June 5, 2024 • 53 mins
Unlock the secrets to mastering your career and finances, especially if you have ADHD, with insights from our 35-year veteran ADHD career coach, Shell Mendelson. We kick off the episode with an exciting announcement of our new project aimed at helping ADHDers gain better control over their financial lives. Shell shares her invaluable wisdom, including her adapted version of the iconic "What Color Is Your Parachute?" framework, making it more visual and easier to grasp for ADHD minds.
Ever felt like you're your own worst enemy when it comes to making positive choices? Discover the concept of the "safekeeping self" and learn how to break free from internal barriers that hold you back. Shell Mendelson and I have an engaging conversation about the pitfalls of impulsive decisions and the importance of financial planning. We discuss how acknowledging genuine personal interests can lead to long-term satisfaction, and why community support plays a crucial role in successful financial and career planning.
Navigating traditional work environments can be challenging for those with ADHD, but we’ve got you covered. We explore why self-accommodation plans are vital and how rigid corporate settings can stifle productivity. Highlighting real-life examples, we emphasize the importance of flexibility and understanding from employers. To cap it all off, we introduce Shell's book, "A Course for Adults and Teens: Unlock Your Career Path," as a must-have resource for gaining clarity and focus in your career journey. This episode is packed with actionable advice and inspiration tailored for anyone struggling with career and financial challenges while living with ADHD.
Head over to our YouTube channel for the full experience on future episodes.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome back to ADHD Money Talk, the show that has
not been consistently puttingout podcast episodes for all of
you lovely people, but guesswhat?
There's an episode today and wecan't change the past.
I don't want to change the pastbecause I've been busy, being
way too busy with self-inflictedbusyness, and that is my life.
(00:25):
That's just what's been goingon Working on too many projects,
trying to do too much stuff butthe bottom line is a lot of my
busyness has been in preparationfor something that I'm very
excited about, and I have verylittle hints to give you, like
none, except for that you'regoing to want to stay tuned
(00:51):
because I will be unleashing thebest thing that's ever happened
for ADHDers who want to gettheir money together, be in
control of their money and beguided by somebody who
consistently delivers anapproach that is sensitive just
sensitive, because I amsensitive, but also an approach
(01:12):
that is sensitive and aware andtotally focused on the
shortcomings that we adhdershave when it comes to managing
our money, which everybody'sdifferent.
Everybody's got differentshortcomings.
Everybody with ADHD has variousstrengths and weaknesses that
(01:33):
apply to money.
You know some are very good atgetting on a.
You know some know have theknowledge for money.
So it's just about getting themotivation, the correct
motivation, and some peopledon't have enough knowledge that
it's overwhelming andintimidating.
And then we all typicallystruggle with the constant
stimulation chase, whetherthat's spending too much money
(01:56):
on stuff that's stimulating orwhether that's not staying
consistently stimulated bymanaging money effectively.
So until you can figure out whyit's worth it intrinsically, at
the deepest, rudest, corestlevel, it's going to be tough,
but what I'm going to unleash onthe world is going to have a
(02:17):
lot of that and more, and Ican't wait.
It's going to be so exciting.
I thought it was going to behere already, because I have
magical thinking and I'm like,oh, this project two months?
Nah, it's been like sevenmonths now, but it's coming.
It's coming.
I'm just learning to take mytime, but it's coming.
So, with all that said, if youstill have this podcast checked
(02:41):
off as a following and you get anotification or whatever when a
new one comes out.
Thank you, because maybe yousaw this.
I'm going to talk to somebodytoday.
This is going to be aconversation with Shell
Mendelson, who is an ADHD careercoach and she's great.
You should use her.
I mean, if you look in themirror and you say this is what
(03:01):
I'm doing with my life right nowI go to this job nine to five
and if you can look at yourselfin the mirror and say this is
what I'm doing with my liferight now I go to this job nine
to five and if you can look atyourself in the mirror and say I
am fulfilled in this, this iswhat I want, then you don't need
her.
But if you want a career thataligns with your values, that
aligns with your financial goals, and you want help figuring out
(03:21):
that whole, all the stuffthere's a lot more than you
think that goes beneath thesurface of figuring this stuff
out.
She's an expert at it.
I talked to her today.
She's so fun to talk to, likeshe's just so chill and we
recorded this like maybe twomonths ago and she's just been
like bugging me, like get it out, get it out.
I'm just like, I'm in paralysisof like I can't do anything
(03:41):
besides, just do what my brainis yelling at me to do, which is
get caught up on the millionsof things that I'm not caught up
on.
And she just kept nagging andnagging.
And you know what?
It's like the kind of naggingthat's like the best kind of nag
, because it's like you're soright, I need to do this.
Like what am I doing?
It's like it's like the shameyou want.
She's going to listen to thisand be like, what the heck are
(04:02):
you talking about?
So, anyways, I'm pretty surethis conversation starts off
like mid-sentence or something.
So I know you're gonna get alot out of it.
You're gonna get a lot more outof this conversation than you
have over the past five minutesof me just talking about
basically, basically nothing.
So let's do the talk.
Let's talk to shell.
Hi, shell.
So like why did you write thisbook?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
it's long like you wrote a lot well, it's 35 years
of all the work that I've done,not just before I was diagnosed,
but certainly after I wasdiagnosed, and I'll go back and
say that I was trained byrichard bowles, who wrote what
color is your parachute?
And I was using, and alwayshave used, that format, that
(04:46):
basic format, for years.
But what I found was, evenbefore I was diagnosed, later in
life, I was starting to tweakit quite a bit.
The order of how things werepresented I had to change to fit
what I thought was easier forpeople to understand and made
more sense in general, and I hadto add additional graphics
(05:09):
because I am a visual learnerand many of the people I work
with are visual learners.
So I started doing lots ofgraphics and using metaphors to
illustrate ideas that I wastrying to get across to people
to make it easier, simpler todigest.
And always my goal was how doyou get people who can't
(05:30):
articulate and don't know whatthey want in their work to
finally be able to gain thatclarity and focus and speak of
it and articulate it?
That's a tall order and I thinka lot of people, many people,
most people, have not had anykind of schooling or coursework
(05:55):
or direction regarding how to dothat step by step.
Lots of career books out there,lots of stuff.
Parachute was the first onethat I found that actually did
the work, you know, help peoplesort of break things down.
But what I found and I stilllove Parachute and I always say
get that book as a resource.
(06:15):
It's a big book and it's agreat resource to have and
everyone should have a copy ofit.
And I'd say, get the 2017edition.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
So it's Parachute by who?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
What Color is your Parachute?
By Richard N Bowles.
Now, richard N Bowles was aperson who trained me in the
process himself and me, myselfand other career people and just
job changers were all there forthree weeks getting
indoctrinated in this process.
(06:47):
I did it several times so thatI could really get a good sense,
because I was already a careercounselor and I just wanted to
have the method that I could usewith other people, and so from
that I started working inin-person groups.
I mean, I've been doing thisfor 30, close to 35 years now
and it's changed, it's shiftedand changed along with my own
(07:11):
need for changing things up,being flexible, growing in my
field, having fun with what I'mdoing.
You know you've got ADHD.
You know we can't be bored.
We got to love what we do.
Got to love it.
Yeah, if we didn't love it, howgood do you think we'd really
be at what we do if we didn'tlove it?
Speaker 1 (07:31):
If we didn't love it, it would become a soul-sucking
chore.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Soul-sucking is a perfect word to use.
Yeah, perfect words.
I have heard many people usethose terms, soul-sucking, and
they come to me.
They're in soul-sucking andthey come to me.
They're in these soul-sucking,freaking jobs that they have to
go to every day.
And then many people getslotted into these performance
improvement programs PIPs, whichI'm sure you're familiar with
(07:59):
that are the kiss of death,literally, for people with ADHD
in terms of keeping their jobsor actually improving things,
because they don't reallyimprove.
They just are one step to, youknow, being let loose.
And in the meantime the peopleinvolved in those programs incur
such trauma.
I mean, I've talked to so manytraumatized people that have
(08:21):
gone through that kind of aprocess because they don't even
deal with the work that they'redoing or try to improve it.
They just make it harder forthem and they become more
watched.
So once you get into one ofthose, I always say it's time to
start exiting or finding anexit as quickly, as soon as you
(08:43):
can.
And this process that I do isthe step that pretty much
everyone needs, whether it'swith me or a book I don't know
if you can do a book great tofigure this stuff out, so that
you don't make the same mistakesover and over and over again,
which is what happens whenpeople don't have any kind of
structure for doing this work.
(09:04):
People don't have any kind ofstructure for doing this work.
So I offer the masterclass.
That's what I got started threeand a half years ago now and
they've been going full on eversince I started.
And from doing that masterclassI finally wrote the book,
because I was writing it thewhole time that I was presenting
(09:26):
it to people, shifting andchanging and adding things to it
, and I got tired of having totweak everything and I said I
just have to do it myself.
I just got to do it myself andI just buckled down and did it.
And it was a labor of love, forsure, because I know there's
nothing else out there like this.
You've seen it right.
(09:46):
Have you seen anything like it?
Speaker 1 (09:48):
No.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
No, nothing exists like this that I'm aware of.
I did the research.
It's very ADHD friendly, is itnot?
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Yeah, you've got.
You have like 100 and somethingpages dedicated to careers in
ADHD and helping people.
I mean, that's boom, there'snothing.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Breaking it down.
Yeah, it's got the exercisesthat ask you the pertinent
questions.
It helps to allow you toidentify your what I call must
haves, the things that are soimportant to you.
I would assume for you, david,money topics, or you know,
you're the skill of helpingpeople grow their money or
(10:29):
whatever it is.
That skill is that you have hasto be used for you to feel
fulfilled.
Is that true or not true?
Speaker 1 (10:37):
That's true.
I think I've learned through myown journey of doing what I'm
doing that the fulfillment iscoming more from watching
clients succeed as opposed tolike just talking about money
doesn't really do anything forme, but it's in the context of
talking about it so that someonecan have their life be changed
for the better.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
And I think you're very typical, as I am, of people
with with ADHD in terms ofbeing purpose-driven, like we
have a purpose.
Having a purpose is everything.
It sets the groundwork for whatwe do.
Next, it sets the groundworkfor what we do every day, and
when you really understand whoyou are and you own all the
(11:21):
elements that are superimportant to you your must haves
and you take a look at them andyou drown out the voices
telling you this isn't going towork, that's not going to work.
Have you tried this?
Have you tried that?
And you know what I'm talkingabout.
That's called the safekeepingself, the term I use, and it was
coined by Richard Bowles many,many years ago, and I just
(11:42):
always expand on that, thesafekeeping self.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
What is that?
Speaker 2 (11:46):
The safekeeping self is the I can't, I won't, I
shouldn't All the reasons thatwe have for not making certain
choices that we know are goingto move us forward in a positive
way.
Even the smallest things likeacknowledging that you enjoy art
, if you're a business person orif you're an accountant, and
(12:09):
you enjoy some aspects of thevisual arts and actually they're
kind of important for you tohave in the work that you do on
some level.
