Macro-transitions and All The Feelings with Tommy Metz III
Buckle up for an episode packed with laughter, real talk, and maybe just a dash of existential dread. We've roped in our buddy and partner-in-podcasting-crime, Tommy Metz III, who you might recognize from that other awesome show, "What's That Smell Presents: All The Feelings".
Kick back as Tommy spills some tea about himself, the mysteries of his life, and why on Earth he's hanging out with us today. He also drops the mic about the 8th season of "What's That Smell?" and its shiny new transformation into "All The Feelings". And, speaking of feelings and changes, our chat today is inspired by that very first episode of "All The Feelings" that talks about -- you guessed it -- Change. Tommy's got some wisdom nuggets about big transitions that he's itching to share with us.
We then dive headfirst into the deep end of the pool labeled "Big Transitions". You know the ones we're talking about - like that cold shock of returning to work after a lazy vacation, or trying to remember what "normal" felt like after being sick for a while. Oh, and let's not forget the Herculean task of changing daily routines or dealing with the horror of a new commute route. We mull over why these transitions feel like climbing Mount Everest without oxygen, touching on fun concepts like the Hedonic Treadmill (spoiler: it's not a new fitness trend), our good old friends Fear of The Unknown and Fear of Failure, and that stubborn mule we call Resistance to Change.
But hey, it's not all doom and gloom! Sure, change can seem as appealing as a root canal, but often, the reality isn't nearly as terrifying as our overactive imaginations make it out to be. If you're wrestling with big transitions, we've got some top-shelf advice: ask for help (it's not a crime, we promise), blab about your feelings to someone who'll listen, and try to channel your inner Sherlock Holmes to get curious about what's new.
And if you're still feeling like a cat on a hot tin roof, let's play a game of "What if". What's the absolute worst thing that could happen? Once we break it down, you'll see that most of our "worst case scenarios" are about as likely as being struck by a meteor while winning the lottery.
So come join us for this rollercoaster ride as we laugh, learn, and maybe cry a little about transitions, fears, and just all the feelings. Together, we'll navigate this crazy maze of change and come out the other side with a few more laugh lines and a whole lot more wisdom.
Links & Notes
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Pete Wright:
Hello, everybody, and welcome to Taking Control, The ADHD Podcast on TruStory FM. I'm Pete Wright, and I'm right here with Nikki Kinzer.
Nikki Kinzer:
Hello, everyone. Hello, Pete Wright.
Pete Wright:
Oh, hi, Nikki. It's so good to see you again.
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, you just saw me. That's so nice.
Pete Wright:
Coming around. Turn number one, can I tell you, we are on the heels of a fantastic day yesterday. Two webinars you did yesterday on time blocking. And as somebody who's been around the block on time blocking myself, I have to say, you did a hell of a job.
Nikki Kinzer:
Thank you so much. Appreciate that.
Pete Wright:
I learned some stuff. Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
And you learned some stuff. That's great.
Pete Wright:
I did. No, I get very excited about this stuff.
Nikki Kinzer:
I do, too.
Pete Wright:
Irrationally excited about time blocking. And I know we're going to be talking about a little bit more, but I think what strikes me in this conversation about transitions is something we talked about yesterday after the webinar with some of the questions that came through, how important mindset is to taking on things that are hard.
And in this case, taking on big transitions when you personally deeply believe you're incapable of transitions is going to define the prophecy. You will be bad at transitions.
Nikki Kinzer:
So true. And I'm so glad you brought this up because I swear you read my mind. You did this a couple of weeks ago. You're doing it again. I was thinking the same thing. When I was thinking about transitions and I was thinking about what we experienced and what we heard over the course of the two webinars, yes, mindset.
Mindset and believing that you can do something because as soon as you believe you can't, you're right, you can't.
Pete Wright:
And so, I think that's an important frame of mind. And you may have some language deeply internalized, and we heard some of it yesterday, like "I don't believe it's true because the white space is too difficult to approach."
There are just so many reasons that you've internalized that you believe are out of your control. And the truth is, if you really look at it, maybe it's not out of your control, maybe none of it is out of your control. Maybe the pieces that are out of your control when you attempt to change them can change your life.
And that's the piece. And I think that we're going to be talking a little bit about that today. Nikki, I am really excited about our guest today.
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, of course, you are.
