Learning to Love Your ADHD Story with James Ochoa
Our friend James Ochoa is back! This week we're talking about the lessons you can learn from inflection points in your ADHD journey. What did you learn? What did you gain? What can come from it?
We start with an event. Take some time in a grounded space, and think of an event from your past that we either positive or problematic in relation to your experience with ADHD. For Pete, it was an experience early in his freelance career, something that still causes physical discomfort twenty years later.
Next, ask yourself these life-transformation questions:
What did I learn from the event?
What strengths did you gain from going through this experience?
What hope came out of this experience?
What wisdom was gathered in going through this?
What new knowledge do you now have?
James suggests using this exercise as a resource journal of life experiences and memories, a place to catalog the positive experiences and process the challenges over time.
This week, James leads Pete through the exercise and conjures up all that old discomfort and quite a few laughs, all to rewire old experiences for the better.
Learn more about James, his work, and his ADHD Town Halls on his website right here!
-
Pete Wright:
Hello everyone and welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast on TruStory FM. I'm Pete Wright and I'm here with Nikki Kinzer.
Nikki Kinzer:
Hello everyone. Hello Pete Wright.
Pete Wright:
Hi Nikki.
Nikki Kinzer:
Hi Pete.
Pete Wright:
Ah, coming in hot. Coming in hot.
Nikki Kinzer:
I know.
Pete Wright:
I'm very excited for our show today, I think you know why, it's because it's old home week, we have our dear friend of the show and ADHD podcast hall-of-famer, James Ochoa is going to join us and talk about our ADHD story and I'm excited to have him. I think you have set me up, Nikki, in a place of great vulnerability, right? You just pretty much said, "Pete, James is going to do a thing with you. You're going to love it." So I come eager and open and willing to learn.
Nikki Kinzer:
I do have to say, I did say if you're not comfortable we can pivot. Pivot!
Pete Wright:
Okay. I think we'll be okay.
Nikki Kinzer:
I'm okay with pivoting.
Pete Wright:
Well, before we dig in, we're going to head over to takecontroladhd.com, you can get to know us a little bit better, you can listen to the show right there on the website, or of course subscribe to the mailing list, and we will send you an email each time a new episode is released. You can connect with us on Facebook or Instagram or Pinterest at Take Control ADHD, but to really connect with us join us in our ADHD Discord community. It is super easy to jump in the general community chat channel. Just visit takecontroladhd.com/discord, and you will be taken over to the general invitation and login.
But wait, you say, there are only a couple of channels in there. I'd say that's right. If you want more of the channels and you want to see where all of the peoples are really hanging out, you have to join and become a patron at patreon.com/theadhdpodcast. For a few bucks a month, you will get access to early releases of each episode, longer episodes where we talk a little bit before and after each show, and of course you get access to all of the super secret, nay triple secret channels in our Discord server. That's where the community is really hanging out. So we invite you to do that, you don't have to do that to listen to the show obviously, but it helps us to support the show, continue to grow the things that we're doing with the show and with the community and bringing you all this hot, hot ADHD content. ADHD content... patreon.com/theadhdpodcast to learn more. Thank you, everybody, and to all our supporters we so, so appreciate it.
We have a little bit of news. Nikki, it's our favorite time of the year, it's organizing challenge time.
Nikki Kinzer:
It is, yes. So we are going to play that declutter game that we did in January of 2022, but we're going to do it in June of 2023. So we're a little late than when we would normally do it, but that's okay.
Pete Wright:
That's okay, don't hold it against us, it's an ADHD community.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes, exactly. But we're going to play that game where you get rid of one thing on the 1st and then you get rid of two things on the 2nd, and you do that throughout the whole month of June. But what's really cool about it is I'm changing it a little bit. This time around we're going to have a webinar begin on June 1st to talk about organizing and some things to hopefully aim for for the month, give you some tips and strategies. And then we're going to have different organizing sessions throughout the month where we can work together and declutter and get the clutter out of the house. Then on June 30th we're going to have another webinar to wrap up what we did and also talk about how to maintain all of the great things that you did. And we're going to do that on June 30th.
So I'm excited. It's a little different than what we did in January, but hopefully it will be nicer weather than what it is in January and that will inspire people to do this one.
Pete Wright:
Because you're going to have to have your garage door open.
Nikki Kinzer:
You're right.
Pete Wright:
I'm assuming, right? I don't want to bury the lead but I have a feeling I know where you're going to be organizing stuff. So it's very exciting.
James Ochoa:
Hmm.
Nikki Kinzer:
James is like, "Interesting..."
Pete Wright:
That's right, James is sitting here just silently judging our organizing efforts.
James Ochoa:
No, I'm thinking, "Don't tell me wife about this because she will put me on task."
Nikki Kinzer:
That's right.
James Ochoa:
It's a great idea.
Pete Wright:
Thank you so much, James Ochoa is back. I don't even know how to introduce you anymore. Our regular... Who are the guys who sit up in The Muppet Show, who sit up in the booth up top? You're the eagle.
