The Exit Trail
A coaching program for women entrepreneurs and service providers ready to explore neurodivergence and plot their exit from ways of working and living that keep their business small and them burning out
You’ve long suspected that you might be a bit neurospicy.
Maybe you’ve done a lot of research, taken some self-assessments, and spent a lot of time reading about other women’s experiences.
Could it be ADHD? Autism? AuDHD? Giftedness? Some mix of all of these?
And how do you run a successful business with any of them?
Here’s what that hunch is probably already telling you: the way you’re running your business right now is costing you more than it should — not because you’re undisciplined or behind, but because you built it using someone else’s operating manual.
Clarity would help you stop wasting energy on wondering. But then what? If you get a diagnosis (or don’t), what do you actually do with that information. How does it help you in your business, your client relationships, the way you structure your week?
Too many people get stuck at the point of diagnosis, whether they go through a neuropsychological evaluation or are self-identified.
A diagnosis is just a map of the territory. It doesn’t actually move you forward.
Once you have the map, you need a plan, tools, and support to help you navigate the terrain more effectively. That’s especially true about the terrain you run your business on.
Introducing:The Exit Trail
A program for women entrepreneurs to explore their neurodiversity and leave behind the things that burn them out, wear them down, and just don’t fit, so that they can grow careers and lives that make an impact
The Exit Trail is designed to help you plot a course for your next move and give you what you need for a successful, even joyful journey.
It’s crafted to serve not just your business and career, but all of you: your relationships, the roles you’re play, your sense of self, your experience of perimenopause/menopause and other life transitions.
It’s a path out of the life that’s squeezing you and leaving you burnt out and into a new land that fits all of you, since there’s really not separating personal and career.
The Exit Trail isn’t just testing for neurodiversity, and it’s not a substitute for neuropsychological evaluation if you need one for medication or academic/workplace accommodations (more on that below).
What The Exit Trail does is guide you through a structured process of self-exploration and authentic transformation so your true self comes out in all areas of your life. It’s brought to you by Lori Cangilla, a coach with a background as a licensed psychologist and real assessment training.
The Exit Trail helps you flesh out a better map, one that takes into account your neurodivergent qualities and all of the rest of your identities, history, and context, and then helps you actually use the map to get somewhere that matters to you. Whether that’s changes in your business, your personal life, or both, you’ll find the exit trail from where you are now to a life that’s sustainable for you (not generically assumed to be that way) and in alignment with your values, needs, and lifestyle.
How You'll Create YourExit Trail
(It takes so much more than knowing if you’re neurodivergent!)
The Exit Trail combines exploration of what aspects of neurodivergence might be part of your identity with the deep work needed to help you transform who you are and how you run your business. Start with insight. End with action. Here’s how to find your Exit Trail.
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The Exit Trail begins with a guided process of self-exploration of what aspects of neurodiversity might apply to you. Equally important, we’ll explore why this question matters to you and your business now and what your hopes and fears are about going through this self-exploration process. You’ll complete some validated self-assessments and meet with Lori on Zoom for a structured interview. We’ll engage in a collaborative process to investigate your self-identified neurodiversity. By the end of the month, you’ll have a short, plain-language summary that maps out the patterns and qualities most relevant to you right now, including how they show up in your work. That’s so much more useful than a clinical report that sounds impressive but doesn’t give you a clue about how to apply any of this in the everyday life of your business.
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You’ll use your plain-language summary to begin to experiment with some tiny changes you can make that might begin to make your business and life better reflect what you’ve identified about yourself. The key word about these experiments? Tiny. Really tiny! We aren’t going to set up a cycle of taking on too much and then beating yourself up for not making it happen. Lori will masterfully guide you to work with all of yourself to figure out what next step you can take to move you toward the business and life you want, and how to do it in ways that work for you. No neurotypical productivity hacks or rigid goal setting here. Just small, sustainable steps that move you along the map, with lots of support and creative troubleshooting to deal with the inevitable obstacles and detours that come up along the way. No two clients set up the same experiments, but we might work on things like how you price or scope your services, how you structure client communication, how you make decisions in your business, how you show up and market yourself, or how you are navigating a major life transition (career change, broader economic challenges, divorce, empty nest, perimenopause/menopause, etc.).
What does experimenting look like in practical terms? Let’s say you’ve been trying to get better about following up with leads or past clients. Most experts will tell you things like block time on your calendar, recommend tracking software, or set a weekly follow-up quota. If only it were that easy! Lori will help you really break down what’s going on that’s kept you from following through on your own intention. Maybe you find follow-up emails draining because they require a kind of small talk that costs you more energy than it looks like from the outside. Maybe you hyperfocus on the work itself and lose the thread on admin. Maybe you start a system and get derailed the first time something unexpected interrupts your week. Once there’s a much clearer picture of your unique situation, you can better plot a course forward. Lori will challenge you to make the goals smaller and the timelines shorter, so that it’s easier to meet or even exceed the first step. Once you do, you’ll work with Lori to build on that progress. And if that first approach doesn’t work? You and Lori will debrief and try a new experiment, using what you’ve learned to adjust your next approach. There’s no failure, just information gained, so you skip the self-reproach and shame. There are always more options to explore.
