles. I get the taxonomy of trauma. I have learned to appreciate the good things, and people in life, and look forward to hearing your story.

A Certified ADHD coach is someone who collaborates with folks with ADHD or other executive function issues to approach practical, day-to-day tasks, build their confidence, strengthen their problem solving skills, and improve their quality of life.

We often start by looking at day-to-day practicalities, and by developing self-awareness and embracing your uniqueness, I can help you clarify and move towards your goals. This is about seeking more satisfaction in your life, by helping you find out the difference between how you think you should be, and how you actually want to be.

If you want to know more about why being qualified is important, and what qualifications I have – read more here.

A Coach helps you with your goals and moving forward. A psychologist does what you could call psychic bookkeping. Both are important.

You can see us both at the same time, for different parts of your life.

Coaches connect with you through their lived experience, and rather than giving you strategies on how to deal with your emotions, we support you to move from being motivated to do things through a fear of disappointing others, to doing things according to your values.

Executive function is really central to coaching. We work out how to access it, and how to support it when we need to.

One of my jobs is to know where my limitations are as an ADHD Coach, and when to refer you to other professionals when we cover topics that are not within my scope of support.

I am always happy to be contacted by health professionals you are working with if and when appropriate to discuss or share information

We always do a Foundation session before we start coaching, which is when we dedicate space and time to understanding where you are at, what you understand about your neurodivergence and ADHD, your goals, and your learning and processing styles.

I then take you through how a coaching session is structured and what to expect, and you have time to ask questions and finally hear back from someone who has had many similar experiences to yours.

If you’ve been to therapy before, the actual coaching sessions may feel a bit different.

There is less debriefing about the week, and more getting straight onto the topic.

The topics can bring up some emotions, but we try and understand them in order to bring you closer to your goal.

I’ll ask you what you want to walk away with – but I’m not expecting a to do list. It might just be a different way of looking at the topic. It might be a couple of strategies.

We’ll unpack it and explore it.

And at the end, you’ll hopefully walk away with a different way of looking at the topic, and either a new understanding or a concrete plan for what to do next.

It’s often the last thing you hear about (before Rejection Sensitivity – see below) but is the biggest reason ADHD can effect self esteem and confidence.

Executive function is completely different to your intelligence, knowledge, and learning.

It’s a completely different part of your brain function.

Understanding Executive Function means understanding your ADHD.

It’s the reason why the phrase “Why can’t I just…” or “I should be able to do this,” circle round your head.

You can be academically excellent, a star athlete, an expert craftsman – but that is a different to your executive function.

It’s what takes care of planning, organising, initiating self-regulating, and moving forward with ideas and tasks.

It works well for things that are interesting to us, and not as well in others.

It’s why others can be bewildered by the things we do.

But its is not a moral failing, or a lack of willpower.

By the time we are adults, and undiagnosed, we have memorised the script others wrote of who we are.

It comes up a lot in coaching, because if we can take the the emotional heat off our challenges, your brain can be freed up to find the solutions it’s so good at finding.

I’m going to bang on about executive function here again folks.

The word should comes up a lot for ADHDers. It’s been directed towards us by people we love, people in authority, people we are in awe of, and people we respect. But its roots thrive in shame.

When an ADHDer feels ashamed, overwhelmed, unsupported, and basic needs are not being met, the executive function goes out the window.

This is compounded when we feel disconnected from others, by having our actions interpreted as moral failings, laziness, or a lack of respect.

There are some things about your brain difference that mean you do things best when you do them your way.

The only way you’re going to be able to do that, is by creating the time and space for your to find your confidence, and your own way of doing things. That what coaching does.

All sorts of things – in general it’s the parts of your life that you may be struggling with, in particular when combined with your ADHD. You can see a more comprehensive list here.

I take a strengths-based approach – we will look at where we can build on your strengths, talents, passions and values to work on your challenges.

It’s all about helping you find the inner resources you have to find your own way forward.

