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This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the Name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match Limited by state law not available in all states.
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Your personal information is being sold online right now, not by hackers, but by data brokers, companies you've never heard of that collect your personal information and sell it. There are hundreds of these sites gathering your phone number, home address, your relative's information, even your browsing activity. And once your data is out there, it spreads fast. That's why scam calls know your name. It's how strangers can look you up in seconds. And trying to remove your data yourself can take hours per site with no guarantee it stays gone or Aura does it for you. They automatically find your information and send removal requests to over 200 data broker sites. Then keep monitoring to make sure it stays gone. Because your data can be relisted at any time. With Aura, you can even see where and when your data was found and removed. The longer your data stays out there, the more it spreads. Try Aura for free at aura.com hidden that's aura.com hidden to try aura for free. Welcome to Hacking youg ADHD I'm your host William Curb, and I have ADHD on this podcast. I dig into the tools, tactics and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain. Hey team. Today I'm sitting down with Ron Capalbo, known to many as ADHD Ron on the Socials. I've gotten to know Ron at a number of ADHD conferences recently and had a great time at Neurodiversion talking with him about dungeon crawler Carl and I figured it was about time to have him on the pod. Ron is an AACC Certified Coach through the ADD Coach Academy who specializes in strength based development and helping adults navigate the messy shame cycle that often accompanies an ADHD diagnosis. He's spent years building a community focused on honoring unique brain chemistry rather than fighting a losing battle against it. In today's episode, we explore the why behind our perfectionism and how the fear of complacency often keeps us from being proud of our progress. We Ron breaks down how to identify your brain's unique operating system, the value of the elevator, pitch for self confidence, and why hitting a 7 when you started out as a 2 is actually a massive win, even if your brain is trying to convince you it's a Failure. If you'd like to follow along on the Show Notes page, you can find that@hackingyouradhd.com 297 alright, keep on listening to find out how to stop shaming yourself for shaming yourself. I think that's what we can really talk about today. What we're good at and what we're bad at. Because I mean you have your way as we were talking before, like the self confidence and that kind of thing. And that's I think an aspect of both talking about what we're good at and what we're bad at.
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A
It's really hard because I think like there's something that you're good at, but there's always that. Yeah, but I, we also, we struggle to kind of talk positive about ourselves. So you're going to hear someone say things like, you know, oh yeah, I'm good at sports, but I am not good enough to do this or I'm not good enough to play at this level or I'm not good enough to do that. And there's all these caveats and we always remember those and that kind of like keeps us from just being freaking proud of ourselves.
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B
Yeah, and I think there's this like mess with like perfectionism coming into. Especially if we're like working on perfectionism where we're like, oh, I know I have this perfectionism issue, but I don't want to like, so how do I like choose what's what, what level I do things?
- [03:45]
A
It's, it's so hard. And then it comes back down to the thing of like, why we're so frozen too. Like you've, you've heard the sayings of, you know, an ADHD is like, you know, just get it done kind of thing. And we're supposed to just find a way to get a C at something and that's how we continue. But in our heads it's like, no, that's not good enough. And I'm worried I'm not going to do this good enough. So I'm just not going to do it at all. And that's when you see maybe it's not perfectionism, but it is this like optimization that you're trying to like make sure you do it the best that you can. And you don't even know what that is half the time. And your best today is going to be different than your best was yesterday than it is tomorrow. And so that just completely messes with you too.
- [04:28]
B
Yeah, it's really hard to figure out where you want to present yourself. And then, like, because there's all times that we've had, like, the, like, ADHD self confidence of like, oh, I just. I'm just out here being myself. And that backfires sometimes.
- [04:44]
A
Yeah, it's like, oh, be yourself, but not that version of yourself. The version of yourself that I. That that person seems to like and that that person seems to like. And it. It's. It's complicated and we're. We're constantly trying to figure out what that is. And. And there's a lot of push and pull, right? So there's times where I'm sitting here going, all right, I'm being my authentic self, and you know what? I feel good about it and I'm proud, and I don't care what this person thinks, and I don't care what that person thinks. And then you get some kind of feedback or you get someone that kind of turns you down for something. There's some rejection or perceived rejection. And instead of maybe adjusting, maybe like thinking to yourself, well, it wasn't necessarily me. Maybe it was something I wasn't aware of. And so I need to grow from that. Instead of doing that, we end up just shutting it down. Like, well, now I can't be myself in this situation, so I'm gonna do nothing. And so it's very black and white and we're like either a 10 or a 0 and we keep flipping back and forth between the two. And yeah, it makes it. Yeah.
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B
The black and white thinking where we're just like, oh, yeah, I can either do this or I just don't do it at all, is incredibly damaging to the self confidence and how we beat ourselves up and just, like, doing things. It's amazing how many things that we're just like, oh, yep, that's just not for me.
