55: Welcome to our ADHD Founders podcast!
Hey, Marie. How's it going?
Marie:It's going good. How are you?
Jesse:I am doing great. And, Sharon, how are you doing?
Sharon:Oh, great. Thanks for asking, Jesse.
Jesse:We are kicking off this new podcast if you were already subscribed to the weekly build, and now we are pivoting and calling it ADHD founders and welcoming a third host, Sharon Pope. Sharon, why don't you start us off and do kind of an intro about yourself so listeners, you know, get your story?
Sharon:Yes. Well, so on this podcast, we we all three are ADHD founders, and we're excited to talk about the chaos of being founders and also dealing with ADHD and shiny objects and all those fun things, and how it helps us and how it sometimes can be challenging. I am one of said ADHD founders. I have a company called Shelfful. It rhymes with helpful.
Sharon:And we make a service that helps you get your stuff done, helps you stick to your tasks and habits. And, I built it off of my very own struggle with, at the time, undiagnosed ADHD where I just prayed that I could have a little purse just just like you guys sitting on my shoulder telling me to drink water or to step outside or to actually take care of myself when I was taking such good care of my work, working crazy hours, and take care of my family. And I, like, couldn't remember if I took a sip of water. So I wanted this so desperately, so I made it. So, essentially, you text with, an AI task manager, and you can add a human coach onto that chat.
Sharon:So you have this support system and hype squad that chats with you, reminds you to do your stuff, and keeps you going and makes you feel less alone in all the stuff. Before I did Shelfful, I was working in Silicon Valley as, head of marketing, head of product. I worked at a lot of startups, and I worked at y Combinator, which is kind of like the Harvard of startups. Yes. I've heard of it.
Jesse:So so
Sharon:I worked in house there as, like, a marketing adviser. And so I've seen a lot of companies be built, and I've heard from a lot of smart founders. And I will tell you, you can hear all this stuff, but it doesn't ever prepare you for actually building a company yourself. So I feel I'm in the throes of it and always excited to be able to talk to fellow founders because we we share the same struggles and plus one for ADHD founders because we all have so much in common.
Jesse:Totally. Totally. Yeah. I I love the idea of Shhelpful, and we've partnered before with different things. I did a course, and we connected with Shhelpful, and, people loved that.
Jesse:Found it really helpful using Shhelpful to get those, reminders. Yeah. I think that's great.
Sharon:And, Marie, we did too. That's kind of how we all well, how I know you you too is just Yeah. Partnering.
Marie:Yeah. We did a little partnership thing where we everyone that was doing shelf full was also using my product.
Sharon:Llama Life.
Marie:Llama Life.
Sharon:So on that, Marie, do you wanna tell us a little about yourself and Llama Life?
Marie:Sure. So my name is Marie Ng, and I make an app called Llama Life, which helps people with ADHD with tasks and routines. And the way Lama Life is different is, it allows you to create a list of things that you wanna do, but for every single task on your list, you can easily attach a countdown timer. And similar to Sharon, this kind of came out of my own struggles. It was something that I really wanted for myself because I found that timers really help me focus and, you know, specifically short timers.
Marie:And there are a lot of apps out there that kinda let you do something similar, but usually the timers that they let you set a longer, like, twenty five minutes. But I really wanted something that would let you set, like, one minute or five minutes super quickly. So I actually built the first version of Llama Life during, like, COVID lockdowns, And it wasn't actually meant to be a product for people. It was just meant to be for myself because I was also, teaching myself how to code, and I'd learned a lot of theory, but I hadn't actually put it into practice. So Llama Life was actually like, the first version was just me trying to practice what I learned.
Marie:And I put it on, x, which was Twitter back then, and immediately someone said, oh my god. What is this? Like, where can I get this? And I just said, well, oh, it's it's nothing. Like, it's just a little project that I'm doing.
Marie:You can't actually get it. And, I continued to share my journey of building this product. And more and more people just kept saying, like, I want this. I want this. So I was like, okay.
Marie:Well, you know what? Let me see if I can make it into something more. And I always came at it from a learning perspective, so there was not as much pressure at the beginning like you would get from a traditional startup because I wasn't thinking it was gonna be really big. I was just thinking, like, oh, I'll I'll learn more stuff by adding more things to it and building a website and adding payments or subscriptions, etcetera, and it was all from a learning perspective.
Sharon:And building it for yourself, which is And building
Marie:it for myself.
Sharon:Like, let's underline that a bunch because
Marie:Yeah.
Sharon:Like, that's the best the best products have come from people solving their own problem. I think that's
Marie:Every every feature I put in was like, I really need this, and I can't find this anywhere. And even if I could find us something a little bit similar, it wasn't exactly how I wanted it. And one of the things with Lama Life is, like, I try and make it, like, a bit whimsical and fun and very simple, deceptively simple, I would say, but I like this fun, quirky element, and I always try and build that in. So a lot of it is just, like, what I wanted to do, and somehow it's kinda resonated with, a group of people as well, and it kinda just has grown from there.