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We take what you’ve learned about yourself in the first two months and more fully build out the map of what’s to come next: your exit trail, the integrated strategy that gently but definitively moves you from the business and life you had before you started this process to the future you want to more fully embody. We aren’t going to pre-solve every problem that might happen, but we will make sure that your map, your tool bag, and your supports are sound and ready for the journey yet to come.
We’ll also explicitly make space for the grief that comes with this process. The grief of years spent not knowing, trying to do things personally and professionally in ways that were never meant for who you are, for all that masking has cost you, for the ways that you may need to say goodbye to one sense of self to make room for the new identity that’s emerging. Grief is a complex mix of so many emotions that don’t always go away (certainly not in a month), so you’ll learn to recognize your personal grief triggers and work with them, without getting off course from your exit trail. You’ll emerge from this month of integration with a clearer sense of your identity, your next right-for-you steps, and how to course correct by using the explore-experiment-integrate model.
Support and Validation Throughout All Three Phases
You won’t be left to figure this out on your own (after all, you’re here because trying to go it alone hasn’t gotten you where you want to be yet).
You’ll have access to Lori on weekdays via Signal, a secure, encrypted messaging platform that you can use from your phone or computer. Signal is a great place to troubleshoot something with Lori, ask for clarification, name your intention to work on something so that you’re accountable to yourself, vent the frustration or lack of motivation that might otherwise hinder your progress, or celebrate an accomplishment of any size, like a hard client conversation done imperfectly enough to let your business keep moving, a boundary held even when it felt uncomfortable, an experiment that worked better than you expected.
Lori will also remind you, as often as needed, that none of this is about your individual “deficits.” Part of what we’ll name together is what it costs to build a business and a life inside systems like capitalism, patriarchy, and the medical model. This is true for sensitive and/or neurodiverse women, as well as for members of marginalized and historically oppressed groups.
We’ll look at where your identities intersect, name what is problematic for you in these systems, and focus on where you can exercise control and agency. We aren’t going to let the systems break us, even though that’s what they’re designed to do. You’ll take responsibility for your own choices and, if this is the right time for you, make a plan for how to address systemic issues at a broader level. But there’s no pressure and no performative activism required. You don’t have to bear the weight of personally fixing broken systems through your business or your personal choices.
What You’ll Leave With After Three Months
• A plain-language summary of your collaboratively self-identified neurodiversity (ADHD, autism, AuDHD, gifted, etc.) and sensitivity, and what this means for your daily life and your work
• A clearer sense of how to structure your business, services, and/or client relationships around how you actually think and work best, instead of how you were told to do it
• Space to process the emotional aspects of this self-exploration process, and ways to support yourself emotionally and build social support going forward
• A conceptual map of your exit trail: the transition from who you were before this process to who you are becoming, built with awareness of neurocomplexity, macrosystems, and your unique phase of life, personal background, and career context
• Clarity about how to use the explore-experiment-integrate model to keep moving toward your professional and personal goals after the program ends
What This Program Is (And Isn’t)
The Exit Trail is built for the woman who is ready to finally trust her ability to understand herself. She’s prepared to use that information to intentionally build what comes next in her business, her relationships, and her sense of self as she moves through life transitions.
The Exit Trail is: a structured, psychologist-informed collaborative self-identification and coaching process for women who suspect they are neurodivergent and want to both get clarity and learn how to act on what they learn about themselves without burning out, emotional overwhelm, or self-reproach. While we may selectively focus at times on either business or personal aspects of this process, we recognize that there is not really separation between the two and that working on one area allows changes to ripple out into all other areas of your life.
The Exit Trail is not: a neuropsychological evaluation to diagnose any condition and/or provide supportive documentation if you are looking for medication or academic/workplace accommodations. If you suspect that you may want or need those types of services, this program will at best be an intermediary step toward getting services and at worst may duplicate your efforts if you end up needing to get a formal neuropsychological evaluation. If you’re unsure of what would best serve your needs, please reach out to Lori to discuss your situation. She will let you know if a formal evaluation would be a better option for your goals, and how you might come into an adapted Exit Trail program once you’ve gotten a formal diagnosis and want to figure out what to do with that information.
Hi, I’m Lori Cangilla!
Your Exit Strategist and Guide
I’ve known for my entire life that I’m a highly sensitive person (HSP), but I didn’t have language for it until I discovered research about it in my late 20s. Sensitivity was (and still is) not valued in my family of origin, which led me to mask and suppress my sensitivity for decades. Unlike many of my peers in the early 1980s, I was diagnosed as gifted, but I really wasn’t given any information about it other than an emphasis on my academic “potential.” I internalized that wholeheartedly, developing a severe case of academic perfectionism that spilled over into my early career.
