Kristen Carder 0:05
Kristin, welcome to the I have ADHD podcast, where it’s all about education, encouragement and coaching for adults. With ADHD, I’m your host, Kristen Carter and I have ADHD, let’s chat about the frustrations, humor and challenges of adulting, relationships, working and achieving with this neurodevelopmental disorder, I’ll help you understand your unique brain, unlock your potential and move from point A to point B. Hey, what’s up? This is Kristin Carter, and you’ve tuned into the I have ADHD podcast. I am medicated, caffeinated, regulated and ready to roll. You are going to love the conversation that I have today with my friend Matt cicerelli. Guys, we are going to talk about being in the middle, not at the end of the journey where you have everything figured out, but in the middle of the ADHD journey. And for those of you who maybe are unemployed or underemployed, who maybe you don’t feel like you’re reaching your potential, or you’re quite there yet, this episode is going to be so encouraging for you. I’m so looking forward to this conversation. But before we get started, I’m going to ask you to engage with this podcast in some way. I’m very happy to announce that our YouTube channel is growing. Thank you, YouTube. It’s so awesome. It’s so awesome to be here. It’s so fun to interact in comments. I didn’t realize how fun that would be to have you guys be able to like, comment, ask questions in real time? Have me be able to answer them? It’s been so much fun. And on Apple Spotify all the things. It’s, it’s, um, it’s so much fun to be able to be here with you. And the fact that you press play on this podcast, when there are millions, literally millions of podcasts that you could choose from. It means so much to me. So thank you for being here. Make sure to like, subscribe, do all the things. And now I would like to welcome my friend, my client, Matt cicerelli, we’re going to have a conversation about being in the middle of the journey. Thank you so much for being here.

Matt Ciciarelli 2:17
My pleasure. I love this,

Kristen Carder 2:19
Matt, you’ve been in focus for over a year, about 14 months. Yes, and I have enjoyed every moment that you have been able to be on a live call. You are hysterical. You interact on the calls. I know that you your work schedule doesn’t allow for you to join live as much anymore. But I just want to say before we get started, thank you so much for being in focus and adding so much to our community. It It really means a lot to me. Well,

Matt Ciciarelli 2:45
thank you. It’s what you’re doing and the work you do and how you do it means a lot to me. So on behalf of everybody, thank you.

Kristen Carder 2:54
Well, thanks for being here. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself. Who is Matt cicerelli, what you got for me?

Matt Ciciarelli 3:01
I am a Pittsburgh Natives living in living in Philadelphia. Become a Phillies fan, which is, I know your makes you happy. Not an Eagles fan. I am an Eagles fan. Out of self preservation, when they win, everybody in my house is happy. So,

Kristen Carder 3:18
oh my gosh. It’s so real.

Matt Ciciarelli 3:20
I love it. So I married with three kids, all three of whom are ADHD ers. And so my wife is neurotypical. She is very much on an island at our house, bless

Kristen Carder 3:34
her. Shout out.

Matt Ciciarelli 3:35
Shout out to Julie. She she’s she’s a saint. She does it all. She keeps all our trains running on time, and she’s the biggest advocate for our kids, which in many ways I can’t be, yeah, and I mean, I I’m totally indebted to her everything she does. So

Kristen Carder 3:54
how old are your kids?

Matt Ciciarelli 3:55
I have a 17 year old just turned 17 last weekend. I have a 14 year old and an 11 year old.

Kristen Carder 4:02
I forgot that our kids are like, all the same ages, junior high school, freshman

Matt Ciciarelli 4:07
High School, fifth grade.

Kristen Carder 4:08
That’s exactly my kids, too. That’s so fun. I love it.

Matt Ciciarelli 4:11
So you know it. You know what it’s

Kristen Carder 4:12
all about, what it’s all about. And I also know, you know when you talk about advocating for them and then being neurodivergent, like, that’s not for the faint of heart. And so like major shout out to your wife for doing that. And I know that in partnerships, we bring strength to the table. That happens to me my job in my partnership, my husband does so many other things, including the laundry. Thank you. Greg Carter, appreciate you. So I would rather advocate, you know, for the kids than do the laundry. But I just want to, like, honor that. Like, wow, that that is a big role that she fills. Yeah,

Matt Ciciarelli 4:48
and it’s not that I don’t want to do those things, obviously, and I, quite truthfully, I probably can do those things. It’s just that I don’t have the confidence to do those things. Things. I sometimes don’t have the ability to do those things, because, quite honestly, I’m so focused on me and trying to keep my brain from exploding and from and trying to hold down a job and trying to do all that stuff. And, you know, she’s, it’s kind of morphed into, you know, she’s doing the lion’s share of it, which really isn’t fair, to be honest with you, and that’s something I’ve continually work on. Yeah, she and I discuss it all the time. Yeah, so, but a lot of the tools that you get through focus, that I’ve gotten through focused have really, you know, kind of set the groundwork for what I can do to help her. It’s just a matter of getting to do it and which we, I know you’ve talked about a lot, so,

yeah, so you saved my marriage a little bit, quite a bit. Actually,

I’m not to say that’s amazing. Say you’re welcome. That’s all I’m gonna say. Thank you. Ah, hmm.

Kristen Carder 6:03
Anyway, I am interested to hear your ADHD story. I know that you’ve shared it within the focus community, but actually don’t remember your journey. So you weren’t diagnosed that long ago, right? Okay, so share your story with us. I

Matt Ciciarelli 6:17
was diagnosed in September of 2018, I was 42 my wife and I just, you know, kind of, we’d gone through marriage counseling, and just we were, we had had our rough points years before, but we would still gone. Just, I kind of compared it to an oil change in the car once every two months or something like that, just to kind of check out. Love it. And we had had, you know, kind of a couple disagreements on stuff, and the marriage counselor said, Have you considered ADHD? And I’m like, no. And she said, I think you should get checked out, you know, just to cover our bases, I said, Okay, so I sat on it for a while. I had three months later, four months later, um, and then a couple things happened that really kind of made me go do it. Made me pull the trigger on it. And one of them was so this my son was like, nine or 10, and I had asked him to put the put a laundry basket away. And 10 minutes later, I come downstairs, I trip on the laundry basket, and I lost it on him, and my wife comes out, and she takes me away. And she basically takes me. She says, What are you doing? And I was like, he did this on purpose. She goes, he’s nine years old. He doesn’t know how to do that. I’m like, All right, so that was a wake up call, yeah. And then little bit, I can’t remember when it was, but my daughter, my middle one, was in nursery school, and they had their Father’s Day celebration, where all the dads come in, we have milk and cookies, and each of the kids had made a poster for talk about their dad. My dad has blonde hair. My dad wears sweaters or whatever. And the one question it was like Mad Libs. You remember my dad likes to ah, like, and my daughters faith said my dad likes to work in the garage. I’m like, okay, cool, but the teacher in front of everybody, all the other dads, like 15 other dads, says this is actually the second thing faith said. The first thing faith said was, Dad likes to yell, and I’m like, Hmm, in front of everybody here, dude, is that really necessary? So that was kind of a very much a wake up call between the two of those. I was like, All right, let’s, let’s figure this out. That’s so uncomfortable. It was very uncomfortable, so inappropriate. It was, it was hard to hear. I mean, I needed to hear it. I probably needed to hear it. I could have told you I wanted to share it in that forum, though. Wow. And I’ve never forgotten that. Wow.