Sharon:It's also beautiful design. It's just it's very lucky. Yeah.
Marie:Yeah. And, before Lama Life, I had done a couple of other start ups, but I'd also worked in corporate in, like, advertising, branding kind of world. So, yeah, I try and kinda bring some of that into into the business side as well, combining, doing, you know, software development design, and also branding and marketing. And, Jesse, what about what about you?
Jesse:Yeah. So I'm kind of, a weird, founder. I don't even necessarily think of myself as a founder usually, but I guess I should because I've I have a company and it makes money and things like that. It's just not a SaaS product, so it feels sort of different. But I am so I have a creator business.
Jesse:So I have I have, like, a paid newsletter. I'm an author. I have a book, so I have money coming in, you know, that way for selling my book. And I also do, you know, just content creation, YouTube videos, and a lot of stuff on social media. And that's sort of the the base of what I do, but I'm I am also a designer and developer.
Jesse:So I've, like, been doing that for most of my life, and I have app ideas that I kinda feel like this is gonna be fun on the podcast because I'm right in the midst of working on, like, a baby app that I'm hoping to launch soon. And so it'll be fun where we can sort of talk about strategies with that and sort of,
Sharon:like, see the different stages. An app about babies? Or No. No. No.
Sharon:No. No. No. A
Marie:baby idea.
Jesse:A baby an a brand new idea that Got it. Is not yeah. It's has not yet reached, MVP, the minimum viable product. But that's the goal is to really try and hit that quickly so that we can get, people using it. And then, hopefully, you know, hopefully, that will become kind of my full time thing, in addition to the creator business that I have, which, if you don't know me, the create the content creation I do is all about ADHD.
Jesse:So I found out that I had it in my mid thirties. And then a few years later, after learning everything I could about it, I started writing about it online. And, actually, there was a writing challenge called ship 30 for 30. And I, prior to that, had no aspirations to be a writer. But for some reason, something about that challenge, like, sparked that little novelty part of my brain.
Jesse:I was like, oh, that sounds fun. And I thought I was gonna write about, like, design and, like, other things, but I also wanted to write a few things about ADHD because I'd learned a bunch of stuff. And that was clearly the content, like, that people were interested in. Like, a lot of people were wanting more and more, and so I just kinda kept writing about that.
Marie:And it's so relatable. Yeah. And that's actually how we met because Yeah. You had a ship 30 for 30, little article that you wrote, which was on Twitter x. And I saw it, and I think I made a comment, and then we started DMing maybe.
Marie:And
Jesse:Yeah. Something something like that.
Marie:Throws me through that.
Jesse:Right. Because back then, when I started ship 30 for 30, I'd been on Twitter since 02/2007, so it had been, like, a really long time. But my Twitter following was, like, maybe a thousand people. And so which on Twitter is, like, everybody has a thousand people. That's, like, nothing.
Jesse:And then now it's since then, it's exploded. But I remember that yeah. I remember meeting around that time and connecting with you and other people on Twitter with ADHD. It was fun watching kind of all of the things with Llama Life, like, develop as you were just sort of, you know, building showing your work along the way, which is awesome.
Marie:And, you know, the other cool thing is, like, you know, this is a podcast about building businesses and ADHD and how it presents challenges with building businesses. But the cool thing is that we all have businesses at different stages. So, you know, you're saying, oh, building Llama Life in in public on Twitter. Just for some additional context, Llama Life's been around for about four years now, I would say. And, Jesse, you're thinking about building a little baby or a business that's in its infancy, like, right at the beginning.
Marie:And, Sharon, how long has Shell four been around for?
Sharon:We've been doing it for since 2021. So similar to you, Marie, I, like, I want to answer two years. Like, I that's the what I wanna say, but it's just not true. It's flown by. It's way longer than it feels like.
Jesse:How big is your company? Like, how many do you have employees, stuff like that?
Sharon:Yes. So Shelfful, we have I have two other cofounders, and then we have a software developer. And we have some contractors who we work with for design, and we have, you know, accountability coaches who help our members, and they work as a contractor as well. So we it's, like, ten ninety nine contractors, kind of, like, Uber Uber for accountability. And so, yeah, we have we're still a pretty small team, and we're, purposely small.
Sharon:I you know, I think that we're hiring is the fastest way to spend a lot of money. So we really try to hold back on any of those instincts to hire unless we kind of prove there's a job there, and that job can kinda pay for itself in a matter of speaking. So, yeah, we're purposely small.
Marie:Mhmm. Yep. And I'm going through an interesting transition at the moment where, Llama Life started off as just myself, and then I hired two people to help me with it. But recently, I just had to, unfortunately, make some cuts and had to let those two people go. Nothing to do with them.
Marie:They were amazing people, and we loved working together. But the business couldn't survive paying three people, basically. So I'm back to being myself doing all the different roles in a business, which has a lot of challenges, and we can talk about that during the pod. But that's kinda where I'm at as well. It's kind of a very big change.
