ADHD 600
In this special 600th episode of The ADHD Podcast, Nikki and Pete reflect on the show's 14-year journey. What began as a podcast focused on organization has evolved into a what we hope is a valuable resource for the ADHD community. Throughout the years, the show has featured a lineup of incredible and generous guests, including renowned ADHD researchers and experts such as Ned Hallowell, Russell Barkley, and Dr. William Dodson.
The podcast's success has also led to the growth of the Taking Control ADHD (TCA) team, with the addition of Melissa, Bryan, and Marian. As the show has grown, so too have Nikki and Pete, both personally and professionally. They've navigated the joys and challenges of raising families, building businesses, and adapting to a changing world.
Through it all, the Taking Control Podcast has remained a constant source of support, information, and inspiration for its listeners. As they mark this momentous milestone, Nikki and Pete express their heartfelt gratitude to their listeners and the ADHD community for making the past 600 episodes possible.
Links & Notes
-
Pete Wright:
Hello everybody 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:
Happy birthday.
Nikki Kinzer:
Happy birthday.
Pete Wright:
I had no idea that the planets and numbers would align quite so well as to give us our blessed episode 600 nay one day from our 14th anniversary of doing this show.
Nikki Kinzer:
Who knew? We couldn't have planned it better.
Pete Wright:
Nobody knew.
Nikki Kinzer:
Nobody knew.
Pete Wright:
Astrologers, scientists, nobody could have planned this except for maybe one day better. We could have possibly planned it one day better, but still.
Nikki Kinzer:
Darn good.
Pete Wright:
600 episodes of this crazy show and 14 years. That feels pretty big.
Nikki Kinzer:
It is. It does feel really big.
Pete Wright:
Pretty big. So as we record this, we're doing something different. Well, maybe not that different. We've done kind of a retrospective show before, but it's been a long time and we have a bunch of new listeners. And so we're going to talk a little bit about our history today, and we're going to talk about kind of our favorite milestones through the years of doing the show. And so we beg you to forgive us our naval gazing today. We shall be introspective about the show. And for those who aren't interested in us talking about ourselves, hell, I'm not very interested normally in us talking about ourselves, but this is the day we're going to do it. So please, if you're not interested in that, go ahead and skip the episode because this is all it's going to be. This is just it. And the next episode is going to be awesome with an awesome return guest and we're very, very excited about it. So that's it. It is that enough preamble?
Nikki Kinzer:
Sounds good.
Pete Wright:
Okay, so head over to takecontroladhd.com to get to know us a little bit better. Listen to the show on the website, mailing list. Pinterest and Facebook and Instagram, they're all Take Control ADHD. You should do those things and Discord. Take control adhd.com/discord, jump into the community channel if you want to chat along in the public channels over there. And Discord, that's where the live stream is chatting right along with us as we record this very thing. You guys are very funny and kind hosting gifs and nice notes of Happy Birthday. We love having this chat room and you could be a part of the chat room too by becoming a deluxe member of our Patreon, patreon.com/theADHDpodcast. This show exists, the live stream exists, the Discord exists, all because of people who directly support the show by way of Patreon. So please, please, if you are getting to know yourself with your ADHD and this show has helped you along the way, consider supporting the vast catalog of yes, 600 episodes, well, that you can have access to as a member if you jump into the Patreon. patreon.com/theADHDpodcast to learn more. Okay, Nikki, it's time.
Nikki Kinzer:
It's time.
Pete Wright:
Okay, 600 episodes, 14 years. Did you ever think that we were going to hit a milestone like this? I mean, what's next? 1,000? What lunatic would podcast that long?
Nikki Kinzer:
I don't know. Us? I don't know. No, 600 episodes, that's a lot of talking of stuff. You and I just talking.
Pete Wright:
So much talking. So Melissa, bless her and her brain, I've canonized her. She's the official historian. She's a saint now. She's the ADHD Saint Melissa. This Discord bomb thing, we're done with that. Now it's Saint Melissa because she has an encyclopedic memory for this show. I don't know how she does it. We did the show and we don't know the show as well as Melissa does.
Nikki Kinzer:
No.
Pete Wright:
And one of the things that I think Melissa should do to level up is to be able to start giving us a total word count of every episode across the show. That would be an interesting metric. You disagree.
Nikki Kinzer:
I don't know. Word counts are not always my friends.
Pete Wright:
Oh, right. I already forgot. So this, as we do this show, yes, this is one day off of our 14th birthday as the show airs, 3/22/24.
Nikki Kinzer:
Which is interesting because that's my mother's birthday.
Pete Wright:
So many birthdays.
Nikki Kinzer:
And I don't remember that our first episode was on my mom's birthday, but it was also 14 years ago. So of course I would not remember that.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, 14 years ago. We've done a lot. And so we were going to walk through a little bit of what's been happening in the last decade and a half.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
For those who don't know who come into the show fairly recently in our 600 episodes, the show didn't start out as an ADHD podcast.
Nikki Kinzer:
No, it did not. It started out as an organizing podcast.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, because you were a professional organizer at that point for people.