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A
Yeah. And you like, oh, I tried this thing and I was bad at it, so I hate it now forever. And you're like, well, that was feeding yourself, so you're gonna have to get a little bit better at it. And you're like, nope, I'm terrible at it and I'm never gonna do it well. Or I really struggle at falling asleep and I'm never gonna get better at it. Or I really struggle at, you know, getting myself ready in the morning, so I'm just gonna half ass it, or I'm just gonna not get ready or I'm gonna do whatever. And all this stuff is so, yeah. Black and white and it. That's. That's what's so hard. Right? I think when we do Any this like what we think it should look like or what we think a 10 should be, what we think perfection looks like, what we think, you know, at least we should be at. And if we can't get there, we're. We're so discouraged. And you know, I use number skills all the time when I talk to people and I say things like, okay, great, you're cooking food for yourself, right? Maybe you're a one and in your head you need to be able to cook, you know, breakfast, lunch and dinner seven nights a week. And it's like, well, that's like a nine, a ten would be like amazing meals. But like a nine is like someone that does that for their family, no problem. And we're trying to get to a nine tomorrow and we gotta figure out how to get from a one to a two. And you know, even when we do that and I ask somebody, well, what does a 2 look like? They say things like, well, maybe I'm able to cook, you know, dinner three nights a week and have breakfast ready, you know, three days and lunch ready three days. And I'm like, well, that still sounds like a five or a six. But like, you know, and we constantly are trying to like jump the first couple steps when the first step might be like, what's a really easy thing that you know how to do? Like, so let's start there and then like, okay, how many, you know, can you do that once this week? And like, this is just an example. But like with anything, it's like we're trying to go to the gym and bench press £350 and we haven't gone in 20 years. And it's like, that doesn't work that way. And so, yeah, you've got to be able to start small, meet yourself where you're at and be okay with it. But we're just too impatient for that too. We want to be experts tomorrow.
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B
And yeah, it's this mismatch of expectations of what could be versus what reality is. And often like that is colors that whatever the experience is, because we go, oh, I did not hit the nine. Even if we like hit it out of the park, we're like, oh man, I got a seven with coming from a two, but I didn't get the nine.
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A
And, and it's that thing too. You know, current example, in my family, you know, my wife and I have a two year old and it's really hard to make three meals a day for her and us and feed ourselves. And you know, we've. We've never been great at that to begin with. We're definitely postmates people, we're definitely run to McDonald's people. And we're trying to cut back on that, especially since having a two year old to try to get her, you know, good nutritional meals. And we're struggling and especially, like, it costs more money to do it that way. And so we're like, okay, well, let's try hellofresh. So we started cooking those meals and that was helpful. But then it's like we're still ordering out and we're shaming ourselves for it too. Like the, the time when we didn't go grocery shopping in a couple days and we're like, oh, there's nothing to eat and we have to cook dinner in an hour. I guess we're gonna order and we feel bad about it because we screwed up and it's all over. That's the other thing too, right? It's not even hit the nine. But because we hit the seven this time, all the work that we've done over the past couple months, like, doesn't mean anything. Screw that. We failed. We suck. And that happens even with somebody that's been an ADHD coach for five years. Like, I still deal with that constantly. And the, the thing is, is being able to reflect on it and give myself grace allows me to kind of bounce back quicker, which is what I try to help clients with, is that ability to like, okay, you're pissed, you're annoyed, you're, you know, disappointed in yourself. You feel guilty for, you know, falling off your plan, not reaching the goal that you set for yourself. But like, okay, so when are we ready to try again? And that's so hard to do because that's the other thing too. We're not hitting this dopamine filled success story by hitting a three or four or a five. Like, that doesn't feel as good. So we're, we're. It's. We're. It's easy for our brain to jump in and kind of treat us like crap.
- [10:39]
B
So yeah, absolutely. And it's so easy to. I'm gonna go with an example that just hit me is I was working on some podcasting, interviewing things, and one of the things is crutch words. And I just immediately jumped into one with absolutely. That's a word I use a lot on the podcast. And so I just, as I'm saying it, I'm like, oh man, that was. Should. Should have been something I had watched out for and like, have notes about. It's fine. But it's amazing how, like, quickly that can, like, just be like, oh, I didn't hit that metric that I was mentally keeping tabs of.
