June 25, 2025

I Lost Everything Despite Being a Financial Planner (My ADHD Money Story)

I Lost Everything Despite Being a Financial Planner (My ADHD Money Story)
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David DeWitt shares his personal journey from financial disaster to freedom, revealing how understanding the connection between ADHD, shame, and money behaviors transformed his relationship with finances.

• Breaking free from the shame cycle that drives ADHD financial behaviors
• Understanding how self-beliefs sabotage financial progress despite good intentions
• Learning that willpower and discipline aren't effective solutions for ADHD money management
• Recognizing how 20,000 more negative experiences shape harmful core beliefs in people with ADHD
• Discovering how to befriend rather than battle financial demons
• Making sustainable progress by addressing emotional foundations first
• Finding freedom through self-acceptance rather than constant self-improvement

Join our Shameless Money community to decode your money story and build sustainable financial systems designed for the ADHD brain. Check out our Financial Transformation coaching package that includes a deep discovery call, personalized roadmap with your money story decoded, and implementation sessions to build systems that actually work for you.


Head over to our YouTube channel for the full experience on future episodes.

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00:00 - The Money Curse of ADHD

06:47 - My Financial Disasters and Rock Bottom

13:41 - Second Collapse and Turning Point

19:46 - Uncovering Shame and Self-Beliefs

27:18 - Breaking Free from Financial Demons

31:02 - Shameless Money Mission and Services

WEBVTT

00:00:00.140 --> 00:00:05.062
Imagine being a certified financial planner with $50,000 of credit card debt and you know better.

00:00:05.062 --> 00:00:08.983
But you can't stop doing it because your brain just literally just keeps doing things.

00:00:08.983 --> 00:00:10.188
You are not in control of your brain.

00:00:10.188 --> 00:00:13.887
Your brain keeps making you do stuff you don't want to do and you're telling yourself you're not broken.

00:00:13.887 --> 00:00:18.403
You know you're okay, it's going to be okay, you're going to figure it out, but it just keeps getting worse and worse and worse.

00:00:18.484 --> 00:00:20.765
So the money thing with ADHD, it feels like a curse.

00:00:20.765 --> 00:00:27.134
It really does, and that curse feels it's one of the worst curses because the stakes are so high with our money.

00:00:27.134 --> 00:00:39.530
You know it's a really important part of our life that we really love to bury our heads in the sand about and avoid and that almost certainly spells later worse and worse disasters happening and more and more stress and all the bad things.

00:00:39.530 --> 00:00:41.363
But you know we just avoid it.

00:00:41.363 --> 00:00:42.286
It's so common.

00:00:42.286 --> 00:00:51.070
And you know I spent years beating myself up, taking mental and emotional hit after hit, and you know, if only I had more willpower and discipline, you know, then it'd all be.

00:00:51.070 --> 00:00:51.692
You know then I'd be great.

00:00:51.692 --> 00:00:53.280
So let's figure out a way to have that.

00:00:53.280 --> 00:00:56.944
Well, that's not how our brains work and we're literally not wired to have that.

00:00:56.944 --> 00:01:01.249
We don't have willpower and discipline for the things that we don't want to do.

00:01:01.249 --> 00:01:05.832
Get me a plane, some golf, and get me a new like hobby that's stimulating, great, I'll do it.

00:01:05.832 --> 00:01:09.921
But then like what if that's just an escape from, from pain that I am not confronting?

00:01:09.921 --> 00:01:10.924
You know what about that?

00:01:10.924 --> 00:01:14.203
So don't, try and have more willpower and discipline and stop fighting it.

00:01:14.203 --> 00:01:17.420
And here's the real kicker it's never going to be about willpower, discipline.

00:01:17.420 --> 00:01:26.221
You're never going to have enough willpower or discipline to will yourself and brute force yourself out of money, stress and money, debt and all the stuff.

00:01:26.221 --> 00:01:27.986
The problem isn't in our character.

00:01:27.986 --> 00:01:33.171
It's that we don't know what to do, how to do it or even how to think about doing it.

00:01:33.171 --> 00:01:37.549
We're playing a game using rules that were not written for us in a language we can't speak.

00:01:37.549 --> 00:01:45.593
So we just continue on beating ourselves up about it, blaming ourselves for being stupid, and we let the shame and the embarrassment pile on.

00:01:45.593 --> 00:01:59.670
And before you know it, you know we are scared to crapless of looking at our money, thinking about money, we start to resent money and shame eats away at us, and then we start to feel more and more off and dysregulated and eventually we crumble.

00:01:59.670 --> 00:02:02.789
But what if I told you that crumbling was actually the beginning?