Nikki Kinzer:
I was, yes. And I'll make this story short because I know a lot of people know about it, but maybe not everyone, so it's interesting. But yeah, I started out as a professional organizer and I had an opportunity to do a weekly radio hosting kind of like Q&A thing with another organizer in town, and it was a local radio show. And I talked to Pete about every business decision that I do, and I tell Pete about this radio show and he's like, "Don't do that. You need to do your own podcast, be your own show." And I'm like, "I don't even know what you're talking about. What is a podcast?" And so you hooked us up on getting this thing going and I thought it was just going to be on my website. I had no idea that it was going to be available for anyone who wanted to hear it in the world. And there we started.
Pete Wright:
It all started with a journey through the office closet.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes. Yours, your office closet.
Pete Wright:
Was it mine really?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, it was yours.
Pete Wright:
I haven't even gone back to listen to this yet.
Nikki Kinzer:
It was your office.
Pete Wright:
It's bad news.
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, you didn't keep it up?
Pete Wright:
No. Okay, so my office closet-
Nikki Kinzer:
We failed?
Pete Wright:
No, no, no, we actually did a heck of a job because the structure that I created hasn't changed since then. And it is very resilient. It's super resilient and I can stack stuff, put things away, shelve them as necessary. But day to day, I don't pay a lot of attention to it. And I have this one shelf right next to me that I can just put stuff when I need it out of sight and close the door. And so that's the part that grows, but that's the only part I have access to, so everything else I can't reach. So what I've known, what I've noticed y'all, is if you can't touch a thing, you can't disorganize a thing.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's true.
Pete Wright:
What do we think about that?
Nikki Kinzer:
That's a tip. That's an organizing tip today.
Pete Wright:
Very important tip. Don't touch anything in your house after you get it organized, you'll be fine.
Nikki Kinzer:
Exactly. Yep.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, we are the biggest danger to our own organization systems. And so we thought we would play just a little bit for those who haven't heard it, just a little bit of the office closet. Here it is.
Welcome to Taking Control, everybody, the inaugural episode of the Take Control Organizing Home Organizing podcast. My name is Pete Wright and I'm here with TCO proprietor, Nikki Kinzer. Hello, Nikki.
Nikki Kinzer:
Hi, Pete. Welcome, everyone, to the show.
Pete Wright:
This is so cool, right? You're internet famous already, I'm sure.
Nikki Kinzer:
I know. High-tech technology that I can do this from my home office.
Pete Wright:
I know, it's wonderful. And I can say things like, I'm sitting here with Nikki and it's like a complete fraud. I probably shouldn't have said that. I'm pulling back the curtain a little too much. Well, here's the first one. So this is my big challenge. It's always behind me. Most of the work I do is on video conference and through Skype.
Nikki Kinzer:
And I've seen it. I've seen it behind you.
Pete Wright:
It's awful. It's terrible. It's this awful sliding doors behind me. It's this terrible closet. It's too shallow and yet too deep. It's always so packed with stuff that literally the doors will not stay on the sliders. It's a chronic, awful organizing challenge. Mostly I'm so embarrassed when the camera goes on and my clients look behind me over my shoulder and see the doors popping off the hinges. I know I'm not alone with this kind of a problem. Closets, I think, are prone to hiding things in, but as such, it's just not used space. How do I start to get my head around my closet?
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, have you organized it before in the past?
Pete Wright:
Yes. Oh, yes. No, because I feel like I'm constantly... I have it on my to-do list. I have a to-do list, that's a good start. And I go in every six months a little alarm says, "Tackle the closet." And it started, I would actually make some headway. I'd organize things and stack things and they'd look very clean. And it takes a week and suddenly stuff is just pouring out of it again.
Nikki Kinzer:
Because you're shoving things back into it without probably really thinking too much about where the items are going. That's my guess.
Pete Wright:
Right. I think that's true.
The thing about that episode and the thing about our first many episodes is that they are locked from the public. So if you're not a Patreon, if you are not a Patreon member, you can't hear those episodes. And even for our Patreons, it's kind of by request. I can give you access to those episodes, but they're hard to find because they're not what we do anymore. We started incorporating ADHD-centric episodes into the organizing podcast back in 2012. So season four, episode 19 is ADHD: An Excuse or An Explanation? So that was the first time we started talking about ADHD. But I think what's interesting about that is that was when we started insinuating that the show was changing. Do you remember when you decided, like the moment you decided, "Hey, I think this is going to be ADHD," or was it more of a slow roll?
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, no, I knew because at that time I was in my coaching training, so I was getting my certification and going through all of the programs and everything. So I knew in 2011 that I was going to be switching gears. We didn't know exactly how that was going to pan out because for a while I was a professional organizer specializing in ADHD, and then I flipped it and said, "Nope, I just want to be an ADHD coach and not necessarily specialize in organizing, just I want to do all ADHD coaching."
Pete Wright:
Why?