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A
I think. I think sometimes there's this because we're fighting the battle not only with our brains, but also with, like, what society has said. So, you know, I. When. When we were at neurodivergent and I did my talk and I asked the audience some questions about why it is so difficult for us to kind of be proud of ourselves for things. And there's a bunch of different answers. But the one that I'm kind of coming up to now is, like, we were taught that if we're proud of ourselves, that we'll settle and we won't push ourselves further. And that's so prevalent in my life where I even, you know, my. My mom now helps babysit. And I hear it so much more that I'm seeing her more that she's watching, you know, my daughter, where it's. She wants to push because she was taught that that's what you're supposed to do. And so, sure, you know, my daughter does something great or achieve something or improves at something, and she'll be like, great job. Okay, now what are you going to do? And it's always that, like, what are you doing next? And I don't know if that's something that, you know, society puts on us or older generations did, but that's always in the back of my head where if I'm proud of myself, then I'll be complacent and I'll stop. And I think the biggest problem is with that thought is, even if that's to be true, something I've found for myself, if I'm not proud of myself, I end up hearing those negative voices that instead of being complacent, they just shut me down completely and for longer. Right. Like, complacency, I think, can still, you know, foster improvement and growth. Because eventually you're going to be like, all right, I've been here for a minute. How do I, like, move forward a little bit and get a little bit better? Where when you're shut down because, you know, you're giving yourself a hard time or you're shaming yourself, that length of shutdown and freeze is so much longer, and to get out of it is so much harder, you need that extra bit of, like, motivation to get past that. It's like you've built a cement wall in front of yourself. Not just one that you can push through, but one that you have to figure out how to get around. And that's when, you know, when people come to coaching with me and we're trying to work on building self confidence, we're tearing down cement walls. A lot of times these are, you know, decades of frustration and, you know, shame and pain that have caused us to really struggle to get from a one to a two. Like, we almost can't because we either have to go to a 10 or we're not doing it. And. And to be able to say to yourself, okay, I'm good with where I'm at. It's not exactly where I want to be, and that's fine. But, like, I can take my time to get there. And maybe I'm gonna go off to the side and try something else, or maybe I'm gonn. But the idea is, how do I eventually, when I look back, even if I've taken steps backwards and to the side, like, overall, I've kind of moved forward, and that's what I think we're hoping for.
- [14:10]
B
Yeah, it's one of those things where in the moment, it does not feel good because it's just so demoralizing when you're taking steps back. Or I think one of the. What we were talking earlier about, like, yeah, if you go back to the gym, you're not going to be where you're at. And so it's. It just feels like you. I'm like, oh, why? Why am I even trying if I can't even do what I used to be able to do? Which is such negative talk. That does not help at all because it's like, well, I'm in a different place in life.
- [14:39]
A
Yeah. And. And it's like, you know, I think of I started climbing and doing bouldering right before the pandemic, and I was doing pretty good, and I was getting up there to, like, V fours, almost doing a V five. And then the pandemic hit, and I had to stop for a while. And then once they opened the gy up, I didn't go back right away. And so it was like, two years later. I was like, no, I want to get back to bouldering. It was really fun. And I got back to it, and I was back at square one. And it was so difficult to progress after that because there was no joy in Getting from a V1 to a V2 or a V2 to a V3 is in my head. It's like, yeah, whatever, dude. You've done that before. That doesn't matter. And so I stopped because I lost that feel good, proud of myself thing, which I had to almost consciously realize to like force myself, myself to feel good about it. It's. It's like our brain has these chemicals in it that can help us do things. It has these things and our brain can be in an a hole sometimes and doesn't want to give it to us. So we've got to figure out the code to get it. And sometimes it's things like saying cheesy stuff before you, you try something, right? It's giving yourself an affirmation. Sometimes it's going for a walk, sometimes it's a little bit of sunlight, sometimes it's water. Other times it's a happy dance in the morning. And it's figuring out what that is for you to like, hit that, you know, up, up, down, down, left, right, ba. Start code to get you to get the, the feel good stuff. And figuring out what that is for your brain is important. And then when it comes to self confidence, learning to feel comfortable with saying a nice thing about yourself. And it doesn't have to be something that's like bs it can be something that you know you're good at, even if it's not that big of a deal, right? It's get used to saying things. And, and that's what I, I help work. You know, when I was in doing group coaching with clients, we, we would always do these elevator pitches where we would practice saying things about ourselves that we actually believe and we know to be true. And get used to saying it out loud because saying it out loud feels awkward too. It feels really weird in front of other people, you're like, oh my gosh, they're going to judge me. They're going to think this, they're going to think that this feels so cringe. Feels like I'm showing off whatever it is, or they're not going to believe me, right? And really that's never the case. Anytime someone does an elevator pitch or says something about themselves out of, you know, just self confidence, like, it sounds awesome, it sounds really cool. And it makes you also realize who that person is a little bit too. So getting used to doing that, which again, hard, cringy, awkward, can be really helpful. And so again, and it can't be false. You can't just be like, well, I'm the best skier in the world, like, unless you are. But you can't say things that you know. Your brain goes, oh, you're full of it. You have to really find these things that genuinely are who you are. And even when you do that, sometimes you still don't believe it. Right. Like, when I first started saying things like, you know, I'm an extremely kind person who leads with love and tries to help people find perspective and in unique ways that they didn't see before. Saying that now is really easy for me to say, but I've said that like, hundreds of times to different people, and I don't know, I think it gives you more insight into who that person is besides, you know, me saying what I do for a living. Um, and I think that allows you to also see yourself when you say it out loud, because we don't hear it enough. Um, and so we do have to find ways to build that self confidence genuinely and slowly because, you know, that voice that sucks. It's still in my head. It's just now I have another one that's like, legit and I believe, so it can help kind of balance that out a little bit.