Kristen Carder 9:15
So it sounds like emotional regulation. Oh, yeah. Was a big piece of your diagnosis? Yeah, and part

Matt Ciciarelli 9:22
of that was because, and this is after I got my diagnosis, I was talking to my therapist. He said, You it’s taking every ounce of your energy to get through your day, yes, and you come home after work and you’re just, you don’t know it, but you’re completely exhausted, and you’re taking it out on your kids, you’re taking it out on, you know, everything, and you don’t even realize it, because this wasn’t modeled at home. And when I was growing up, my parents were never,

Kristen Carder 9:53
you know, yelling or anything like that, so it wasn’t learned behavior. No, yeah, no. So you come home from work, you’re totally mentally drained. You are probably emotionally worn out. You come home to three kids, I think every everyone relates to this, yes, the mental load of just surviving a day in the life of an ADHD er, and it’s not even necessarily about work, like, think about all that it takes to get out the door. Like, I just even all of the steps to, like, getting to work and then doing your job, and then even, like, your lunch break. Okay, now I have a and I have an hour, and now, like, great. Now I have to think about food. And I have to think about, am I supposed to sit over here? Over here? Who should I talk to did the mental fatigue that we

Matt Ciciarelli 10:45
experience? Yeah, and it was different. You talk about lunch, I would I ate lunch at my desk every day. Yeah. And because I had been laid off twice, I had I probably, you could call that a traumatic experience, I guess. And because one of them was kind of out of the blue. Dang. The other one I kind of see, we saw was coming was the bank merger and bank acquisition, and we knew we were, we were gonna go, but yeah, I kind of, I never wanted that to happen again. And so I was always, I’m gonna I’m gonna work constantly, I’m gonna sit at my desk, I’m gonna show them that I’m doing this, and I would get to the point where anytime my boss would have a closed door meeting with somebody, I’m like, That’s it, they’re talking about me. I’m getting fired. Wow, they’re laying me off. That’s it. I was like, you’ve seen Shawshank Redemption, yes, when, when Morgan Freeman, he go. He gets out, and he goes and sits at that, at that wall, and he’s, he opens the thing up, and he’s reading the letter from, from Andy Dufresne, yeah, yeah. And he kind of looks around, yes. It’s like that. It’s like a, I think heard somebody call it convicts paranoia. That’s kind of what I felt every I feel that every single day at work, anytime there’s a door closed and it’s my boss in there. I’m like, Oh God, here we go.

Kristen Carder 12:03
So when did that kind of, like, paranoia start? Was it after the, like, really unexpected layoff? Yeah,

Matt Ciciarelli 12:11
it was. It was, yeah. So that was, like, 2005 okay, and I got another job and laid off from that one that was a banquet acquisition, so we knew we were but every, every time I would say, every time after, I would say 2006 2007 excuse me, it was, it was it was. That’s what I would feel that I still do, yeah,

I mean, that’s a really hard way to operate. It’s, it’s, it’s, yeah, it’s just feel like

I’m on pins and needles every day. I’m walking on eggshells and yes, and, you know, I’ve had some good bosses, yeah, who were like, What are you talking about? Because I would share that with him. It’s like, Oh, I’m so afraid every time you have Yeah. And they’re like, Oh, stop. They’re the, you know, they tell me, I’m in, you know, whatever, right? You’re fine, yeah. And then my, I’ve had bosses who are like, who are like, well, you know, if that’s what’s gonna happen, it’s what’s gonna happen

Kristen Carder 13:18
and, and thanks for the reassurance. I appreciate that

Matt Ciciarelli 13:22
exactly, and it’s not that’s not, definitely not fun talk about eggshells. Yeah.

Kristen Carder 13:28
Do you feel like, um, that also contributed to the mental load that you were carrying and like, the fatigue that you were feeling?

Matt Ciciarelli 13:37
Yes, absolutely. Because there are some times I come home and I’m like, oh, survived another day. Okay? Like, yeah, because yes, especially when you know some I’m in I’m a marketing and a communications guy, and in financial services, you know the saying goes, when times are bad, people who spend the money and don’t make the money, the people spend the money are gone. First, marketing people spend money, yeah, we don’t bring money in, yeah, but we help them bring money in. But then, you know, a lot of people, you know, when it’s

Kristen Carder 14:07
an expense, we’re gonna come expense Exactly, yeah, or

Matt Ciciarelli 14:11
trim that expense, yeah? You know, we’re, you know, it’s happened a couple times since too. So it’s not fun. Yeah, that’s

Kristen Carder 14:18
not fun. So take me back to

you get diagnosed. What was that experience like for you? So you’re 42 you walk into your clinician’s office, they give you an evaluation. Was it an easy diagnosis for them? Were they like absolutely you’ve got a raging case of it?

Matt Ciciarelli 14:38
Oh yes. He said, Oh yes, raging cases are very okay, yeah, so I went in and he said, What are you looking at? And I said, I gave him the whole story, and I actually left out six months before I was went in for this, my brother passed away, so I think a lot of this really started to. To happen after he passed away, and he had been sick for a while, and then. So, I mean, it was awful, obviously, but it wasn’t like sudden. It wasn’t like tragedy or anything, you know, tragic event. So I think kind of the workarounds that I had in place just kind of fell apart, yes, and I think he kind of put that together, and then he took whatever tests, testing he gave me, and when he called me back in to go through the results, he goes, I would like your wife to come in too. I’m like, Okay. And then we got there, and he goes, I’m going to tell you what I found. And he looks at my wife, and he goes, and I’m going to tell you, because he’s not going to remember three quarters of what I’m going to say. And he was exactly yes, hard. He was exactly right, yeah. So, yeah, it was so when I when he told me about it, and kind of went through it. I I lost it. I started balling right there, tears, tears. I’m like, it was tears of, probably relief. Yeah, it was like, finally, know what’s going on here. It was probably tears of sadness. Like, why didn’t I do this before? I mean to me, like I told you, I’d said sat on the recommendation to do it for like, three or four months. I’m like, I should have done this months ago, and now I should have done this years ago.