Nikki Kinzer:
Because I had a couple of clients who had ADHD. Well, I had more than just a couple, but there were two particular clients that I worked with that were in businesses, and they hired me to start working with them to organize their spaces. And both of them were owners of their business, like entrepreneurs. And I loved the work of not necessarily organizing physical space, but I loved organizing and helping them figure out their workflow and getting caught up because they were very behind on things and helping them build new systems in how they were doing their work. And I really enjoyed it and I thought, "I think I would be a better fit if I could work with more ADHD people in all different aspects of ADHD. I think I would just enjoy it and I think it would be a longer lasting career for me." And I was right. I mean, I'm really glad that I made that jump.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, I think so too. And what you didn't know when we started doing this was that I hadn't just gotten my diagnosis. I think I was diagnosed in... What would it have been? 2001, 2002, somewhere in there. I'd been married for just a couple of years, probably under two years. And so I had my diagnosis and I was fascinated by ADHD because I realized that was my brain and I was kind of coming to terms with that. But you didn't know that when you said ADHD. That was a surprise to both of us, which was really, really fun.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right. Yeah, I had no idea. And you kind of pushed back a little bit too. I don't know if you remember, but you pushed back a little bit because at that time, there weren't as many podcasts in the world as there are right now. And so we were very popular as an organizing podcast. We were always in the little top 10, and you could see us when people are looking for podcasts and you're like, "Are you sure? Because we're going to lose listeners. This is going to make an effect on our show." And I remember sitting and just thinking about it and thinking about it, and, "Nope, it's okay because I want to get different listeners. I want different people." And was really happy to do that.
Pete Wright:
And that played out pretty much exactly as we kind of set ourselves up to expect.
Nikki Kinzer:
Absolutely. There were some people who were like, "Well, I don't have ADHD, I'm not going to follow you anymore." Okay, that's great. But then with one person lost, we were gaining five people that did have ADHD and found a lot of value in the podcast, and that was important.
Pete Wright:
I will say, Melissa corrected me, technically, where those first episodes exist is still on takecontroladhd.com, and you can visit those episodes by just typing takecontroladhd.com/podcast/the episode number you're looking for. So you want to hear episode 10, just podcast/10, and you should jump right to it. But those are not in the podcast feed anymore because that's not what we do. So we made the official switch on June 2nd 2014, so just about 10 years ago. That was season nine, episode one. We're going through some changes. That shows up as technically episode one in the podcast now. And that was when we outed ourselves as an ADHD podcast officially, and decided we're not ever going to do any other kinds of things if they don't relate to ADHD. Super good choice for both of us, I think.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, I think so too. Absolutely.
Pete Wright:
We've got questions coming in in the live chat, and what we normally do is save these for later, but I think I'm going to take them as they come because they're interesting and I think they fit the conversation. So Laura asks, "My question is, how did you both decide to come up with this format? I've been fascinated by the peak behind the camera as you were creating your podcast." What's your memory of that?
Nikki Kinzer:
Of the format of doing a podcast?
Pete Wright:
Yeah, maybe... And Laura, if you want to jump in and explain further, not just of doing the podcast, but of the format of the show that it is right now.
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh. Well, it's changed, hasn't it? Over time, I think it's changed because when we first started, it was around organizing. I really wish I would've looked at some of those titles because I don't remember everything that we talked about with organizing. I'm assuming we had to have just picked different strategies and how-tos, so I definitely think it was a how-to organize with your comments. So I would have this outline of things I wanted to say, and then you would chime in and talk about it. But you never talked about ADHD, and I didn't talk about ADHD until later.
Pete Wright:
No, I was... In the organizing days, I was just a nerd for organizing, and I was okay playing the rube to your expert. That was the whole idea was I was just going to help sort of grease the skids for you to talk about organizing and helping people figure out their organizing system and organize their spaces.
Nikki Kinzer:
We also weren't weekly either.
Pete Wright:
No. And we've been all over the place on that front. We've been biweekly, we took breaks. I remember one point having to talk to you and say, "Hey, we got to do this again. I know we've kind of run out of steam on such and so." But that also led us to starting to invite our first guests on the show, because I think guests, that was a big shift was opening ourselves up to saying, "Okay, we need to invite experts on the show. I think they'll contribute a lot."
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, and that definitely wasn't until after it became an ADHD podcast because we didn't have any guests when it was organizing. It was just me talking and you commenting. And they weren't long episodes. They were very short and pretty easy to listen to because they were just short and they were more how-to. So it was almost like, it was almost to me, doing a blog post, but talking about the blog post. That is sort of how I looked at it. And then when we switched to ADHD, I think one of the biggest benefits for me doing this show and being an ADHD coach, is that when you have to create an outline and you have to think about who you want as a guest, it forces you, and I'm not saying this in a bad way, but it forces you to stay educated and to learn and learn and keep learning about ADHD.
So I don't think I would have the knowledge and... Well, really just the knowledge of ADHD that I have now without doing the show, because you're always in it and you're always talking to people that are in it, and you're learning so much. Every single time we have a guest, every single time we have a conversation, I learned from you. And so for me, for my career, it's just been this huge educational platform that I think makes me a good coach, that makes me a better coach.
Pete Wright:
You should be getting CUs for this.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, totally. So that has just been such an honor to be able to be in your business like that and just keep learning it in a fun way where I don't have to go to a conference and watch ADHD sessions hour by hour by hour for 12 hours a day. That's a lot, but this we don't have to do. But going back to the format, I do remember when we were every other week, I also remember when we tried to batch our episodes where we would record four in a day. That was hard.
Pete Wright:
We would do four episodes on a Monday and take care of a whole month.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, that didn't last very long because neither one of us really liked that. That fourth episode was always tough to get through.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, for sure.
Nikki Kinzer:
But Lori Depar was our first guest.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, Lori was our first guest talking about medication. And I remember how exuberant I think you felt after that conversation, sort of ripping the bandaid off and just doing it for the first time was illuminating and just made it a lot more fun.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, because you have that imposter syndrome, right? Like, "Who is going to want to talk to us?" And medication has never been anything that I've been comfortable to talk about because it's not my expertise. I'm not a doctor. I don't want to talk about it because I'm not the right person to talk about it. But Lori Depar at the time, and probably still today, she came from a medical field background and she knew a lot about these medications and we thought, "Yeah, let's pull that bandaid and see if she would be interested," and she sure was.