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B
Yeah, I remember one of the first times I had that, like, second voice where I had the negative voice say something and the positive voice, like, you don't get to say that. And I'm like, oh, yeah, that's true.
- [19:00]
A
Yeah. Hey,
- [19:02]
B
okay, that's also true. And it was just very much this, like, oh. Because that's often. So I'll be like, talking with my therapist and being like, saying like, oh, you know, there's this thing going on and I can only do blank and. Well, that's not true. There's also these other things I could do, but I don't want. I'm like, oh, dang it. That solves problems and that's great. And it's. I think the, the really. The importance of what you're, like, talking out loud about things. And especially, like, self confidence is so important.
- [19:32]
A
It's the things in our head. Like, I don't know, A lot of times I'm a verbal processor. If. And you know, if you're someone that doesn't know a verbal processing is, it's like things make more sense when you say them out loud. My wife is probably twice or three times the verbal processor. I am so much so that, like, I have to ask her if she's talking to me or if she's just saying things that are, you know, there. But it's like saying them out is like trying it out into the world and then making sense of it. And when. Sometimes when it's in our head, it doesn't make sense. And so being able to say that stuff out loud is really helpful. And it gives it more weight too. And you know, saying it out loud when you hear it and you're like, oh, this is uncomfortable. Even if you're by yourself to like right now say something like, I'm a really curious and loving person. And if you're like, oh my God, I'm a throw up, like that tells you how when it's in your head, you don't believe it because you're, you're wanting to throw up. Like, and, and so you need to say it out loud and then give yourself some, well, you know, I love helping other people or I, you know, find myself, you know, researching interesting topics and you know, there's always that like other side of things. It's like, yeah, but you, blah, blah, blah. And it's saying it out loud gives it more weight and it gives it more importance. And you know that it's more complicated than that. But to simplify things, we, we need to get comfortable liking ourselves because I don't think we think we're supposed to. You know, even when you hear online like all this stuff about self care and positive self talk, you go, yeah, but not me because I, yeah, whatever, it's fine, right? And, and that's what we end up doing. And, and sort of feel comfortable saying something positive about yourself that might end up being the first step and again needing it to be factual in something you believe is important. And it's why I think there's, there's also a lot of toxic positivity out there where it's, you know, say, you know, these affirmations of saying these things about yourself. A lot of times when we have these huge walls up and this, you know, negative sel. Those positive things, we don't believe them and then we kind of throw them out and we never continue. And so it does need to be something that you truly believe and you learn to appreciate about yourself and sometimes you need another person to help you with that too. And it's a, it's a process. Right? But yeah, I think we grew up in this age of like, you want to be, you don't want to be cringy, you don't want to be egotistical, you don't want to, to say something and someone say no, you're not. There's all these fears that you have around that and it's, it really messes with us as, as someone, you know, the 41 year old that just looks at how the last five years of my life, I started doing this and like the first 36 I never really spoke positive of myself and it didn't mean that I didn't have confidence, but a lot of it was with this insecurity coming behind it. Right. This fear that I had to prove to other people. And I still have a little bit of that. Right. Like we're not perfect, but I've, I've kind of started to feel confident in who I am and I don't need as much of the validation from other people. And man, does that help a lot with motivation when you're like, I don't need permission to do this. I don't need someone to tell me this is a good idea right now. I can just like go for it because I'm good at this. Or I'm. I believe I can handle this, or I'm. Yeah, I can make this work. And it's, it's wild to see how that's like the, that's the engine that drives all of it. And so, you know, talk to me before we were saying, like, this is something that I'm passionate about, the negative self talk, self confidence. Because I was a guy that six years ago, you know, rolled his eyes at like positive affirmations at, you know, even now, sometimes my wife and I, when we're in a bad mood, someone will suggest like, let's do a victory dance. And we're like, no, I don't want to do. And then we play it. And then my like 2 year old starts dancing and I'm like, all right. And I get up and you start to dance and you do your thing and you feel better. And it's like finding those things that, that put you in that space that allow you to succeed. It doesn't mean I'm going to be having the best day. It doesn't mean that I'm, you know, Mr. Positive. But it does mean that I have the tools and the capability to combat that, that crappy voice in my head and to allow myself a fighting chance to get some stuff done.
- [24:15]
B
Yeah, it's so easy to let your conditioning kind of just rule who you are. I mean, I know I've fought with the idea of being a try hard for a long time. That was another one that when you were giving your. I was like, oh, yeah, I don't want, I want to be too cool for school. You don't know how much effort I am putting in, which is a lot. And poisons doing like fun things.