But it doesn't mean you have tobe a visual artist.
But just acknowledging that,without and wholeheartedly
saying yes, it's important to me, without fear of it taking your
(12:32):
money down a few notches, justbeing bold enough to say this is
important to me, these are mymust-haves, because without
being able to do that, withoutdoing that, in a sense you're
saying I'm not important, what Iwant isn't important.
And with ADHD, if we don'tacknowledge all of that at some
(12:53):
point, we will never get to theplace that we really are going
to be, is going to besustainable over the long haul.
You know, in terms of the workwe do, you know the shiny object
things that people go for like,oh, I've got a great.
Either I've got a great idea orI saw this job that looks like
it might be cool.
Or I saw this program thatlooks like it might be cool.
(13:15):
I think I'll invest a fewthousand bucks in this thing.
That looks really I call itshiny object classes.
You know, I think I'll try this.
I think think I'll try that youknow what I'm talking about any
of the people that of youraudience know what I'm talking
about and I certainly was there.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
I have been there completely it's hard, especially
when when you just keep hoppingfrom shiny object class to hop
shiny object class, but it'salways done impulsively and
without any real pre-thinkingabout like why am I really doing
this?
Speaker 2 (13:48):
it's just yeah, I know something feels good about
it.
It's not that they should be,it should be totally disregarded
, but it tends to getdisregarded.
When you do it, you drop it andyou don't finish it, and then
you feel bad about that and youlook back but there's something
that you that drew you therethat is of importance yeah, like
I think something like internalwithin you that's just having a
(14:12):
hard time articulating itself,that's sort of like expressing
itself through this, likenever-ending search for
something more or new, more andnew totally when you ask about
the book.
The book sort of helps on manylevels.
It also provides that kind ofemotional support to help you
(14:32):
notice when that safekeepingself is entering the room.
I call it.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
It reminded me of something I've learned in my
psychology of financial planningstudies, where a lot of our
money beliefs that we think wehave, that we think are our
beliefs, or the things that wethink that we should be doing
with our money.
They're not really what we wantto be doing with our money.
It's just something that we'vebeen told we should do.
(15:00):
So that's why there's never anyreal commitment or follow
through or execution on it.
It's because it's somethingthat you have been told over and
over again.
This is what you need to do,this is what you should do.
You should have an emergencyfund that's this big, you should
have this and that, but reallyit's not what you actually want,
and so you have to reallydisregard what society says
sometimes and figure out what isit that you really want, even
(15:22):
if it's not the thing that yourparents would want you to do or
that society would approve of.
You have to connect to what itis that you really want, which I
think is what you're basicallysaying in your domain.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
But you really want and own it, and own it
unapologetically, and that's thehard part for a lot of people.
So we want to please so many ofour family members, friends.
We want people to know thatwe're on track and we try and
fit in a lot of times when it'snot really easy to do.
But I love what you said aboutmoney.
(15:55):
I think the money part playsinto this whole process and it
comes in the form of what areyour actual expenses?
What is the baseline of whatyou need to make and earn before
you can even look at anythingelse?
And how are you going to makesure that that's being covered,
even if it means maybe takingwhat I call a means to an end
(16:17):
job in addition to getting sometraining or something like that?
But if you don't have thosenumbers in front of you, you
can't be very realistic about it, right?
That's just one of the factorsthat we look at, and it doesn't
mean that they can't change orthey can't be.
Somebody really called me onthat one the other day.
(16:38):
I'm trying to think thesituation.
They were saying yeah, when youknow that you also need to know
to be able to move thingsaround or to take things out.
It gives you a chance to seewhat you're actually spending
money on.
So you can actually decide oh,I don't think that's important
to spend money on anymore.
Maybe I can get things down to,if I have to take like an
(17:00):
intern job that doesn't pay mequite as much, that if I take
this out I can move it aroundand make it work.
So it gives you more incentiveto actually make it work.
And, by the way, you're listedas a resource in the book.
You know that.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
I do know that.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
You're welcome, yeah, whenyou're, as you're saying.
That it kind of is giving meflashbacks of various meetings
I've had with clients wherewe're kind of discussing like
what are the main things you cando to improve your current
financial situation?
You can either spend less andsave more, or you can spend the
(17:35):
same and make more and save more.
And then the third is you canyou can have your investments do
better.
But the first two are the onesthat are like I get in these
conversations where it's almostlike the advice that they don't
want to hear is that I think youshould consider finding a way
to make more money yeah becauseit's like, well, how, and I only
(17:56):
have so many ideas on that.
but if you're, if your visionfor your life is so and so, but
your current career and incometrajectory doesn't support that,
then to me that just seems likea prudent thing to start
exploring, because you're solimited by your income, on what
you can do to get morefinancially healthy.
(18:17):
So which kind of sucks.
In general, I mean, it's a kindof a sucky thing to have to
always be dealing with.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
but but you can give yourself an automatic raise.
If you look, if you look atyour expenses with with absolute
authenticity and honesty, andyou go, oh my gosh, I'm spending
so much money on this stupidcable channel and I could just
stream.
You know, I mean Siri differentlittle things that could end up
(18:43):
maybe making you a thousandbucks more a month.
You never know.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Oh yeah, easy.
For so many people the thing ison paper, it always looks so
easy, and then it's like okay,here's a list of things you're
gonna do, and if you do these,you're gonna have 1000 extra
bucks in your pocket.
And then first, for one reasonor another, there's often still
something, some resistance, thatthey didn't really think over
the feedback I get from peoplewho've gone through the expenses
(19:13):
part.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
just list your expenses in here, or some of the
expenses to consider, and thenadd whatever else is that?
It helps them to do exactlythat, Because then they see oh
my gosh, how much am I spendingon that.
It really does help them get areality check on that.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
It does.
It's pretty cool how that works.
Just seeing it is like eyeopening, and that's kind of what
a lot of us just actually areavoiding is actually just
looking at it.
So once you're kind of lookingat it, it's equal parts scary,
but then it quickly the actualsatisfaction of looking at it
takes over, because you're likeat least I know what I'm dealing
(19:53):
with now, as opposed to justpretending it doesn't exist.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Yeah, and then it's fun.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
It can be very fun.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yeah, I'm going to chop this one off and or switch
this one out for something.
You know, I can take this classor I could do this thing that
I've always wanted to do, ormaybe go on a vacation or do
something.
If I just don't do this thingthat I've always wanted to do,
or maybe go on a vacation or dosomething if I just don't do
this, whatever, I know we canget into that.
You've probably had theseconversations a lot, but as far
as making a career shift, it canreally help if you need to get
(20:24):
some more training, for example,in something very specific and
one of the things the book andworking with me in the class,
because that's a deeper dive, bythe way.
So I do.
I still do the masterclass forpeople and the book is part of
the masterclass.
So they go through the bookwhile we're we're getting.
They're getting coached as theygo along the way with
(20:44):
accountability, andaccountability is a big part of
it, right?
So the other people in in thecohort in the class help each
other out in terms of networkingand staying on track and doing
the exercises body doubling andall of that While in the class
they're getting coached.
But the book will take youthrough a lot of that, and it is
(21:07):
possible to do the book withother people, not by yourself.
With ADHD, it's very tough todo it on your own.
You need to have someaccountability.
Oh yes, absolutely and.
I have a whole section calledaccountability and you are your
accountability.
I can't remember the titleexactly, but it's.
It talks about different waysthat you can stay on track.
That that are fun Makes sense,you know.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Yeah for sure.
So I'm looking at your book nowand what are some of the like
key symptoms, I guess, or kindof flags in your mind of like,
okay, this person is, doesn't,is not happy in their career,
there's some disconnect, or justlike, what are some of the
common things you see in peoplethat are coming to you?
Like, what are some of thecommon complaints that come in
(21:50):
like frustrations, and let's godown that line of thinking?
I know I just kind of said itin a few different ways, but I
think you get where I'm goingwith it.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Well, for one thing, anyone that contacts me, I
assume, needs help on some level.
I can't figure it out, orstruggling to figure it out.
I shouldn't say they can't, butthey're challenged in that way
and some people are feeling morefrustrated than others.
Some people just want moreoptions.
So, on the lighter side, theywant more options, they have
(22:22):
some idea and, even lighter thanthat, they actually like their
jobs.
But now they want to see well,maybe there's a lateral move or
there's more opportunities to domore of what I like or to do
different aspects of what I like.
So that's on the lighter side.
On the more intense side, it'slike they don't have a clue.
They really are frustrated andthey just want the direction.
(22:45):
They want a way to figure itout.
How do I figure out mymust-haves?
What do I actually need?
Who am I?
Who the heck am I?
And also what's my purpose.
People don't directly ask forthat in this, but that's part of
what it culminates and ends upoffering as well is a way to
(23:05):
really understand what yourpurpose is, your overall.
That goes beyond work.
It's just like when you havethat, it makes it.
It is kind of like that firethat is lit underneath all of us
to keep us going, knowing that,oh, I'm here for a reason.
I got to do this thing.
If I don't do it, who's goingto do it?
Somebody's got to do it.
(23:26):
Might as well be me.
That's kind of how I am.
That's how I started.
I ended up doing pretty mucheverything I've done.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Yeah, purpose is so, so key, like for most of my
clients.
We have like an establishedlike statement of financial
purpose.
You need to have that kind ofNorth Star guiding your
decisions and your life,otherwise you just kind of float
.
It's like what's the point?
You know it just, I don't knowjust.
it really solidifies so much forpeople it really does and I
wish everyone really got thatyeah it's hard to find, though,
(24:01):
especially if you're coming froma place of like real kind of
like purposelessness.
It could be hard and it wouldtake a lot of work, but I, I
truly believe that, um, with theright support and and with the
work that you have to put intofiguring it out, it can be done.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Yeah, and I think one of the good things about going
through this process is I tryand make it fun and interesting
and break it down, and it's gotto have some cool visuals.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
It's got to keep us engaged, have different ways to
keep us engaged, it's got tokeep us engaged, have different
ways to keep us engaged, and ifwe don't have, that it's not you
(24:51):
know, for people with ADHD, youknow, mean it's yeah, like the
first thing I ever wrote foradhd and money.
When I reread it back to myselfnow which I think is people can
still get like on my website I'mlike, well, this isn't really
adhd friendly because itrequired me to work with a lot
of people and to actually seethis all happening in real life,
like if I were to rewrite abook now, it would be so
different than the first thing Iwrote.
(25:13):
Yeah, more pictures, pictures,visuals, short chunks of words,
not long paragraphs, exactlybullets, graphics,
interactiveness, make it kind oflike a treasure hunt.
Make it make gamify it, give itsome fun challenge, but also
never let there be a frictionbottleneck.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
I think, ask a lot of questions, a lot of question
bubbles, you know.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Yeah, open-ended questions, just to kind of let
the kind of Open-ended bubblequestions.
Get the thought seed planted.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Yes, you'll notice in the book, there's a lot of
bubble kind of stuff in thereand that seems to work really
well.