Pete Wright:
And I have to say, it wasn't my idea to have him here. I just want you to know, this isn't a shameless shill because he's such a dear friend of mine we're talking.
Nikki Kinzer:
And a co-host from another podcast that you do, the other man.
Pete Wright:
At this point, it's our sister podcast. We've got our guest-
Nikki Kinzer:
I think it'd be like our brother podcast.
Pete Wright:
Okay, brother podcast. Did anybody ever say that, though? I feel like the podcasts are like ships. They're all female. Anyhow, Tommy Metz is here, and we're going to be talking about transitions, and it's Melissa's fault.
So, blame Discord mom, it's her idea. And we're going to talk more about that. But also, I think it's going to be an awesome conversation because of some of the things that we've changed on What's That Smell, and I'm excited to talk about that.
But first, before we dig in, head over to takecontroladhd.com and get to know us a little bit better. You can listen to the show right there on the website or subscribe to the mailing list. And each week, we will send you an email with a new episode.
You can connect with us on Facebook or Instagram, or Pinterest at Take Control ADHD. And you know what? I'll just say this out loud, you could find me on Mastodon. I'm pete@trustory.fm on Mastodon. You could find me. And I'm going to be putting some more Mastodon in this stuff up.
Nikki Kinzer:
I don't even know what that is.
Pete Wright:
Nikki, it's just exhausting keeping up with social media in 2023.
Nikki Kinzer:
It really is. I have no idea what you're talking about.
Pete Wright:
When Twitter imploded, a lot of us, nerds, went to Mastodon. And I run my own Trustory server at Mastodon, and it's just like Twitter, but it is decentralized, so lunatic can't come and blow it up and take everybody offline, and make it a horrible place.
So, I like Mastodon. It's a nerd place, but there are more and more non-nerds showing up, and I like seeing that. So, I'm going to be doing some more ADHD stuff over. There, anyhow, the other really, really best place to check us out is on Discord.
We opened up a lot of new channels in our public server, and that is at takecontroladhd.com/discord. There are emojis now. They're pretty. There's a whole a ADHD public forum type channel, which is really fun.
And if you head over to that, takecontroladhd.com/discord, you will be whisked over to the general invitation and login page. Of course, if you're looking for a little bit more, particularly if this show has ever touched you or helped you understand your relationship with ADHD in a new way, we invite you to support the show directly through Patreon.
Patreon is listener supported podcasting. With a few dollars a month, you can help guarantee that we continue to grow the show, add new features, and invest more heavily in the community. Visit patreon.com/theadhdpodcast. That's patreon.com/theadhdpodcast to learn more.
Okay, here we are. It's time to Tommy. Hi, Tom.
Tommy Metz III:
It's time to Tommy.
Pete Wright:
I have to say, Tom, I mean, I do just a slip shot invitation or introduction of you because I know you so well and I take advantage of that. The truth is, you are a fantastic filmmaker and screenwriter, and director. And you also lead a major chapter of young storytellers in Los Angeles and you were a major part of that community.
You are an incredible communicator and all around great human being. And I am thrilled that some years back you agreed to do this other show, What's That Smell? with me, as a way to explore... and I think a funny but vulnerable way, the anxiety that we live with.
And now, you're here, again, repeat guest, almost a hall of famer. And all three of us live with anxiety, but here we are talking about change and that's a big one. And maybe we just start with you giving us... I mean, I know the answer already, so let me just say I know the answer, so you're not doing it for me.
You're doing it for everybody else and for Nikki. What did we do over at What's That Smell? that got Melissa thinking that it would be great to have you here?
Tommy Metz III:
Well, we have changed our format a little bit, What's That Smell? and not just because I've never been comfortable with the name of our podcast. We changed because after seven seasons of talking about anxieties, I think, maybe we were, what, on the ocean floor.
We were starting to come up with things of like, "What am I afraid of? I don't know that lamp might break." And so, instead, we both came up with the idea of... the podcast had changed because we were talking so much about our lives and it wasn't just anxiety, instead, we were talking about being human.
And one of the biggest things about humans is emotions and feelings. And so, yes, we transitioned into WTS presents all the feelings. For season eight, every episode, we take one... we've already like, change is not a feeling.
So, right off the bat, we're like off the reservation. But we take something either a feeling or an emotion or a big part of being human and do a deep dive on it. We do share personal stories, interviews.