Marie:This just happened at the end of twenty twenty four, so, two months ago, and I'm still kind of adjusting to it, but it's it's been interesting. It's a different kind of business now.
Sharon:When Marie and I were talking about it, I was like, so you're a cockroach. And she was like, I think you were like, what? I was like, oh, no. No. No.
Sharon:No. It's a good thing. I was, like, Paul Graham, like, famous startup guy, investor, and, leader and prolific writer about startups. He would call people cockroaches, famously, could survive an apocalypse. And so that that to him was the what a high compliment, which meant a founder had grit.
Sharon:They had, like, decision making and judgment to to slim down, reduce, and just survive while they figure things out. And not that yeah. So I was that was I I remember reading my face. I
Marie:was like, oh. I was like,
Sharon:wait. Wait. Wait. No. No.
Marie:It was
Jesse:Not an insult. Not an insult.
Marie:Yeah. Yeah.
Sharon:Yeah. I want someone to call me a cockroach someday. I don't know if I am a cockroach yet. Well, I think and a lot of the biggest startups and most successful startups we know were cockroaches at some point. Like, Airbnb almost died a million times.
Jesse:Because they were, like, 20 different companies that just sort of cockroached and rolled into the next sort of company they wanted to be until they found something that really worked for them, which is awesome.
Sharon:Until they could find an investor, they financed their company with taking out a bunch of personal credit cards and you know? So they they they really slugged their way through it. But, you know, those are until you find the audience and find the, you know, that product market fit, that's the best thing you can do sometimes as a founder.
Marie:You gotta kind of think about what's most important. And for me, it was like trying to keep the product alive because a lot of people were are depending on it, and that was the only way to keep it alive was to go, okay. We're gonna make some really tough decisions, and it was probably one of the hardest things I've had to do, actually. It's so hard telling someone, like, you don't have a job anymore and,
Sharon:you know, obviously tried to working with?
Marie:We we loved yeah. We loved working with each other. We had so much fun, and a lot of people said to us, like, that came through in our comms, in our socials, in our newsletters. And they were saying, you know, a large part of why they use the product is because they like our vibe. And, you know, that's a very hard thing to create.
Marie:And, well, I I guess it's it sort of just happened naturally, which is the nice thing. Like, it's truly hard to manufacture something like that. So to get it naturally was, like, such a bonus and such a pleasure to work with these folks every day. So it was so hard doing you know, telling them that and, obviously, harder for them because they had to go find something else. It had to be done to keep the product alive and, you know, keep working on it and see where it goes.
Sharon:Yeah. That's hard. And, Jesse, do you what's your operation, like, for extra focus?
Jesse:About a year ago, I was, like, trying to find like, maybe I could hire a virtual assistant that could help us with some stuff. And I did that for three months, and it did not work out. And I mostly blame myself. Like, the person I hired, they were great. I was just not prepared to give them enough.
Jesse:Like, my hope was they were just going to magically, like, know all the things to do and, like, ask me for the thing like, take a lot of my problems away, and that kinda wasn't what happened. So that's what initially, I think when we started doing that, it I had some very clear tasks, and were able to tackle those, get those done, which worked really well. And it was amazing. And then I was kinda hoping for them to take on some other stuff, and it just kinda didn't work out. And then I was like, I'm spending just as much time trying to get this rolling, and I don't think it's it's going to help out the way that I want.
Jesse:So I've stopped doing that, and I'm just sort of doing it myself. But I do unlike both you, like, I have I have a separate full time job. So I'm doing managing a lot of this stuff in my spare time, which I, you know, I have a family. I've got you know, I'm married with three kids. And so that available time is pretty limited.
Jesse:My hope is that, at some point, maybe this year, hopefully this year, things would change to where I could be like, oh, yeah. I'm doing this full time. And maybe this new baby app that's not baby related, could be part of that.
Sharon:I just thought I should clarify. You're a dad. I know.
Jesse:No. No. That's a good good clarification.
Marie:There's a big market for baby wipes. You know?
Jesse:Yeah. For sure. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm not gonna be the one to do it.
Jesse:But, yes, my my kids are past that stage. So, my kids are in there, like like, eight to eight to 14. I do think one thing that works really well, like, thinking of my own sort of, unfair advantage for this app that I'm going to be, like, building and working on is that I have an audience. And so I kind of have a built in customer pool that I can, like, reach out to my audience and anyone that's within that group that's interested, like, that helps because I don't have to advertise to start with to build that audience. Like, I always have
Marie:to be
Sharon:advantage or something you worked really hard to build. I mean, I unfair
Jesse:I've I mean, there's a book called, unfair advantage or the I have something like that. And the idea in the book is that everybody has unfair advantages.
Sharon:Yeah.
Jesse:And so you you just need to kinda figure out what yours are and lean into them. And so Yeah. That was that's one of the things I said. I happen to have this thing that, yes, I worked really hard and built it, which is awesome. But because I have it, like, I should use that.