James Ochoa:
We're in the balcony. We're the balcony guys.
Pete Wright:
James Ochoa, you're one of our very, very favorite ADHD thinkers, writers, producers of education. You've taught us so much about this, ADHD storms and navigating them over the number of years you have appeared on this show. We're grateful for you to come back here and talk about learning from our ADHD stories. And it's Waldorf and Statler, thank you Brian in the chatroom. Okay.
James Ochoa:
Thank you. That's so good to know.
Pete Wright:
So welcome back. What have you been up to? What are you doing right now?
James Ochoa:
What haven't I been up to? Let's start on that end because there's not much I haven't been up to. Boy, so here we are, 2023. We did just cross the seventh anniversary of Focus Forward.
Pete Wright:
Seventh anniversary. Congratulations.
Nikki Kinzer:
Wow.
James Ochoa:
Isn't that crazy? In February. And it is still selling strong. It has a life of its own, folks. And really, I can't be more appreciative of that. But I continue to dig in. I feel like I'm just running out of COVID now at this point, the pandemic. I feel like I'm a free bird with some new capacity. Because I don't know about anybody else but I did a lot of emotional, mental deep diving to really resource myself during COVID. It was just such a bear for all of us.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
James Ochoa:
But you know, I've got my ADHD Town Hall, which is my six week to... it's a webinar that I host twice a year now, model being the touchstone kind of coaching. Nikki certainly knows a lot about that, whether you practice, you've got to keep up with this condition. I'm at 61 headed to 62 they tell me, and I'll believe them in a month when I-
Pete Wright:
Don't believe them.
James Ochoa:
I won't believe them.
Pete Wright:
You're not a day over 50.
James Ochoa:
There we go. I like that. And, you know, I also started my professional trailblazing new roadmap for treating adults with ADHD through therapists and really just kind of laying out everything I know about this. It's just a lot of fun, a whole lot of fun. And I continue to work directly with clients, evaluation, you know, strategy work, those kind of things. And book two is coming along. We are well entrenched. It's got feet and it's walking. I think it's got a partial body.
Pete Wright:
Well, that's a horrifying metaphor, James, but I appreciate you putting it out there.
James Ochoa:
Well, it is a horrifying metaphor, but you know... Okay, I could probably choose a different one. Let's see what Robin thinks about that.
Pete Wright:
Whenever you come back, you bring an exercise of the latest thing you're thinking about. And today we're talking about the powerful value of our ADHD story. Can you introduce us to the concept?
James Ochoa:
Well, the concept is if you just look at the distress factor of ADHD that I've written about, the emotional distress syndrome and the disruptions that occur, how many ADHD adults really love the power of their story? How many really love their entire life history where they can go back and glean at eight years old, this is what I did and this is who I was and this is who I am now? They can't. I mean, you ask ADHD adults and they just shudder. They're like, "Ah, do not ask me to talk about my life history."
Pete Wright:
Because so much of that is, "All I remember is the pain."
James Ochoa:
Yes, yes. Well, it's what our mind is best at, right? The survival instinct, the Navy SEALs, I call it, in our brain. Which does not need exercise, by the way. We exercise it too often. But that whole idea of value behind your story is you're... So my adage is that your entire life history is your most valuable resource. You want to use it like a book of knowledge. You want to be able to refer to it. You want the pages to be dog-eared. You want to be able to go back through it and know who and what you are and how you've gotten to today.
And I talk about things like okay, what's the wisdom, experience, strength, hope you take from that? And so, I have a little, small exercise that I bring people through. I say, "Just grab something from your life history and start asking yourself those questions. What experience did I take, which strength did I develop, what wisdom did I take, what knowledge do I have now as a result of that?" It's just a purposeful way to move into thriving. You can move away from that distressful aspect.
And certainly my second book is going to be focused on the incessant storms that do not go away on the ADHD spectrum, and what do you do about them? They really affect careers and relationships. And so this whole value of your story comes in how well can you tell your story from a triumphant way, or a way that says, "I really know myself."
It seems to be this layering effect that I want people to be able to be proud of who they are. Sure, I've got challenges. I still run seven or eight out of nine symptoms on each of the areas of ADD, you know? I just ask my wife, who just crossed 34 years, and it's not always a picnic but you know, we clean up the mess and we resolve things and we move forward and we reset, and I just want people to look at their stories and have value from it. Not shudder when they think about them.
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, and I've been participating in the most recent Town Hall that James is offering right now. What struck me and why I really wanted to bring this to our listeners are the stories that the folks had mentioned in the group. There were two particular ones that were just really strong. Triumph is a really good word, right? Coming from something that was this despair to wait a minute, I not only overcame this, I became a better person, I learned so much more about myself. But I don't think we do that without reflection. You know? I don't think you can. We don't give ourselves enough time.