Kristen Carder 16:27
Wow, yeah, but you can’t do it if nobody ever mentions it, right, right? So like, I understand, or I can understand that feeling of like, Gosh, I wish I’d known this. But you know, one of the things that Ari Tuckman said when he was here is, like, the best thing that clinicians can do is just know that adult ADHD exists, right? And I think that that is what this speaks to, right? Like, you’ve been in marriage counseling for how long? It would have been awesome if your counselor just knew, you know, like, had an understanding about adult ADHD, and in the first couple weeks, could have been like, Oh, this guy’s got a reading piece of ADHD, like, a diagnosis and some treatment might be really helpful

Matt Ciciarelli 17:15
when I told my parents about it too. So my mom’s a nurse, okay, both retired now my mom’s a nurse and my dad’s a college professor. Cool. So dad’s very analytical, yeah, mom’s very practical. We took him out to breakfast, my wife and I took him out to breakfast, and I had the print out of all the results everything. I handed it to him, I was like, and they still live in Pittsburgh, so they were getting ready to drive home. I was like, so I told them about it, and I said, here’s all the results. I said, don’t read it now. Read it okay on the way home. Read it when you get home, whenever. And and then my mom’s like, oh, okay, this is good. Blah, blah, you know, I’m glad, you know, and all that, yeah, she gets home because, excuse me, she gets home from the drive, and they read it on the drive, and she read it out loud to my dad as he was driving it, and she she called me, she goes, this is the biggest tragedy of my life, for not getting you died, not not realizing this, and getting you diagnosed as a kid. Wow. And quite honestly, I wasn’t her, I wasn’t the heart, I wasn’t the hyper kid. I wasn’t bouncing off the walls, which back when we were young, Yep, that was the that’s what they look for. That’s

Kristen Carder 18:27
what they look for, right? Bless her. But what a beautiful mama response. That’s beautiful. Yeah, that really is a

Matt Ciciarelli 18:35
lot of time. It was what I needed. And, you know, kind of what I you know, it’s yeah,

Kristen Carder 18:39
like, thank you so much for that. I I think that so many of us, like maybe so many listeners, would be like, Man, I wish my mom would respond that way, you know. So that’s just like, a beautiful thing. I’m glad that you had that. So what did you do? Your doctor said we got some ADHD going on here. What did you choose to do about that information?

Matt Ciciarelli 19:09
So he put me on Adderall. He recommended Adderall. I had to go to the psychologist. So he had the guy to go to family doctor, and, you know, kind of ramped up on that. And it was, it, was it, I could see a difference, okay, um, but, and, you know, I went into work and I expected it to be like a magic pill, like, I’m like, All right, so I’m finally, suddenly, everything’s much clearer. Now, wasn’t really that, but I could see, I could see my self thinking a little clearer and that kind of stuff. So it was still, you know, it was still work to be done. I knew I needed something, I needed to I needed more tools to to manage everything. But it was a good start, though. It was like he explained it to me, like he says, right now, you’re going down the road. You’re coming. Into a Y in the road, and you’re just going, yeah, the Adderall medications are gonna say they’re gonna help you stop and make a decision on which way to go. Did you find that to be true? Yeah, it’s kind of slowed me down a little bit. Okay, gave you those breaks? Yes, not totally, but enough that I was like, okay, I can see a difference, sure, but after that, it was just and I kept seeing him, and then and I got laid off again. How about that? That’s so, it’s, it was, it’s, it was kind of a whirlwind between so and yeah, my brother passed away in February of 18. I got diagnosed in September of 18, yeah. And then everything was good, and then COVID hit, yeah. The world shut down, yeah. And that’s where things at work really started to kind of Yeah, because it was working. We were two working parents were trying to work full time. I mean, you probably heard this 1000 times, sure. Yeah, working full time from home with three kids, with three kids. At that time, they were in kindergarten, fourth grade and sixth grade, homeschooling and trying to get them to sit in front of a computer, especially a kindergartner and a fourth grader with ADHD. The sixth grader was okay. He was, you know, kind of on his own. He kind of knew what he was doing. We still had to kind of rein him in every now and then, and something happened to work, and I would just lose it again. And because of my patience was that thin and and I was like, I can’t lose my job again. And have it already been laid off twice? And I was like, my fuse was short and it wasn’t. It wasn’t good for us. So my wife was like, go upstairs to the bedroom, move your desk up there, and yeah, I’ll handle everything. And that’s really that was, that was a great concession that she made, but it also puts so much pressure on her, which is, you know, you know, I’m still working to get out of that, to get out of that, because I got into so many habits now, like, all right, she’s got it, all right, we’re good. She’s got the bill. She’s got the kids, and totally, I’m trying to focus on, you know, keeping my life in order, functioning, functioning? Yes, as an adult, yeah, with ADHD. So it’s, it’s, it’s not cool,

Kristen Carder 22:28
it’s just so much work for some of us. And I think that you’re right to say, like, it’s different seasons, like in different seasons. And I think it depends on where on the spectrum we fall, and how how severe our case of ADHD is, and what supports we have yada yada yada. But depending on the season of our life, like just functioning as a human, can be so much work, yes, like not debilitating work, but enough work so that you’re just spent you’ve got nothing left, right? Yeah, you want to be an equal partner. You want to be like an equal parent, and yet all of your mental, physical, emotional energy is going to just like functioning within the role, and

Matt Ciciarelli 23:20
that’s where all the tools from focused, and the other programs I tried before focused, you know, I have them, and all these therapy therapists that I’m going to and everything I have all those tools, yeah, using them, yeah, to help her ease the load, ease that workload, and make The division of labor, more even, that’s where, you know, my roadblock comes in, yeah, and that’s where it’s just okay, you want to, want me to pay the bills. Yes, I can pay the bills. And now look,

Kristen Carder 23:50
what does this mean? What do I do?

Matt Ciciarelli 23:52
Where do I start? And I say, Hey, can you help me? She goes figure it out.

Kristen Carder 23:58
I mean, bless both of your heart. You’re both working so hard to try to function and make it work, right?

Matt Ciciarelli 24:06
And you know, it’s, it’s, I’m constantly feeling like I have to do more, because I know that she’s doing so much.

Kristen Carder 24:18
That’s not a fun feeling. No, do you feel like you are adding like an ADHD penalty to yourself? Hmm,

Matt Ciciarelli 24:33
I guess you could call it that I

Kristen Carder 24:34
accidentally went into coach mode. That’s okay. It’s okay. But I am curious. Yeah,

Matt Ciciarelli 24:39
no, I this is the way I you know, she’s like, do stuff for yourself, go out, hit golf balls, go to go watch a ball game with your friends. I’m like, Sure, I’ll do that. And then I feel like, all right, I’m being selfish here. I shouldn’t be here. She’s at home, yeah, she’s home all day, working 40 hours a week. Like, and managing three kids. I need to be at home. What is, what’s, what is she dealing with that I should be helping with. A lot of shoulds in

Kristen Carder 25:08
there. Yeah, a lot of shots.

Matt Ciciarelli 25:12
You know, that’s I’ve gotten. I’m trying to get away from the, if I’m gonna should, I’m trying to get away from the, oh, it shouldn’t be like this, yeah, I should have a job. I shouldn’t be I shouldn’t have been laid off. I should be able to find another job. Blah, blah, blah, yeah, I’m not there yet. I still do it a lot. Yeah, it shouldn’t be like this. But I yeah, that’s accepting reality exactly. Yeah. So like you talk about the ADHD penalty. I i feel that like, if I go out for to have a beer with friends, yeah, all right, oh, it’s been 45 minutes. I gotta get back. She’s, you know, dang. And meanwhile, she’s telling me to go, and she really care that I’m going out,

Kristen Carder 25:52
not on her right? Um, it seems like your brain does not want to let you just be right. Just like, relax, right? It’s always no wonder why you’re exhausted. Yeah.