We've shared poems, which is exciting, games, all this stuff. It's a grab bag of all the things that make up a certain emotion or part of being human. And the first episode, because it was a big change for us, we talked about change, the end.
Pete Wright:
The end, you're done?
Tommy Metz III:
Yeah. And then, I just fall off my chair.
Pete Wright:
This whole podcast is going to be just filled bit like Roger that over. You don't have to say over.
Tommy Metz III:
This is a CB, right?
Nikki Kinzer:
But when you were talking about change, it's such a connection to anxiety. Any change is going to give you anxiety. So, it's a good lead into your new area.
Tommy Metz III:
And speaking of listening, I listened to your first episode about micro transitions and the difficulty that micro transitions can be for people that suffer from ADHD, which I do not.
But it really reminded me about, because you brought up young storytellers earlier, one of the things that young storytellers HQ, when they're writing the syllabus for each season have really started pushing is the idea of some transition when we go from block to block.
There's always a learning block and then a game block, and then they go off with their mentor or mentors and do a creative writing. And I wasn't exactly sure why this was so important. And then, they've never talked about it being a change of the reward system, like you guys did.
But what it's doing is to go from a game right into, okay, now go over there and make up a story." Making up a story is also really fun, but it's a different fun than zip, zap, zop or I hid something in the room, go find it.
So, to remind them of the reward system, now it's time to go back to your stories. You talked about teachers bringing people back in from recess and making it still exciting. I think that's a big part of it.
They don't talk about it as much. They do transitions like have some deep breathing thing or do a tai chi, or put something on your head. But I think the idea is to shift the thinking into that next thing. And so, it's perfectly in tune with that.
And then, one last other thing is I didn't know that I was doing it, but I have been doing it for the last about year is when I have worked to do or different tasks, I have always given myself 15 minutes in between to either read like a graphic novel, watch something, play a video game real quick, something like that.
I think you called it a transition treat, giving a transition treat to the dopamine puppy. I give myself that and that I learned it late in life. I desperately wish I'd learned it earlier. It just makes everything a little bit easier. It greases the wheels in going from task to task. So, I appreciated all of that.
Pete Wright:
I think that has been a pretty major sense of awareness over a number of years that we've been talking about how important transitions are. I mean, it's probably been five or six years since people can schedule time with me on my calendar.
And since I started shaving off five or 10 minutes from all standard meeting times, you can't schedule a half hour with me, you only get 25 minutes. And I'm pretty good about saying I'm done at 25 minutes or 50 minutes per hour meetings.
That has been a huge thing because I need that time to transition. When I did it, I'd never really considered the dopamine redirection aspect of it that we talked about last week, but that's hugely important and has been really helpful this week to consider maybe I need to do something to rather than just regroup over the meeting I just had or the session I just recorded.
Maybe I need to do something proactive to reattune my brain to some new activity to that new dopamine redirection and just think more clearly about transitions than I have in the past. I've built in the system, but not the result.
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, and the other piece, I think, it does for us is that it gives us the ability to be more mindful going into the next transition. And I know with my own appointments, too, especially if I'm working with clients, I need to have that 10 minutes in between because you have to get up, walk away from what you were just into and then be able to be really mindful for the next person.
And you can't do that without having some transition. Going straight from one person to another person, you're not going to get the best of me. That second person is not going to get the best of me, which is not a good thing.
Pete Wright:
So today, we are moving into big change and that's what we want to talk about. And my opening thesis for... and Nikki, I wonder if you could just lead the charge on this. The question is how do we adapt to big change and do we have any lessons to learn from what we talked about last week in handling little change that can help?
And let's just pull back the curtain a little bit. Part of the whole reason we wanted to do a whole series on transitions is because of how badly we didn't want to do a back to school episode again. We're done with back to school episodes.
Everybody knows how to go back to school. It's hard. But in that context, we are going back to school, back to work, home from vacation, and those can be larger transitions. But also, implementing new things in your life that you might've learned, building new habits.
All of those things can be more significant changes than I'm going from one meeting to another meeting. And in the spirit of dopamine redirection, if I can train myself to be better at making change from one direction to another over the course of minutes, can I apply the same thinking that will get me over the hump of the emotions that come with big change, too?
Because what are those emotions? I mean, Tom, this is what we talked about in that first episode, like fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear. I mean, there are a lot of emotions that erupt from change. So, that's what I'm thinking. And I'm wondering if you guys have thoughts on it.