Jesse:And kinda like what you both were saying about, like, building a product solving your own problem, I guess I'm sort of dancing around it because I'm not quite announcing the app yet. But it is, like, solving kind of my own problem, my own difficulty, and that's what the app will be working on. So we'll probably talk about that more in a future episode.
Sharon:And being tapped into a community, obviously, yeah, you worked really hard to build your specific community, but there is a I mean, there's a community for every product that somebody might want to build. And I think that
Jesse:Right.
Sharon:Like, a first great step is immersing yourself in that. If you're not solving your own problem, if you're solving your, like, husband's problem or, you know, if there's someone who's close to you that you're kind of focused on for a product, like, digging in and just living and breathing and sitting among it, I think, can help you because you feel the problems more tangibly. And you you and I think that a lot of us probably, but I'll speak for myself, I thought that I was the only one who had the problems that I had. And
Jesse:Right. Yeah.
Sharon:Which which, I guess, bringing it back to ADHD, which mostly I now attribute to ADHD. But I was like, why am I excelling at work, but I, like, can't make a dentist appointment? And all those things where I just judge myself so harshly for. And it wasn't until I launched Shelfful and people signed up saying, I have ADHD. I have ADHD.
Sharon:This will help me because I have ADHD. And I was like, woah. I've asked doctors multiple times if I had this, and they very confidently told me no. And Right. I think someone was messing with me.
Sharon:So, I mean, I had I was almost diagnosed initially by my own customers, and then I had that opportunity to dig in more and learn more about my brain and just know that I wasn't the only one, which gave me a lot of fuel to keep building because it wasn't just yes. It started just for me, but I very quickly felt that it was for more than me. Like, I would I was actually helping other people.
Marie:Yeah. In in terms of, like, my ADHD origin story, I was diagnosed later as well, like, in my, like, thirties and at when I was at work. And I I mean, I had these issues for going back to childhood, obviously, and just never really knew what what's what's the problem was. It's like, why do I have this problem? Like, why am I I always trying so much having to try so much harder for certain things?
Marie:But there was a lot of masking going on for, like, a lot of my adult life, which I didn't realize. You know, it'd be so bad that I'd go to work and I'd be masking, and I'd get home and I'd be so exhausted, and I couldn't figure out why I was so exhausted. It was cause I was trying to fit into a structure, a neurotypical kind of structure or corporate environment that wasn't really for me. And I was quite lucky in the sense that one of my coworkers, has ADHD, and I I was sitting literally sitting, like, right next to him and kinda describing all these issues that I was having. And, he just looked at me and said, oh, I I think you have ADHD.
Marie:And I was like, no. Like, it never even crossed my mind. Like, not once ever crossed my mind that I could have ADHD.
Jesse:That's because of the whole, ADHD having the PR problem where everyone's heard of it, but everyone thinks it's something totally different.
Marie:Everybody thinks it's young young boys who are super, like, hyperactive, physically hyperactive, running the circles and disrupting. And, you know, I I was disrupting in other ways. But Talked
Sharon:a lot in class?
Marie:I I didn't know. I talk a lot in in class, but I was I'd get up a lot. And that wasn't as noticeable in the classroom because it's it's probably a masking thing as well, but I'm not about to get up and just walk around the classroom, whereas in a corporate environment, I get up whenever I want. I'll get up and I'll go to the bathroom. I'll get up and I'll make a coffee.
Marie:I'll get up to go talk to someone. But I was very I was moving around all the time, and we had an open plan office. And my boss actually sat opposite me in this open plan office. And when I got my performance review, it was always stuff like, oh, you're, you know, you're doing really well, doing great, but you get up, like, way too much, and you're distracting other people because I'm in her eye line as well where I she's looking right opposite me, and she's like, you're just getting up all the time. Like, you need to, like, stay seated more.
Marie:You know? It's just little things like that that get mentioned, but that's hyperactivity in a different way. That's like a restlessness.
Jesse:Yeah.
Marie:There's also hyperactivity mentally. Right? You're kind of thinking about a lot of things and, to the point where it sort of your brain flatlines. At least this happens to me. It's not that I'll have this thing where, like, my brain's going hundred miles an hour, but at some point, it can't handle it, so it just flatlines.
Marie:And then everything just is like a haze, and it's like you're in, like, brain fog. That's to me, that's what brain fog is. My brain got too hyper and can't deal with it, so it just shut down.
Sharon:And, helpfully, sometimes, or is the is hyperactivity manifesting as hyperfocus where you are the, like, unstoppable creature who can get anything done and, like, which is why, you know, your boss might think, wow, you can do anything because I you kind of are a dog with a bone if there's something that's interesting to you or if there's something that is, like, has really serious deadlines that are looming. You know? A deadline like, deadline a deadline tomorrow, like, is just a drug for someone with ADHD.
Marie:Yeah.
Sharon:Yeah. But, yeah, no one yeah. And women specifically, I guess, just to say say that because of this stigma that is all little boys bouncing off the walls. I was liter I mean, two two different times. I was seriously like, I don't know what's wrong with me.