Lori Depar:
One of the things that I do is I do a class, it's like a five-week class actually, that really makes it make sense. Still professional, but not in this crazy brain words. They're words that make sense so that you know, "Oh, this is what's happening in my brain. This is how the medications work. This is why that one does that. This is what's happening when the medication is wearing off in my system." All of those things I help people understand so they can make a educated choice what's right for them or right for a loved one.
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, I think you're filling a need there definitely because yeah, the information is not out there, and that's fantastic.
Pete Wright:
This is wonderful information, Lori. Thank you so much for taking the time. And we said this was going to be a legendary episode. I think it certainly is legendary in the length for us. This was just a nonstop awesome kind of roller coaster. I hope people get a lot out of it, but you're also our very first guest.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yay!
Pete Wright:
Which is awesome. Yay!
Lori Depar:
I'm so excited.
Pete Wright:
We need a plaque.
Lori Depar:
Yeah. I want a plaque. I want a little plaque.
Pete Wright:
You should have a plaque.
Lori Depar:
Yes, yeah.
Pete Wright:
This has been just terrific. So thank you so much for taking your time and joining us.
Lori Depar:
My pleasure. What a lot of fun for me, Pete and Nikki. Thank you so much.
Pete Wright:
Fantastic.
Nikki Kinzer:
It was great. And then, yeah, after that it was like, "Hey, I wonder if we can get some of these bigger names." And boy, were we surprised.
Pete Wright:
Why did they say yes? My God.
Nikki Kinzer:
The one that-
Pete Wright:
They're so... We totally snookered them.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, I know. The one that I was the biggest... Was Ned Hallowell.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Because I mean, yeah, he is ADHD. He is the expert. And so were the other ones too, but he was the big name, and I remember being really nervous and he was so nice. And he almost made us feel like, "Well, why wouldn't I do it?"
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right. He was fantastic. Russ Barkley, another one, Bill Dodson. Bill Dodson is... He introduced RSD to us and our audience. And it is still, I mean, from season 19, episode 11, thank you, Melissa, unreal, introduced us to RSD, and it was one of those just mind-blowing experiences.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes. One of the most popular and most listened episodes and yeah, he's amazing.
Bill Dodson:
Now, nobody, whether they have ADHD or not, likes being rejected or criticized. We're talking about something that's in a whole different league. This goes beyond not liking it to it being catastrophic. The person can't continue to function. It takes over their lives for hours to days. And it's an overwhelming emotional experience that people can't describe. That's another aspect of it, is that... In fact, that's where the word dysphoria originally came from, is that it's literally Greek for unbearable.
The people who did the original work wanted to get how severe this emotional reaction was right up there in the neck. Of course, it was harder when they put it in Greek, so it was pretty much lost on everyone. But that's what happened over and over again. The researchers were pestering the research subjects, "What does it feel like? What does it feel like?" And finally, over and over again, people would say, "Look, man, back off. I can't find the words to tell you what this feels like, but I want you to know I can hardly stand it." And it was this unbearable nature that got really the name, rejection sensitive dysphoric, difficult to bear.
Pete Wright:
We also have a number of... We have a couple now of Hall of Famers and a couple who are creeping up to it. But our two, I just sort of started saying that Hall of Fame was, I think it was five. Once you're on the show five times, you're Hall of Fame. I don't know what we're going to do for James Ochoa, who is creeping up on 10. He's been on the show nine times. And the thing I love so much about James is dealing with the emotional storms, just how vulnerable he is every time he's on the show, talking about his own experiences. And him sharing, shaking at his kitchen counter, discovering that he had done his audiobook by reading all the punctuation was earth-shattering for me.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.
James Ochoa:
So it's interesting because it was a post-traumatic stress event, meaning that I remember the time and the day that on August 30th at 10:04 PM as I stood in my beautiful kitchen, leaning against my wonderful granite countertop bar as I was checking the royalties on my book for the month, which is always a fun thing to do. And I happened to see the little audible link for my audiobook, and I thought to myself, "Oh, I think I'll go to the Audible link and look at my book on Audible." And my book's been out over three and a half years. It's been a wonderful success. And as I clicked the link, it was very clear to me, it was like, "Wait a minute, I'm not sure I've ever been here before." And that thought started to tumble that it was like, "Wait a minute." And as it came up, I'm like, "Oh, I know I haven't been here before." And so the world really did. I mean, your chest caving in, my head started to swirl, which is my reaction.
And then I see 164 or five comments, which is more comments than I've had anywhere on any social media platform openly in the public that I hadn't seen in three and a half years. And I'm still stunned. I don't think I'll ever be not stunned by the chasm of that space. And all the comments were great. We had, what, 4.3 I think it was, out of five stars. That's wonderful. People think it's great. And then the narration I get to is two out of five. And I'm like, "What is..." I did the narration, so I'm like, "Wait a minute, that's a two out of five for me personally."