Nikki Kinzer:
I think that a lot of the same things apply. It's just that you have to give yourself more space and more time to process these bigger changes than if you're just going from meeting to meeting. We're going from meeting to meeting.
We're talking about a 10-minute shift of getting out of your office, walking around a little bit, getting a drink of water, recentering. Bigger transitions, they're not going to just be a 10-minute fix.
I'm going through one right now, and that is I'm going to be an empty nester in a year. So, I have a son who's going to be a junior in college. He's already moved out. And then, we've got our daughter who only has one year left. And I am just like, "Oh, I want to hold onto this a year. I don't want it to go so fast," because we know it goes fast.
But I was in his room, and I was cleaning up his room, my older son, and we're making it into a guest room. And this was just a few weeks ago. And it was hard. It was sad. It was a sad transition to see this teenage boy's room and then having it now be this guest room.
I was talking to a client about it and she was like, "But you know, let yourself grieve. Let yourself grieve that moment about what you're going through, but also celebrate." And this was so sweet. "What a wonderful mother you have been to this young man."
Pete Wright:
God, that gets you in the feels. Wow.
Nikki Kinzer:
It just like, whoa. So, I think it goes back to mindset. How do we work through this? Yes, it's grief. It hurts, but at the same time, what's the opposite of that? And she really put that light on me and it just made me feel really good during that time.
Pete Wright:
But that's the dopamine redirection. That's the dopamine, serotonin partnership. And one of the things that our dear friend and past guest Dr. Dodge told me, and I went into a conversation with him and talked about the episode we did last week.
And he said, "One of the things that is so interesting about dopamine is not only is it the reward center, but it's also the chemical that reminds us when we are on track to receive the thing that we want. It's the chemical that tells you if you're moving in the right direction, not just it explodes when it's time to get a reward."
So, when you can put yourself in the mindset of, "I'm a good mom, and I have done good work to get my kid to this point," that's the end of the journey of dopamine telling you that there is a good thing on the horizon.
And that reward is you have a child that can go forth in the world and not be despondent. You've done right. So, Tom, what do you think in terms of what you have been thinking about after our big change on the show? We did a ton of research for that episode. What is stuck for you that you think is important to share?
Tommy Metz III:
One thing that I have to be careful of, and this is actually something we didn't talk about on the show, if that's okay, if you'll allow it, but watch yourself, counselor.
Pete Wright:
You can't watch yourself counseling yourself, Tom, for crying out loud. No.
Tommy Metz III:
All right, Pete approach the bench. I desperately want to be a TV lawyer. Overruled. This whole podcast is out of order. What I wanted to say is one of the things that I have to worry about, about change is procrastination.
When something is scary, I want to put it off, put it off. And that involves something, which I am now just coming up with a phrase, fake dopamine, which is the really-
Nikki Kinzer:
I like that.
Pete Wright:
I think that's cocaine.
Tommy Metz III:
Yeah, it's fake dopamine or as I call it bourbon. It's that rush of relief that I get when I put something off. I'm just not going to deal with it right now. And then, there's relief. And then, it's so fleeting.
And what I don't notice and what I'm getting much more mindful about is the anxiety about how I... I'm just compounding it. It's still going to have to happen. And now, I just have less time start seeping in.
I don't know much about addictive drugs, but it seems like you then, end up chasing that high, which gets lesser and lesser and lesser as it goes. So, that's why I call it fake dopamine.
It's a five-second few, and then this creeping slow back to anxiety and knowing that I have to change and knowing that I have to do something. No, what you're talking about the mindset and cognitive reframing is the name of the game.
It seems like it. That's the best way to do it. One of the things we talked about when I talked about moving, that was the big change that I had to do was moving my apartment.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, you saw in your apartment, it was like on a cloud of rainbows. And everybody else had to tell you your apartment's trash?
Tommy Metz III:
How dare they? And then, I made new friends, and they said the same thing. And then, I made new friends. I think one of the things, and this has to do also with procrastination, that I will rose-colored glasses certain things in order to just put off changing
I was fooling myself. My apartment was not in good shape, and it wasn't my fault. The people that ran the apartment building were a mess. Everything was a mess. You could hear it on All the Feelings, episode 801.
But yeah, I was looking at it and I was fooling myself into saying, "Isn't it cool that I'm so easygoing, that I don't need all of these, the trappings that other people need?" And it's okay that when I turn on my oven, it fills with gas for 15 seconds and then blows open sometimes with a small fireball.