I mean, I had one person tellme in my masterclass that it was
the most ADHD friendly book hehad ever seen and that was the
best compliment I could ever get.
And it just launched in January, so it hasn't been out there
(26:06):
very long.
I've gotten a really goodresponse so far.
Yeah, that meant a lot to me tohave somebody say that it was
the most ADHD friendly book hehad ever seen.
That's great.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Yeah, that's a lot to me to have somebody say that it
was the most ADHD friendly bookhe had ever seen.
That's great.
Yeah, that's good.
It totally is.
I'm seeing thought bubblesright now.
Ask yourself what books did Ilove reading, what types of kids
did I have the most fun with,and what activities did we do
together?
That's a great question.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
The things that you just don't think about that play
into who you really are.
You know what is reallymeaningful to you and what's
going to spark your energy andguide you along the way and put
the wind beneath your wings.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
you know that one Maybe that's too old of a
reference for you no, no, thatmakes what you're doing feel
light, like you have somethingpushing you along.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
People with ADHD always get that reference.
Like the wind beneath yourwings.
What energizes you, what pushesyou from behind?
What makes work feel likeyou're just cruising all the
time Because you've got thatwind beneath your wings, exactly
Cruising and even hyper focusin some ways, in a good way you
know, on projects that youreally enjoy doing.
(27:17):
That are the majority of yourwork.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Yeah, hyper focus from a place of excitement, not
not from a fear based hyperfocus where it's like, oh I,
self sabotage, procrastinatedthe past three weeks and now I'm
hyper focus because I have nochoice.
That's the bad hyper-focus.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Then there's a good hyper-focus where it's or
hyper-focus to get away as adistraction from the rest of
your life, but more becauseyou're just enjoying it and you
admit this is so much fun.
I don't want to stop doing it,but now it's time for me to go
home and be with my kids, orit's time for me to get out of
(27:57):
my off my home office and showmy face, because you have other
aspects of your life that areworking hopefully too or not
working, so you get help, yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
What are some of the like real unfortunate things
people with ADHD you find orstruggle with in corporate
settings?
I'm thinking specifically in mymind of like the way they're
maybe treated Like what are somesome signs that it's like this
culture is just maybe not for me.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Today's corporate culture is very different.
I never fit into the corporateworld myself.
I just never enjoyed it.
I never enjoyed sitting in acubicle or even an office where
it just felt isolating on somelevel.
I feel less isolated at homeworking with people on Zoom than
I did in an office setting.
(28:43):
But I'd say there's so manyaspects of the corporate world
that challenge people these daysand you know I do want to say
firsthand that not everycorporate situation is negative
for people.
There are some companies thatare getting it and making
strides in that area and theones that are at least trying,
(29:04):
you know they're the winners,they're the ones that are going
to get these productive adhdpeople when they figure that out
.
But part of figuring it outmeans you have to listen and you
have to be willing to make todo some accommodation work with
them.
But the accommodation, sothat's not answering the
corporate question.
That's a big question becauseit really depends on the
(29:25):
corporation, the ones that I seepeople working with now.
Very often the term soulcrushing kind of goes along with
it, and for many reasons I meanbecause people try and fit
themselves in with neurotypicalpeople and try and keep up and
it generally it might takelonger to do a task, so they're
(29:49):
just not getting as much done,they're not as productive or
they're being watched all thetime, they're being called on
the carpet.
You can't say you know, it'sreally not okay.
I don't think I don't recommendtelling people you have ADHD,
telling your boss.
You don't recommend that.
I do not.
What I recommend is somethingin the book and in the class we
(30:11):
cover very extensively, and thatis creating a
self-accommodation plan whereit's so extensive that you know
how your environment needs to beto function productively and in
a fulfilling kind of way.
I mean you know, sitting whereyou're sitting, doing what
you're doing, what yourenvironment needs to be right
(30:34):
and that's why you're successfuldoing what you're doing and why
I'm successful doing what I'mdoing, because I have that
rigged for myself.
But if you don't have a way todo that and number one, it
starts with understanding whatyou need and then being
uncompromising about only beingin work situations that will
allow certain you to have yourway accommodation wise.
(30:57):
And that doesn't always meandemanding the employer do it.
It means asking the rightquestions and letting them know
that if you, when you're able towork in this way, when you have
your environment kind of set upa certain way, you can be the
most productive person for themand make them a ton of money.
If that's the way you want toput it, they will have like a
top-notch employee.
It could be expressed as awin-win and a way to collaborate
(31:22):
more with the employer than tosay I need all this stuff, I
have to have all this stuff.
I demand you do this for me,because nobody responds well to
that.
It has to be a win-win and ithas to be with your knowledge of
what you need.
And if you don't create a planand really understand what it is
, how can you articulate it?
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Yeah for sure.
Even just going through thatexercise will probably help you
with your confidence to advocatefor yourself, because you at
least can articulate andunderstand what you need.
Sometimes you just have a sensethat you need something, but
you don't know what it is andyou feel kind of funny about it
and you feel kind of, you know,get that like kind of underlying
hum of like, oh, something'snot right.
You can never do anything aboutit, especially if you're in a
(32:03):
corporate setting where you feel, when you said, feeling watched
like that.
That just gives me theheebie-jeebies idea, does it?
Speaker 2 (32:15):
But so the idea of, doesn't it but so many people
are.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
So many people with adhd are being watched all the
time.
It's the word and that's theworst thing for us if you have
adhd and a little bit of anxietynot just in blue collar jobs
but in white collar jobs as well.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
There is a certain amount of surveillance that goes
on in a lot of companies andtime like being watched for how
long you take a break or howlong you when you're arriving or
leaving or whatever.
And the other thing ismandatory overtime, not getting
paid for it, and very often whenyou get a salary, you're just
(32:47):
expected to work 80 hours a week.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
You know that's just the norm these days yeah, I
remember my first job was acorporate job.
I'd say the culture of thecompany was actually pretty good
like it was.
The seating was open and it wasall about collaboration and
talking and whatever.
But I remember I was studyingfor my cfa.
Then I would go to lunch and Iwould study for a while
(33:14):
definitely longer than you know,I guess what would be deemed an
acceptable lunch break andafter a while, you know my my
supervisor was like got to stopdoing that.
I mean, I'm getting all my jobdone.
My job here is very repeatableand it's the same thing every
day and I'm getting it all done.
You're not giving me anythingelse to do, like that's a big
deal.
I'm stretching it all done.
You're not giving me anythingelse to do Like what's the big
(33:34):
deal?
I'm stretching my brain here.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Maybe I'll use that to benefit your health, that's a
perfect example of how ADHDpeople don't fit into that
environment.
Very often not all.
When I say ADHD people, I meanit's everybody's different.
Some people can, but I thinkthe ones that try and fit
themselves in you know thesquare peg in a round hole kind
of thing eventually break downand need to get out or find or
(34:00):
end up with in burnout or end upin the HR office.
Hrs are there are people thatwork for the company.
They don't really work for theemployees, so that's not always
the same.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Yeah, and if I didn't have such fear of letting
people down or I wasn't overlycompliant, I would have just
kept doing it.
So I'd be like I would havedecided that it's actually
better for this company in thelong run.
If you, let me study for this,because then I can use this
knowledge to do better serviceto these clients that we're
serving.
So what's the big deal if I'mgetting all my job done?
That should be part of your jobis to do that studying yeah I'm
(34:34):
like, was the only one around, Iwould go to eat lunch and pull
out the textbook and I wouldstart reading it.
You know, I'm reading atextbook on finance alone during
lunch, instead of going backand pretending to work and
chatting with people.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
You know so it's and they're calling you on the
carpet for that.
Yeah, how ridiculous is that?
Speaker 1 (34:52):
it's funny though, because, like the supervisor who
did it was, he was a friend,but it's because it's being fed
down to him for the middlemanager who's who's who's a jerk
, and no one likes him and hefeels like he's got like a
little god complex and likes tokeep everybody in check, which
is like okay, and even like theperson who told me he was like
yeah, then you, oh gosh, theoverlords or what, have caught
(35:14):
on to me and they can't say itto my face, even though I can
see all of my managers fromwhere I'm sitting.
They had to go to do chain ofcommand, just like no, that's
the term chain of command givesme the heebie-jeebies.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Anyway, you'll love that.
One of my favorite exercises isthe converting dislikes to
must-haves.
So you take all the things thatyou really the conditions you
hate in your workplace or in thework environment, and I break
them down into physical andnon-physical.
Non-physical being the culture,by the way, and the chain of
(35:50):
command kind of thing.
That would be anothernon-physical.
But to say all the things youhate on the left-hand side, like
you draw a line down the middleon the left, you put all the
things you hate and then weconvert, you go back to the top
and then you take the very firstone you wrote.
And what is the other side ofthat for you?
So if micromanaging is numberone, the other side of that
(36:12):
might be more flexibility.
You know environment, that'smore flexible, where I am
trusted to get the work donewithin a certain timeframe,
where somebody is not breathingdown my neck all the time and
with expectations that are notrealistic, necessarily, all of
those things that you can.
For each person it's different,right?
(36:33):
So I say there's no opposite,necessarily.
There's just the other side foryou.
That's a very freeing exerciseto do.
It's just to just regurgitateall of it and say what you don't
like.
That's one of the steps togetting real and honest with
yourself, you know, and notbeing afraid to just come out
with it.
And in the the class, when Ihave people do that and they
(36:55):
read their list, it's sometimesit's just like people are you
should see the head bobbing.
That goes on yeah, I bet notjust the head bobbing, but
people going oh my gosh, you'reso right I forgot about that one
.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Some of the things might be hard to admit.
I imagine too, like part in thesense that like well, I should
be able to just handle this onmy own, but like and just
accepting that like no, I doneed like, an environment that's
like positive, positivelyaffirming, not using negative or
fear to incentive or, you know,to get you working.
Because a lot of us adhders, wethrive on the reminders of, of
(37:31):
feeling appreciated by ouremployer and by because, for me,
as soon as you put me into anegative, you start triggering
all the inadequacy of like ohgosh, I'm going to fail, like
that shuts you down.
I mean that you can't even dogood work if you're in a
heightened anxiety state becauseof that kind of thing.
So exactly.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
You can't do it and some people get rebellious.
You know, there's that littlerebellious thing inside of each
one of us.
With ADHD.
We have something that we canbe very rebellious about when
we're told things have to be acertain way, and that's why you
see many people like me workingindependently, and maybe you as
(38:09):
well.
I can't work for other people.
I just it took me not very longWell, it took me maybe five
years of working for someoneelse, doing something, doing the
work I really liked, but it wasthe working for someone else
part right To realize that I hadto be on my own and I didn't
ever want to work for anyoneagain and I never looked back.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Yeah, how many people in your classes come to the
conclusion that they want topursue entrepreneurship?
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Well, okay.
So the definition to me ofentrepreneurship is more
starting something like astartup kind of thing, where you
have a team of people andyou're raising money, capital
and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Or self-employed, working for yourself.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Self-employed is, to me, different.