Matt Ciciarelli 26:04
What’s next? Okay, we need to do this. We need to do the launch. Okay, I got five minutes. Okay, I can fold this, fold these towels before I have to put dinner away, because

Kristen Carder 26:14
run this kid out the door to Yeah, yeah. So I think your story of employment is really interesting, and I know it it like means a lot to you, and it takes up a lot of like, your mental and emotional space. And I am so proud of the way that you’ve handled it in the last year. So if you don’t mind sharing, you were laid off in November, so almost a year ago, right? And what has it been like for you since then? It’s been

Matt Ciciarelli 26:51
a bit of a roller coaster. I found out right before Thanksgiving, it was like that one day before Thanksgiving, they said that as of December 1, my job, my position, was eliminated. Um, dang. And at the time, I was like, Oh my God, here we go. Because I loved my job. Ah, I loved what I did. I enjoyed it. Was one of the it had been, like, 20 years since I woke up every day saying, I am excited to go to work. Wow. I did not like the environment. I did not like the I did not like how I was treated at times, but I was like, I love my job. The devil I know is better than the devil I don’t know. I’m gonna make it work totally I can put up with that crap if I can, but I can still do what I love. Yeah. So when I when they told me, I was like, Oh, God, this is awful. A month after, maybe a week, two weeks after I was gone, I was like, this was the best thing that ever happened to me. Wow, because I didn’t have the stress of walking on eggshells around a boss that was ready to jump down my throat because I wasn’t doing what he had asked me to and or he thought I wasn’t doing that. I mean, we don’t have to get into that. But it was, it was, and when I got you know my immediate supervisor, when he told me, he goes, I’m doing this for you, when he told me that they were, he’s, I’m letting you know now I’m doing because he said I can tell that if I don’t do this, you’re gonna stay here and you’re just gonna be miserable. And I it’s like, come on, no, that’s not that’s not true. And then two weeks after I said he was exactly right, wow. Because, you know, leave good and leave well enough alone, you know, whatever cliche the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know. I don’t want to go out for a I don’t want to keep looking for jobs and all that kind of stuff. I just want to,

Kristen Carder 28:51
yeah, you’ll just stay in a in an environment that’s maybe not super healthy, right? But,

Matt Ciciarelli 28:57
and I was kind of, I probably didn’t know realize that because I loved what I was doing, that’s so cool that you loved what you were doing, yeah. And I did. And you know, when that rug was kind of pulled out from under me, I was like, my first of all, it was the beginning of December. Nobody, you know, the job market in December totally is not really the most, the best. So I was like, Okay, I’m, I’m employable. I have 25 years of experience. I went to a I went to a good college. I went to, you know, I, you know, yada yada yada. I’ve worked for this bank, that bank, and all this stuff. Someone’s gonna hire me. Totally, I’m gonna be

Kristen Carder 29:39
a good time. Well, like, super fun. Come on, from your

Matt Ciciarelli 29:43
lips to gauze, no, but I, um, I was like, and I was a director at that job. I was a director of marketing. It’s the first time I’d ever been a director. I was like, you know, there’s something to be said for that. And so throughout the month of December, my wife is, like, two. Go get a job, you know, do anything just to kind of because whatever unemployment is going to get you, that’s what any job is going to do better because, and then benefits, because she works for very small companies, so her benefits are just Uber expensive. Wow. And so I’m like, Yeah, I hear you. But I really didn’t hear I’ve that was all lip service. I Yeah, I hear you. And my head was like, I need, I need to find another director job. I need to be another I need to be senior vice president or whatever.

Kristen Carder 30:28
So she was saying, find any job, yes. And you were saying in your head, that’s adorable, yeah, but absolutely not Yeah.

Matt Ciciarelli 30:38
Even I wasn’t even saying, That’s adorable. I was like, okay, whatever. I was like, I need to find it. I need to, need to get a marketing job. I need to get a communications job. And months went by, and she’s like, how we doing on that? I’m like, Yeah, I’m okay. And, and she’s like, you know, we really need

Kristen Carder 30:55
the math is not math, is not math. Yeah,

Matt Ciciarelli 30:59
yes. She was looking at it from a and she was looking at it from an effort perspective. I was looking at it from an outcome perspective, yeah, and that did not jive with the way what we needed at the time. We needed money coming in, and we needed, you know, you know, we three kids, three kids at this point. One of them was going to college in a couple years, which blew my mind. That was that was like a reality, shovel in the face. And I’m like, Yeah, all right. And then she’s like, then he’s turning 16, and you know, he’s gonna need a car. And I’m like, yeah. I was like, All right, so it wasn’t until the summer where she kept asking me and asking me, asking me all that time, and I’m like, and it finally hit me like, oh, man, we do need, I

Kristen Carder 31:53
do need a job. Why do you think it took that long? I

Matt Ciciarelli 31:56
have no idea, and that’s the biggest mystery. And she and you know, my therapist has asked me that. She’s asked me that, and I don’t have an answer for it, and I wish I did, because I heard her, but I just maybe I didn’t want to believe it. Maybe it was a pride thing. I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to go stock shelves at the grocery store. I didn’t want to.

Kristen Carder 32:20
How come? Why didn’t you want to?

Matt Ciciarelli 32:25
I mean, I guess because, hey, I had been a director of marketing. I wanted this job. I wanted to stay where I was. I didn’t want to take a step backwards, yes, and I would see that as a step backwards, whereas, and then what would that mean? That would mean I’d have to work my way all it took me 25 years to get where I was. Where I was. I’d have to work my way back up. And I think in my head, it was I went all the way down the mountain to the bottom, whereas it’s probably it would have been maybe a step backwards or just a temporary thing, sure.

Kristen Carder 32:56
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Matt Ciciarelli 35:24
hard to let go. It’s hard to get it out of the front. It’s it’s right in front of me. That was always right in that was like, that was the first goal, the first goal that I needed to get was the title, or the salary just kind of came with the title. Sure about that. Sure that was what I was like if I was looking at searching for jobs, the first thing I would look for is the title,

Kristen Carder 35:45
dang Yep. Because what would you get to feel if you had a director job?

Matt Ciciarelli 35:53
I would get to feel like, all right, made a smooth I came out. Came out, smiling on the other side, yes. This

Kristen Carder 36:00
didn’t impact, right? Yep, I

Matt Ciciarelli 36:02
made a smooth transition. All right, yeah, they laid me off. That was crappy, yeah, but, um, but

here you look at me, I made it, yes,

Kristen Carder 36:08
oh, I feel it. I feel it, okay, so, um, in the summer you realized, oh, shoot, the math. The math really, isn’t really shoot, but it was more of a Philly word than shoot. Yeah. And then what happened? What did you do?