I coach anyone who is ready to reach out or curious about how coaching can help them – but generally here are a few groups of people I work with:

Late diagnosis ADHDers

Like me! I can work with you for the huge change in perspective that is an ADHD diagnosis. I can also work with you through what can be called a ‘grief process’ as you take stock and look to the future

Often you will have spent years finding solutions and strategies already, without realising you were doing this to support your ADHD. We can work together to affirm your resourcefulness, learn some new strategies, and also learn more about your unique ADHD traits.

I also know that one of the big reasons for a late diagnosis can be because it was missed or discounted due to someone being LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, or having a trauma background. I hope I can honour these experiences.

Becoming a parent or carer – at whatever stage

Wherever you are with this – whether it’s a nagging thought at the edge of your brain, or something concrete you want to start stepping through.

I went through IVF, pregnancy and new parenthood as a single mum by choice less than two years after my diagnosis – knowing what is going on with your ADHD matters, as a heck of a lot of medical practitioners who work with pregnancy and new parenthood have very few resources to work with. Let me be your resource.

LGBTQIA+ Identities

If you’re late diagnosed, this new layer, or intersection of identity can shake your sense of self, and present a new set of ways of understanding yourself in the world.

This can especially impact if you’ve never quite fit into one identity, and are now presented with further ways to describe your experience, and have new intersections of communities to connect with.

ND Parents of children and young people with ADHD

It’s all about building your confidence so that you can collaborate with, and advocate for, your child and young person. Their diagnosis may also bring some stuff up for the parent – I’ll help you navigate this, so that you can move towards showing up for yourself, so you can feel confident showing up for your child.

Young people

Yes you young person – getting to know yourself is a lifelong journey, and can be awesome if you know what you are capable of, and what to ask for when you need help, and feel confident that what you are asking for works for you

Late diagnosis ADHDers – take note – we are learning this too!

ADHD is something that makes your brain a bit different to other people, and can make you spend time in the world in a different way to other people.

People with adhd are really caring, creative, curious and kind.
Sometimes we feel misunderstood.
Sometimes we are misunderstood.
Sometimes we do or say things without thinking about it first.
Sometimes it’s hard to do things other people want you to do that you think are boring.
But when we are doing something we love to do, we are so happy, and feel like we could do it forever.
We can learn how to be friends with our ADHD and ourselves, and care about ourselves as much as we care about other people

That’s totally fine – and why the intro session is free.

Coaching is not effective if you just do a one-off. You need to do at least 3-4 sessions to get the gist of the format, and get some momentum going.

This is why I do packages – partly so I can make sure you’re booked in, partly because if you only do one session, it’s not going to be helpful to you.

I do offer the soft landing sessions, which are looser in structure, and more exploratory.

I might also recommend a different kind of support as an alternative to coaching, based on our conversation. The only way to find out is to book an intro meeting.

It is the least spoken about trait in medical and diagnostic circles, but I have never met an ADHDer without some form of rejection sensitivity – and it can be the most painful and potentially the most freezing aspect of your ADHD.

It means being extremely sensitive to either actual or perceived rejection. It means having a big emotional response when you feel this way – sorrow, embarrassment, anger, sadness, social withdrawal, isolation, and shutting down.

It can also mean developing perfectionist tendencies in an attempt to avoid ever feeling rejected at all.

These big emotional responses and perfectionism can be why people spend years being misdiagnosed, in particular with conditions related to anxiety, before they come across this trait and learn it is an integral part of the ADHD experience.

Oh the temptation to give advice! I understand – from our deepest wells of compassion, we just want our loved ones, and hopefully ourselves and the people around us, to be happy – creative, resourceful and whole.

But giving and receiving advice, while sometimes useful, can sometimes be counterproductive in the long term.