- [24:38]
A
Oh, yeah. The, the amount of things that I would have thought was too cheesy or like you said Just fun things and putting myself in situations that I otherwise would have just like, avoided the last five years. Like, I talk about this often. It just, it's really changed my life for the better in so many ways. And, and it wasn't. Here's the thing, it wasn't a ton of effort to do was hard. I'm not saying it wasn't hard, but, but I, I want to let people, like, I like to let people know that the other side of like, like going from a 1 to a 2 is an example in self confidence. Right. And positive self talk. To go from a one to a two opens up doors that you're like, oh, wow, oh, like I get to do this now, and you're not even close to where you could be. But like, even just getting to that, being able to feel like, okay, I can go and talk to this person, or I can, you know, feel good about myself when I'm asked this, or I can, you know, talk to somebody about something that I'm proud of really changes so much for you. And, and so like, you don't need to be a 10 in self confidence and positive self talk. You can be a 2 and it still affects your life in a real positive way. And that's, that's exciting. Right? It's, it's like, oh, sure, there's hard work ahead, but like the benefit and the payoff is, is not too far away.
- [25:59]
B
Yeah. Is so many things where. Just a little bit. It, it is getting with the black and white thinking we don't, we can be like, yeah, I don't need to do that. I can just do a little bit and it's worth it. One of the. My favorite sayings I've heard is anything worth doing is worth doing poorly because it's like, yeah, you don't. If it's worth doing, it's still worth doing even if you don't do a great job at it.
- [26:19]
A
Yeah, it's. There's always, there's always a hidden benefit too. Right? There's. There's so many times that we do things and we don't necessarily see what it's done for us, but I, it's better than doing nothing. Right? Like, I, I've learned that failing is more successful than, than not even trying. And I've had to see that happen. And sometimes it happens so far down the road. We were watching a Bluey episode the other day and they, they had this parable which I'd used before, but it talks about how, you know, it's this farmer who loses his horse. And the townspeople say like, oh, that's bad luck. And he says, we'll see. And then the horse comes back and it brought, you know, two other wild horses with it. And the townspeople are like, that's such great luck. And he says, we'll see. And then his son got on one of the wild horses and got kicked off and broke his leg. And they said, oh, what bad luck. And he's like, we'll see. And. And it continues like that. And then, you know, the king comes and needs to enlist people for the draft, but can't do his son because he has a broken leg. And so they're like, oh, that's great luck. And he's like, oh, we'll see. And that's the point is so often we are trying to control this outcome so that everything we do has some kind of positive outcome to it. And if we fail, it's going to have a negative outcome in our life. And too often now I've seen where failure, so to speak, doesn't have to have a negative outcome. Like, it may in the short term, but like, ultimately, like, there's always something that happens and life kind of just keeps going. And as long as I think you are moving through, taking opportunities when they come, you're. You're leaving more doors open for yourself and you're, you're kind of, you know, investing in a way in what happens in the future. And, and so any way that I know I can help people take a chance on something, then it's gonna tend to work out for them somehow.
- [28:19]
B
Just make me. Do you have a favorite failure of your own?
- [28:22]
A
Yeah, I've got, I've got a couple, but the one that sticks out in my head the most kind of. Because I didn't. It shut me down for so long and now it's something I talk about. But when I. I played varsity baseball in high school and I was on a great team, we ended up winning the state championship that year, but I was a junior and it was the second game of the season and the head coach was like, we're going to start you. I was a pitcher. And he was like, you did so great in the summer. You have all this potential. And so I went out to pitch and I had the worst inning a pitcher has ever had in the first inning. I let up two grand slams in one inning. And we, you know, that was the second game of the season. We played something like 30 something games that season. And I was put into games later on, like when the game was out of hand or whatever to try to build my car confidence up and I was just so shot down, it like broke me. And for the longest time I had this thing where I tried to ignore it and I tried to just pretend it didn't happen. I stopped playing baseball after that and it wasn't until I started going to therapy that I started to like realize that I was putting all this pressure on this kid, you know, myself that I didn't realize like what I could have learned from that. Instead I just shot it down and like hid it away forever. And I've talked about it a ton since then and especially over the past five years. And the thing that I keep learning when I talk about that failure is that, you know, that kid needed something and I didn't have it. That kid needed someone to put their arm around him and be like, it's okay. And I learned that in my 30s that I needed to be that for myself. And so I think that's what really drove me to learn more about self confidence and to get more confident and better with dealing with failure. Because now I've, you know, going back and learning what that version of me needed is the same thing the version of me needs now when I fail. And that was in my, that was the worst thing that could have happened to me in that time in my life, right? That, that felt so catastrophic. And you know, I talk to parents now about when things happen to their kids, whether they're 3 years old or whether they're 16 like I was, or even when they're adults or when you're an adult, when something happens that feels like such a gigantic failure in that moment, it is as big as you're making it. And so often I think we see little five year old, six year olds dealing with something and to us we're like, well, that's not that big of a deal. And it is, right? Like in that moment it is. And we need to be that for younger people, we need to be that for ourselves. And so learning the thing that you need during failure is, I think the most important what works for me is going to be different for you. But I almost have to physically hug myself. I've started to do that sometimes it's more of a mental kind of hug. But I like stop and give myself as much grace as I can. And that's what helps me, it's what soothes me, my, you know, emotions around that and allows me to kind of get back to it. Because that's really what it is failure isn't about telling yourself it wasn't that big of a deal. Failure isn't about trying to make the best of a bad situation. Failure is about how do I get back to feeling okay with trying again. And sometimes it's, you know, 20 years, which is what it was for me to try something that I was uncomfortable with. Right. But sometimes it's five minutes, sometimes it's five days. And it, whatever it is, it's figuring out how to get better at it and being okay with where you're at. And so if you're someone, if your kid is someone, that failure really shuts them down for a period of time. It's really being curious about what is going to help soothe that so that we are back to a baseline where we can build confidence again. And, yeah, that. That I think, was such a learning moment for me that, you know, there was a long time that I felt really ashamed and guilty that it took that long to get over it. But now I can say with confidence that if I fail, I don't think it's going to take another 20 years for me to come back from it. And so I've gotten better.