Sharon:I need like, this is and I'm like, my brother has ADHD. I
Jesse:Oh my gosh.
Sharon:Do I have this? Because I can't focus. And they're like, no. Wait. What kind of grades did you get?
Sharon:Well, you know, pretty pretty good grades. How are you doing at work? Good. I got I've gotten promoted a lot in the last two. And nope.
Sharon:You couldn't have it. It's not you wouldn't be doing well at work. And I was just like it was so I was like, okay. I guess. Yeah.
Sharon:Yeah. And it just you know, it's obviously hard to look back at those things because the diagnosis of ADHD was such a gift in just allowing myself to figure out systems that worked for me and not judging myself so harshly for the areas I felt lacking.
Jesse:Yeah. I I feel like that's the piece that a lot that that is really missing with the because I I hear that story a lot with somebody literally going to the doctor and, like, saying, hey. I think I have this, and just getting dismissed out of hand with the same sort of thing. Like, oh, you graduated college, so you can't possibly have ADHD or something like that. And it's like, yeah.
Jesse:But you don't know the amount of, like, shame and guilt and self blame that's happening
Marie:Yeah.
Jesse:Underneath for any of that to happen.
Sharon:And how many all nighters I pulled. You know? Like, that yeah. Like, what it looks like to have me get those grades and graduate.
Marie:But I know the behind the scenes. Like, I I remember just before, like, an English exam that we had, like, you where you gotta write a couple of essays on on books that you had the whole semester to read. I didn't read the books. And it was, like, the night before, and I'm like, oh my god. How am I gonna read it was two books.
Marie:I'm like, how am I gonna read these two books the night before? I gotta write two essays on them tomorrow. And I went out. I, this is, like, way back. This is kinda, like, maybe showing my age, but had to go to the store and get, like, the the video cassette of, of of these two books.
Marie:Like, they'd luckily, they'd made there's a one of them was a play, and it was, like, a a movie of the play, and another one was just a a film. So I rented both those things, those movies, and I watched them. And then I went to the exam the next day, and I just hoped that the movies were very similar to the books because they're based on the books. And I got a b plus.
Sharon:Yeah. Yep.
Jesse:There you
Marie:go. And and it's
Jesse:And then you're like, I'm never reading a book again.
Sharon:Books are a waste of time, clearly, except for your book, Jesse.
Jesse:Right. Of course.
Marie:Our English teacher said to us, like, you know, when you go into the exam, there's gonna be a few different questions. And some of the questions are gonna be, like, analytical questions, which are easier to write an essay around. And some are gonna be creative ones where you have to maybe pretend to be a character, He goes, don't pick the creative ones. It's really hard to get a good mark on a creative piece versus a more analytical, like, you're breaking down, like, a scene or a structure. And I get in, and I look at the questions, and I'm like, oh my god.
Marie:I can't answer, like, any of the analytical ones. I don't know. I can't I can't answer them based on this movie. So I was like, I'm gonna pick the creative question, and I just did that. And, yeah, it were and it worked out.
Marie:But this is to your point, Sharon, like, b plus, not too bad. That's that's a fairly decent mark. Right? And so they're like, yeah. You're good.
Marie:You're good.
Sharon:You're good.
Marie:Yeah. But you don't understand how it might be.
Sharon:Yeah. Exactly. The struggle behind you. Yeah.
Jesse:It's like, oh, you got a b plus. You have no problem. It's like, you just don't understand the behind the scenes.
Marie:Yeah. And you're like, it could have been an a plus. That's the other factors factors. Like, what could have been? It could have been so much better if I'd known what the problem was.
Jesse:Oh, and we're we're so good at knowing what things could have been.
Sharon:Could have been. Yeah.
Jesse:I always which is actually, like, with product work is makes it hard to ship stuff sometimes because I I definitely, in the past I've gotten better at it now. But in the past, like, I want the feature of this, you know, product I'm working on to be perfect. I have this vision of what it's like, and it's so hard to basically, I had to learn through experience of, like, releasing something early and just being like, okay. I want these three features, but I'm gonna move that down here to the, like, the the v version two column, and then let's ship the first one. And then what I what I ended up finding through experience, like, one, people loved the first version without those extra features, and two, I didn't care about those features as much.
Jesse:Once it was live, like, the little extra things I wanted to add to it in the time when I was working on it seemed critical. But then once that other thing was out is and people were using it, I was like, oh, probably it doesn't actually need that yet. We could maybe do that some later date or something.
Sharon:Yes. We should I would feel like we could do a whole episode sharing because I think those examples are super helpful, especially getting specific because I think we all well, we three know the ADHDers over index and being founders and entrepreneurs because we love that being able to work on things that interest us, and that's kind of the definition of an entrepreneur, except the paperwork. We don't like that. But the but that yeah. I mean, like, I'm craving hearing more about the story too, Jesse, where it is it it's hard for anyone to, I think, shred something down and feel really, like, what is that minimally viable product MVP that we always talk about in startup world.