And that's when I think I had to hold onto my granite countertop bar so I didn't fall over because I'm like, "Oh my gosh, what have I done here?" And in looking at it, the narration, I had chosen to read some parentheses and bullet points, which you never read punctuation in audiobooks. I know that now. And people were really annoyed by that. So here, Pete and Nikki, I had people with ADHD who had comments that were valid that I couldn't listen to the book. Sure, there were many who didn't even notice it. Or maybe in their own ADD, they didn't even hear it. It wasn't a big deal. But that set off a storm of obviously monumental proportions for me.
Pete Wright:
There are so many layers to this, right? Sharon Celine is another one who's been on five times now, also a Hall of Famer. I feel like we need to start making trophies.
Nikki Kinzer:
I know. Yeah, wonderful, wonderful presenters.
Pete Wright:
I also had a bucket list. I have a bucket list of my favorite guests.
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, yeah, because you fanboyed a little bit, especially the third one down.
Pete Wright:
Well, okay. [inaudible 00:28:59], I have been listening to thinking about reading his books for years. He creates flow with OmniFocus. He's all about flow state productivity. And I found him when I was still using OmniFocus, and it was just a illuminating way to think about that app. And he also plays the piano at concert level, he's really extraordinary. So I've just always been a fan, and having him on the show and be such a gracious guest was amazing. The same thing goes for Brett Terpstra. I've been following Brett's nerdery for years. Brett has a lot of stuff going on that he is just unafraid to talk about, from overcoming significant drug and alcohol addiction to ADHD, OCD, depression. He's got the whole cornucopia and he's just... I see him as such a wonderfully brave, public individual. It was great to have him on the show. Jesse Mecham from YNAB, founder of YNAB was just so great because YNAB has just turned around my life and my relationship with money, and it's just nice to be able to honor those.
Nikki Kinzer:
He was great.
Pete Wright:
And Colleen Macklin, who I think just so highly of as a designer, game developer, and the fact that Colleen, hi, Colleen, told us that she already listened to the show when we invited her to join, was a huge win for us. I think that was beautiful. So that list just keeps growing for me, of people who are my very favorites that have for some reason or another said yes.
Nikki Kinzer:
Mm-hmm. That's great. Well, we had two shows that were hosted alone, all the other shows... So all 598 shows are co-hosted by you and I, except for two.
Pete Wright:
Right.
Nikki Kinzer:
And the first one was with Ari Tuckman [inaudible 00:31:01]. And you hosted it because I woke up that morning violently ill.
Pete Wright:
Yes. And that was an early morning show, and it was kind of a last minute thing, and we just decided to roll with it.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes. And you guys did it.
Pete Wright:
We did. I thought it was-
Nikki Kinzer:
And then the next one was just a more recent one from 2023, and that was with Dr. Oliveria and my daughter, Paige Kinzer, where we talked about eating disorders and ADHD. That, of course, is a podcast that's very dear to me. And I could not have picked a better guest to be on that show with us. That man is amazing, and he has a heart of gold, and he was so kind. The day after we recorded, he sent me an email and just said, "I just wanted to make sure you two are okay," and really complimented Paige about how wonderful she did, and was just really grateful for being on the show. I mean, he's just a wonderful person, one of my favorite people. And yeah, that's a show that's definitely near and dear.
Pete Wright:
It was a lovely show, and I'm glad I wasn't on it because it's really nice to go back and listen to it, to have the experience. And I had the experience of being able to edit it, and I just thought it was so lovely to hear just how well both of you did having that conversation. I thought it was really great. We had the bigger... I don't want to say bigger, but the big milestone happened I think back in 2018 for the community, and that's when we launched Patreon and the Discord community. Do you remember that process for us?
Nikki Kinzer:
I do, because I fought against it for a while.
Pete Wright:
I know.
Nikki Kinzer:
You had the idea. And I was like, "No, I don't think we should do it," and it just seems strange and weird. And then I don't know what the turn was, but at some point it became a weird idea to, "Oh my God, this is a fantastic idea," and "Let's do this." And then that also grew because it started with different tiers and different goals. And we have to shout out to... It's Rachel.
Pete Wright:
It's Rachel.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. She was key.
Pete Wright:
Well, Rachel had been a part of a lot of other gaming communities on Discord, and I was still very new to Discord at the time and was diving in enthusiastically, but Rachel knew how to do everything. And so early on, Rachel helped get the initial run of channels set up. And our beta team for a long time was Ellie, who had school and babies and has kind of faded off of the community for a little while. But Ellie was a significant part of that, working with Rachel and Melissa and me just trying to build out the Discord community and get it connected to Patreon and figure out, "What do we need to do to create a space where people feel comfortable talking with each other?" And it turns out the tiers, I think we went through a number of different tier setups when we first started figuring out how to create that space by channel access, by who's investing in the community.
And I think it's worked pretty darn well. I think the events that we have, the group that gathers is intimate, but I think welcoming. I hope welcoming. We really try to make it easy to jump into the various events that we host and have a lot of laughs, and yet create a safe space for people to share. So I mean, we started with you, me, and Rachel, and now it's been six years and we have almost 900 members, and we have international folks. I mean, I just never... We get pizza from Scandinavia and kangaroos from down under, and it's just-
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. That was one my favorite moments is when we have our Australia member, and he was driving to work, I think, and he stopped by the park so he could show us the kangaroos.
Pete Wright:
Park? It was a graveyard.
Nikki Kinzer:
Is that what it was?