I was like, "Yep, that's how casseroles are made." I just made myself into this other person. And it wasn't until I moved here to my new place where I was like, "Man, I was not easygoing. I was just afraid. I was settling so hard."
Nikki Kinzer:
You were settling. That's exactly the word that just came to mind is you were settling for that thinking it was okay, and then when you saw something different, you realized looking back, like, "Hey, wait a minute, that probably wasn't the best scenario for me to live in."
Tommy Metz III:
It was insane. And settling seems like such a passive thing, but I was settling so hard. I was working.
Pete Wright:
Aggressively.
Tommy Metz III:
Aggressively settling, which doesn't seem like a thing, but I think it was because moving is one of the most difficult things you can do. You're completely uprooting everything and putting your faith into a completely new situation, and that can be scary.
And instead, what pushed me out away was I wanted a dog and to be able to live at night during the summer because we weren't allowed to have air conditioning in the old place. The other thing was the end. I forgot what my transition.
My last thing was... oh, the cognitive reframing, what I needed to say is it can be so much better. I was saying, "I don't know what's coming." And so, I was like negative thinking, and here's all the things that could go wrong, instead of here's what I know will go right, I will get a dog. I will have a dishwasher.
I will be able to breathe at night, all of these things. I won't be surrounded by metal plates because the super doesn't know how to fix things. If I had spent more time leaning that way, then that would've been easier for me, but I didn't have the tools yet.
Pete Wright:
Well, I think that's a huge piece of it. What are the tools that you have to develop? What are the muscles you're developing in order to be able to see around that corner? We said aggressively, but I actually think in terms of your experience of moving, when everyone around you says, "This is a bad thing. You need to move."
You are antagonistically settling. You're the villain in your own future story that you are preventing yourself from seeing this new way. I feel like I'm terrified. We've been in this house for 24 years, and we need to move.
It's time for us to move. I am terrified of that process. I am just straight up terrified of that process. And I know I am antagonistically settling even to my wife and my kids. And they say, "Well, this was our childhood home. You can't move." And I say, "Oh, well, okay," because childhood home.
Nikki Kinzer:
Take pictures. And then, you're fine, and then you can move.
Pete Wright:
Well, I hear that and I can say it out loud, but then my brain says, "You know what? Pete, you have ADHD. I'll bet you'll lose this thought pretty soon." And then, it's gone because I move on to something else and I get distracted, and then it goes away.
And then, the swing back around, when I'm reminded that it's time to move, hurts even more. That hurts even more.
Nikki Kinzer:
It feels like the same thing with finding a new job. When you guys are talking about moving, I'm also thinking that there's a lot of fear of switching a job. And if you're already in a job and it's comfortable, switching to something different, unknown, it's terrifying.
Anyway, it's just so connected there. They're so related.
Tommy Metz III:
I've done the exact same thing. I was in a job that I stayed in too long because I got comfortable. And again, how I was easygoing with my apartment, with this job, I was loyal.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right. You were loyal. Yeah.
Tommy Metz III:
I'll reframe the things in order to stay. I was being loyal to these people that then ended up firing me.
Nikki Kinzer:
Not being loyal to you.
Tommy Metz III:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
One of the things that we talked about, and I don't know if this is one of the things that Melissa heard us and wanted to share with this audience, but it's something that I've been thinking about a lot, which is hedonic adaptation or the hedonic treadmill.
And the idea behind hedonic adaptation, when you think hedonic, think hedonism as the root, and it has, I don't know, porny implications. You're only out for the good and it's like sex and food, and drugs, and whatever.
But really, in this case, it's any... like, our happiness is rooted in a direction and any change, positive or negative, disrupts that direction, either emotional stability, whatever, happiness, attention, whatever that's disrupted.
And the behavioral research into hedonic adaptation suggested early on that the norm, humans were wired to that set direction and great change can happen. And for some reason, the research, earliest research was like you win the lottery or you lose a limb.
Those were the two points on the spectrum, which is very, very strange. But you can replace those with whatever you want for good or bad. Eventually, you will come back to center. Eventually, you'll come back to center.
And that center might be adjusted a little bit. But winning the lottery ends up not being the be-all, end-all of change in your life. And losing a limb turns out not that bad in comparison to... and eventually, you adjust to it to the point that you eventually find the norm.