It's more you're doingsomething that you're trained to
do, but you're just doing it onyour own.
You're not necessarily starting, but you have the ability to do
whatever you want with it.
So it could become veryentrepreneurial at some point,
but you're just actually for me.
I was just taking the work thatI already did and you know I
got my own office and my ownstationery and did it my way.
(39:14):
I wasn't answering to anyone.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
I still call you an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
I am because I started.
I started a company called KidsArt.
That was entrepreneurial I'mvery entrepreneurial actually,
but I don't.
Sometimes it can beoverwhelming for people to start
out with the idea ofentrepreneurship versus just
let's do something on my own fora while and see how that feels.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Yeah, I guess that is a that's a useful distinction.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Yeah, I knew when I tried to raise capital for this
one company, I hated doing thatso much that I just it shut the
whole thing down for me.
I hated raising capital, god Ihate.
Some people are good at it.
That's their job, but not me.
It wasn't anything I feltcomfortable doing.
Asking for money and pitchingpeople, blah, blah, blah.
(40:02):
I just didn't love it.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
Also, you know, once you get capital and investors,
then you're kind of back toworking for someone else.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Exactly, that was the other thing that was.
The unspoken thing is that nowyou have an obligation to these
investors yeah, a big one.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Bootstrapping is the way to go exactly, I will 100.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Everything I did was bootstrapped, really, and the
one that that wasn't was the one.
I needed capital and it didn'twork.
But it was a great idea becauseI'm very entrepreneurial but I
love working on my own.
Doing this work has allowed meto do so many cool things with
what I'm doing that that's whatI want for other people to feel
that freedom, in whatever formit comes.
(40:45):
I don't know, I think workingfor someone getting back to
owing investors, I really thinkpeople need to think twice about
that with ADHD, I really do.
Unless you have your, havecarved out your position to be
exactly the way it works for you, environmentally and
accommodation wise, so you, youcould at least have the freedom
(41:09):
to do that.
Yeah, I hear you?
Speaker 1 (41:11):
I think definitely, when I was saying
entrepreneurship, I was in mymind, I was thinking just
working for yourself, just beingyour own boss in some capacity.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
Yes, being your own boss Absolutely 100%.
What I always tell people islook, you probably will work for
somebody first, especially ifyou're starting something new,
and I always say don't do ituntil you know exactly what you
want and you've gone throughthis process first, so that you
can identify what you want, andthen working for someone else is
(41:42):
more about laying thefoundation for how to do it, so
you can take it on the road anddo it yourself.
Yeah, absolutely, isn't thattrue?
I did that for five yearsbefore I took off and did my own
thing.
I worked for two employers andI got to do whatever I wanted
because I was top of the line atthe company, because I was
(42:02):
doing what I loved.
But then the company became thesecond company was mom and pop
that went corporate and I said,no, that's it, I'm out of here.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Yeah, going into a job, knowing before that this is
a means to an end that's muchmore freeing, helps you probably
emotionally get during that jobto be like to keep that in the
back of your mind, but also youthen are also in the back of
your mind or thinking about allthe ways that you could improve
or how you're going to do itwhen you're on your own and
learning, soaking all of theexperience in a way that's
(42:33):
applying it to what you're goingto be doing.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
It just makes it all more purposeful and much more it
does and it makes it easier towork for someone else when you
know, oh, this is like, this islike my training, this is my
schooling and I'm going to do agreat job, so I can.
I can really feel good about it,but you are, you're doing
something that you actuallyenjoy for someone else first,
(42:56):
but you're learning the ropesand I always, like I said, kind
of getting back to what I tellpeople is that you may work for
somebody for a while for thatpurpose, right, or even just in
general, because a lot of peoplewith ADHD I mean I've seen
people work for 20 years for thesame employer with ADHD somehow
they did it, but then work for20 years for the same employer
with ADHD somehow they did it,but then at some point it's
(43:18):
going to fall apart because theADHD part of your brain is going
to catch up and then somethingwill happen where things will go
awry, it will crash at somepoint, and then it's time to
really look at what is it that Ireally want and go from there.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
Yeah, I could just see it being as simple as like
one day you wake up and, justlike, I don't really feel like
going in today, I've lost allengagement in this, and then
that could be planting the seedfor ultimately be let go just
because, like you're just nolonger, you don't have any of
your heart in it.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
There's no way to avoid this process.
When I first started doing thisI'm going to be honest all I
could think of in the back of mymind is why isn't every human
being on the planet who has theability to go to school, take
classes, live, get their needsmet or whatever?
Why isn't everyone doing thisprocess, doing something like
(44:13):
this before they make thesecritical decisions Like even
going to college, even gettinginto taking a training program,
doing anything literally?
Why would they not do somethinglike this first?
And I never really said it outloud because I thought, oh,
that's too much selling.
You know you're selling and Ihated the idea of selling.
(44:35):
But I know, looking back afterall these years, that without
going through something likethis and unless you're really
happy with what you're doingwhich is very cool and 100%
support continuing along thatpath but at some point at least
with ADHD, you must do this.
You must do something, andthat's why I wrote the book.
(44:58):
It's at least for people whocan't invest in the class and I
can't, obviously, it's just meand one other person teaching
the class now.
But the book is a good way toget started and there are ways
to do that with other people andI wanted to get into the hands
of teachers, so that you knowthat's why I say it's for teens
so that high school teachers canstart giving their students
(45:22):
this information, taking themthrough a process.
So before they decide on acollege, before they decide on a
degree, certainly in the firsttwo years of college is another
time to do it.
Certainly in the first twoyears of college is another time
to do it.
If you haven't decided on amajor, or if you are unemployed
and you can't figure out what,how to take the skills, or even
(45:42):
figure out the skills that youhave that you want to use, and
maybe what industries you coulduse them in where it would make
sense, and you could thenarticulate all that to an
employer.
This process will help you getat least and the book is a good
start, as long as you do thewhole damn thing and you have
(46:03):
somebody else to work with to doit.
So yes, it should be in everyunemployment office.
It should be in every highschool, every career center and
colleges.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
And parents.
I'm thinking of parents too.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
Well, that's the next one.
Parents and teachers and alsothe entire mental health
professional.
That means psychologists, thatmeans therapists, that means
psychiatrists.
They should all have access toit, because a lot of the issues
that come up for people arecareer-related issues.
They up for people are careerrelated issues.
They can help people, you know,start to break that down with
(46:39):
their clients, and so it shouldbe in the hands of all of those
professionals, and that was mygoal.
It was, you know, I'm gettingup there in age.
No, oh yeah, I don't sound likeit, because I have ADHD and we
kind of run young, don't we?
Speaker 1 (46:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
We run young.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
Yeah, the brains keep firing, can't slow it down.
Speaker 2 (46:59):
I'm a boomer baby.
I'm a boomer.
When you hit the boomercategory, you start thinking
about what legacy do you want toleave?
You know what do you want toleave the world?
And this book was the onlything I could, was the one thing
I thought would be a reallygood something to leave the
world.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
I think it's a great thing to leave the world and I
think this is something that,like, I'm already thinking about
with my kids.
I'd be like, whether or notthey have ADHD, like, hey, we're
going to do this book together.
Yeah, before you go off tocollege because if I'm paying
for your college to some extent,I'm not, I don't want to, I'm
not paying for four years offloating around drinking all the
time I want you to have an ideaand like get a little bit
(47:40):
pumped up about.
Like, like, having an idea ofwhat you want to do.
That really makes a difference.
Yeah, you can't avoid figuringit out by doing a book like this
.
If you do this book and you'renot faking it, you're gonna
learn to learn some stuff.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
You're going to learn some stuff, and if you ignore
it, it's at your own consequence.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Yeah, you could do a book and learn it and then learn
a bunch of stuff Makes a lot ofsense and ignored for 10 years.
But then you can just go rightback to the book and be like, oh
wait, you still have it there.
So even if you forget it andyou go off track, you can kind
(48:20):
of re go back and be like, ohwait, I did this book and it
looks like from this, thesenotes.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
I have that actually somehow saved, that I'm not in
alignment with any of it, so Ishould get back on track.
Exactly, yeah, so it'savailable now on my website,
which is probably the best placeto get it, because then I have
sometimes I have like 15%discounts on it.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
So can I say my website, you can say all the
things that you need to say.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Say all the things.
Buy the book, guysCareercoachingmichellecom, which
will take you topassion2careercom.
So it's either one of thosePassion to Career or Career
Coaching Michelle.
And you click on coursebook andit gives you it's like an
author's page.
It gives you like a descriptionand some cool stuff.
(48:58):
I think it's got some reviewsin there on Amazon at launch in
January it's it's got fivereviews and Amazon holds onto
those.
I don't know why.
Boy, so many people havereviewed who said that it hasn't
shown up yet.
So I know there's more reviewskind of waiting, but those five
are pretty cool.
So you can get it there too.
(49:18):
And the book is called yeah,nobody knows the name of the
book that helps Shell.
That helps.
It's called A Course for Adultsand Teens Unlock your Career
Path.
Unlock your Career Path.
Even if you put Unlock yourCareer Path, it'll probably come
up.
Or you put my name, shelMendelson, m-e-n-d-e-l-s-o-n.
Plenty of ways to get it.
(49:38):
And once you get a copy of it,when you start using it and you
start seeing kind of the ease ofuse or any of that a review
would be fantastic.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
I would love it.
I'll be sure to give it areview and if I don't, then I
will do it once you remind me.
Take a minute to tell theaudience who may be listening to
this, I don't know Pump them up, inspire them to pursue this.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
You mean everything we've been talking about hasn't
done that Okay.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Tied in a bow A little pep talk.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Yeah, if you are ready to really get some clarity
and focus on what it is youwanna do in work and career,
look no further.
This is it.
This is the book.
Look no further.
This is it.
And that's for people evenwithout ADHD.
Obviously, the process is foreveryone.
It does focus heavily on peoplewith ADHD, but we all know that
(50:33):
.
That just means that it makesit clearer for everyone else
when it's written the right way.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
That's all I've ever.
That's been the biggestepiphany I've had.
And when you make somethingADHD friendly, you're just
making it for everyone.
Speaker 2 (50:45):
That's true.
So anyone and everyone shouldbe grabbing a copy of when
they're ready to actually getsome clarity and be real with
themselves.
You know about.
This is what I want, this iswhat this is me, this is who I
am.
I'm ready.
Speaker 1 (51:02):
Yeah, I flipped through the whole thing or
scroll, and I suppose I have adigital version and it's full of
pictures, it's full ofexercises, it's full of places
to write stuff or I don't know.
It just looks good.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
And the physical version is so much better and
I'm going to send you thephysical version.
I'm sending you the physicalversion.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
Oh sweet, yeah, it's solid.
I feel like you this would beespecially for so many of my
clients.
If you're listening and you'renot totally happy in your career
and you got one life, what doyou got to really lose by
exploring what it would looklike to have a more fulfilling
career?
Speaker 2 (51:40):
I want to say it's mandatory, but I guess I can't
say that.