Matt Ciciarelli 36:31
It was a lot of back and forth with my wife. I’m saying, I don’t need to do this. I didn’t think any. But she was like, we do. And it was like, knock down, drag out, like, disagreements, yeah. And then through a friend of my sister in law, her actually her dad, through friend I’m still, I am now working at a cemetery. I’m digging graves. So I go from marketing, Director of Marketing at a private capital firm that’s worth $5 billion to digging graves,

Kristen Carder 37:03
and I am so proud of you for doing it like that is, that is, I mean, I just don’t want to sound like I’m I don’t want to sound demeaning, but I just want you to know that like, that’s what a man does, right? He goes out and he digs graves so that he can support his food like that’s what you’re doing, yeah, see,

Matt Ciciarelli 37:24
and that’s yes then. And a lot of people have told me that, but in my head, yeah, my brain wiring has it as I don’t I shouldn’t be here. Here we go to the shoulds again. I shouldn’t be here. And this is nothing against the the profession, profession, or the people that work there, the people I work with, are great. They enjoy what they do. They’re proud of what they do. I don’t want to be there. I mean, I enjoy my job. I and but in it, but I, I’d rather be sitting behind a desk, you know, writing content for, yeah, whoever’s, whoever’s gonna hire me, so

Kristen Carder 37:59
you don’t see it as you’re not yet able to look at it and be like, Look at me just doing I’m

Matt Ciciarelli 38:09
getting there. I am not fully there. Yeah, it is still

Kristen Carder 38:15
like a fight against reality, exactly. Yes, yeah. It’s

Matt Ciciarelli 38:17
like, I’m gonna get, I still gonna get a job. I are still I’m still, I’m still looking, and that’s, and that’s the great thing about this, this job, is that they know that I’m right, still looking for, no surprise job that I went to college for.

Kristen Carder 38:31
And it’s, what were you gonna say when you do this?

Matt Ciciarelli 38:33
I was gonna say a real job. Yeah, I

Kristen Carder 38:35
knew it. Sorry,

Matt Ciciarelli 38:38
because it is a real job. What they do. It’s real. I know

Kristen Carder 38:41
what, and it’s what you do, right? And you

Matt Ciciarelli 38:45
are, I shouldn’t say what they do, because,

Kristen Carder 38:48
like, you are doing what it takes, and that that’s so important. Like, I want to just like, first, commend you for that, and thank you for showing all of us ADHD are, is like, you do what you have to do, and there’s no shame in that. But I think you’re working through that part. Yeah, my

Matt Ciciarelli 39:10
biggest shame is that it took me so long to realize that and and that’s where my wife and I disagreed on all those things, where she was all winter and all spring, she’s like, we need a job. We need a job. The math isn’t the math is math thing. And yeah, I’m like, Yeah, but I can’t do that. I’m that was a director is yes. So if I would, you know, going, if I could turn back time, yeah, I would, you know, soon as it as soon as it happened, I would listen to her, and I would have jumped on it and

Kristen Carder 39:41
still looked for a job. Absolutely yes, yes, absolutely.

I think that

it’s frustrating to have ADHD and have to learn the hard way all the time. Yeah.

Matt Ciciarelli 39:55
And I think when you’re diagnosed late as an adult, that’s the only way you learn. Yeah. Because, like, and we tell this to our kids all the time, whenever we’re trying to give them tools and everything, and they’re giving us the huh, and they’re rolling their eyes at us. We’re like, Yo, we’re trying to get your you know, our youngest is 11. That’s like, we’re trying to break habits. Yeah? Get you to keep from doing habits now. So when you’re 48 Yeah, like your dad, you’re not trying to break them, yeah, and so, yeah, there’s a lot of lot of retraining that has to, that’s had to be done in the last six years.

Kristen Carder 40:27
I just wonder what it is about us, and I’ve seen it in myself. I really see it in one of my kids, where we say, it’s fine, I don’t, it’s fine, I’m gonna be fine. Like so, for example, your wife coming to you and saying, we need to just get any job. And you’re like, I’m gonna get it’s gonna happen. It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s fine. I don’t know if that’s like a defense mechanism, or if it’s like an inability to really engage with reality. Like, what do you think? I

Matt Ciciarelli 40:58
think it’s more the inability to engage like,

Kristen Carder 41:01
what is that about with that? Like, it’s us, not just, you know, I know us language, because it’s definitely not just you, because

Matt Ciciarelli 41:08
I think we live in the should a lot, and, you know, it shouldn’t be like this, and you know, it’s gonna be fine. It’s, you know, when

Kristen Carder 41:16
I fantasy almost, or would you not go that far? I

Matt Ciciarelli 41:20
wouldn’t go that far. I think it’s more of a hope. It’s more of a you know, go back to Shawshank Redemption. Hope is a dangerous thing.

Kristen Carder 41:28
Hope isn’t dangerous man, when’s the last time you saw that movie? I feel like it’s very fresh in your mind.

Matt Ciciarelli 41:34
Come on, it’s on TV all the time. Wow. I’ve

Kristen Carder 41:37
probably seen it like twice in my life, and that’s it. I know they want to go watch it again. Justin Carter,

Matt Ciciarelli 41:45
we’ve got movie school, my goodness,

Kristen Carder 41:50
the hope, I think, that I just interviewed someone recently, and we we talked about how a lot of ADHD ers feel this almost childlike hope, and I think it’s a really endearing aspect of us, like we we bring so much to the table, and that hope is such a beautiful thing, but then it kind of bites us in the ass. Sometimes, yes, yeah, yeah,

Matt Ciciarelli 42:19
yeah. And, you know, it bit me in the ass with all this, this the last 10 months or 11 months, yeah, I hope I’m going to get a real, real job.

Kristen Carder 42:30
Oh, look at you again. I

Matt Ciciarelli 42:31
know, sorry. I hope I’m gonna get a job that I went to college for. Yeah, I hope I’m gonna, I hope this is it. I hope I’m gonna wake up today and someone’s gonna call with an say, Come on in.

Kristen Carder 42:40
But like, that’s a good hope. Don’t you think, yes,

Matt Ciciarelli 42:43
but after 11 months, it’s I, my hope was that it’s gonna happen like that. And after this long, I’m realizing that it’s gonna take, gonna take longer, like it’s, I remember in June, I was talking to a recruiter, and they were saying, well, things will open up more after the election. And I’m like, the election. I’m like, I am not doing this till November. And here we are. Here we

Kristen Carder 43:07
are. For context, it’s November 5. It is election, and I voted today. Did you vote today? Yes,

Matt Ciciarelli 43:16
I was number 11.