James Ochoa:
No, we don't. And the challenge with reflection on the ADHD spectrum is one, the internal evaluator for us doesn't develop as robustly or as well as it could, or it will... the evaluation will be very truncated into things that are distressful or difficult or highly passionate. But we just don't stop and we're unable to see ourselves. So you've got use that, that this whole mindfulness piece of curiosity, observation, just slow yourself down and see who you are.
But really, it doesn't stop there, right? This whole value piece says, "Not only will I triumph, I learn from who I am, now I can show others that this is something I can powerfully be and live with, and it's not a deficit or a disorder. It's something that I know who I am."
It's still the oddest space for me. The one I don't know that will ever go away is the imposter syndrome. It's insidious. I don't know when it's going to pop up and suddenly I think everyone's going to leave me and everything I've done is just not worth a thing. I'm like, I literally sit stunned in curiosity with myself. Like, there it is again. And it's okay. I'm at the point now where I can shrug my shoulders, I know what it is, it doesn't delay me. But if you think about people in the ADHD spectrum, they just get shutdown with it, day in and day out. And it's just, it's tragic. It's absolutely tragic.
Pete Wright:
I appreciate you saying it like that. I've been kind of wrestling with a metaphor around my experience with ADHD as an adult. And it's been the act of... like, I sort of visualize the act of just walking up a river. And when I was young I was at the mouth of the river where the river meets the sea and the pressure of all the water is much higher. I climb up over the rocks and the river and I get further and further up toward where the river starts and the closer I get to where the river starts, the pressure sort of lightens.
When I hear you, as you say, pushing 62, and I'm pushing 51, it relieves me to know that shrugging the shoulders is like okay, I've reached a point where I know I still have it, I'm still standing in the water, but I have more behind me than ahead of me. That is a sense of relief. That's kind of the thing that I have to... the picture that I have to paint in my head. That there's more behind it. I've learned more. I might still feel the same way because my feet are still cold, but I've learned more and I know how to walk this particular walk.
James Ochoa:
Yes, yes. But now I've learned cold therapy, so when my feet are cold I know what's happening here, you know?
Nikki Kinzer:
It can be a positive thing, that's right.
James Ochoa:
Yeah. Don't get me started on breathing and cold therapy, it's so much fun. But those too, those shiny objects over the last few years, I used a lot of cold therapy and breathing aspects to really recenter and resource myself. And they've also become, not passé, but they're just part of my resource pools now. Which are wonderful.
Pete Wright:
Sure, they're in the box.
James Ochoa:
Right. And I'm not sure what's next but it's fun. It's always fun to adventure.
Nikki Kinzer:
Before we get into the exercise, I love too that you said that you can recognize that this is what's happening, and just see it as it is. And I think that that's a really important lesson to learn. I was talking to a client yesterday about working too much, and not having that balance between work and life. And there was this real need to keep working more and more because of this fear of is she going to get fired? Are they not going to see her as valuable? Should she be doing 70 hours of work? All of these things.
And it was interesting because we sat in the awareness of well, what would happen if you got fired? What would happen if this happened? You know, kind of sat there. But she's not at that point at all yet, but she will be. Where she can just sit and see okay, this is what's happening, it's this kind of irrational fear. And sit there and be able to see it as it is. And that's hard. I mean, it's hard to be able to do that, but I appreciate you bringing it up that it's possible.
James Ochoa:
Oh, it's absolutely possible. And in something like... Because with someone like that, it may not be an irrational fear, okay, but I tell people with ADHD, because we have so much worry and internal distress that's going on, unless there's overt knowledge that I know something is way off base, don't play into it because we have so much of what I call a shadow syndrome, it just feels like it's that way.
But the ability to face it and look at it takes the air out of it, right? It takes the balloon out of it. And it's interesting, you would talk about going upstream because... this was in a spiritual book by a gentleman named Mark Nepo, which I absolutely love, he wrote a book called Awakening, it's kind of a daily spiritual mantra space.
But he talked about how salmon, when they're swimming up river, actually go to the strongest point of the current, because when they start swimming up that strongest point of the current, the path is clear on the other side. And it was very metaphorical.
Pete Wright:
Oh, I like that.
James Ochoa:
It's very difficult but it's like also I wrote about it in Focus Forward, right, it's the whole Moby-Dick story of crazy Jack, I think it was, that was just like on the boat going, "No, we need to go through that storm." You go right into the front of it. But everything tells us not to.
So learning that resilience to stay right in front of it and look at it. And the key to that is to have that support system around you, right? People who don't think you're crazy. People who support you in staying with yourself and following through and kind of going to what works for you. And god, I'm getting more and more convinced that if we take strategies, personalizing strategies, it has to come from the inside-out. I just am not a believer in organizational books. It's not that those aren't helpful in a place of ideas and brainstorming, but it has to come from the individual person in a way that's meaningful. It just doesn't work otherwise.