I should say it's mandatory forlife.
Speaker 1 (51:45):
Yeah, most of us will spend eight hours a day, five
days a week, working a lot oftime in your life.
You might as well try andconfigure a way to make that
time you've spent give you a lotmore than just a paycheck that
helps you live the other partsof your life.
Speaker 2 (52:01):
And then, when you get rich because you're doing
what you love, you can startusing David to work with your
investments.
Find the right investments.
That's right.
Speaker 1 (52:10):
So I'm gonna let you go, but thank you so much for
hopping on for a chat.
That was fun.
I think it was great.
I think people will get a lotout of that.
So thank you so much forjoining.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
Thanks for having me, david, it was so much fun.
Welcome back to ADHD Money Talk, the show that has
not been consistently puttingout podcast episodes for all of
you lovely people, but guesswhat?
There's an episode today and wecan't change the past.
I don't want to change the pastbecause I've been busy, being
way too busy with self-inflictedbusyness, and that is my life.
(00:25):
That's just what's been goingon Working on too many projects,
trying to do too much stuff butthe bottom line is a lot of my
busyness has been in preparationfor something that I'm very
excited about, and I have verylittle hints to give you, like
none, except for that you'regoing to want to stay tuned
(00:51):
because I will be unleashing thebest thing that's ever happened
for ADHDers who want to gettheir money together, be in
control of their money and beguided by somebody who
consistently delivers anapproach that is sensitive just
sensitive, because I amsensitive, but also an approach
(01:12):
that is sensitive and aware andtotally focused on the
shortcomings that we adhdershave when it comes to managing
our money, which everybody'sdifferent.
Everybody's got differentshortcomings.
Everybody with ADHD has variousstrengths and weaknesses that
(01:33):
apply to money.
You know some are very good atgetting on a.
You know some know have theknowledge for money.
So it's just about getting themotivation, the correct
motivation, and some peopledon't have enough knowledge that
it's overwhelming andintimidating.
And then we all typicallystruggle with the constant
stimulation chase, whetherthat's spending too much money
(01:56):
on stuff that's stimulating orwhether that's not staying
consistently stimulated bymanaging money effectively.
So until you can figure out whyit's worth it intrinsically, at
the deepest, rudest, corestlevel, it's going to be tough,
but what I'm going to unleash onthe world is going to have a
(02:17):
lot of that and more, and Ican't wait.
It's going to be so exciting.
I thought it was going to behere already, because I have
magical thinking and I'm like,oh, this project two months?
Nah, it's been like sevenmonths now, but it's coming.
It's coming.
I'm just learning to take mytime, but it's coming.
So, with all that said, if youstill have this podcast checked
(02:41):
off as a following and you get anotification or whatever when a
new one comes out.
Thank you, because maybe yousaw this.
I'm going to talk to somebodytoday.
This is going to be aconversation with Shell
Mendelson, who is an ADHD careercoach and she's great.
You should use her.
I mean, if you look in themirror and you say this is what
(03:01):
I'm doing with my life right nowI go to this job nine to five
and if you can look at yourselfin the mirror and say this is
what I'm doing with my liferight now I go to this job nine
to five and if you can look atyourself in the mirror and say I
am fulfilled in this, this iswhat I want, then you don't need
her.
But if you want a career thataligns with your values, that
aligns with your financial goals, and you want help figuring out
(03:21):
that whole, all the stuffthere's a lot more than you
think that goes beneath thesurface of figuring this stuff
out.
She's an expert at it.
I talked to her today.
She's so fun to talk to, likeshe's just so chill and we
recorded this like maybe twomonths ago and she's just been
like bugging me, like get it out, get it out.
I'm just like, I'm in paralysisof like I can't do anything
(03:41):
besides, just do what my brainis yelling at me to do, which is
get caught up on the millionsof things that I'm not caught up
on.
And she just kept nagging andnagging.
And you know what?
It's like the kind of naggingthat's like the best kind of nag
, because it's like you're soright, I need to do this.
Like what am I doing?
It's like it's like the shameyou want.
She's going to listen to thisand be like, what the heck are
(04:02):
you talking about?
So, anyways, I'm pretty surethis conversation starts off
like mid-sentence or something.
So I know you're gonna get alot out of it.
You're gonna get a lot more outof this conversation than you
have over the past five minutesof me just talking about
basically, basically nothing.
So let's do the talk.
Let's talk to shell.
Hi, shell.
So like why did you write thisbook?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
it's long like you wrote a lot well, it's 35 years
of all the work that I've done,not just before I was diagnosed,
but certainly after I wasdiagnosed, and I'll go back and
say that I was trained byrichard bowles, who wrote what
color is your parachute?
And I was using, and alwayshave used, that format, that
(04:46):
basic format, for years.
But what I found was, evenbefore I was diagnosed, later in
life, I was starting to tweakit quite a bit.
The order of how things werepresented I had to change to fit
what I thought was easier forpeople to understand and made
more sense in general, and I hadto add additional graphics
(05:09):
because I am a visual learnerand many of the people I work
with are visual learners.
So I started doing lots ofgraphics and using metaphors to
illustrate ideas that I wastrying to get across to people
to make it easier, simpler todigest.
And always my goal was how doyou get people who can't
(05:30):
articulate and don't know whatthey want in their work to
finally be able to gain thatclarity and focus and speak of
it and articulate it?
That's a tall order and I thinka lot of people, many people,
most people, have not had anykind of schooling or coursework
(05:55):
or direction regarding how to dothat step by step.
Lots of career books out there,lots of stuff.
Parachute was the first onethat I found that actually did
the work, you know, help peoplesort of break things down.
But what I found and I stilllove Parachute and I always say
get that book as a resource.
(06:15):
It's a big book and it's agreat resource to have and
everyone should have a copy ofit.
And I'd say, get the 2017edition.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
So it's Parachute by who?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
What Color is your Parachute?
By Richard N Bowles.
Now, richard N Bowles was aperson who trained me in the
process himself and me, myselfand other career people and just
job changers were all there forthree weeks getting
indoctrinated in this process.
(06:47):
I did it several times so thatI could really get a good sense,
because I was already a careercounselor and I just wanted to
have the method that I could usewith other people, and so from
that I started working inin-person groups.
I mean, I've been doing thisfor 30, close to 35 years now
and it's changed, it's shiftedand changed along with my own
(07:11):
need for changing things up,being flexible, growing in my
field, having fun with what I'mdoing.
You know you've got ADHD.
You know we can't be bored.
We got to love what we do.
Got to love it.
Yeah, if we didn't love it, howgood do you think we'd really
be at what we do if we didn'tlove it?
Speaker 1 (07:31):
If we didn't love it, it would become a soul-sucking
chore.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Soul-sucking is a perfect word to use.
Yeah, perfect words.
I have heard many people usethose terms, soul-sucking, and
they come to me.
They're in soul-sucking andthey come to me.
They're in these soul-sucking,freaking jobs that they have to
go to every day.
And then many people getslotted into these performance
improvement programs PIPs, whichI'm sure you're familiar with
(07:59):
that are the kiss of death,literally, for people with ADHD
in terms of keeping their jobsor actually improving things,
because they don't reallyimprove.
They just are one step to, youknow, being let loose.
And in the meantime the peopleinvolved in those programs incur
such trauma.
I mean, I've talked to so manytraumatized people that have
(08:21):
gone through that kind of aprocess because they don't even
deal with the work that they'redoing or try to improve it.
They just make it harder forthem and they become more
watched.
So once you get into one ofthose, I always say it's time to
start exiting or finding anexit as quickly, as soon as you
(08:43):
can.
And this process that I do isthe step that pretty much
everyone needs, whether it'swith me or a book I don't know
if you can do a book great tofigure this stuff out, so that
you don't make the same mistakesover and over and over again,
which is what happens whenpeople don't have any kind of
structure for doing this work.
(09:04):
People don't have any kind ofstructure for doing this work.
So I offer the masterclass.
That's what I got started threeand a half years ago now and
they've been going full on eversince I started.
And from doing that masterclassI finally wrote the book,
because I was writing it thewhole time that I was presenting
(09:26):
it to people, shifting andchanging and adding things to it
, and I got tired of having totweak everything and I said I
just have to do it myself.
I just got to do it myself andI just buckled down and did it.
And it was a labor of love, forsure, because I know there's
nothing else out there like this.
You've seen it right.
(09:46):
Have you seen anything like it?
Speaker 1 (09:48):
No.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
No, nothing exists like this that I'm aware of.
I did the research.
It's very ADHD friendly, is itnot?
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Yeah, you've got.
You have like 100 and somethingpages dedicated to careers in
ADHD and helping people.
I mean, that's boom, there'snothing.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Breaking it down.
Yeah, it's got the exercisesthat ask you the pertinent
questions.
It helps to allow you toidentify your what I call must
haves, the things that are soimportant to you.
I would assume for you, david,money topics, or you know,
you're the skill of helpingpeople grow their money or
(10:29):
whatever it is.
That skill is that you have hasto be used for you to feel
fulfilled.
Is that true or not true?
Speaker 1 (10:37):
That's true.
I think I've learned through myown journey of doing what I'm
doing that the fulfillment iscoming more from watching
clients succeed as opposed tolike just talking about money
doesn't really do anything forme, but it's in the context of
talking about it so that someonecan have their life be changed
for the better.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
And I think you're very typical, as I am, of people
with with ADHD in terms ofbeing purpose-driven, like we
have a purpose.
Having a purpose is everything.
It sets the groundwork for whatwe do.
Next, it sets the groundworkfor what we do every day, and
when you really understand whoyou are and you own all the
(11:21):
elements that are superimportant to you your must haves
and you take a look at them andyou drown out the voices
telling you this isn't going towork, that's not going to work.
Have you tried this?
Have you tried that?
And you know what I'm talkingabout.
That's called the safekeepingself, the term I use, and it was
coined by Richard Bowles many,many years ago, and I just
(11:42):
always expand on that, thesafekeeping self.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
What is that?
Speaker 2 (11:46):
The safekeeping self is the I can't, I won't, I
shouldn't All the reasons thatwe have for not making certain
choices that we know are goingto move us forward in a positive
way.
Even the smallest things likeacknowledging that you enjoy art
, if you're a business person orif you're an accountant, and
(12:09):
you enjoy some aspects of thevisual arts and actually they're
kind of important for you tohave in the work that you do on
some level.
But it doesn't mean you have tobe a visual artist.
But just acknowledging that,without and wholeheartedly
saying yes, it's important to me, without fear of it taking your
(12:32):
money down a few notches, justbeing bold enough to say this is
important to me, these are mymust-haves, because without
being able to do that, withoutdoing that, in a sense you're
saying I'm not important, what Iwant isn't important.
And with ADHD, if we don'tacknowledge all of that at some
(12:53):
point, we will never get to theplace that we really are going
to be, is going to besustainable over the long haul.
You know, in terms of the workwe do, you know the shiny object
things that people go for like,oh, I've got a great.
Either I've got a great idea orI saw this job that looks like
it might be cool.