Kristen Carder 43:18
You were there early? I

Matt Ciciarelli 43:20
didn’t know. 132 whenever 132, number 11, in my day, I wanted to get it done. I didn’t want to stand in any lines, yeah, plus, and it was coming here. I didn’t want to be

Kristen Carder 43:29
late. Listen, I want to go back to that hope aspect, because I think part of that like when, when the recruiter said to you, like, hey, things will open up after the election. You’re like, Excuse me, that’s in like five months. I’m not waiting that long. I think we also have this skewed view. Well, obviously we know this. Have a skewed view of time, and so we think like things will happen quickly. We’re impatient by nature, as ADHD ers and we don’t, maybe it is like an an immaturity in us with time, where we’re just like, it’s gonna be fast. It’s gonna happen quickly. Is that a like that part of our brain has not been fully developed, right? We know the frontal lobe is what houses our ability to manage and and understand the concept of time, and so we just think, like, I’m a great candidate, right? There’s all these places looking this is going to be an easy, yeah, it’s going to be in like, an easy Bada bing bada boom kind of thing.

Matt Ciciarelli 44:32
And that’s not at all the way it’s been Wow.

Kristen Carder 44:37
I’m just curious how you like wrestle with getting up to dig graves in the morning knowing that what you feel like you were really born to do is marketing director. How do you reconcile that on a daily basis?

Matt Ciciarelli 44:56
It’s a great question, and I don’t know if I ever thought. About it that way. I think right now I’m at the point where, all right, it’s my job. I gotta get up, and this is my contribution right now. Yes, when I first started at it, it was I why I’ve I’ve wanted so long to be one of those people sitting in traffic making their morning commute. And now I’m going in, I’m going to this freaking job, kidding me, and I’ve got, I’ve gotten past that stage and now into the All right, let’s just we got to do what we got to do, kind of stage and but I go back to the every now and then I go back to the, oh man, I wish I was going to, I wish I was going to an office right now, yeah, oh man. I wish that was I, you know, I wish I had to, you know, travel for business or whatever. And

kind of,

you know, wish for what, what I had before, and you loved your job. I did, and I really did and, and I thought I was good at it totally, but, and I know it’s something’s gonna break eventually,

Kristen Carder 46:14
yeah, but like, the in between, like, that’s where you are, and I think it’s actually, really, I’m so grateful to you for being willing to talk about this and, like, share your story, because a lot of times we share stories from the other side, like, here’s what I went through, and guys you’ll get through and like, dilemma, but like, you’re speaking from the middle, yeah, yeah, I’m in The thick of it right now. You’re in the trenches. And that means something, you know, for a listener, because I think sometimes listeners and hey, listener, let me know if you resonate with this or like, if this is how you feel. But I think sometimes listeners can feel like, like everybody that comes on, has a story of having figured it out and having gotten there, and when we can share stories from the middle,

Matt Ciciarelli 47:08
right? Yeah, my story is not complete. Is that complete? I don’t want it to be complete because I don’t want to be I don’t want to be digging grays for the rest of my life. Yes,

Kristen Carder 47:16
yeah. Like sharing, sharing your your journey and just being like, I’m in the middle of it. There’s so much value in that. How did you feel when you just were talking about your job and you said, this is my contribution. This is the way that I contribute. What what happens on the inside when you look at it that way? I that’s a big size. So, yeah,

Matt Ciciarelli 47:39
I I had this,

I, I

there’s part of me that’s like, I can’t believe I’m still doing this. I can’t believe I’m still digging graves. But there’s also part of me like, okay, let’s I go back and forth. Yep. So I’m kind of conflicted, I guess, yes.

Kristen Carder 48:01
Because when you think this is how I’m contributing, this is my contribution. Is there, like, a sense of pride or accomplishment or, like, ownership of that a little

Matt Ciciarelli 48:11
bit, there is a little bit, but there’s also that sense of, there’s a lot of things we want to do at home, we want to go on vacation. We want our 25th anniversary is in a couple years. We want to take the kids to wherever we want to go. We want to do this. We want to redo the kitchen. We want to finish the basement. Yep, and I can’t do that stuff. We can’t afford to do that stuff when we have the debt that we’ve incurred over the last couple of, last 10 months, 11 months, and we have, and my job is, you know, less than half the salary is what I was making before, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that creeps in my mind more often than more. That that’s kind of what I feel of like, all right, this is what I’m contributing, but I still need

Kristen Carder 48:51
to contribute more. Yes, that makes sense. Yeah, so what does it look like to work a full day at a very physical job. Yes,

Matt Ciciarelli 49:02
it’s outside. It’s good, okay, that’s

Kristen Carder 49:04
great. That’s great for the mental health. It is. And moving your body is great for the mental health too. But I can imagine that you’re tired by the end of the day. Yeah, just

Matt Ciciarelli 49:12
to be set to record straight, I’m not digging with a shovel, not digging grades with a shovel. There is a backhoe. I

Kristen Carder 49:19
don’t know how these things work. That’s okay, that’s okay. Use that. Are there any shovels involved? Yes, there are, okay, yes,

Matt Ciciarelli 49:24
there are shovels and rakes

Kristen Carder 49:26
and rakes. Sorry. Okay, yeah, so it’s outside. It’s physical, but it’s not like manual labor the whole time.

Matt Ciciarelli 49:38
I mean, in a way, it is manual labor, like, you know, I’m cutting down trees, um, you know, moving, moving headstones and and which are not light. I actually slam my finger in one I and I fell in a grave last two weeks ago. Tell me, I, you know, we cut we had it covered up. I picked it up and I walked four. Forward instead of walking back. It’s, I’ve done it, you know, hundreds of times, and this time I just walk forward. It’s kind of a rite of passage. From what I understand, everybody was like, well, it’s about time. What took you so long

that’s amazing. Um, was

Kristen Carder 50:15
it fully Doug and you like, landed six.

Matt Ciciarelli 50:17
I mean, I kind of caught myself on the edge. It was hysterical. Oh

Kristen Carder 50:21
Matt, oh my gosh, that’s so funny. My

Matt Ciciarelli 50:23
kids had a ball with them. We have this text string with all three kids, my wife, we call it the home team chat. And I was like, Who has two thumbs and fell in a grave this morning? This guy, my son, the 17 year old, goes, Dad, you just made my day.

Kristen Carder 50:39
Oh my gosh. Okay. So what does it look like to continue to look for work while you are already working full time, right? You have three kids? Um, that’s got to be really tough. And, yeah, okay,

Matt Ciciarelli 50:53
it’s a lot of late nights. It’s, well, it was. It’s evenings like, um, come home. You know, I’m if I’m not stopping to get kids, one of the kids from here to there, we’re trying to do the car shuffle. We get three drivers, two cars right now, um, eating dinner, and then trying to get everybody in. But in i i get home at like, 415 430 Nice. Take a shower right away, because I’m a mess. And then I try to do some job search stuff there. And then maybe the job, maybe the shuffle, kid, shuffle, whatever. And then after dinner, I’ll spend, excuse me, a couple more hours at nights. Is still looking and it’s emailing friends. It’s networking with people. It’s looking for jobs. It’s, you know, if I find one that I applied for, and then it’s going and finding, going up on, looking on LinkedIn of who works there, if I know anybody that works there, and they can, you know, it’s all these things. And, you know, it’s, it’s, feels like a lot it is, and it’s, it’s draining, and then, and then all be in between all that. This is when my wife is saying, Okay, can you help me with the bills? Can you help me with the laundry? Can you help me with this? And I’m like, real life, when do I have time? And that’s when she says, Well, let’s make some time here. And that’s Yeah, and I’m learning to make that time. You know, sometimes I won’t go out and watch a ball game with my friends. I will stay home and now we’ll or I need to stay home and do things, do other things to help her and that kind of stuff. So