And it might take a very long time, but you'll come back to your set direction. And a lot of the theoretical application of hedonic adaptation was debunked because they didn't take into account class culture, wealth, et cetera. But the idea is pretty provocative to me.
That if I think about the impact of change in my life and how scared I am of it, as soon as I apply this mental model of hedonic adaptation, it gives me just a little bit of freedom because that is a thing that lets me see around the next corner.
That is a metaphor that says, "You know what? If my path forward is a rubber band, this change is plucking it, and I know that it's going to vibrate for a while, but eventually it'll find stillness." And that, to me, feels like hope.
That feels like calm, that feels like I can see that there's an emotional end point, and that's pretty powerful. Does that ring any bells for you, guys?
Tommy Metz III:
It does for me, definitely. For instance, when I was moving or if I have to get a new car, if I'm making a big change for something that I don't feel like I'm unprepared for, I sometimes make the mistake of thinking there's one right way to do things.
And I'm at risk of making the wrong decision, and then I will look at that decision with regret for the rest of my life. And that's just not true. A car is a car. I don't personally care about cars, meaning I'm not a real car person.
And every car that I've ever owned, that I agonized over has become my favorite car because who cares, it's a car. I just drive around and go, beep, beep. The idea is I wrongly think that the rubber band will continually be wavering up and down forever.
And instead, everything that I do ends up being fine and it ends up feeling more normal. And it becomes the new normal, if we want to use that phrase, whatever it is we talked, I think, maybe about bookshelves, maybe we didn't.
I think maybe I didn't end up using that part on our episode, but I had to buy a new bookshelf and I was at IKEA and I was going back and forth and back and forth for what seemed like hours, I'm sure it wasn't that long, between two bookshelves and measuring them and thinking about it.
And I just got caught in this really weird feeling of there's one right bookshelf, and one of these is going to be wrong and it's not going to fit. And then, forever, when I go into my bedroom, I'm going to look at it and think that I failed.
And I got it home and I built it, and I've never thought about that bookshelf again. And you know who else doesn't think about bookshelves, anyone. When you walk into an apartment or a house and you see a bookshelf, you don't go, "Let's judge that bookshelf."
You want to see what books are on it. But I got caught into thinking that the shell was the most important thing, and there was one right way and one wrong way. And again, the rubber band will always settle down. And I'm trying to really keep that in the forefront now as a tool.
Nikki Kinzer:
I love that. I love that. And I have to tell you, yesterday, so I was working with a client, and we were trying to... he hadn't made a decision yet on what task management system he was going to use.
So, I was like, "Okay, we're going to make this decision today. Before you get off the call, you're going to know what you're going to use." And I'm sure he had all those feelings, Tommy, that you had about which one is right, which one is wrong.
And we look at TickTick, and we look at Todoist. And I'm not kidding you, they are almost identical. They really are. The basic format, they're almost identical. Now, Pete, I know you probably have a whole lot to say about how they're different, but-
Pete Wright:
No, I don't. I really don't. I think you're absolutely right. And you can say the same thing about things, and you can say the same thing about OmniFocus for basic functionality.
Nikki Kinzer:
They're the same. And there is not one wrong or right one to choose. You don't have to take the one that I use. You don't have to take the one that anybody else has used. And so, basically, I was like, "They're basically the same. You just got to choose which one you think you like better. What do you like better?"
He chose to do this. I'm like, "Great, that's what we're doing." He's not going to regret that. I mean, there isn't anything that's going to be worse. I think it just goes back to that. It's always bigger in our head than it really is once you've made the decision.
Pete Wright:
And I'll say, Tom's decision about bookshelves, really, the ripples in the pond were significant because those of us who are friends with him and podcasts with him had to hear about them every week for weeks because there was the purchase decision, and then we had to see them in boxes on the floor behind him.
Everything looks great right now.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, that's great.
Pete Wright:
That decision was non-trivial, and I think, important. Although slight side story, we have some dear friends who are empty nesters now, and they had, as a learning exercise, given one of their children an IKEA bookshelf for their bedrooms.
And the daughter built the bookshelf and never thought about it again, and now she's gone. So, the parents went in to move some things around. And mom took one book off the shelf, the entire thing crumbled because it was put together backwards and didn't use the back, and all of the support was handled by the books themselves.