So I do think that yes, life stories, the value of them, how to glean value and practice it as an exercise. And I'm still coming through. You know, all of my life history. And it's amazing how much courage it gives you to really stand up so that... I can't believe I'll be saying things on national podcasts when I think things in my head. I'm like okay, yeah, when I was five years old, when I would throw a tantrum, I was a horrible tantruming, hyperactive, impulsive kid with a closed head injury at four years old. I wasn't getting attention so I would get under the dining room table and I would pick it up on my little five year old back and I would spin it around when people were eating. And it was like, that's one way to get attention.
Nikki Kinzer:
It sure is.
James Ochoa:
Not the attention you wanted. You know?
Pete Wright:
That's a power move right there.
James Ochoa:
It's a power move. Mom wouldn't take me to Kmart because I wanted to go to the Blue Light Special. Yes, I'm dating myself. But you take that disruptive of a life history, right, and you can take it into this exercise we're talking about, Nikki, where you can ask yourself questions about it. You know? And it's very simple, right, because the question's like what knowledge did I take from that? I'm a powerful little kid.
Nikki Kinzer:
You bet.
James Ochoa:
And I can move mountains. Certainly can move dining room tables. What knowledge did I take from that? That I have that intensity. And the wisdom is that intensity hasn't gone away. It's what I'm swimming upstream with.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. Absolutely.
James Ochoa:
And it creates resilience. The hope is that I can stand in my life and say, "Oh, this is doable, it's more than doable." You can go buy 90,000 beads and start chaining them and six and a half years later give out 2500 chains to people because you can.
Nikki Kinzer:
And they're hanging up on all of our walls right now.
James Ochoa:
It's crazy. So this obsessive drive, as we would say, unbridled that can create enormous chaos and really destroy someone's life if you're not careful. Can be bridled, can be channeled, can be funneled. It's not an overnight process. But it is a process that is absolutely doable. So I'm here to tell you, it's a lot of fun. It is a whole lot of fun.
Nikki Kinzer:
And you're also here to help Pete walk through this exercise that he just found out about yesterday.
Pete Wright:
Oh, setup, setup.
James Ochoa:
Pete's like, "What!?"
Pete Wright:
Well, okay. So do you want to set up the exercise and then I'll tell you my reaction to having it inflicted upon me?
Nikki Kinzer:
I do have a backup plan, I have plan B. But your plan's going to be better than mine, I just know it.
James Ochoa:
I love it. I love trust falls. This is a podcast trust fall, shall we call it.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Pete Wright:
Exactly.
James Ochoa:
Yes. It's so much fun. So look, the setup here is I do want you to focus on, you pick an experience from your life before now. Something that's... I don't care if it's egregious, I don't care if it's fantastic, you won an award. But you stop and you contemplate in that space and really look at it from a variety of angles, and you ask yourself some questions about it, and you begin to see it in different lights.
So the reality is you get a chance to say, "Okay, what's a story?" What's a story you carry in your life of your life history? So if you want to play along, the vulnerability is let's play along and the idea is what is a story? You have one, Pete?
Pete Wright:
I do. So Nikki, I think I'm going to throw up. Nikki sent me a note yesterday afternoon, I was very, very busy and so I didn't actually see it until about 10 o'clock last night, and it was, "Hey, check out the notes for tomorrow. I've got an exercise you're going to do with James." And then five minutes later after I hadn't responded it's, "I mean, I can do my story too if that doesn't work." So I'm ready.
And I looked at the notes and there's all these numbers and things and I started kind of scanning and I immediately came up with the event and I realized that it grew in intensity so much that I was like, "I can't even process... I can't write my notes, I can't pre-scratch out my notes, because it's too embarrassing for me professionally." And I'm so glad you're here because I keep going back to your audiobook story as a mantra of overcoming these kinds of things.
James Ochoa:
Yes, yes.
Pete Wright:
So yeah, I have an event. Would you like me to tell you the event?
James Ochoa:
Sure, let's go through the event.
Pete Wright:
Oh, Jesus.
James Ochoa:
Take a breath. It's all good, Pete.
Pete Wright:
I had just quit my corporate job. I was a director of public relations for a very large company and I quit because I wanted to push buttons. I was a nerd and a gear head and I wanted to do the work that I was hiring people to do before now.
I had gotten my undergraduate degree in broadcast journalism and I know how to run cameras and I know how the technology works. It had been some years since then but the first job that I accepted on contract was the wife of a dear friend of mine who worked at a publishing company, and hired me to get on a plane, fly down to Northern California, and rent a bunch of professional camera gear, go to Stanford and record, like, 10 hours of a Stanford professor doing bonus material for a publication they were releasing for him. I had to film this guy doing a talking head video and I had to find a place to light it and I had to do all the gear and all of that stuff.
And I landed in Stanford and I was overwhelmed with the exuberance of, like, being able to do this work. I landed in San Francisco, I'm sorry. And I found the place where I was going to rent the equipment and I was just dizzy with that just sort of ADHD enthusiasm.
James Ochoa:
Yes, yes.