Sharon:And, like, what does that look like, and how how can you just get it out? And and then how does it feel when it's out? I think that that's I'd love to dive more into that with all of us.
Marie:I've definitely experienced that too.
Jesse:Yeah. I think that would be that would be super fun.
Sharon:On a future episode, everyone. I wonder if because we kind of did the diagnosis thing a little bit. Maybe each of us or I don't know. Just kind of sharing Like, if I were entrepreneurial, if I were trying to think of a business, and I was wondering if I had an ad ADHD, what could you say to a doctor? What could you say to like, how can you put this in place?
Sharon:Because I almost feel like that was the question unanswered that maybe if someone was listening to this and wasn't diagnosed would have. Mhmm. I don't know. Yeah. Tell me what you think.
Marie:My tip would be write notes before you go in. So I went to a psychiatrist to get diagnosed, and the way that it gets diagnosed is by having a conversation with a psychiatrist, somebody who who specializes in ADHD. And they're gonna ask you a bunch of questions. And those questions are not all gonna be about, like, what did you do last week? They're gonna go all the way back to your childhood from about seven years old.
Marie:And if you're on the spot and you can't think of stuff, that is going to hinder the diagnosis. So I would spend time in advance just trying to think. Just write down all the different things and all the struggles that you've had going back to childhood with examples and Mhmm. Take that into your diagnosis session.
Jesse:I agree. That's something I often tell people. It's really easy to be like, oh, I think maybe I have this, and then schedule an appointment and then show up. And then they start asking questions and you don't know the answer because, like, I can't even remember back then. Like, oh, you're gonna ask about all these things.
Jesse:I had no idea that that was going to happen. So I recommend, like, carrying around, like, a little, like, field notes or something like a notebook with you so you can anytime you think of something that happened, you can write it down. Like, something that you feel in your life may have been related to ADHD, especially if it's, like, from your childhood because they'll ask a lot about that. It's almost like they're looking for reasons to dismiss your plea for diagnosis or whatever. And one of the things is if you have no stories from your childhood, they'll say, oh, it's probably something else.
Jesse:It's stress related or something else. Mhmm. So you wanna make sure you remember, and maybe it's like, maybe you need to talk with family member that'll help you remember some of the things. Because a lot of times, you'll reach out to someone and be like, hey. I'm trying to remember times that maybe, you know, evidence of when if I had ADHD or not.
Jesse:And someone might be like, oh, you definitely had it. Remember when you did this and this and this? And that'll really help you remember some of those, like, obvious signs that you can tell, you know, a practitioner that's looking to diagnose you. The other thing that they're gonna be looking for is that it affects you in your current situation and in multiple places. And so if it only affects you at your job and that's all you say, they might dismiss that because because the technical it's different in different countries.
Jesse:But I think Australia, where you're at, Marie, I think they also use the DSM five, which is what is used in The US. I'm actually
Marie:not sure because I got diagnosed in The US because I used to live in The
Jesse:US. Oh, okay. So yeah.
Sharon:I don't know.
Jesse:I feel I feel like they like, in Europe, they have a different similar sort of manual. But, anyway, the the the DSM five, which is in The US and several other countries, part of the diagnostic criteria is that it happens in two or more places. So that would be, like, work and home or, like, home and school or something like that. And so that's one thing they're gonna be looking for. And I really recommend just looking up the DSM five and what those things are.
Jesse:Or, hey. If you buy my book, I have them listed in there as well.
Sharon:Yes.
Jesse:There's three different presentations. And there's, like, a list of, like, eight symptoms and under each one. And then you have to have checked the box for, like, five or more of those to qualify or whatever for diagnosis, which is dumb because there's way more to ADHD than that criteria. But you want to educate yourself on that so that because they're not gonna advocate for you unless you're really lucky. So you really need to advocate for yourself in that process.
Jesse:And, like, if they if they say that sort of thing, like, oh, you graduated college or, oh, you're doing good in your job, then it's like, okay. Cool. Time for a different opinion because I'm not gonna this person clearly doesn't understand ADHD enough to actually diagnose me.
Sharon:First of all, plus one to everything you guys said. I just think the two things that are you may know more about ADHD than the doctor. I think and things have changed.
Jesse:Will. Yeah.
Sharon:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so that like, I I think that in addition to looking at the DSM five, look up or buy Jesse's book. Look up.
Sharon:But I think I'm not I can't remember if you touched on this, Jesse, is how different traits of ADHD manifest in different types of people, adults different than children, women different than men. And so just so you're you know, because you may not realize, oh, that's an inattentive trait. Like, I can't change my laundry. Inattentive trait. Like, you you're able to actually that, I think, helps fuel those notes that you guys mentioned because you actually are starting from a place of just better awareness of what actually is how an ADHD looks on a daily basis.