And I think that's really funny. Again, continuing the metaphor, eventually the rubber band will find stillness. It will vibrate again for others. Don't worry. That's a way to pay it forward.
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, one other point that I didn't make is you had said, Tommy, about the bookshelf, it's doing what it's supposed to do. It's holding your books. It's not about the bookshelf. You just have to make the decision. And that's the same thing with a task manager.
That's just a tool. It's how you use the tool that's going to make a difference, not which tool you take or which one you use.
Tommy Metz III:
There's a risk of mistaking functionality for importance. I don't know, that's not the best way to say that-
Nikki Kinzer:
But I know what you're saying. Yeah.
Tommy Metz III:
You just need the vehicle to get you over to get you where you need to go. It doesn't matter what it looks like.
Pete Wright:
There's a funny side of that though. So, whenever somebody asks me, "What note tool should I use instead of Evernote?" I start on a deep internal spiritual journey and I try them all again.
And I did it again, and this time, I came back around and surprising no one, I ended up exactly where I started with a combination of Obsidian and DEVONthink. And I realized, through the sojourn, that research was part of the decision.
Being able to go back and check the landscape is the thing that gives me confidence that I'm in a place that works best for me, not that it's right, not that there's a right answer, but that it's best for me. And sometimes, I need to refill the tank of that process.
That process is as important. The discernment process of a tool is as important as making the choice. And I've got to give myself freedom of that because I can make myself feel incredibly guilty about doing the research on things that other people feel has no value.
I would never want to judge your research over a bookshelf because that's valueless to me. That's not my place to judge. It's not my place to judge that process and that decision. It is my place to judge so many other things about people, but not that.
Nikki Kinzer:
The bookshelf.
Pete Wright:
So, that's where I am. In terms of experiencing big change, there's this other piece that I think can be pretty powerful, and it is like finding joy when you get to the other side of it to remind yourself of how powerful that change was.
I think there are times I can imagine, I can remember the last time I moved, I had made a significant move. The move was very challenging and it was traumatic all the way through. And I never stopped to just think about that mindfulness piece of, "Hey, I did something hard."
I celebrate that I did something hard and didn't find the act of making the change as significant as it could have been, as a milestone in my life. Does that make any sense?
Nikki Kinzer:
What I see with a lot of my clients is they're focusing on the bad stuff. They're focusing on the things that they felt like they disappointed themselves, in some way, and so they're not always looking at the more positive side of it.
So, it's easy to get down that rabbit hole of, "I'll never do this," or, "I can't do this." Whatever limiting belief is stopping them from going forward. So yes, I do think it's very common.
But I think it's so unhealthy to stay there. So, we have to again, work through whatever process that is. And Pete, you're talking about the research process. So somehow we have to give ourselves space to be able to process whatever change is happening.
And that might mean talking to other people about it, getting other people's opinions, even though, really, it probably doesn't matter what other people think because you're going to do what you want to do, right, let's be honest.
So, it's one of those things that you just have to process and go through, but I think it's the mindset. It's much healthier to see and look back at, "This is my story. This is who I am. This is what brought me to this point. I should be proud of that."
"I persevered through all of this." If you can change the narrative in your head, it makes what's coming up, I think a lot more positive.
Tommy Metz III:
One of the things that I've been working on with my therapist, shout out to Bonnie, is I've learned, I've realized that I've gotten into a pattern of doing something that's scary, that I have a lot of anticipatory anxiety about, and this can be a version of change.
It can be a new performance that I'm doing, a new training, anything like that that can be changed. Really worrying about it, going through it, and it goes well. But coming out the other end and going, instead of sitting, what I'm working on now is sitting back and going, do you remember how nervous you are?
Remember that, because the whole idea is to take past success and try to attribute it to future confidence. That's something I'm very bad at. Everything I do is like, "This is the one I might blow."
And instead saying, "Remember how scared you were." And it all went great. So, maybe that can be armor for the future. But yeah, sometimes I metaphorically swipe my hand over my forehead and go, "Made it through that one. Let's see what happens next." And instead, I need to really celebrate it.
Pete Wright:
You need to celebrate it.
Tommy Metz III:
But celebrate it by remembering how scary it was, which doesn't seem like celebration, but it shouldn't be relief, it should be congratulations and triumph.
Nikki Kinzer:
You did this, yeah, absolutely.