- [32:43]
B
Yeah, it's awesome. And it is one of those things where it does feel. I love the meta thought of the. I feel bad about how I feel because that is something that I feel like so many people with ADHD deal with, where they're like, oh, not only did I. I fail, but I feel bad about how I feel about how I failed.
- [33:03]
A
I've said to people, shaming yourself for shaming yourself is still shaming yourself. And. And that happens often, right? When we're like, oh, I shouldn't feel this way. And it's like, no, you do, and it's okay, you know, and you're never going to just shut it down. Like, this idea, even saying, like, shame isn't helpful. You know, the first thing someone's going to do is when they feel shame is like, well, I can't feel this way. And it's like, no, well, you do. And so we need to just realize that. And then like, okay, how do we slowly turn this? And it's. It's all hard. Emotions are weird, Humans are weird. Brains are weird. And here we are.
- [33:39]
B
Can't argue with that at all. It is amazing where you're just like, I do feel this way.
- [33:44]
A
Like, I'm like, this is what it is.
- [33:47]
B
It's what I feel like. I'm like watching, like, cinematic photograph, like, film of, like, plane going over a Field with a tractor. And I'm like, I'm crying right now. I don't know why
- [34:00]
A
this makes me cry. And I'm feeling strange things about it. And, you know, I think as. And I don't know if you experienced this in life, but as a man growing up in kind of a lot of environments, that it wasn't okay to cry. As a man that cried a lot, it was really hard. And. And so emotions were, you know, not talked about and not explored and not really expl.
- [34:25]
B
And.
- [34:26]
A
And so there was a lot of not feeling them. And, you know, I. I think that's way too normal. And. And there's probably a lot of people out there that may even think they're feeling them. I know I still analyze the crap out of my feelings, which happens too, when I talk to my therapist. They're just like, so you're telling me about your feelings and how. Why you're feeling your feelings, but you're not really feeling your feelings. And I'm like, damn, got me again them.
- [34:52]
B
Well, I don't want to. It's uncomfortable.
- [34:56]
A
I don't like it. But I. I think there's, you know, there's a lot of people that. And me included, that struggle to feel them, and once we do, we think it's done and it never is. And, you know, I'm. I'm kind of optimistic when I see a lot of people going to therapy and a lot of people talking about emotions and feelings. But at the same time, there's a lot of, you know, shutting down of that. But I. You know, emotional intelligence is something that I didn't start exploring until recently, and I. I always want to help people find their way in that area too, if they're. If they're open to it, because I think that's a huge part of the ADHD journey as well, especially with how hard most of us feel. We feel pretty hard. And it's. It's a really tall mountain to climb. And, you know, it's. It never is easy, but it gets easier. So.
- [35:53]
B
Yeah, one of the things that was big revelation for me was realizing how much trouble I had naming my emotions were talking to. They're like, oh, how does that make you feel? And I'm like, sad.
- [36:03]
A
You're like, I know four of them.
- [36:05]
B
That doesn't really encompass what I'm feeling, but that's. That's gotta. Got sad, and I've got a feelings
- [36:11]
A
wheel on my desktop that I. I talk about all the time with clients and myself, and I find fascinating. But yeah, sad is. It's like sad, angry, happy, excited. It's about what I knew. Mad.
- [36:25]
B
And it's amazing to be like, oh, if I can actually, like, it's easier to feel my feelings when I know what I'm talking about, where I'm have the vocabulary in my head and can just be like, oh, I am feeling mad about this. And it's not just mad. I'm sad. And I'm feeling like that there's. There's a hopelessness involved.