Or I saw this program thatlooks like it might be cool.
(13:15):
I think I'll invest a fewthousand bucks in this thing.
That looks really I call itshiny object classes.
You know, I think I'll try this.
I think think I'll try that youknow what I'm talking about any
of the people that of youraudience know what I'm talking
about and I certainly was there.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
I have been there completely it's hard, especially
when when you just keep hoppingfrom shiny object class to hop
shiny object class, but it'salways done impulsively and
without any real pre-thinkingabout like why am I really doing
this?
Speaker 2 (13:48):
it's just yeah, I know something feels good about
it.
It's not that they should be,it should be totally disregarded
, but it tends to getdisregarded.
When you do it, you drop it andyou don't finish it, and then
you feel bad about that and youlook back but there's something
that you that drew you therethat is of importance yeah, like
I think something like internalwithin you that's just having a
(14:12):
hard time articulating itself,that's sort of like expressing
itself through this, likenever-ending search for
something more or new, more andnew totally when you ask about
the book.
The book sort of helps on manylevels.
It also provides that kind ofemotional support to help you
(14:32):
notice when that safekeepingself is entering the room.
I call it.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
It reminded me of something I've learned in my
psychology of financial planningstudies, where a lot of our
money beliefs that we think wehave, that we think are our
beliefs, or the things that wethink that we should be doing
with our money.
They're not really what we wantto be doing with our money.
It's just something that we'vebeen told we should do.
(15:00):
So that's why there's never anyreal commitment or follow
through or execution on it.
It's because it's somethingthat you have been told over and
over again.
This is what you need to do,this is what you should do.
You should have an emergencyfund that's this big, you should
have this and that, but reallyit's not what you actually want,
and so you have to reallydisregard what society says
sometimes and figure out what isit that you really want, even
(15:22):
if it's not the thing that yourparents would want you to do or
that society would approve of.
You have to connect to what itis that you really want, which I
think is what you're basicallysaying in your domain.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
But you really want and own it, and own it
unapologetically, and that's thehard part for a lot of people.
So we want to please so many ofour family members, friends.
We want people to know thatwe're on track and we try and
fit in a lot of times when it'snot really easy to do.
But I love what you said aboutmoney.
(15:55):
I think the money part playsinto this whole process and it
comes in the form of what areyour actual expenses?
What is the baseline of whatyou need to make and earn before
you can even look at anythingelse?
And how are you going to makesure that that's being covered,
even if it means maybe takingwhat I call a means to an end
(16:17):
job in addition to getting sometraining or something like that?
But if you don't have thosenumbers in front of you, you
can't be very realistic about it, right?
That's just one of the factorsthat we look at, and it doesn't
mean that they can't change orthey can't be.
Somebody really called me onthat one the other day.
(16:38):
I'm trying to think thesituation.
They were saying yeah, when youknow that you also need to know
to be able to move thingsaround or to take things out.
It gives you a chance to seewhat you're actually spending
money on.
So you can actually decide oh,I don't think that's important
to spend money on anymore.
Maybe I can get things down to,if I have to take like an
(17:00):
intern job that doesn't pay mequite as much, that if I take
this out I can move it aroundand make it work.
So it gives you more incentiveto actually make it work.
And, by the way, you're listedas a resource in the book.
You know that.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
I do know that.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
You're welcome, yeah, whenyou're, as you're saying.
That it kind of is giving meflashbacks of various meetings
I've had with clients wherewe're kind of discussing like
what are the main things you cando to improve your current
financial situation?
You can either spend less andsave more, or you can spend the
(17:35):
same and make more and save more.
And then the third is you canyou can have your investments do
better.
But the first two are the onesthat are like I get in these
conversations where it's almostlike the advice that they don't
want to hear is that I think youshould consider finding a way
to make more money yeah becauseit's like, well, how, and I only
(17:56):
have so many ideas on that.
but if you're, if your visionfor your life is so and so, but
your current career and incometrajectory doesn't support that,
then to me that just seems likea prudent thing to start
exploring, because you're solimited by your income, on what
you can do to get morefinancially healthy.
(18:17):
So which kind of sucks.
In general, I mean, it's a kindof a sucky thing to have to
always be dealing with.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
but but you can give yourself an automatic raise.
If you look, if you look atyour expenses with with absolute
authenticity and honesty, andyou go, oh my gosh, I'm spending
so much money on this stupidcable channel and I could just
stream.
You know, I mean Siri differentlittle things that could end up
(18:43):
maybe making you a thousandbucks more a month.
You never know.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Oh yeah, easy.
For so many people the thing ison paper, it always looks so
easy, and then it's like okay,here's a list of things you're
gonna do, and if you do these,you're gonna have 1000 extra
bucks in your pocket.
And then first, for one reasonor another, there's often still
something, some resistance, thatthey didn't really think over
the feedback I get from peoplewho've gone through the expenses
(19:13):
part.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
just list your expenses in here, or some of the
expenses to consider, and thenadd whatever else is that?
It helps them to do exactlythat, Because then they see oh
my gosh, how much am I spendingon that.
It really does help them get areality check on that.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
It does.
It's pretty cool how that works.
Just seeing it is like eyeopening, and that's kind of what
a lot of us just actually areavoiding is actually just
looking at it.
So once you're kind of lookingat it, it's equal parts scary,
but then it quickly the actualsatisfaction of looking at it
takes over, because you're likeat least I know what I'm dealing
(19:53):
with now, as opposed to justpretending it doesn't exist.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Yeah, and then it's fun.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
It can be very fun.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yeah, I'm going to chop this one off and or switch
this one out for something.
You know, I can take this classor I could do this thing that
I've always wanted to do, ormaybe go on a vacation or do
something.
If I just don't do this thingthat I've always wanted to do,
or maybe go on a vacation or dosomething if I just don't do
this, whatever, I know we canget into that.
You've probably had theseconversations a lot, but as far
as making a career shift, it canreally help if you need to get
(20:24):
some more training, for example,in something very specific and
one of the things the book andworking with me in the class,
because that's a deeper dive, bythe way.
So I do.
I still do the masterclass forpeople and the book is part of
the masterclass.
So they go through the bookwhile we're we're getting.
They're getting coached as theygo along the way with
(20:44):
accountability, andaccountability is a big part of
it, right?
So the other people in in thecohort in the class help each
other out in terms of networkingand staying on track and doing
the exercises body doubling andall of that While in the class
they're getting coached.
But the book will take youthrough a lot of that, and it is
(21:07):
possible to do the book withother people, not by yourself.
With ADHD, it's very tough todo it on your own.
You need to have someaccountability.
Oh yes, absolutely and.
I have a whole section calledaccountability and you are your
accountability.
I can't remember the titleexactly, but it's.
It talks about different waysthat you can stay on track.
That that are fun Makes sense,you know.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Yeah for sure.
So I'm looking at your book nowand what are some of the like
key symptoms, I guess, or kindof flags in your mind of like,
okay, this person is, doesn't,is not happy in their career,
there's some disconnect, or justlike, what are some of the
common things you see in peoplethat are coming to you?
Like, what are some of thecommon complaints that come in
(21:50):
like frustrations, and let's godown that line of thinking?
I know I just kind of said itin a few different ways, but I
think you get where I'm goingwith it.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Well, for one thing, anyone that contacts me, I
assume, needs help on some level.
I can't figure it out, orstruggling to figure it out.
I shouldn't say they can't, butthey're challenged in that way
and some people are feeling morefrustrated than others.
Some people just want moreoptions.
So, on the lighter side, theywant more options, they have
(22:22):
some idea and, even lighter thanthat, they actually like their
jobs.
But now they want to see well,maybe there's a lateral move or
there's more opportunities to domore of what I like or to do
different aspects of what I like.
So that's on the lighter side.
On the more intense side, it'slike they don't have a clue.
They really are frustrated andthey just want the direction.
(22:45):
They want a way to figure itout.
How do I figure out mymust-haves?
What do I actually need?
Who am I?
Who the heck am I?
And also what's my purpose.
People don't directly ask forthat in this, but that's part of
what it culminates and ends upoffering as well is a way to
(23:05):
really understand what yourpurpose is, your overall.
That goes beyond work.
It's just like when you havethat, it makes it.
It is kind of like that firethat is lit underneath all of us
to keep us going, knowing that,oh, I'm here for a reason.
I got to do this thing.
If I don't do it, who's goingto do it?
Somebody's got to do it.
(23:26):
Might as well be me.
That's kind of how I am.
That's how I started.
I ended up doing pretty mucheverything I've done.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Yeah, purpose is so, so key, like for most of my
clients.
We have like an establishedlike statement of financial
purpose.
You need to have that kind ofNorth Star guiding your
decisions and your life,otherwise you just kind of float
.
It's like what's the point?
You know it just, I don't knowjust.
it really solidifies so much forpeople it really does and I
wish everyone really got thatyeah it's hard to find, though,
(24:01):
especially if you're coming froma place of like real kind of
like purposelessness.
It could be hard and it wouldtake a lot of work, but I, I
truly believe that, um, with theright support and and with the
work that you have to put intofiguring it out, it can be done.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Yeah, and I think one of the good things about going
through this process is I tryand make it fun and interesting
and break it down, and it's gotto have some cool visuals.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
It's got to keep us engaged, have different ways to
keep us engaged, it's got tokeep us engaged, have different
ways to keep us engaged, and ifwe don't have, that it's not you
(24:51):
know, for people with ADHD, youknow, mean it's yeah, like the
first thing I ever wrote foradhd and money.
When I reread it back to myselfnow which I think is people can
still get like on my website I'mlike, well, this isn't really
adhd friendly because itrequired me to work with a lot
of people and to actually seethis all happening in real life,
like if I were to rewrite abook now, it would be so
different than the first thing Iwrote.
(25:13):
Yeah, more pictures, pictures,visuals, short chunks of words,
not long paragraphs, exactlybullets, graphics,
interactiveness, make it kind oflike a treasure hunt.
Make it make gamify it, give itsome fun challenge, but also
never let there be a frictionbottleneck.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
I think, ask a lot of questions, a lot of question
bubbles, you know.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Yeah, open-ended questions, just to kind of let
the kind of Open-ended bubblequestions.
Get the thought seed planted.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Yes, you'll notice in the book, there's a lot of
bubble kind of stuff in thereand that seems to work really
well.
I mean, I had one person tellme in my masterclass that it was
the most ADHD friendly book hehad ever seen and that was the
best compliment I could ever get.
And it just launched in January, so it hasn't been out there
(26:06):
very long.
I've gotten a really goodresponse so far.
Yeah, that meant a lot to me tohave somebody say that it was
the most ADHD friendly book hehad ever seen.
That's great.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Yeah, that's a lot to me to have somebody say that it
was the most ADHD friendly bookhe had ever seen.
That's great.
Yeah, that's good.
It totally is.
I'm seeing thought bubblesright now.
Ask yourself what books did Ilove reading, what types of kids
did I have the most fun with,and what activities did we do
together?