Pete Wright:
And I did not think through at all what I wanted the finished work to look like, and this was all completely new equipment to me. And so what happened was we ended up in this terrible, terrible little study room with no windows, terrible light, the camera was way too close to his face, that I produced 10 hours of the worst professional material I've ever produced in my life. To the point where my client, the wife of a very dear friend of mine, with whom I have not spoken since, said, "We're going to pay you but you should know we're not using any of this." Like, that was my first contract job to do, and I was... clearly, I am still devastated by that, and I've never done... I hope I don't need to say this out loud, I've never done work so bad since. I know how to use... I promise I know how to use cameras and light, I just did a bad work. It was so bad. It was so embarrassing.
And this poor professor who's, like, sitting in this prison cell of a study room and the camera's, like, at his face. I'm trying to convince him, "Okay, it's okay. You're going to be fine, you're going to look great. I promise we'll fix it in post." We'll fix it in post!
James Ochoa:
So.
Pete Wright:
Okay.
James Ochoa:
See? That's the start, right?
Pete Wright:
Yeah. I'm exhausted.
James Ochoa:
The start is learning. So how many times have you told that story in your life?
Pete Wright:
Not many, James. I don't tell that story very often.
James Ochoa:
Right. You know, the best part about that story to me is that you would have nowhere else to go but up from that position.
Pete Wright:
That's accurate.
James Ochoa:
Okay, so it's like okay, let's get this out of the way. Let's get my epic failure out of the way. Which reminds me, of course, of my wonderful storm of recording my audiobook and with all the... saying the periods and that was my great professional storm that y'all were so kind to help me with.
So you look at that, all right. So that's the first part, is being able to witness it with other people and laugh about it. There's humor there, being able to laugh at our human condition that is so illogical and irrational, and on the ADD spectrum, hello, we have a lot of humor involved.
But what do you think you... so just ask yourself some questions, and when you go through these questions... And by the way, I can send this along to y'all. Y'all can put this in your show notes so that folks will have a reference to what we're talking about. You know, what did you learn from the event? What's the first thing that comes to your mind, what did you learn from the event?
Pete Wright:
Hmm. Well, it's kind of hard. I feel like I have to categorize it because the first is-
James Ochoa:
Good.
Pete Wright:
I learned pretty immediately what kinds of jobs to say no to.
James Ochoa:
Right. And how critical is that?
Pete Wright:
That was a pretty big one. Yeah.
James Ochoa:
That's a huge one.
Nikki Kinzer:
And to learn that early, too.
James Ochoa:
Right, that's what I'm saying. It's like okay, let's get this-
Pete Wright:
That's actually true. I didn't have to dance with the oh, there's some question about where this serves my business. Flying around as a solo videographer/producer/reporter is not going to be how I buy my shoes.
James Ochoa:
Okay, we're going to take that one off the list, okay. What strengths do you think you gained from it?
Pete Wright:
You know, okay, here's something I never connected to it. Which is, I think the act of having to sit there for 10 hours and uncomfortably manage a conversation. For the first time doing it as a part of a professional endeavor probably set me up for where I am right now today.
James Ochoa:
Right.
Pete Wright:
Right? Like, I feel like I am better equipped to sit on a microphone and talk for hours straight with many strangers, many friends, better as a result of that. That probably marked an inflection point. The fact that my brain immediately goes back to that day on that campus.
James Ochoa:
And what I love about that is you're pulling what I call the thread of congruency. It fits, it connects to each other. And we'll talk more about this at the end of this one, I want to ask you a few more questions, but this rhyme and reason you're starting to create from it becomes... this is how the story becomes valuable. So what hope came from it? Do you have any hope that came out of that?
Pete Wright:
Can you talk to me more about hope? I say that as somebody that... I am not from this land, James. What is this hope of which you speak?
James Ochoa:
Well, hope would be something as simple as, "Okay, I never want to do that again. I will absolutely not set myself up like this." So the hope is that I got this over with. It's like, there's got to be something better than this.
Pete Wright:
You know, that's actually interesting you say that, because since that point I felt like... and I don't know if I ever put these words to it but I feel like I had something to prove. I think I still have something to prove. Even though I know that I'm not proving anything to Holly, my client at the time. She's now divorced her husband, she doesn't work at that job anymore, and I guarantee you she doesn't think of me at all ever.
James Ochoa:
No, no.
Pete Wright:
Right? That's the story. She became the avatar, though, against which I set future endeavors. And I had to prove to myself, my version of her in my head, that you know what, I actually do kind of know what I'm doing, and since went on and did a number of short films that actually were properly color graded and edited and looked good. That was kind of an exercise of hope, I think.
James Ochoa:
Yes. So just notice what happened there. I pulled you in, I said those things, and kind of worked with you. You're in a safe place, you're like, "Wait a minute, I never looked at it this way before." So it actually gave you, and this is great from an ADD point of view, it gave you a hard stop. It gave you a lower place to bounce from, to say, "Okay, I'm going to use this as an important space that I know really does give me a sense of depth and character. A strength."