- [36:43]
A
And yeah, I. I feel frightened or I'm feeling confused or I'm feeling, like you said, hopeless. I'm breeding off of this now, right? So I'm feeling heartbroken or devastated or I'm feeling despair or helpless or worried or ecstatic or enthusiastic. Like, there's a lot. And they. They change enough to where once you hit the nail on the head with one, you're like that one. Oh. And it's like your body's, like, yelling at you to name it correctly. And it's not gonna stop yelling at you until you get what it's trying to say. And if you are feeling, you know, I don't know, suspicious of something, and instead you're just like, oh, I'm just. Just worried. It's like, no, you're not. It's. It's different. It's. And it keeps yelling thing until you nail it. And so that's. That's always helpful, too.
- [37:39]
B
Yeah. One, it does help with the, like, oh, why am I feeling this way too? It's like, oh, if I'm feeling suspicious, it's like, oh, I don't. I don't trust this person.
- [37:47]
A
It's. Man, emotions. It's. It's so funny. You know, I constantly go back to the idea of what it means to be emotional. And as someone that is emotional, that has. That was taught for so long to shut those feelings down. It's. It's. It feels like I'm like opening the can a little bit, right, to, like, look at something and it's trying to bust out. I'm like, don't stay down. I don't want. I don't want the whole thing out right now because then I'm going to be crying in the middle of a supermarket because the songs playing, right? And. And you're like, what does that mean? And you're like, well, you can work that out in therapy next week. But it's. You know, these types of things are really difficult to kind of wrap your head around. But yeah, if you, if you're someone with adhd, emotions are either again a big part of your life where you shut them down for so long, you don't feel them until they pop out and you're yelling at someone or crying for no reason. And that's that 0 to 10 thing. It's like we either don't feel them or we feel them so hard. And you know, the reason we're not feeling them is because we used to feel them so hard.
- [38:57]
B
Yeah. And then we feel guilty for doing
- [38:58]
A
that and it's guilty and shame and all that stuff. It comes, it just keeps wrapping around and then we have low self confidence and here we are again. Yeah, right?
- [39:07]
B
And see, it is one of the funniest things. I always, whenever I'm like writing stuff about ADHD and I'm like, and it's this and it's this and it's this and it comes around again and oh my God, it's just a big ball.
- [39:20]
A
One of the hardest things about making like short form content with ADHD is when you're giving like a concept or you're talking about something or trying to educate someone on something. There's always this, like, which also means this, which also means that, which also. And you're, you're finding yourself making like a five minute video and you're like, well, no, I was trying to make just like a 30 second clip on this one thing. And I can't do it because everything's tied together. It's all about the experience and how we react to it and what that means and why it's happening and which is why I love it too. I love talking about this because these concepts are so much more complicated and nuanced and to try to even dumb them down and just explain something is really hard. And you know, I think a lot of people, when their kids get diagnosed or they first get diagnosed, there's so much information being thrown at you at once because of that, because it's, it is so complex and complicated because it is. You know, I, I like to say that like I am an ADHDer because my brain is classified as ADHD. Sure, there are symptoms, but the way my brain works and the way it interacts with my environment, with all my relationships, my relationship with myself, my partner, my friends, my surroundings, my society, that's all affected by my brain. And so, you know, we can't just shut down one part, we can't just cure one part or like fix a symptom. It doesn't work that way. It's how you interact and how you show up in the world is adhd. And it, it's complicated. We're complex beings. And so there's a lot of learning to do when you're first diagnosed and, and there's a lot of learning even when you've been diagnosed. It's, it's giving yourself grace and trying to make sense of your operating system and then figuring out how to kind of put stuff in place that kind of fits that.
- [41:18]
B
Yeah. And it's funny how just like. Yeah, even after doing this for so long, simple ideas can just be like profound to you. La the other day I had this thing where I was like thinking about something isn't planning and thinking about planning also isn't planning. But both of them feel like they are it.