Pete Wright:
I think it was a graveyard. They were hopping around the graveyard.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. Well, a park is kind of a graveyard, graveyard park. Yeah, that was really fun. I loved that. Lots of Happy Hour... We've had 65 Happy Hours. First one was on October 3rd 2018. And those have changed too. Some of the people have come and gone, some people have stayed. We will have small, intimate, real powerful conversations, and then we'll play a game sometimes. So it's always been a really fun event that I look forward to, and I know you do too every month to-
Pete Wright:
Very much. My general vibe going into Happy Hour is, "Oh my gosh, it's the end of a long day. I'm exhausted." And coming out of Happy Hour, my family can't shut me up. I find Happy Hour the most rejuvenating, fantastic experience, just hearing how people's days went, like what's going on. Like, tell jokes, share memes. There is the only condition of attending those Happy Hours is just living your life with ADHD. It's not therapy. It's not necessarily... There's no reason... There's nothing you have to expect of yourself to show up. Just show up and enjoy other people.
Nikki Kinzer:
And you never know where the conversation's going to go, because we don't have an agenda. We're not teaching anything. We're not talking about the show. I mean, sometimes we do, but that's not the basis of it. So yeah, that's the beauty of it too. You never know what you're going to get in a Happy Hour.
Pete Wright:
You never know what you're going to get. We also have a team now that we didn't have.
Nikki Kinzer:
We do.
Pete Wright:
It was just you and me, kid.
Nikki Kinzer:
Just you and me. And I had an assistant. I had another assistant for a while, but yeah, the show for sure, was just you and me. She really only worked on the business side. But yeah, so Melissa came into our lives as a Patreon member and was responding and really involved. And then we asked her, right? We just were like, "Hey, how do you feel about working on the show with us?"
Pete Wright:
Yeah, that was in 2020 and it was pandemic. I'm not sure, I mean, maybe Melissa would have to remember that, but I wonder if that was because of the pandemic. Because when the pandemic hit, you and I were podcasting every day.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, and my business got really busy too because I was coaching a lot. And so I think we did need help because I wasn't able to do both. I couldn't do both.
Pete Wright:
Right. So Melissa started in January as our part-time community manager and-
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, I just remembered something.
Pete Wright:
What's that?
Nikki Kinzer:
The other reason is because, again, my other assistant only did the coaching stuff, so we didn't think it would be a good fit for her to all of a sudden jump into podcast when Melissa we knew was in it and listened and yeah. So that was another... It just reminded me of that.
Pete Wright:
Well, and was already really a heart of the place. It wasn't easy.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right. Well, that's why she's Discord mom and queen and saint.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, it was definitely the easy choice. Saint. Saint Melissa too. And is now after-
Nikki Kinzer:
Full-time.
Pete Wright:
Full-time. Full-time operations manager for all things TCA. And talk about taking over the reins for so many different aspects-
Nikki Kinzer:
So many things.
Pete Wright:
... of the job, yeah. And then taking up the reins for our second Discord community manager and moderator as we continue to join is our very own Brian Brunell, who sang a song on our 500th episode. And if there's anybody who has lived up to the pace Melissa said is the heart of the community, I mean, Brian was right there. I mean, he was the first one to wish people welcome and always the last one to leave. And it just was an easy choice to kind of start having more meetings with Brian. And even though Brian is a very busy person in his day job, he's just really committed to this community, and it's been such an honor to have him onboard and supporting as well. And then Marian, what do you say about Marian?
Nikki Kinzer:
She's just a joy.
Pete Wright:
An absolute joy. Joined to help Melissa. Works technically, directly for Melissa, and as the operations assistant and company continues to grow, and Marian is awesome, and we just see the world ahead of Marian as a central part of this team.
Nikki Kinzer:
Absolutely.
Pete Wright:
I just feel like it's important to run through those people because I want people to know how many people kind of contribute to the community and to the podcast directly. There are a lot of hands and fingers in the podcast besides me and Nikki and the podcast as it is now, we couldn't do without them.
Nikki Kinzer:
No.
Pete Wright:
We couldn't do it. We couldn't do the show that we started 14 years ago without that support. So it's huge.
Nikki Kinzer:
So important. Thank you, everyone, at that TC team, TCA team.
Pete Wright:
So Melissa put a list of all the things that have happened over the last year outside of the podcast.
Nikki Kinzer:
I know. This is so fun.
Pete Wright:
Of course, our kids growing up, becoming young adults, moving out, college, careers. Our kids were, I mean, okay, seven?
Nikki Kinzer:
Paige would've been five. Well, if it was in 2010, so Paige would've been five and Jaden would've been eight.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, Sophie was eight. Nicholas would've been four.
Nikki Kinzer:
Almost four or almost five probably, yeah, because they're pretty close in age.
Pete Wright:
And so they are now... About to leave.
Nikki Kinzer:
21 and 18.
Pete Wright:
We're about to lose them all.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, we're going to become empty nesters.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. And I do wonder what that's going to change in terms of the show. It'll be interesting to see when the kids are gone, who are we going to talk about? We're going to have to have kids on just to figure out what kids are doing.
Nikki Kinzer:
What they're doing. I know. Yeah, it's crazy.
Pete Wright:
So Melissa added the growth of Pete's podcast empire from Rash Pixel to TruStory FM.
Nikki Kinzer:
Talk about TruStory.