Pete Wright:
Well, and I guess the word that keeps coming back to me as you're saying all this is control, right? Agency. That I felt hopeless and out of control and like I was completely faking it, and yet I was able to turn around and do things that were actually moving to other people. That was really the whole goal.
James Ochoa:
Yes. So what wisdom did you gather in going through that?
Pete Wright:
How is wisdom different than hope?
James Ochoa:
Wisdom is the things that... it could be new knowledge, it could be that... these are kind of the key pieces of my life that I take with me now. You know, the wisdom I would take from a five-year-old spinning a dining room table is I have a lot of power and it's highly intensive, and I can destroy a room or I can transform a room. That's the wisdom I take, the life wisdom. Still I just... I get it. But I wouldn't be able to tell people that story, even 15 years ago. You know?
Pete Wright:
Right.
James Ochoa:
I was a little hellion. That's not what you want to tell a story about. It is interesting, see I grab an insight right here with my own personal life. Who did I polarize in ADHD in 1989 but a little hellion who was hyperactive and impulsive and I tell the story of him getting 40-45 pairs out of 50 in a card sort game of 100 cards, and he had a photographic memory. So it makes sense that I would polarize out of an intense child that was a hellion. That's who I was.
So actually, that's a brand new insight for me. I never put those pieces together for myself, and this is what we're doing. So wisdom is kind of what you carry with you through your life that become life lessons that you really refer back to. Anything that floats up around that space, and again, these aren't have-tos. These are curiosities and you're sifting.
Pete Wright:
Well, I think so much of my sort of professional trajectory since then has been one of exercising agency and the film projects that I've taken on have all been under the auspices of... or under the assumption that I am going to be driving the final results and I'm going to be telling the story and if you don't really like that, there are other people who will do exactly what you say, client. But if you want me, I'm going to tell a story.
James Ochoa:
Right.
Pete Wright:
And that, I think gift of hindsight, is a really important bit of awareness of just where... Because I think I'm a pretty flexible guy, but in terms of the work that I put out, I like to have my hands in it completely. And so at least, I feel like this showed me where the line should be drawn.
James Ochoa:
Right. And if you think about that, Pete, that builds integrity. Someone's going to really like who you are because you're not going to bullshit them and you're not going to just give them what they want on a film that they want because they want it a certain way. You're going to really let them know in truth this is how it's going to work best.
Pete Wright:
I was told by another very early client that one of the reasons that they kept me around, he's the CEO of this company, and he said one of the reasons they keep me around is because of exactly that, and I've never really put that together, that I was unafraid to speak truth to power.
James Ochoa:
Right.
Pete Wright:
For somebody who signs my check, and Nikki's raising her hand.
Nikki Kinzer:
I am because I just want to share something that I'm reflecting on about wisdom in you, and what your story that you're telling us, because from day one when we started working together, I would say that the number one... maybe not number one. No, I would say number one. Quality was really important to you when it came to the podcast. You know, like you wanted to make sure that if we were going to do this I had the right microphone, I had the right stand. You know, everything was quality.
And to this day, you prove it last week, we did a video on... or I did a webinar and the recording from Zoom was a nightmare, trying to get that to replay for everybody. And so Pete says, "You know what, let's get it out of Zoom, we're going to put it in..." Venmo?
Pete Wright:
We're going to put it in Vimeo. Venmo's different.
Nikki Kinzer:
I always get those two mixed up. And not only did he just transfer it, he took out the 10 minutes of me trying to figure out how to enable the chat, put music to it, took out the icky stuff, put music to the end, and made this, like, beautiful video replay.
James Ochoa:
So you did capture something out of the fire and ashes.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
James Ochoa:
Which is what you weren't able to do for your first experience, but you knew. There it is.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. It's so funny. Man, inflection points, right? That's a thread I don't know that I would have reached.
James Ochoa:
I like the word inflection point. It's a real stopping point to say, "Hey, okay, where is my life? What did I learn from it?" Because we're so afraid to do it. The last question I have there, which is similar, and by the way these questions are there to trigger a sense of knowledge or movement or thought process. So some of them, yeah, they sound similar but they're going to land in different ways for different people. So the last question is, did you gain any new knowledge that you have now?
Pete Wright:
So knowledge, when I interpret the word knowledge, I immediately go towards technical knowledge, like what did I... and because this was a technical feat, a technical failure, yeah, I think I did. And I immediately went back and honed my skills in terms of lighting and using the right kinds of filters and those kinds of things, but for small spaces, like trying to capture... Would I have done it better given the same circumstances had I had my wits about me and not been all over the place. I think that is an actual... that's one of those personal accommodations, which is if I can do a dry run of a project now I will do a dry run of a project.
James Ochoa:
Yeah. When I go to do a speech, I'm going to do a three hour training here for some therapists in Austin. I'm going to the location. I'm going to walk it, I'm going to look around in it. Because I know what that does for me. So the knowledge you're gaining also helped your dear podcast mate in capturing a film. I mean, truly, these are the threads you want to pull forward that really you live by. This is why I find it so powerful.