That's a great question.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
The things that you just don't think about that play
into who you really are.
You know what is reallymeaningful to you and what's
going to spark your energy andguide you along the way and put
the wind beneath your wings.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
you know that one Maybe that's too old of a
reference for you no, no, thatmakes what you're doing feel
light, like you have somethingpushing you along.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
People with ADHD always get that reference.
Like the wind beneath yourwings.
What energizes you, what pushesyou from behind?
What makes work feel likeyou're just cruising all the
time Because you've got thatwind beneath your wings, exactly
Cruising and even hyper focusin some ways, in a good way you
know, on projects that youreally enjoy doing.
(27:17):
That are the majority of yourwork.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Yeah, hyper focus from a place of excitement, not
not from a fear based hyperfocus where it's like, oh I,
self sabotage, procrastinatedthe past three weeks and now I'm
hyper focus because I have nochoice.
That's the bad hyper-focus.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Then there's a good hyper-focus where it's or
hyper-focus to get away as adistraction from the rest of
your life, but more becauseyou're just enjoying it and you
admit this is so much fun.
I don't want to stop doing it,but now it's time for me to go
home and be with my kids, orit's time for me to get out of
(27:57):
my off my home office and showmy face, because you have other
aspects of your life that areworking hopefully too or not
working, so you get help, yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
What are some of the like real unfortunate things
people with ADHD you find orstruggle with in corporate
settings?
I'm thinking specifically in mymind of like the way they're
maybe treated Like what are somesome signs that it's like this
culture is just maybe not for me.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Today's corporate culture is very different.
I never fit into the corporateworld myself.
I just never enjoyed it.
I never enjoyed sitting in acubicle or even an office where
it just felt isolating on somelevel.
I feel less isolated at homeworking with people on Zoom than
I did in an office setting.
(28:43):
But I'd say there's so manyaspects of the corporate world
that challenge people these daysand you know I do want to say
firsthand that not everycorporate situation is negative
for people.
There are some companies thatare getting it and making
strides in that area and theones that are at least trying,
(29:04):
you know they're the winners,they're the ones that are going
to get these productive adhdpeople when they figure that out
.
But part of figuring it outmeans you have to listen and you
have to be willing to make todo some accommodation work with
them.
But the accommodation, sothat's not answering the
corporate question.
That's a big question becauseit really depends on the
(29:25):
corporation, the ones that I seepeople working with now.
Very often the term soulcrushing kind of goes along with
it, and for many reasons I meanbecause people try and fit
themselves in with neurotypicalpeople and try and keep up and
it generally it might takelonger to do a task, so they're
(29:49):
just not getting as much done,they're not as productive or
they're being watched all thetime, they're being called on
the carpet.
You can't say you know, it'sreally not okay.
I don't think I don't recommendtelling people you have ADHD,
telling your boss.
You don't recommend that.
I do not.
What I recommend is somethingin the book and in the class we
(30:11):
cover very extensively, and thatis creating a
self-accommodation plan whereit's so extensive that you know
how your environment needs to beto function productively and in
a fulfilling kind of way.
I mean you know, sitting whereyou're sitting, doing what
you're doing, what yourenvironment needs to be right
(30:34):
and that's why you're successfuldoing what you're doing and why
I'm successful doing what I'mdoing, because I have that
rigged for myself.
But if you don't have a way todo that and number one, it
starts with understanding whatyou need and then being
uncompromising about only beingin work situations that will
allow certain you to have yourway accommodation wise.
(30:57):
And that doesn't always meandemanding the employer do it.
It means asking the rightquestions and letting them know
that if you, when you're able towork in this way, when you have
your environment kind of set upa certain way, you can be the
most productive person for themand make them a ton of money.
If that's the way you want toput it, they will have like a
top-notch employee.
It could be expressed as awin-win and a way to collaborate
(31:22):
more with the employer than tosay I need all this stuff, I
have to have all this stuff.
I demand you do this for me,because nobody responds well to
that.
It has to be a win-win and ithas to be with your knowledge of
what you need.
And if you don't create a planand really understand what it is
, how can you articulate it?
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Yeah for sure.
Even just going through thatexercise will probably help you
with your confidence to advocatefor yourself, because you at
least can articulate andunderstand what you need.
Sometimes you just have a sensethat you need something, but
you don't know what it is andyou feel kind of funny about it
and you feel kind of, you know,get that like kind of underlying
hum of like, oh, something'snot right.
You can never do anything aboutit, especially if you're in a
(32:03):
corporate setting where you feel, when you said, feeling watched
like that.
That just gives me theheebie-jeebies idea, does it?
Speaker 2 (32:15):
But so the idea of, doesn't it but so many people
are.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
So many people with adhd are being watched all the
time.
It's the word and that's theworst thing for us if you have
adhd and a little bit of anxietynot just in blue collar jobs
but in white collar jobs as well.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
There is a certain amount of surveillance that goes
on in a lot of companies andtime like being watched for how
long you take a break or howlong you when you're arriving or
leaving or whatever.
And the other thing ismandatory overtime, not getting
paid for it, and very often whenyou get a salary, you're just
(32:47):
expected to work 80 hours a week.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
You know that's just the norm these days yeah, I
remember my first job was acorporate job.
I'd say the culture of thecompany was actually pretty good
like it was.
The seating was open and it wasall about collaboration and
talking and whatever.
But I remember I was studyingfor my cfa.
Then I would go to lunch and Iwould study for a while
(33:14):
definitely longer than you know,I guess what would be deemed an
acceptable lunch break andafter a while, you know my my
supervisor was like got to stopdoing that.
I mean, I'm getting all my jobdone.
My job here is very repeatableand it's the same thing every
day and I'm getting it all done.
You're not giving me anythingelse to do, like that's a big
deal.
I'm stretching it all done.
You're not giving me anythingelse to do Like what's the big
(33:34):
deal?
I'm stretching my brain here.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Maybe I'll use that to benefit your health, that's a
perfect example of how ADHDpeople don't fit into that
environment.
Very often not all.
When I say ADHD people, I meanit's everybody's different.
Some people can, but I thinkthe ones that try and fit
themselves in you know thesquare peg in a round hole kind
of thing eventually break downand need to get out or find or
(34:00):
end up with in burnout or end upin the HR office.
Hrs are there are people thatwork for the company.
They don't really work for theemployees, so that's not always
the same.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Yeah, and if I didn't have such fear of letting
people down or I wasn't overlycompliant, I would have just
kept doing it.
So I'd be like I would havedecided that it's actually
better for this company in thelong run.
If you, let me study for this,because then I can use this
knowledge to do better serviceto these clients that we're
serving.
So what's the big deal if I'mgetting all my job done?
That should be part of your jobis to do that studying yeah I'm
(34:34):
like, was the only one around, Iwould go to eat lunch and pull
out the textbook and I wouldstart reading it.
You know, I'm reading atextbook on finance alone during
lunch, instead of going backand pretending to work and
chatting with people.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
You know so it's and they're calling you on the
carpet for that.
Yeah, how ridiculous is that?
Speaker 1 (34:52):
it's funny though, because, like the supervisor who
did it was, he was a friend,but it's because it's being fed
down to him for the middlemanager who's who's who's a jerk
, and no one likes him and hefeels like he's got like a
little god complex and likes tokeep everybody in check, which
is like okay, and even like theperson who told me he was like
yeah, then you, oh gosh, theoverlords or what, have caught
(35:14):
on to me and they can't say itto my face, even though I can
see all of my managers fromwhere I'm sitting.
They had to go to do chain ofcommand, just like no, that's
the term chain of command givesme the heebie-jeebies.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Anyway, you'll love that.
One of my favorite exercises isthe converting dislikes to
must-haves.
So you take all the things thatyou really the conditions you
hate in your workplace or in thework environment, and I break
them down into physical andnon-physical.
Non-physical being the culture,by the way, and the chain of
(35:50):
command kind of thing.
That would be anothernon-physical.
But to say all the things youhate on the left-hand side, like
you draw a line down the middleon the left, you put all the
things you hate and then weconvert, you go back to the top
and then you take the very firstone you wrote.
And what is the other side ofthat for you?
So if micromanaging is numberone, the other side of that
(36:12):
might be more flexibility.
You know environment, that'smore flexible, where I am
trusted to get the work donewithin a certain timeframe,
where somebody is not breathingdown my neck all the time and
with expectations that are notrealistic, necessarily, all of
those things that you can.
For each person it's different,right?
(36:33):
So I say there's no opposite,necessarily.
There's just the other side foryou.
That's a very freeing exerciseto do.
It's just to just regurgitateall of it and say what you don't
like.
That's one of the steps togetting real and honest with
yourself, you know, and notbeing afraid to just come out
with it.
And in the the class, when Ihave people do that and they
(36:55):
read their list, it's sometimesit's just like people are you
should see the head bobbing.
That goes on yeah, I bet notjust the head bobbing, but
people going oh my gosh, you'reso right I forgot about that one
.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Some of the things might be hard to admit.
I imagine too, like part in thesense that like well, I should
be able to just handle this onmy own, but like and just
accepting that like no, I doneed like, an environment that's
like positive, positivelyaffirming, not using negative or
fear to incentive or, you know,to get you working.
Because a lot of us adhders, wethrive on the reminders of, of
(37:31):
feeling appreciated by ouremployer and by because, for me,
as soon as you put me into anegative, you start triggering
all the inadequacy of like ohgosh, I'm going to fail, like
that shuts you down.
I mean that you can't even dogood work if you're in a
heightened anxiety state becauseof that kind of thing.
So exactly.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
You can't do it and some people get rebellious.
You know, there's that littlerebellious thing inside of each
one of us.
With ADHD.
We have something that we canbe very rebellious about when
we're told things have to be acertain way, and that's why you
see many people like me workingindependently, and maybe you as
(38:09):
well.
I can't work for other people.
I just it took me not very longWell, it took me maybe five
years of working for someoneelse, doing something, doing the
work I really liked, but it wasthe working for someone else
part right To realize that I hadto be on my own and I didn't
ever want to work for anyoneagain and I never looked back.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Yeah, how many people in your classes come to the
conclusion that they want topursue entrepreneurship?
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Well, okay.
So the definition to me ofentrepreneurship is more
starting something like astartup kind of thing, where you
have a team of people andyou're raising money, capital
and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Or self-employed, working for yourself.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Self-employed is, to me, different.
It's more you're doingsomething that you're trained to
do, but you're just doing it onyour own.
You're not necessarily starting, but you have the ability to do
whatever you want with it.
So it could become veryentrepreneurial at some point,
but you're just actually for me.
I was just taking the work thatI already did and you know I
got my own office and my ownstationery and did it my way.
(39:14):
I wasn't answering to anyone.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
I still call you an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
I am because I started.
I started a company called KidsArt.
That was entrepreneurial I'mvery entrepreneurial actually,
but I don't.
Sometimes it can beoverwhelming for people to start
out with the idea ofentrepreneurship versus just
let's do something on my own fora while and see how that feels.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Yeah, I guess that is a that's a useful distinction.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Yeah, I knew when I tried to raise capital for this
one company, I hated doing thatso much that I just it shut the
whole thing down for me.