Pete Wright:
And some of that, if you can get good at it, I wonder how much of that muscle helps get over the, I don't want to, part of change. Because we opened this conversation talking about mindset, the power of mindset, and I think that, too many times, and speaking for myself, I can get stuck in the, "I don't want to make that change, so I'm not going to, therefore it must not work."
Nikki Kinzer:
And I'm going to settle for where I am right now because it's not that bad. But really, maybe it is. So, it goes back to that circle of I'm going to convince myself that it's okay that I don't want to do this.
And you can't make someone want to do something. I think if you look at the levels of change, and I don't have them in front of me, so we've talked about this before. We did a whole show on this.
But you've got those different levels of people are telling you something and you're like, "Yeah, whatever, I'm in denial." And then, there's that, "Well, I see that this is a problem, but now, I don't know."
And then, you start to move a little bit more forward. And then, it's like the last step is this action where you actually start to make these changes, but it takes time to get there. It gets time to do that action.
And so, if you're still at that first stage, even if you can become more aware that this is an issue, you're getting closer. And I think that's something that Pete and I were talking about when we were talking about the time blocking, is that the people that showed up and watched it, they know that there's something there.
Pete Wright:
They wouldn't show up if not.
Nikki Kinzer:
They wouldn't show up if they didn't think that there was some possibility about it or around it to help them, in some way. And that's that first opening the book and checking it out. It's scary.
Tommy Metz III:
They were just walking by and they were like, "Wait," like, watching a TV through a storefront window.
Pete Wright:
Road webinar.
Nikki Kinzer:
That could be, too.
Tommy Metz III:
Well, what's this?
Pete Wright:
I need to purchase this Magnavox, yeah, very nice. Well, I really think and I hope that folks are able to listen to this episode. If you haven't heard the last week's episode, to me, they feel like bookends to the same thing.
And being able to guide your transitions and take a more active role in small change is just as important as it is in big change. It just might take a little bit more time.
Nikki Kinzer:
It just takes a little longer and time, but the feelings are the same.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, for sure.
Nikki Kinzer:
All those feelings.
Pete Wright:
Hey, segue.
Nikki Kinzer:
I know.
Pete Wright:
Do you want to just plug something? What do you feel like plugging, wink?
Tommy Metz III:
Well, there's this new cool podcast that I've heard for eight seasons. Yes, if you enjoy my horrible voice, but you do enjoy Pete and being smart, and you enjoy humor, and thinking about being human and emotions go to allthefeelings.fun. And that's where you can find-
Nikki Kinzer:
Really?
Tommy Metz III:
Yes. It's allthefeelings.fun, Uncle Pete figured out all the beeps and boops, and it's amazing.
Pete Wright:
I hope it works.
Tommy Metz III:
Yeah. Give our podcast a try. It's a thrill to do it with Pete. Every single week, we knee-deep in season eight, but you can start, if you want to know just more about Pete and I, you can start all the way back in season one, if you want, and start wherever you want.
But all the feelings have been great. And as Pete likes to keep saying, for some reason, it's really given us more brisket for the barbecue, and so it' fair-
Pete Wright:
No, don't do that. You made that a thing, and it's not a thing, it's awful.
Tommy Metz III:
Pete as Pete. As you can see at livestream, he's wearing the T-shirt right now, more brisket for the barbecue. He loves it. Yeah, it's really been helping Pete and I breathe some new life into the podcast. It's been a lot of fun.
Pete Wright:
It does feel very much like the sibling. How about sibling podcast to this show? Because I have the real benefit of being able to think about a lot of these issues across two shows, and it's really, really fun way to explore the more complicated pieces of our brain.
Tommy Metz III:
I personally consider it more of a brother podcast, but yeah, it's a fallback.
Pete Wright:
And so, that is that, Tom, thank you so much for hanging out today.
Tommy Metz III:
This was wonderful. It's always, always a pleasure. Thank you. And thank you to your wonderful listening audience for having me on.
Pete Wright:
And thank you everyone for downloading and listening to this show. We appreciate your time and your attention. Don't forget if you have something to contribute to the show, we're heading over to the show talk channel and our Discord server, and you can join us right there by becoming a supporting member at the deluxe level for better at patreon.com/theadhdpodcast.
On behalf of Nikki Kinzer and Tommy Metz III, I'm Pete Wright, and we'll see you right back here next week on Taking Control, The ADHD Podcast.