Sharon:And, yeah, I think that the difference between all the other times and the time I got diagnosed was I just had my my big advocate pants on. I wasn't gonna, like, if if I knew that if they're like, it's just anxiety, I would be able to say, well, my research shows that anxiety is actually comorbidity of untreated ADHD. Like, I feel anxious because I don't have tools to deal with what's going on. And I I was just able to kind of I knew enough at that point that I I knew that I was very confident I had it. And so, yeah, like Jesse said, I would have either found someone else.
Sharon:It was my primary care was kind of initial when I talked to, but I was able to navigate that, not not with any I honestly didn't have any specific intention other than just understanding myself better or being able to explain why I felt I sucked at life for my whole life at the age of 38. Like, that was my goal. And when I look back at that process, which was kind of a long process, that's what I value so much in that was just giving myself some grace. You know? Giving myself a break for those things that I felt I sucked at and then actually the journey of seeing them as assets rather than, you know, something that sucked.
Marie:Yeah. There there is a question about, do you even need to get diagnosed? And Right. You you need to think about, like, your reason for getting diagnosed. Not everybody needs to be.
Marie:I'm a bit similar to you, Sharon. Like, I I found it very validating. And in order to get medication, you do need a diagnosis for that. But if you're not planning to go on medication and maybe you don't need the validation or you're happy with your own validation that you'll go, well, I'm pretty sure that this is what's happening to me, and I I sort of know that. And because you know it and I think that's a really important thing that you know it.
Marie:Because for me, it was like, now that I know, I can actually look up self help, and I can figure out some, potential solutions. But when I didn't know, that's when things go get crazy because you can't figure out why these things are happening and what's, you know, quote, unquote wrong with you and, like, what's happened? Why can't I do this? So knowing was very important to me, but knowing doesn't equal getting a die you don't have to get a diagnosis to know. Right?
Marie:So I think, an important question to yourself would be, do I need a diagnosis? Like, am I happy without one? Like, if I feel confident enough that this is what's happening, don't need medication, or don't want medication, I'm okay. Like, I know myself, and that's fine. Like, so that could be another angle.
Marie:Like, you don't necessarily have to. Yeah. But it depends on your needs. Like, what do you what do you need?
Jesse:A couple things. I do wanna mention real quick. So we said DSM five, a few times. That stands for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition. So just DSM five in case anyone is, like, scrambling to what did they say?
Jesse:The b s like, trying to look it up. That's that's what it is. But, yeah, with that, I think, similarly, like, I when I first got diagnosed, my goal wasn't medication. I did end up trying some, and it didn't work out, but that's a whole maybe we'll talk about that
Marie:on a
Sharon:different episode. Yeah.
Jesse:Yeah. Yeah. But I will say, I think it's very common for people that do have ADHD even when they think like, oh, I found it. This is it. Now I know what this is.
Jesse:Weeks later to be like, I probably don't have it. I'm probably just really lazy and a terrible person and all of that sort of stuff. Yeah. Because there's so much shame with growing up with ADHD. Mhmm.
Jesse:It's really easy to fall back into that, like, oh, no. Actually, I just suck. I think there's a lot of power to getting even though the whole as we've discussed, the whole diagnosis process is pretty fraught with a bunch of issues. There's still something kinda powerful of somebody, like, saying you have this thing, that label really like, I've been because I've, like, worked with different, like, potential sponsors and stuff like that. I've actually been diagnosed three separate times through three, like, different companies and stuff like that.
Sharon:So we're pretty sure you got it.
Jesse:Pretty sure. And and yet every time I've done that, I get a little bit nervous of, like, am I gonna find out that I don't actually have it this time? Maybe I'm just this lazy, terrible, selfish person.
Sharon:Oh, funny.
Jesse:And so it's always a nice little relief when I'm like, okay. Yes. I still I do still have it.
Sharon:Still still rocking. I think that that's so important. And, Marie, you brought that up. It's it really resonated with me because people have reached out to me and said, you know, I'm not diagnosed, but I think I have it. And, like, what do you think I should do in terms of, like, building systems into their lives?
Sharon:And and I talk a lot about that of, like, trying to work with your own brain and how your brain is. And I think that, like, yes, the journey can be long. So say say you're an entrepreneur. Say this is resonating with you when you're not diagnosed. Then, yes, it's hard for us to do administrative tasks and book appointment stuff.
Sharon:So all that could take longer for someone with ADHD than it would for a it's like your first the first way to prove you have ADHD is to have difficulty booking appointments to get diagnosed is probably true. But I think I I kind of tell people, like, consider that you do because I think that brains are so different. All of all of these kind of unique diversities in our brains are just a truth of society, and we have labels for them, you know, that that are called disorders, which isn't a word I like either. And but if you are resonating with things that we're saying and things you've heard other ADHDers say, then just start taking that on board. Like, if you have difficulty getting the laundry done, then accept I'm a person.