Pete Wright:
Well, so I started podcasting in 2006 personally, and it was just me for many, many, many years. In fact, 14 years until the pandemic, until 2020, it was just me. But one of the shows-
Nikki Kinzer:
What did you talk about?
Pete Wright:
Well, the early shows, the first show that I did, I was working for an education concern, organization I will not name. And I started a podcast internally, that was my first podcast. It was a podcast for the other faculty members to talk about each other's work, to have faculty come on and talk about, "What is your day job like? You're all adjunct faculty, what do you do?" So I interviewed criminologists, I interviewed accountants, I interviewed judges. I interviewed all kinds of different people. And then the legal department at the university wrote me after about eight or 10 weeks of doing the show and said, "You have to stop doing the show."
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh.
Pete Wright:
For those of you who weren't really tracking the legal environment around technology and podcasting at the time, it was rough because it was a new industry, and so there were a lot of patent trolls out there. And there was a guy who swore that he had the patent on delivering audio over the internet and that he was sending cease and desist orders or license my tech orders to everyone who had a podcast. And it was a frivolous lawsuit. He didn't own that patent at all.
Nikki Kinzer:
You can't own that space, yeah, air.
Pete Wright:
Right. I mean, it was frivolous. But the legal department at the place was like, "What is this little stupid thing doing that we're getting these legal notices we're not even going to investigate, we're just going to shut it down. So don't do it. We don't want to think about it anymore." Podcasting was very new in 2006. I mean, it was me and Leo LaPorte and, I mean, it was just very of us. Adam what's his name from MTV, Corolla. What's his first name?
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, right. Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Anyway, it was very, very new. So two other faculty members and I left or took the podcast outside of the university and created Beer:30 Live. And it was just a talk show that happened... We would leave work at 4:30 on Friday afternoon and go over to the McMenamins in Lake Oswego for Happy Hour. And that was a way for us, because beer was in the title of the show, we wrote off 100% of our booths for another year and a half.
Nikki Kinzer:
So smart.
Pete Wright:
And we interviewed other teachers, we interviewed politicians, we interviewed musicians, and we would have them all come into the bar and sit at this big booth and McMenamins kind of sponsored us. It was fantastic. And then the other two faculty members got jobs. I tried to kind of recast the host of that show, it just didn't work. But over that time, I started getting hired by other companies to come help them start their podcasts. And that started my business of doing podcasts on contract. And they would hire me to be the guy... My background was in journalism originally, and so they would hire me to be the guy to interview them and talk about their products or services.
And I think all the shows eventually took a turn like the ADHD podcast did. They became less about a sales pitch and more about really evaluating the space and looking at interesting issues. But none of them really lasted as long as ADHD. And I think it's because I live so intimately in this space and this is home for me. And so it was really great. I do a lot of fun shows, dumb shows, dumb fun shows. The Next Reel Family of Film podcast is all about movies and entertainment, and those are all members supported, people who like to hear the way we talk about movies. I started the Next Reel on November 11th 2011. So that show has been going almost as long as the ADHD podcast.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes, yes.
Pete Wright:
And so we're cruising up toward our 600, and we have a number of shows underneath that that are really fun. Different ways to think about movies, movies by minute shows. We've done the first... All the Marvel movies we're working through one minute at a time. They're extraordinarily dumb. And of course, What's That Smell? A sometimes-funny podcast about humans and their anxieties. Now it's All The Feelings, a sometimes-funny show about being human, and we're really excited about that. The crossover that has had with this show, ADHD, anxiety, feelings with Tommy, that's the third. So TruStory now has 35, 36 shows that we do across healing, education, ADHD, obviously, entertainment. We're all over the place, but we're producing a lot of content.
Nikki Kinzer:
So you're producing and editing and getting it out there. You're not a co-host on all of those shows.
Pete Wright:
I'm not a co-host on all of them. I am a co-host on a number of them. I can't do it anymore. I'm tapped out, so it's too hard. That model doesn't work anymore.
Nikki Kinzer:
But you're going to stay here with this one?
Pete Wright:
Of course. Absolutely.
Nikki Kinzer:
Okay. All right, I just want to make sure everyone knows that.
Pete Wright:
This is home, right? This is one of my oldest shows. It is really important to me personally, and I love this community so much. So the reason I can't take on new shows is because of this show, right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Pete Wright:
I mean, it's because of the investment that I make right here. So that's important to me. I'm at the point I think in my career where when new clients come on, they sort of expect me to be able to do it. And I've just started having to say no. My partner in TruStory, Andy Nelson, who is a godsend, his production house in Phoenix closed down during the pandemic and they never opened up again. And that's when he joined me. He's been podcasting with me on the Next Reel since 2011.
He and I were RAs together at University of Colorado Boulder. We've been friends a long time. My senior project was the making of movie about his senior project, a movie that we filmed at Denver International Airport right after it opened. So we've been intertwined for a long time. And so he came on as a full-time partner for me, and now helps produce... He refuses to host any of our client shows, which is his right. So that's what TruStory is. And that's why this show is under the banner of TruStory because that's what I bring to the table, the ADHD and the tech.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's awesome.
Pete Wright:
I hope that's interesting to somebody out there.
Nikki Kinzer:
It's interesting to me because I didn't know all of that. I didn't realize you had so much experience in interviewing people either. That's awesome.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, lots.