Kristen Carder 52:29
dang Yeah, I’m curious what you would say to people who are also maybe not doing the work that they want to do and looking for work and like, what, what encouragement might you have to share with I

Matt Ciciarelli 52:45
would say, if you’re married with kids, listen to your wife right away. That’s the best previous advice I can give you. Is, because it would have saved a lot of heart rate, heart you know, a lot of you know, you know, contentious discussions. We’ll put it that way, if I would have just listened to her back in December last year and just say, All right, let’s get a job. Let’s find, you know, still look for something yeah and not get hung up on that, the title or the Yeah. Um,

Kristen Carder 53:13
don’t get hung up on titles. Yes. And how do we not get hung up on titles? That

Matt Ciciarelli 53:20
is a great question, because for me, I it was very hard to get where I was, yeah, and for me it’s anything less than that, or little bit less than that, or anything more than a little bit less than that would have been like, Nope, I’m not. That’s not me. And, yeah, I didn’t, I don’t want that. And I thinking that way was like, Oh my god. I’m so selfish right now I am so so why do I think that I can do that and I can you, I should hold out like that, and I’ve never felt that way before. I’ve never thought that way before. It’s always been all right. How can we help? What can we do all that stress?

Kristen Carder 54:11
I wonder if it was just loving your job so much and loving the idea of marketing director so much, and then just being like, I cannot go back.

Matt Ciciarelli 54:26
It was, it was part of that. That was part of it. I think a lot of it was more pride, because there’s, you know, I didn’t want to, I didn’t Yeah, and I didn’t want to say, see somebody in the grocery Hey, what are you doing? I’m digging graves, yeah, or stocking shelves, or I’m just this, do this

Kristen Carder 54:45
to each other. No, I don’t do, you know what I’m saying, like, as a society, why do we, why do we make it so that we can’t just be, like, I’m working it giant or Acme so that I can, it’s accommod the Acme, the Acme. I’m working at the Acme to to provide for my family,

Matt Ciciarelli 55:05
right? And the weird thing is, all that’s in my head and yeah, anybody I would run into at the grocery store who asked me that question, if I would get in that answer, cool, yeah, no problem, they wouldn’t be like, yeah, look at you. Now. What happened to you? Yeah, oh, you fell from grace. Didn’t right? I don’t know anybody that I would interact with at the grocery store in that scenario that would say that, yep, and, and yet, we yet, I’m like the

Kristen Carder 55:34
voice in your head, the inner critic, yes, yes. All that, all of it, all of that. Whoo, it’s good. So listen to sound advice. Is what you

Matt Ciciarelli 55:47
Yes, that’s, that’s listen to sound advice. It’s funny. I was coaching my son’s baseball team. The head coach would do this, he’d talk about that, and I was and I would tell the kids three words, listen, comprehend, execute,

Kristen Carder 56:05
oh my gosh. I

Matt Ciciarelli 56:06
said, Hear it, understand it, do it. And I would, and I even tell the kids that now, and even not in sports, yeah, and I’m the one that’s not doing it. I’m not even listening. I’m not comprehending, nor am I executing, yeah, so it’s like if I would just follow my own advice and listen to my wife comprehend what she’s saying. Hey, the math isn’t working, yeah, and then go out and do it. Yeah, it would have been it took you out to get there, but you got there. I did at an expense, but I did. Will you

Kristen Carder 56:33
be able to forgive yourself for that? Do you think? I hope so. Yeah, I think

Matt Ciciarelli 56:42
once I if, once we get back on our feet, we get, you know, I get the jaw, I get a job that I went to college for. You could say real job. No, I don’t want to say that. And we kind of get out of the hole that we dug. And I think, you know, then I’ll, you know, come out smiling on the other side. I think that’ll be, then I’ll be able to figure myself. Until then it’s going to be a, it’s gonna be a bit of a journey. Dang.

Kristen Carder 57:09
Here’s what I would hope for you, ready? Um, what I would hope is that that process of self forgiveness could start now and not have a I’ll forgive myself when I don’t think that you would want that for your best friend or your wife or your kid, like you have to do X, Y, Z, you have to pay penance, and, you know, Make Yourself suffer before you get forgiveness, like, I understand repair, yes, probably a lot of repair that needs to happen. So that’s totally different story, right? Like building up trust again and repair and that kind of thing. But the regret, the regret that we carry is, like, just not useful to us. No,

Matt Ciciarelli 58:03
no, right? Like the and we know it’s not useful. That’s the worst part. And we like, it’s like, oh God, don’t think this way. Don’t think this way. And pop it in your head, and I’m like, here we go.

Kristen Carder 58:15
And then is it so heavy for me, it’s just so heavy when I feel that. And

Matt Ciciarelli 58:21
a perfect scenario is, you know, my wife and I were talking, and she’s like, well, this bill’s due, or this, you know, we got to shuffle this to make sure we pay that. And I’m like, yeah, if I, if only I could hold a job, if I didn’t get laid off, if I could find a job, yeah, we wouldn’t be in this, and she wouldn’t be so upset, and we wouldn’t have to do all this, and life would be easier, dang. And it’s just the self loathing of, yes, it’s a cycle that I can’t

Kristen Carder 58:55
and then How helpful is self loathing when it comes, oh, it’s awful job search. No,

Matt Ciciarelli 58:58
it’s not. It’s like, and it’s, like, and it’s, it goes back to self trust and self confidence. Because, like, Yes, oh, I will look at, look at the list. I’m like, can’t do that job. That’s out. Yeah, that job, that’s us. I’m eliminating myself before I even Yes. You know, it’s really tough. That’s so

Kristen Carder 59:17
tough. What? Um, what does your work look like with self trust? Because I know that you’ve, you’ve done some of that work. You’ve been in focused. We have those courses on self trust. I think you were there live for that course

Matt Ciciarelli 59:34
most. The beginning of it, okay, the beginning of it. So I need to go back.

Kristen Carder 59:38
I need to go back and get I mean, you don’t have to do anything, wow. No,

Matt Ciciarelli 59:43
I do need to go, for the sake of my marriage and the sake of my sanity. Yes, I need to go back.

