HEADS UP ADD Coaches: ACO Conference 2013

ACO 2013 is ramping up – sign up soon to save

by Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, ACT, MCC, SCAC

You Mean I’m NOT Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?! author Peggy Ramundo and I will again be “presenting” together at the 6th Annual ADHD Coaches Organization [ACO] conference, at the beautiful Crowne Plaza Hotel in Atlanta one more time — facilitating, actually, a live-and-in-person Coaching Lab with practice, practice, practice (and no-make-wrong group feedback). 

And that’s only ONE good reason to be there!  

I want to repeat Dr. Charles Parker’s comment in his 2012 post-conference article on his Corepsychblog, “If you are an ADHD coach and haven’t yet connected with the ACO  . . .  now is the time to get on it and get cracking.”

Joyce Kubric, the 2013 conference chair (mentored by last year’s chair Judith Champion), has put together a conference team of amazingly generous individuals who are working like beavers to make this an experience like no other.

This year’s presenters have been chosen, and you can click over to the ACO website  to see what’s coming together in that regard.  (Along with, oh yeah, signing up to BE there).

More Gold and new Silver

This is a great opportunity to reconnect with long-time friends and colleagues, to put some faces and bodies to those with whom you have only an online relationship to date, AND to meet the “new blood.”

Some of that “blood” will be actually [relatively] new to the ADD Coaching field, and others will be merely “new” to YOU.

You want to get to know these amazing folks, I promise.

I have LOVED being in association with ADD Coaches I only became aware of in Atlanta last March (for example, a coach trained by one of my grads, in the process of enfolding his personal TBI experience into creating a unique niche for himself as an ADD Coach.)

My fellow  “old-timers” who also train coaches will get to experience the pleasure of seeing former students (and students of former students) “all grown up,” giving all of us brand new inspiration.  I am still grinning ear-to-ear now that it has been almost a year since I came home and unpacked from last year’s conference.

As the founder of the world’s first ADD-specific coaching curriculum and co-founder of the ADD Coaching field itself, I was and still am overwhelmed with gratitude for the beautiful garden that is growing now from seeds I planted decades ago.  I stand amazed at all the “new varieties” being developed all over the world — without my having to lift a single shovel!

NOTHING beats meeting them “live,” however.
Put that gift in your stocking this Christmas.

Meeting Colleagues “in person”

I always love adding 3-D faces and bodies to colleagues whom I’ve only met online or on TeleClasses, and this conference will, once again, be dripping with that opportunity and others.

Among the many I had the pleasure of meeting live for the first time last year were:
Cricket Harrison, Linda Roggli, Maureen Nolan, Virginia Hurley, Cindy Giardina,
Judith Champion, Joyce Kubik, Laurie Dupar, Dr. Charles Parker, and
psychologist David Nowell – and those names are limited to a recounting of the business cards I could locate while I was getting ready to post last year’s conference wrap-up!

Again, it was such a pleasure to finally meet ALL of them and to exchange a few words, however briefly, in our hustle to squeeze as much as possible into the relatively short time we had together.

Heads up you guys — I want MORE!  

This comment also bears repeating from my wrap-up last year:
My ONLY complaint to the conference organizers
would be the one I always wish I could send to Mickey following a DisneyWorld visit:
I didn’t get to ride ALL the rides before it was time to go home — and I REALLY wanted to!

Speaking of Money . . .  (we were?) 

Some of you may not be aware of the fact that presenters are NOT paid to present, nor are we “permitted” to market to our sessions.  We do this for you – and we even have to submit proposals, hoping to be chosen for the honor!

• IN FACT, we pay our own way there, pay for our hotel rooms AND pay to attend the conference ourselves.
• This is, really and truly, our GIFT to you.
• Those working in various committees to put the logistical details in place are volunteers as well.

This is only one of the many ways in which we give back to an industry that most of us have given a lot to already — because that’s just the way we roll!

I promise you — you really WANT to hang around coaches with that kind of energy, whether you realize it or not. (Ahem, potential clients really want to hang with coaches who hang around coaches with that kind of energy too!)

YOUR fees will be used to pay hotel expenses for meeting rooms and other hotel services, for meals and refreshments that are included in your conference package, for the printing of signage, hand-outs, and a ton of little things you rarely think about (but must be paid for none-the-less).

They are also used to fund the ACO infra-/info-structure for yet another year — like, for example, keeping the ACO website up and running.

SO go sign yourselves up, and PASS THIS ON!

• Don’t stand on the outside with your nose pressed against some window in your mind, watching and wishing.
• Let yourself become one of the ADD Coaching in-crowd.
• Showing up is really all it takes – and WHAT it takes.

STAY TUNED:

Because Peggy, Judith and I are working together to cook up a REALLY cool activity, I have the extreme pleasure of having my curious finger on the new-info pulse.  In the coming few months I will keep you informed of anything new and wonderful that comes my way in [relatively ;)] short blog posts like this one.

They will ALL look just like this one at the very tip-top of the post, so don’t take a quick gander and decide you’ve ALREADY seen it.  Note the titles and subtitles, ok?

I hope that those of you from some of the other communities that make up this blog readership will forgive any lack of personal relevancy with these posts — AND will send a link to anyone in your communities who might benefit from the information.

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As always, if you want notification of new articles – in the ACO Conference Update series, or any new posts in any category on this blog – give your name and email to the nice form on the top of the skinny column to the right.  (You only have to do this once, so if you’ve already asked for notification about a prior series, you’re covered for this one too)  STRICT No Spam Policy

If you’d like some one-on-one (or group) mentor coaching help with anything that came up while you were reading this article (either for your own life, that of a loved one, or as coaching skills development), click the E-me link  <—here (or on the menubar at the top of every page) and I’ll get back to you ASAP (accent on the “P”ossible!)

WATCH for it and call me back! Don’t lose your momentum at this stage!

 

Related content here on ADDandSoMuchMore.com 

• ACO Conference Speakers Notes
  (first of many, info-dense – follow the links at the bottom of each for more)
• ACO Conference Wrap-Up 2012
• ADDers Got Talent (ACO Atlanta – 2013)

Wrap-ups & articles from other speakers/attendees:

All links below open in a new window/tab
(read, close the window, come back here for the next stop on the tour) 

Links to speakers and attendees blogs and websites will post below
as they contact me that their content is ready and send me links
(hint, hint — no time to troll the internet searching for maybes, guys!)

• Dr. Charles Parker’s ACO 2012 Conference Wrap-up (Corepsychblog 3/25/12)
• Imagine meeting… (redefineyourpotential.wordpress.com)

• ACO Website – in case you missed the link in the first paragraph