Pete Wright:
So related question, is this the end of the litigations?
James Ochoa:
Yes.
Nikki Kinzer:
Beautifully done. James and Pete.
James Ochoa:
The cross-examination.
Nikki Kinzer:
Wonderful.
Pete Wright:
Some really interesting new threads and reinterpretation of the way to think about that inflection point, and the piece that I feel like I hang on to is the anxiety that I produced garbage. Like, the weight of my interpretation of the resultant work still sits in my stomach, and that's the thing that still made me sick last night when I saw this and immediately thought of this event. Like, I don't necessarily feel like I'm at a place where I don't feel still... It's 2023, this was like 2004. It's been almost 20 years and I still feel as sick about the fact that I turned in 10 hours of garbage that was never used as I did that day.
James Ochoa:
Right. Now, so one of the things, and it'll be interesting to see going forward with that, because you can create a journal, I call it the resource journal of your life experiences and memories. And watch if this softens over the years. Watch if this is a different space. Because you had the ability to look at it deeply, to really face it head on, this is a place that was safe, and that is what we need to do on the ADD spectrum. We've got to have a place of safety with those around us to just look at our life. You know?
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
James Ochoa:
And that's just... that's the deepest kind of living that I know how to do. And it's fascinating because there are at least three, four, five threads here that really felt like oh, interesting. And I caught one too on my five-year-old. It's like, this is the sifting piece, this is the curiosity/observation piece. This is the critical aspect for mindfulness on people with ADD. What are we going to fill our minds with that really resource us. Stop trying to have someone else figure it out for you. Get into a safe place where you can be in a place to begin figuring it out with other people for yourself.
I didn't think I had much to write about in my second book. Now it seems like it's going to be more important than Focus Forward because we all have these storms that are incessant, and we don't have a way to look at our life history in a way that's dynamic, in a way that's meaningful.
Pete Wright:
I don't want to poke at this but only because I consider you a mentor and a model for healthy living with ADHD. But I want to keep coming back a little bit to the... because I feel like we have similar spaces around these examples, the ADHD book, and your telling, and we'll put the link in the show notes because your telling of that story of discovering that you had missed the fact that you had done that reading and nobody had told you, that fills me with a very similar sense of gastrointestinal grief that I feel with my own project. And so I'm curious, not necessarily how, but when... if and when do you feel like you were able to move past that part?
James Ochoa:
What's moving past it? You live with it. You integrate it.
Pete Wright:
Embrace it.
James Ochoa:
So I go back, and wonderful ACX Audio, right, who sells my audiobooks. They don't remove the reflections of the two stars that I got on that audio. And I will go back and I read those, Pete, and I still have that same thing you're talking about. I have that... But I know what it is now.
So it's an ability to know what the story is and when I've moved beyond it, this is what I've learned from it, this is who I am. But that's being human. I think people with ADHD are just... we're so much more human on that human element of disruption than other people. And we have an opportunity to really turn our lives around by being able to stop and look at it. There's so many of us, we want to run ahead, get it organized, somebody fix it, someone give me a medication. And I think part of it is...
Pete Wright:
Isn't that such a... that's like a weirdly, I don't know, this is because, again, more water behind me than in front of me, I guess. But it feels like, when you talk about it that way, that there is a sort of capitalist entitlement to healing, right? Like, I feel like my healing with ADHD should be transactional. I can throw money at a lot of problems and fix them, why can't I do that with my brain.
James Ochoa:
Yes, yes. I think that's going to be... so you know, in the second book it's going to be about the storms we all go through. One of them's got to be the fix it storm. Someone just fix this for me, please. It's just ah, ah. You know?
Nikki Kinzer:
You made such a good point, though. I wrote it down and I'm going to engrave this somewhere, I don't know, in a wall somewhere. Not to get past it but to live with it. I think that that's so important.
James Ochoa:
Our lives are fabric, right? We interweave it all the time, and it's not just a trite ego-spiritual kind of space, it's a real deal. And the real deal is you've got to be able to embrace it in its human condition and really drop into the middle of it and know what it is. It makes a huge difference.
Nikki Kinzer:
You know, it's interesting, I have a lot of... I'm not dealing with grief but I have a lot of people around me who are dealing with grief right now. When you say that, that's what it reminds me of. You don't get past somebody...
James Ochoa:
Oh no, no.
Nikki Kinzer:
Losing someone unexpectedly. Or even expectedly.
James Ochoa:
You ever want to have me back on about grief, I'll tell you about grief. I love talking about my grief.
Nikki Kinzer:
I would love you to. Yeah. It's in my world right now a lot.
James Ochoa:
Well, it's been in my world on and off, and grief, it takes a very conscious effort to get through around memories and carrying memories of the loss so that you live in honor rather than in grief or in being shutdown. And whole ideas about grief.