Kristen Carder 59:48
I just think that self trust is such a huge aspect of all of this, right? Yep,

Matt Ciciarelli 59:55
it is, and it absolutely is. And quite honestly, a, you know, a. 11 months of applying for jobs that I know I can get, that know I can do, and then not getting any of them, I’ve been beaten down. I’m like, and especially since I’m doing all the stuff that everybody asked me, I’ve been beaten down. So my self trust is like, in the toilet right now. Yeah,

I

and it’s, it’s funny, it’s my wife is like, I know you can do this. I know you can pay these bills. Yeah, I know you can. You’re smart, you have a college degree, you have 25 years of experience in corporate America, blah, blah, blah. And I’m like, Yeah, but it’s so hard where to start. And she goes, Just do it. Do

Kristen Carder 1:00:36
you think, though that when it comes to paying bills, specifically, that the shame and self loathing of like being in the hole is really the block. That’s part of it. I think that for me, when I’ve struggled, it’s been the 100 pound weight of I’m in the hole. If I could just XYZ, like, we shouldn’t be living this way, like when I’ve struggled to pay bills, it’s always been attached to my feelings about myself regarding money, so

Matt Ciciarelli 1:01:09
it’s that but I’m gonna go back in time here about six years ago, my wife, my mother in law, was sick. She was in the hospital, and so my wife is at the hospital every day, and she was coming home trying to do all this stuff at home. And I was like, You go deal with that. I got, I got the home front. I got, I’ll pay the bills. I sat down to try to pay him, and I was like, Oh, wait, what? Overwhelmed Yes. And so I just didn’t do it. Like, two months went by, just didn’t do it, and I didn’t tell her anything, dude, and I’m totally so ashamed of it now. I am absolutely ashamed of it. And then her mom’s sick. Her mom passes away, and then we come back, and she comes back from all the stuff at the memorial service, funeral that kind of stuff, and all these overdue stuff. So it’s a bit of a trauma response, I guess,

to the bills, yeah. It’s yeah, there’s a yeah, um,

it sounds like that, because I

don’t want that to happen again. No, in my, in my mind, is like, all right, it happened before, so it’s obviously going to happen again. And you know how our brains work, it’s, I do know that is, that is, that’s where my brain goes. That’s where it goes, yeah? So

Kristen Carder 1:02:29
if this is my responsibility, I’m going to f it up Absolutely. So it can’t be my responsibility, exactly, right? Yeah, I, um, I know we’re coming to the end of time, not the end of time, really the end of our time. Wow, that’s intense

Matt Ciciarelli 1:02:45
meteor coming to coming to

Kristen Carder 1:02:47
the end of time. But I am curious if you could talk a little bit about that aspect, because you’ve shared this in focus, this aspect of you where you say you’re gonna do it, and then just don’t, just don’t. And I think that’s so relatable, and I want you to talk about it, not because I want to out you, but because I think it’s important to talk about. And we as ADHD ers do this so much along the journey of like, yeah, yeah, I got you absolutely no problem. I will take care of that. And then we just don’t, or we’re not equipped to do it, or when we we thought we could handle it, but we can’t handle it, but then we’re too scared to say we can’t handle it. Yes, so does that resonate? Oh, absolutely.

Matt Ciciarelli 1:03:35
It’s, it’s like, it’s like, the the kid sitting down to eat a big pizza. I’m gonna eat this whole thing, yeah? And eats two pieces, like, and he’s like, Oh my god, I’m so full. I’m so full your eyes. Eyes were bigger than his stomach. Yeah? I think we, especially in my situation, I’m trying to make up for all this lost ground here that I’m saying, Yeah, I’ll do that for you. Yeah, I’ll do that for you. Yeah. I’m like, over committing, over committing as, like, you know, the thrill seeker that Dr Rosie was talking about. And yeah, I was like, Yes, I can do that. Yes, I can do that. And then you, you sit down and like, oh my goodness, I have two hours, and I got 45 things to do. And, and instead of saying, Hey Julie, my wife, Julie, sure I need some help. I over committed here. Yeah, I just say, and I’m because I’m too afraid of those difficult conversation, even with my wife, yeah, who, for better or for worse, loved me. She chose me. I chose her. Yeah, I don’t want to disappoint and I don’t want to get in trouble. I will, I won’t say, I wouldn’t say anything, yeah, I would just say, I would just not do it and let the chips fall where they may. And unfortunately, I’m still picking up the pieces. The

Kristen Carder 1:04:52
chips are all over the place. They’re all over the floor, yep. So, um, what are you working on to not over commit? Because, like, that’s the thing, right? Yes,

Matt Ciciarelli 1:05:02
I believe it or not, it’s my we just had this discussion the other day. I’m old school. I actually have a paper planner. I write it the idea I’m starting to write things down more, and I keep it in my phone too, like our Google Calendar, yeah, because one redundancy just helped me. Once I do it a couple times. It’ll help me remember it, but to the the it’s on my phone, and I don’t have my this, you know, the old school planner with me, I can just say, Oh, wait, i Yes, November 5. I can back into your podcast, November 5. So that’s helping, that’s helping a little bit, because I just kind of really got into that, you know that little, that little, you know, little hack, I guess you’d say, but it’s more of just being real with myself. It’s just like, it comes back to reality, and it comes back to being comfortable saying no, because I, like, I’m a you, we people please. Like, yeah, I can help you with that. Yeah. I can help you move. Yeah, you want that.

Kristen Carder 1:06:01
You want that guy that can do all of that was that you want to be the guy that can do all of this.

Matt Ciciarelli 1:06:06
I don’t want to disappoint anybody by saying, No, I’m sorry. I can’t help you. I can’t help you milk that cow over there because, one, because I don’t know how to milk a cow, and two, because I don’t have time. And three, I have no desire, but I don’t want to disappoint you, so I’m gonna say yes, and I’m gonna find a way to figure it out and do with a smile on these?

Kristen Carder 1:06:25
Oh, it’s so real.

Matt Ciciarelli 1:06:26
Don’t ask me why I thought of milking a cat. I could have thought of anything right there.

Kristen Carder 1:06:34
I would love for you to just if you don’t mind, what would you say to some of the listeners who are finding themselves in the middle,

Matt Ciciarelli 1:06:46
um, I would say, keep plugging along. I would say, keep listening. Keep comprehending what they’re what people are saying, and keep executing. If I can go back to that little three word, three word mantra, I

Kristen Carder 1:07:01
guess you want to call it, then comprehend, execute yes

Matt Ciciarelli 1:07:03
and the and I’m guilty of not doing that all the time, and yes. And if I, if you can, if anybody can learn from my mistakes or any mistake, if you want to call it a mistake, that would be it. Listen to what people are saying and take it to heart, because their odds are they’re not just saying it just saying it just for the sake of saying it. They’re saying it for a reason.

It’s good. Yeah,

thank you for being here. I really appreciate Yeah, we’ll be here anytime. This is a short drive for me. I’ll do this any day. You want. Great.

Kristen Carder 1:07:33
A few years ago, I went looking for help. I wanted to find someone to teach me how to feel better about myself and to help me improve my organization, productivity, time management, emotional regulation, you know, all the things that we adults with ADHD struggle with, I couldn’t find anything. So I researched and I studied and I hired coaches and I figured it out, and then I created focused for you. Focused is my monthly coaching membership, where I teach educated professional adults how to accept their ADHD brain and hijack their ability to get stuff done. Hundreds of people from all over the world are already benefiting from this program, and I’m confident that you will too go to Ihaveadhd.com/focused for all details.