I think Lou Brown from Thriving with ADHD has described what can happen if we only focus on advice giving and receiving:

“It robs [ADHDers] of the opportunity to develop self-awareness and personal empowerment, and can result in them:

• Feeling infantalised and like their challenges are not valid or understood
• Becoming more anxious about making mistakes, especially if they interpreted the strategies as being mandatory instructions rather than ideas they can experiment with
• Experiencing overwhelm due to the sheer volume of suggestions offered to them or
  the number of steps involved, which can trigger procrastination or make them want to give up altogether
• Excitedly trying a recommended strategy only to discover that it didn’t work for them, or that the strategy had a use-by date due to the role interest plays stimulating dopamine availability and therefore self-regulation capacity.

These experiences can leave people with ADHD feeling like a failure and fuel any deep-seated negative self-beliefs.”

The goal of coaching is to help the client understand that they are creative, resourceful and whole, and that once they focus on their core values and strengths, they can address the barriers and stories that could be holding them back.

You may have been told that neurodivergent people have no intrinsic motivations. That the only way you’ll do things is by being forced to, being hounded for updates, or by being given stickers.

That’s bullshit. Scientifically bullshit.

It’s not true, and only creates shame. This shame paves the path to burnout. Coaching works to break this cycle. Read more in this resource I made.

Coaching using ICF Standards is about co-creating a safe environment for you to be seen, and to grow.

Coaching is future focussed, and strengths based, but I don’t subscribe to toxic positivity, or toxic productivity

I believe that the point of understanding your ADHD is not to conquer it, suppress it, or boundary it so that you can fulfil the expectations and to-do lists of the non-ND world.

There are very real challenges that ADHDers and other ND folk face.

I will challenge you – one of the aims of Coaching is to support you in identifying the strength and ability you have to solve your own problems if you can get the voices of a million Debbie downers and Harry Hack-ers (does that work?) out of your system

There are a lot of emotions attached to learning how to approach the world with the brains we are reacquainting ourselves with.

I understand that ADHD can exist as one of many intersections of identity and experience that shape the way we move through the world.

I know that First Nations peoples exist within multiple modalities of oppression. Access to neuroaffirming and fit for purpose clinical diagnoses being one of them. That the path to an ADHD diagnosis requires traits to be apparent across different ‘settings’ someone encounters each day. Settings where multiple minorities have been excluded, misinterpreted, or have slipped through the cracks.

The foundations of International Coaching Federation Accredited Coaching is about being present with the client where they are now as well as where they have come from – that each client is creative, resourceful and whole.

The aim of coaching is not provide advice. It’s about asking curious questions to help bring about self-awareness and understanding to move forward. There will be far, far less focus on holding my hand through your experience, and as coaches don’t dispense advice, you understanding your own context better, and how you can understand your strengths and values to navigate systemic barriers.

I am a white cis woman who had a tertiary education. I can say I am culturally safe – but I don’t think I should be the person who decides that in a coaching relationship.

A core competency of coaching is Co-creating the relationship – including cultivating trust and safety.

I will work with you to outline and understand what your expectations and needs are, so I am a not making assumptions, and I will commit to meeting that.

I am also very good at apologising when I stuff up and not making it about me.

Any explicit conversations and time we spend on establishing protocols on meeting your cultural safety expectations would be provided free of charge in addition to our our establishing coaching conversations.

If you don’t think I’m the right fit, there are multiple directories through my resources page that may be helpful for you to look at.

With that in mind, I am working in a cultural safety statement to better outline the work I am doing to authentically make cultural safety intrinsic to the work I do – so hopefully this section will evolve.

No and no. Only a psychiatrist can approve the dispensing of medication for ADHD by themselves or a GP in Australia. Your doctor should be able to talk you through the process though – or refer you to someone who can.

You don’t need to have been officially diagnosed with ADHD to be coached by me though – access to diagnosis and support can be really overwhelming, expensive and tricky, and has been the focus of a lot of discussion with the right people lately.¹

I can help you find the best approach to navigate this process that works for you, if you choose to do it.