I hated raising capital, god Ihate.
Some people are good at it.
That's their job, but not me.
It wasn't anything I feltcomfortable doing.
Asking for money and pitchingpeople, blah, blah, blah.
(40:02):
I just didn't love it.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
Also, you know, once you get capital and investors,
then you're kind of back toworking for someone else.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Exactly, that was the other thing that was.
The unspoken thing is that nowyou have an obligation to these
investors yeah, a big one.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Bootstrapping is the way to go exactly, I will 100.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Everything I did was bootstrapped, really, and the
one that that wasn't was the one.
I needed capital and it didn'twork.
But it was a great idea becauseI'm very entrepreneurial but I
love working on my own.
Doing this work has allowed meto do so many cool things with
what I'm doing that that's whatI want for other people to feel
that freedom, in whatever formit comes.
(40:45):
I don't know, I think workingfor someone getting back to
owing investors, I really thinkpeople need to think twice about
that with ADHD, I really do.
Unless you have your, havecarved out your position to be
exactly the way it works for you, environmentally and
accommodation wise, so you, youcould at least have the freedom
(41:09):
to do that.
Yeah, I hear you?
Speaker 1 (41:11):
I think definitely, when I was saying
entrepreneurship, I was in mymind, I was thinking just
working for yourself, just beingyour own boss in some capacity.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
Yes, being your own boss Absolutely 100%.
What I always tell people islook, you probably will work for
somebody first, especially ifyou're starting something new,
and I always say don't do ituntil you know exactly what you
want and you've gone throughthis process first, so that you
can identify what you want, andthen working for someone else is
(41:42):
more about laying thefoundation for how to do it, so
you can take it on the road anddo it yourself.
Yeah, absolutely, isn't thattrue?
I did that for five yearsbefore I took off and did my own
thing.
I worked for two employers andI got to do whatever I wanted
because I was top of the line atthe company, because I was
(42:02):
doing what I loved.
But then the company became thesecond company was mom and pop
that went corporate and I said,no, that's it, I'm out of here.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Yeah, going into a job, knowing before that this is
a means to an end that's muchmore freeing, helps you probably
emotionally get during that jobto be like to keep that in the
back of your mind, but also youthen are also in the back of
your mind or thinking about allthe ways that you could improve
or how you're going to do itwhen you're on your own and
learning, soaking all of theexperience in a way that's
(42:33):
applying it to what you're goingto be doing.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
It just makes it all more purposeful and much more it
does and it makes it easier towork for someone else when you
know, oh, this is like, this islike my training, this is my
schooling and I'm going to do agreat job, so I can.
I can really feel good about it,but you are, you're doing
something that you actuallyenjoy for someone else first,
(42:56):
but you're learning the ropesand I always, like I said, kind
of getting back to what I tellpeople is that you may work for
somebody for a while for thatpurpose, right, or even just in
general, because a lot of peoplewith ADHD I mean I've seen
people work for 20 years for thesame employer with ADHD somehow
they did it, but then work for20 years for the same employer
with ADHD somehow they did it,but then at some point it's
(43:18):
going to fall apart because theADHD part of your brain is going
to catch up and then somethingwill happen where things will go
awry, it will crash at somepoint, and then it's time to
really look at what is it that Ireally want and go from there.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
Yeah, I could just see it being as simple as like
one day you wake up and, justlike, I don't really feel like
going in today, I've lost allengagement in this, and then
that could be planting the seedfor ultimately be let go just
because, like you're just nolonger, you don't have any of
your heart in it.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
There's no way to avoid this process.
When I first started doing thisI'm going to be honest all I
could think of in the back of mymind is why isn't every human
being on the planet who has theability to go to school, take
classes, live, get their needsmet or whatever?
Why isn't everyone doing thisprocess, doing something like
(44:13):
this before they make thesecritical decisions Like even
going to college, even gettinginto taking a training program,
doing anything literally?
Why would they not do somethinglike this first?
And I never really said it outloud because I thought, oh,
that's too much selling.
You know you're selling and Ihated the idea of selling.
(44:35):
But I know, looking back afterall these years, that without
going through something likethis and unless you're really
happy with what you're doingwhich is very cool and 100%
support continuing along thatpath but at some point at least
with ADHD, you must do this.
You must do something, andthat's why I wrote the book.
(44:58):
It's at least for people whocan't invest in the class and I
can't, obviously, it's just meand one other person teaching
the class now.
But the book is a good way toget started and there are ways
to do that with other people andI wanted to get into the hands
of teachers, so that you knowthat's why I say it's for teens
so that high school teachers canstart giving their students
(45:22):
this information, taking themthrough a process.
So before they decide on acollege, before they decide on a
degree, certainly in the firsttwo years of college is another
time to do it.
Certainly in the first twoyears of college is another time
to do it.
If you haven't decided on amajor, or if you are unemployed
and you can't figure out what,how to take the skills, or even
(45:42):
figure out the skills that youhave that you want to use, and
maybe what industries you coulduse them in where it would make
sense, and you could thenarticulate all that to an
employer.
This process will help you getat least and the book is a good
start, as long as you do thewhole damn thing and you have
(46:03):
somebody else to work with to doit.
So yes, it should be in everyunemployment office.
It should be in every highschool, every career center and
colleges.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
And parents.
I'm thinking of parents too.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
Well, that's the next one.
Parents and teachers and alsothe entire mental health
professional.
That means psychologists, thatmeans therapists, that means
psychiatrists.
They should all have access toit, because a lot of the issues
that come up for people arecareer-related issues.
They up for people are careerrelated issues.
They can help people, you know,start to break that down with
(46:39):
their clients, and so it shouldbe in the hands of all of those
professionals, and that was mygoal.
It was, you know, I'm gettingup there in age.
No, oh yeah, I don't sound likeit, because I have ADHD and we
kind of run young, don't we?
Speaker 1 (46:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
We run young.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
Yeah, the brains keep firing, can't slow it down.
Speaker 2 (46:59):
I'm a boomer baby.
I'm a boomer.
When you hit the boomercategory, you start thinking
about what legacy do you want toleave?
You know what do you want toleave the world?
And this book was the onlything I could, was the one thing
I thought would be a reallygood something to leave the
world.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
I think it's a great thing to leave the world and I
think this is something that,like, I'm already thinking about
with my kids.
I'd be like, whether or notthey have ADHD, like, hey, we're
going to do this book together.
Yeah, before you go off tocollege because if I'm paying
for your college to some extent,I'm not, I don't want to, I'm
not paying for four years offloating around drinking all the
time I want you to have an ideaand like get a little bit
(47:40):
pumped up about.
Like, like, having an idea ofwhat you want to do.
That really makes a difference.
Yeah, you can't avoid figuringit out by doing a book like this
.
If you do this book and you'renot faking it, you're gonna
learn to learn some stuff.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
You're going to learn some stuff, and if you ignore
it, it's at your own consequence.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Yeah, you could do a book and learn it and then learn
a bunch of stuff Makes a lot ofsense and ignored for 10 years.
But then you can just go rightback to the book and be like, oh
wait, you still have it there.
So even if you forget it andyou go off track, you can kind
(48:20):
of re go back and be like, ohwait, I did this book and it
looks like from this, thesenotes.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
I have that actually somehow saved, that I'm not in
alignment with any of it, so Ishould get back on track.
Exactly, yeah, so it'savailable now on my website,
which is probably the best placeto get it, because then I have
sometimes I have like 15%discounts on it.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
So can I say my website, you can say all the
things that you need to say.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Say all the things.
Buy the book, guysCareercoachingmichellecom, which
will take you topassion2careercom.
So it's either one of thosePassion to Career or Career
Coaching Michelle.
And you click on coursebook andit gives you it's like an
author's page.
It gives you like a descriptionand some cool stuff.
(48:58):
I think it's got some reviewsin there on Amazon at launch in
January it's it's got fivereviews and Amazon holds onto
those.
I don't know why.
Boy, so many people havereviewed who said that it hasn't
shown up yet.
So I know there's more reviewskind of waiting, but those five
are pretty cool.
So you can get it there too.
(49:18):
And the book is called yeah,nobody knows the name of the
book that helps Shell.
That helps.
It's called A Course for Adultsand Teens Unlock your Career
Path.
Unlock your Career Path.
Even if you put Unlock yourCareer Path, it'll probably come
up.
Or you put my name, shelMendelson, m-e-n-d-e-l-s-o-n.
Plenty of ways to get it.
(49:38):
And once you get a copy of it,when you start using it and you
start seeing kind of the ease ofuse or any of that a review
would be fantastic.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
I would love it.
I'll be sure to give it areview and if I don't, then I
will do it once you remind me.
Take a minute to tell theaudience who may be listening to
this, I don't know Pump them up, inspire them to pursue this.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
You mean everything we've been talking about hasn't
done that Okay.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Tied in a bow A little pep talk.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Yeah, if you are ready to really get some clarity
and focus on what it is youwanna do in work and career,
look no further.
This is it.
This is the book.
Look no further.
This is it.
And that's for people evenwithout ADHD.
Obviously, the process is foreveryone.
It does focus heavily on peoplewith ADHD, but we all know that
(50:33):
.
That just means that it makesit clearer for everyone else
when it's written the right way.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
That's all I've ever.
That's been the biggestepiphany I've had.
And when you make somethingADHD friendly, you're just
making it for everyone.
Speaker 2 (50:45):
That's true.
So anyone and everyone shouldbe grabbing a copy of when
they're ready to actually getsome clarity and be real with
themselves.
You know about.
This is what I want, this iswhat this is me, this is who I
am.
I'm ready.
Speaker 1 (51:02):
Yeah, I flipped through the whole thing or
scroll, and I suppose I have adigital version and it's full of
pictures, it's full ofexercises, it's full of places
to write stuff or I don't know.
It just looks good.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
And the physical version is so much better and
I'm going to send you thephysical version.
I'm sending you the physicalversion.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
Oh sweet, yeah, it's solid.
I feel like you this would beespecially for so many of my
clients.
If you're listening and you'renot totally happy in your career
and you got one life, what doyou got to really lose by
exploring what it would looklike to have a more fulfilling
career?
Speaker 2 (51:40):
I want to say it's mandatory, but I guess I can't
say that.
I should say it's mandatory forlife.
Speaker 1 (51:45):
Yeah, most of us will spend eight hours a day, five
days a week, working a lot oftime in your life.
You might as well try andconfigure a way to make that
time you've spent give you a lotmore than just a paycheck that
helps you live the other partsof your life.
Speaker 2 (52:01):
And then, when you get rich because you're doing
what you love, you can startusing David to work with your
investments.
Find the right investments.
That's right.
Speaker 1 (52:10):
So I'm gonna let you go, but thank you so much for
hopping on for a chat.
That was fun.
I think it was great.
I think people will get a lotout of that.
So thank you so much forjoining.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
Thanks for having me, david, it was so much fun.
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