Nikki Kinzer:
And it makes sense because it's so natural for you.
Pete Wright:
Well, thank you. I appreciate hearing that. I don't know, I haven't done the count, but in terms of total episodes of podcasts that I've hosted since 2006, I mean, it's over 10,000, easy.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, that's crazy. Wow.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, maybe more. I mean, just in raw hours. I've hit 10,000 hours. How about that?
Nikki Kinzer:
There you go.
Pete Wright:
That's supposed to be important to someone, I think. Oh yeah, okay, I have to add this. Melissa is making an excellent point. She and I were having a chat, and I use Melissa to brainstorm stuff all the time, and I was DMing her in Discord, and I said something... I don't even remember. We should probably scroll back up and find that conversation some years ago. But it was between a chat with me and Melissa where she and I came up with TruStory as a response to something like, "Oh, that would be a good name for a thing," sarcastically. And then one of us said, "TruStory." I was like, "Wait, that would be a good name for a podcast."
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, wow. Melissa, look at you.
Pete Wright:
That was Melissa too. Melissa's fingers are in everything, is what we're saying. Everything.
Nikki Kinzer:
Okay, what else has been going on in the last 14 years?
Pete Wright:
Lots of family joys and tragedies. We've been through a lot together. And three presidencies, that's something.
Nikki Kinzer:
Three presidents, yep. Worldwide pandemic, which unfortunately you were a part of with getting COVID in July, July of 2020, which was so scary. Months of quarantine, lots of shows during that time.
Pete Wright:
Oh, a lot of podcasting on this show, for sure. TikTok dances like the Floss, the Doogie, and the Harlem Shake, although we didn't partake in any of those, I appreciate that they're on the calendar. The rise of avocado toast. Melissa, you're outdoing yourself. 18 new iPhone releases. That warms my heart.
Nikki Kinzer:
I'm sure it does.
Pete Wright:
And of course, the Shocktato and Nikki falling through the floor in her attic. I can't talk about it.
Nikki Kinzer:
I know. Neither one of those can we talk about. Now, I highlighted them to see if we can get little sounds, but I don't know if we can.
Pete Wright:
I think we can find the Shocktato, but I don't know if we can... We might not be able to find the floor in the attic.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, I'm not sure.
Pete Wright:
I'm going to leave that to see if Melissa knows where that might be. I don't quite remember.
Nikki Kinzer:
Those were definitely good moments.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, crazy.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
So I mean, that's 14 years of the show together.
Nikki Kinzer:
Crazy, yeah. Amazing. And I don't really see an end at this point, right? We're just going to keep going.
Pete Wright:
I don't know how we would.
Nikki Kinzer:
We're going to keep going. As long as there's still ADHD in the world, which Melissa at the last Happy Hour wanted to get rid of and podcasts, she wanted to get rid of both.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right. We just need Nikki to keep saying no to good ideas for a little while and we'll be here forever.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, yeah.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting to take this kind of retrospective and to jump sort of to a higher level and get some perspective of what we've been doing. Because I mean, this show really exists at the point of one foot in front of the other. It exists at the point of pressing record week to week to week to week to week. And our focus is on, "Right now, today, what are we going to talk about?" But looking back, looking more broadly, you realize there's an arc. There's an arc to it, and that arc is filled with joy and pain and fun and humor and fear and all the things. That's what life is.
Nikki Kinzer:
And it's such a part of... I mean, when I look at my business as a whole, I mean, this is half of it. This is half of it. I can't imagine not doing it. And I think that that's the thing is that it's just such a part of what we do and how we are able to reach as many listeners as we can with, I hope, a message that means... Yes, gives them some things to think about, but also just that they're not alone and they do have a community and what they're experiencing, they don't have to do it by themselves and have that right support around them. Yeah, I'm really proud of what we do, Pete. I'm really proud of it.
Pete Wright:
Me too. Me too. Thank you. Thanks for letting me be a part of it.
Nikki Kinzer:
Thank you for being a part of it.
Pete Wright:
I'm really honored every week. And thank you everybody for listening to the show. I guess we could do it without you, but it would be so boring.
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, my gosh.
Pete Wright:
Just us talking to each other.
Nikki Kinzer:
It's what it feels like, though, honestly. A lot of times it is just what I feel like because I'm just talking to Pete and then all of these people happen to be listening, and I don't really think about that. I'm just talking to you, which is a good thing. Because if I really thought about it, I probably would be those people on the TV where once the camera hits and they just can't speak anymore, they're frozen.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right. Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
That would be me.
Pete Wright:
Totally.
Nikki Kinzer:
Do you remember that we used to not look at each other?
Pete Wright:
Yeah. There was a time when we couldn't look at each other. We recorded this on audio over Skype. Skype. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes. Technology has changed over the last 14 years.
Pete Wright:
Changed a lot. A lot. Well, thank you, everybody. For the 600th time, thank you for your time and attention. It's because of our listeners and the ADHD community that we can continue to celebrate this milestone. We sure appreciate you. You know what to do. Head over to the Show Talk channel in Discord if you're a member over there. You can become a member at the deluxe level or better to get access to that channel. We'd love to have you over there. We'd love to have you be a part of the livestream community ongoing and hang out with us and see what these wonderful ADHDers are up to. On behalf of Nikki Kinzer, I'm Pete Wright, and we'll see you right back here next week on Taking Control: The ADHD podcast.