Nikki Kinzer:
So before we do that and before we do your second book, when it comes out, because that will be on the book club list for sure. We are doing your book in this next-
Pete Wright:
Look at all this, she's holding up the book and it's full of post-its. Oh, I love that so much.
Nikki Kinzer:
Not only post-its but it's like highlights, I have highlights everywhere, and I love your book, I love your work, and it's so interesting to me, because we were talking about group coaching and in one of our meetings we were thinking, "Gosh, a book club would be kind of fun, right?" Like, it's different, it's different.
And when we talked about doing your book, I was so excited. I was like, "Oh, I can't wait, I am going to do this." And then James said, "Oh, I see that you might be doing this. I would show up."
James Ochoa:
Yeah. I love book clubs. Love book clubs.
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, I am so excited to have you drop in and-
Pete Wright:
Do you put on a big, wide-brimmed fedora and dark glasses like an actor going to see a movie that they made in a movie theater and stand in the back?
Nikki Kinzer:
Just to see what they're talking about.
Pete Wright:
Like, that's kind of what I imagine.
James Ochoa:
Yes, yes. Oh yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, it's such an honor to have you drop in in two sessions you've agreed to, which is fantastic. And so, I just want people to know that we're going to be doing this in the summer, so enrollment is open now to sign up for the book club, and it's eight weeks because I took some time to figure out how do I want to break this book up into sections to give us enough time to really go through it but also kind of figure out what can you do on your own too and that kind of thing.
But yeah, join us, I can't wait to go through it, and really do a deep dive with other people too. That's something I'm really excited about is that I write the book by myself, I give it to clients, I talk to clients about it a lot, but I haven't done it in a group setting. So this is going to be really fun.
Pete Wright:
Well, it's just unlocked something, James, that is just really... Like, talking about the ADHD storm, it is something that feels so naturally universal. Like, you talk about somebody who's never heard of it, who's never read it, and they immediately know what it is. Right? That's an amazing contribution.
James Ochoa:
Well, and the fascinating part is, Pete, like your great failure, my spinning a table at five years old, is the pieces that wouldn't go away. It's those really, really difficult spaces. And there's a lot written about the ideas of distress and darkness and finding wisdom from those spaces, but it takes the courage to look at them. And looking at them and the storms with ADD, this is who we are, let's love and really care for who we are in ways that we can. I just, again, I'm preaching to the choir here, but I really want people to get this. Like, [inaudible 00:47:50], it's no cakewalk. This is highly disruptive. But you can learn to live, manage, and really live within it in a way that's powerful. We're all living testimony to that, it's really good.
Nikki Kinzer:
Thank you both so much. Pete, thank you for doing this, I owe you a dinner out and some drinks.
Pete Wright:
I am your willing guinea pig as ever. I appreciate it, James, I do.
James Ochoa:
I appreciate you trusting me and walking into the space. Those aren't simple.
Pete Wright:
As always, strength, hope, wisdom, knowledge. Those are the big questions. It's great and it gives me new insight and I am a grateful recipient of it. Thank you, James, as always, for your education and your wisdom. It's really great. But you gave the... We let you do your plugs up front but tell them to the website where do you want them to go?
James Ochoa:
Yeah, easy, jamesochoa.com, makes it really, really simple. And that's where all my information is, that's where ADHD for the Town Hall is, I've sent y'all some links there. And Professional Trailblazing: A New Roadmap for Treating Adults with ADD is an open application. So as I get therapists who want to train with me and I get... I only put six in a group. I keep them really small. It's 12 weeks of intensive, really kind of dropping in. And the town halls are two six-week webinars every year. What I'm doing is I'm building a community. Come back twice a year and just really look into your ADD and where you are and reset things.
My second book, I believe it's titled. I don't know that it's going to change. It'll be a publisher that will really have to... if I find a publisher and don't do it on my own, but I believe it's going to be When the Shiny Wears Off: Navigating the Lifetime Storms of Adult ADD. Because boy, when that shiny wears off, we can really, really get... can be really hard on ourself. It's just no fun.
Pete Wright:
Well, here we are, talking about a storm 20 years old today. Well done.
James Ochoa:
Yeah. It's a lot of fun, a lot of fun.
Pete Wright:
James Ochoa, you're the best, thank you.
Nikki Kinzer:
Thank you, James.
James Ochoa:
Look, so much fun, and I've never been put in a podcast hall of fame, so I really appreciate the podcast hall of fame.
Pete Wright:
You're alpha member.
Nikki Kinzer:
You are now.
Pete Wright:
Alpha member. We're going to send you a plaque.
James Ochoa:
It's so funny. It's so great to see y'all. It's so great.
Pete Wright:
As always, as always. And thank you, everybody, for listening and downloading this show. We thank you and appreciate your time and your attention. Don't forget, if you have something to contribute to this conversation, we're heading over to the Show Talk channel in our Discord server and you can join us there by becoming a supporting member at the deluxe level or better. On behalf of James Ochoa and Nikki Kinzer, I'm Pete Wright. We'll see you right back here next week on Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast.