- [41:35]
A
We, we listen well, if you want we can get real deep. But like, it's just the same thing of like, at what point is my idea an original thought? At what point am I not influenced by something that clicked in my head that made sense to me that could have made sense to anyone else, but it was influenced by something. Right? We're all influenced by a thing. And I think when you have an ADHD brain and I think the reason why many people are very creative with ADHD is because of like our ability to like connect to things. But there's still things that connect. Even if it doesn't make sense why it connects to somebody else, it does. And so you get two ADHD years. We can have complex conversations around thought and around why this is happening. And I don't know, it spikes my brain, right? Like it energizes and activates me. And you know, I think the best thing tanks are when me and my friends are at, you know, like when we go to neurodiversion or I go to the Chad conference and I get together with a bunch of ADHDers. We have some of the most amazing crazy off the wall ideas. And I'm so jazzed about it by the end of it and you know, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think it should be celebrated. And I think we should realize that even our ideas that maybe never could could work. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't be thinking big or we shouldn't be thinking extravagantly or, or anything because those crazy ideas can be edited down to stuff that makes sense. You know, we don't have that part of our brain that edits very well. We do, but we, we like to use the, the dreaming part of our brain and Having those ideas float out there and be thrown off doesn't mean that we're going to jump into whatever they are, right? I like to tell parents, like, if your kid has these crazy ideas or wants to try these crazy things that you're like, that'll never work. You never want to shut that idea down. You want to explore it and be curious about it. Because I know for me, I have crazy ideas, but I really suck at tax initiation, so I might not ever get them off the ground. But having these thoughts and allowing ourselves to be creative can really help with motivation. It can really help with other forms of creativity. And when we're validated in those and when people are curious about our ideas, that can help with self confidence. That's bringing it right back around.
- [44:03]
B
All right, well, we're kind of coming up on time here, so do you have any final thoughts for the audience?
- [44:09]
A
I feel like we've had a bunch of nice little nuggets here, but I would say, you know, it's. It's taking a step and whatever that means to you, whether that's finding something that you feel good about yourself that you truly believe is a good thing, even if there's that caveat that comes with it where you're like, oh, you know, I'm a pretty funny person, even though I, you know, say inappropriate things sometimes. Like, it's. It's finding a way to just kind of stop the sentence after that, I'm a funny person. And stopping it and figuring out how to be like, sure, it's not perfect. I'm not, you know, I haven't nailed it yet, but it's starting somewhere and being able to be like, all right, I'm going to kind of use this as something to feel good about and then finding things that's good about it. You know, I made my friend laugh the other day, and that really alleviated a stressful situation. Or, you know, I'm a kind person, and the other day my friend was stuck at the airport, and I, like, gladly went and picked them up, up. And. And so finding those things that you can actually have factual proof, like, yeah, I'm. I can be kind, or, yeah, I can be funny, is. Is a building block, and taking those steps will give you results quicker than you think.
- [45:27]
B
Thank you so much for coming on the show.
- [45:29]
A
Yeah, thanks for having me.
- [45:30]
B
Well, thanks again to Ron for coming on the show, and thank you for sticking with us all the way to end the. The end. Before you go, though, let's do a quick rundown of Today's top tips 1. Try out the 2 vs 9 scale for expectation management. We often fail to start because we set the entry level bar at a 9, like cooking seven nights a week, which can often feel impossible if instead we intentionally lower our aim to something that's more around the lines of A2, we bypass the brain's frozen frozen state and create a low friction path to initiation. 2. Many of us with ADHD actively avoid giving ourselves credit because we've been conditioned to fear that if we're satisfied, it will lead to complacency mechanically, however, withholding credit creates a narrative vacuum in our operating system. Our brain assumes it just didn't happen. It looks at everything left to do, decides we're failing, and triggers a total set system freeze, what Ron calls a cement wall. The fix here isn't forcing toxic positive affirmations your brain knows are fake, it just takes factual data entry. Take a second to acknowledge that you moved from a level one to a level two. You're not throwing yourself a parade, you're just hitting save so your brain has the baseline level to keep moving forward without crashing.
- [46:49]
A
3.
- [46:51]
B
Setbacks are inevitable, but but the duration of the setback is determined by your level of self shame. Implementing a grace period or a mental hug isn't about being soft. It's a strategic tool to reduce the time spent in a frozen state and get us back to baseline faster. Alright, that's it. Thanks for listening. I'd love to hear what you thought of this episode. Feel free to connect with me over@hackingyouradhd.com contact if you'd like links or to read this episode's Drop Grind script. You can go to the show notes page@hackingyouradhd.com 297 and if you'd like even more hacking your ADHD, be sure to sign up for my newsletter any and all distractions, which comes out every other week. In it, I give out my best distractions, either what I'm reading, what I'm playing, or what I'm watching, and everything in between. I also try to give out a few bits of actual advice in each newsletter, although your mileage is going to vary there. If that sounds like something you're interested in, head on over over to hackingyouradhd.com newsletter to sign up. I also want to make sure you know about our Patreon, which you can find@hackingyouradhd.com Patreon. It's a pay what you want model, meaning all levels of Patreon receive the same stuff. You can pay $0 or $2 or $10. It's all the same. And you get early access to episodes and to behind the scenes content. You can also check out our Discord, which you can find@hackingyouradhd.com Discord to chat with the me and fellow listeners about each and every episode. And don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel, which you can find@YouTube.com hackingyouradhd and finally, if you'd like another way to support the show, the best way to do so is to tell someone about the show. Especially if you think a particular episode would resonate with them. Just click the Share button under Podcast Player. And now for your moment of dad. What do you call a dog that does magic? A labracadabra door.
- [48:43]
A
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B
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A
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