It’s only as an adult that I’ve explored what sensitivity and giftedness mean for how I see and move through the world. I did that work in part through going through an evaluation for ADHD and autism. Although I wasn’t diagnosed with either, I can see where certain aspects of my personal flavors of sensitivity and giftedness continue to show up in ways that clearly don’t fit the neurotypical model society expects us to follow.
Running my own business, becoming a mother, and entering midlife have been powerful forces in pushing me to reconsider the ways that neurodiversity and sensitivity show up in my personal life and business. Now I help other women reconsider the legacies they’ve brought forth from their upbringing, from the baggage of being undiagnosed or diagnosed, and from the cultural messages in which they live. I support them in finding and staying on the exit trail until they reconfigure their lives and their businesses in magical ways.
Investing in Your Exit Trail
The Exit Trail Program: Early access to the program is available for $400/month for 3 months ($1,200 total), billed once or monthly. You’ll receive two 60-minute 1:1 sessions with Lori via Zoom each month (6 sessions total), as well as 3 months of access to Signal support between sessions (weekdays only; response within 24-48 business hours). This is a newer offering, available at a reduced, early access rate.
Many clients find that the clarity from this process changes not just how they feel about their work, but how they do it. They shift the structure of their professional life, how they are visible, the ways they price, structure, or grow their work. That kind of shift from leading your business from a true, authentic place tends to pay for itself many times over.
Momentum Support: After you complete The Exit Trail program, you’ll have to option for to set up Momentum Support to help you stay on track. This isn’t maintenance, it’s about continuing the change process with Lori’s support, but in a stepped-down version that reflects how you’ve grown to know and trust yourself. You’ll receive one 60-minute Zoom session per month to continue to hone your exit trail strategy, plus the same Signal access, billed month to month (cancel any time, but no refund for the most recently billed month). Early access pricing of $225/month.
Frequently Asked Questions
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No. Plenty of clients start with a hunch. Others come in already self-identified and want a clinical perspective to hold alongside their own research. Either way works.
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You’re welcome in this program, too! In this case, the first month will focus on exploring what the diagnostic process has been like for you, how you’ve used this information since getting the diagnosis/self-identification, where certain diagnoses fit or don’t fit with how you see yourself, and what you feel has been missing that led you to explore this program. We’ll be able to start month two with a deep understanding of where this process has led you to and what we can refine going forward.
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No. This is not a formal neuropsychological evaluation, and it’s not designed to produce documentation for medication or academic/workplace accommodations. That’s intentional. There are plenty of options for getting formally assessed. The Exit Trail is designed to bridge the gap between having knowledge about yourself (however it’s acquired) and applying that knowledge to make changes in your business and life that fit these insights. If you think you may need formal documentation or you want to go through a neuropsychological assessment, please let me know and I’ll help you identify options for getting this kind of evaluation.
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No. This program is coaching for your personal and professional growth, provided by Lori Cangilla. Psychotherapy is meant to address diagnosed mental health conditions, and The Exit Trail is not designed to diagnose or treat any condition. Lori is not acting as a psychologist or medical provider, and joining The Exit Trail does not establish a psychotherapy relationship between you and Lori. Coaching is the ideal means to make the kinds of business and personal changes that The Exit Strategy is designed to support.
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Certainly, you could self-identify and/or get formally assessed faster. But speed and ticking off a diagnostic box aren’t the goals of The Exit Trail. It’s built differently on purpose: self-understanding is just the start of the process, as important as that is. The experimenting and integrating is where your actual business and life change, and that takes real time, not a single feedback session. You need time to live with the insights you’ve reached. You get support with doing that more creatively when you join this program.
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Quick check-ins, noting a pattern, troubleshooting an experiment that’s not going the way you expected, celebrating a breakthrough, and other supports that help you keep moving forward between sessions. It’s not a replacement for session time, and it’s not real-time crisis support (use the 988 crisis line if you need that). Lori will respond within 24-48 business hours. If something arises that’s too complex to explore via Signal, we’ll bring it into your next Zoom session.
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The Introductory Questionnaire is designed to help both of us figure that out. Please complete it honestly and thoughtfully so that you have a better understanding of what this process can do for you and your business. Once you submit it, I’ll review your responses. If I think that The Exit Trail isn’t going to meet your needs, I’ll share some other options by email. Otherwise, I’ll invite you to a complimentary half-hour consultation via Zoom so that we can get a better sense of what it might be like to work together. Only if we both agree to move forward after the consultation will you register and set up payments for the program. My goal is for both of us to feel confident that The Exit Trail is the right tool to support this phase of your growth.
You Have a Hunch.
Let's Follow It.