Sharon:My brain has difficulty with that task, so I should make some other way for myself. I should accept that that's just something that's hard for me. And it's okay for that to be hard for you because hard things for other people might be easy for you. I would rather start a company than book a dentist appointment. Like, he's they or then call a dentist office on the phone.
Sharon:Like, that's actually the worst thing for me.
Marie:Oh my god. I have so many stories, but we can save we can save them. There's so many things that I've done that are excessive to avoid doing a small problem Yes. Which would have taken, like, two minutes.
Sharon:On one way if it would have been one minute.
Jesse:Yeah. I love what you just said there because it's really, like, you built a product for something that you felt guilty and bad about, like, needing that help. And, Marie, you kinda did the same thing too. You were wanting an app to help you get stuff done in a way that other apps weren't helping you. And that like, the app I'm building is similarly, like, something where I feel like I shouldn't need something like this.
Jesse:But the reality is I do, and having it would be helpful. And that's a lot of, like, what I talked about in my book, as well with ADHD is just, like, if it's silly and stupid, but it works, then it's not silly and stupid. It's not.
Sharon:Yeah. It works
Marie:for you.
Jesse:Whatever it is that works for you, like, that is the goal. Like, learn what works through their brain. Try it. And if it stops working, that's fine. It's probably going to stop working at some point because Mhmm.
Jesse:We love novelty, and novelty is always gonna wear off of any new thing you try. So it's all about, like, trying stuff out, rolling with the punches, moving on to something else as needed, and not feeling bad about it. Because I think that's where we get caught. It's so easy to feel like I'm a failure as an adult because I can't do this thing, because I can't make this phone call. And, Sam, I I'd probably start multiple businesses before calling the dentist.
Jesse:Like, that is Right. I do not wanna make that phone call ever.
Sharon:And I like my dentist. I just don't want to talk to them on the phone. Exactly. Pick up the phone and dial it. I think that's right.
Sharon:Just like, the first step for me was trying to deal with my own shame, and I think the next step that I I think I'm in the kind of the golden era of right now is not hiding it. Like, really openly openly saying, I'm not great at booking meetings. So and just, you know, letting that be a known thing because I'm great at other things. Like, I don't have to be good. I don't have to be the best person at booking like, at creating calendar events because I'm good at other stuff.
Jesse:I mean, that's, like, half the content I create is just me confessing things that I struggle with. Yes. And then there yeah. A lot of people are replying saying I feel seen because we're all feeling that stuff.
Marie:Oh, oh, they're replying like, I'm I'm I'm in this post, and I don't like it.
Jesse:Yep. I
Sharon:think what did you say? I feel seen and attacked.
Jesse:Yeah. That's my favorite reply. I get that one
Sharon:a lot.
Jesse:That's my favorite one.
Sharon:Well, awesome. Well, I mean, thanks everyone for joining the us on this first episode. Obviously, we teased out a few future ones. We're gonna we wanna talk about our fundraising stories. So if anyone's out there thinking about, like, how do I raise money for this idea I have, we'll share our stories and kind of what we know.
Jesse:And I'll I'll be taking notes for, you know, who knows about my baby app if I'm gonna be doing funding or not. So I'll be right along with the listener, like, listening to every word.
Marie:Yep. And we can talk about, you know, building product and different features and how to figure out which ones to put in and when and, you know, trying to be patient and going against the I'm very I'm very impulsive, and I wanna put it all in. But sometimes with that, you know, a bit of patience, it's like, oh, don't actually need it, like Jesse said. But we can go through that as well.
Jesse:I was also thinking I almost asked this episode, and then I felt like this is probably a bigger conversation. But talking about, like, work schedule and work rhythm and stuff like that. Because I know for me, one of the hardest things about working, like, a an office job or a normal job is that it seems like they expect me to put out the same work for every hour that I work, and that is just not how I function.
Marie:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Jesse:I will do I'll do forty hours of work in a compressed four hour period, and then I might do four hours of work in a long forty hour period. That's just kind of how my work rhythm works, so I thought that might be worth, talking about as well.
Marie:Working with your brain and your energy levels.
Jesse:Yeah.
Sharon:Yeah. And I think importantly, like, we are the three of us aren't done. Like, I we're not some experts sitting on a mountain telling you how to do things. We're still in the trenches Oh, yeah. Big time.
Sharon:So I think I I think the other thing we were excited about on this putting this the group of us together and this podcast together is we wanna share what we're actively struggling with in building our businesses. Obviously, Jesse for Jesse, the what you're talking about with your little baby up is, like, getting started. Marie and I, like, keeping it going, growing, dealing with, you know, personnel things and and customer service and surviving another day. I think that's that's and so I plan to get a lot of good advice, no pressure from Jesse and Marie. And, you know, I think that that's we all wanna learn from each other and, you know, learn from the listeners and hear from you guys.
Marie:And hold each other accountable.
Sharon:Oh, yeah. Jesse, you know where to be following up about that baby up.
Jesse:Yep. Absolutely. Awesome. Alright. Well, thanks everybody.
Sharon:Thanks.
Marie:Thanks.