00:02:03.271 --> 00:02:04.234
I am David DeWitt.

00:02:04.234 --> 00:02:07.203
I created shameless money because, honestly, I had to.

00:02:07.203 --> 00:02:10.772
I've spent the last 10 years battling my financial demons.

00:02:10.772 --> 00:02:15.109
Among many other demons, but the financial one, that one, was the most destructive.

00:02:15.109 --> 00:02:21.980
It was, it is, and while I am way better off than I was 10 years ago, I'll admit I'm still really behind financially.

00:02:21.980 --> 00:02:25.430
I still overspend a lot of months, I still fall back into old patterns.

00:02:25.770 --> 00:02:28.768
But here's the difference, here is the difference between me and 10 years ago.

00:02:28.768 --> 00:02:32.610
I am not scared anymore of my money, of money at all.

00:02:32.610 --> 00:02:41.943
I don't avoid it, I don't hide from it and I am energized and even motivated about building wealth and, frankly, getting rich the next five years.

00:02:41.943 --> 00:02:43.247
That's the goal to get rich.

00:02:43.247 --> 00:02:50.223
I'm not scared of it and that's what I want.

00:02:50.223 --> 00:02:53.056
And while part of me is still like Ooh, I'll tell you right now I'm going to work relentlessly to battle that, that voice in my head.

00:02:53.056 --> 00:02:56.562
Well, I'm sorry, not battle, I don't do battling, I do accepting and befriending.

00:02:56.562 --> 00:02:58.085
Who is that voice in my head?

00:02:58.085 --> 00:02:59.366
What does that voice in my head want?

00:02:59.366 --> 00:03:00.668
Why is it feeling that way.

00:03:00.668 --> 00:03:02.730
But anyways, where are we going with this?

00:03:02.730 --> 00:03:17.288
You know this might not sound very radical to you, but if you know what I'm talking about the shift from being inescapably stressed out about money to feeling an attitude of hope and energy and true acceptance and desire it's a big shift and I'm proud to say I've made that shift.

00:03:17.288 --> 00:03:26.028
So I am starting a business that's going to address money and ADHD in the way that it has to be addressed, because it cannot be addressed in a way that is superficial anymore.

00:03:26.028 --> 00:03:32.486
It can't just be about automate do this and that, have this tip, you know, have this system, you know, have reminders.

00:03:32.486 --> 00:03:33.830
It's we have to go deeper.

00:03:33.830 --> 00:03:49.709
It's time to go deeper, and so in the next few minutes, I'm going to share my story with you the disasters, the breakthroughs, and why people with ADHD do need a totally different approach to money management, one that is going to embrace who we are, because this story, it might be your story too.

00:03:49.709 --> 00:03:51.770
So let's rewind, let's go back in time.

00:03:52.050 --> 00:03:58.356
I was diagnosed with inattentive ADHD when I was 16 years old and I didn't really know what that meant.

00:03:58.356 --> 00:04:01.520
I just I didn't know.

00:04:01.520 --> 00:04:02.524
I didn't know what it meant.

00:04:02.524 --> 00:04:06.406
No one told me what it was going to mean and and what it would do to my life and how it would affect me.

00:04:06.406 --> 00:04:21.329
I was just like, hey, hey, kid, here we're going to give you all these reading tests and all of these, whatever you know, all these tests and we're going to, you know, show you, you know how bad at reading you are and how much you can't pay attention, and and we're going to give you an IQ test and show you how, like, oh, like, you're actually kind of smart.

00:04:21.329 --> 00:04:25.492
But, like, on this score, yeah, you know, you got ADHD bud and here's some pills.

00:04:25.492 --> 00:04:26.694
Okay, good luck to you.

00:04:26.694 --> 00:04:27.074
That's.

00:04:27.074 --> 00:04:28.600
That's how the experience went for me.

00:04:28.600 --> 00:04:29.863
Great experience, Let me tell you.

00:04:30.084 --> 00:04:31.487
And as a little kid you know I was.

00:04:31.487 --> 00:04:34.422
I was the quiet kid, I was lost in my own world.

00:04:34.422 --> 00:04:38.206
I was always able to play alone, independently, for long stretches of time.

00:04:38.206 --> 00:04:47.425
I was able to make things and build, and I loved to just be in my own world, just lost in my own daydreams, the most daydreamy kid you could really possibly imagine.

00:04:47.425 --> 00:04:48.608
And I still love to daydream.

00:04:48.608 --> 00:04:49.050
Let's be real.

00:04:49.269 --> 00:04:56.923
High school hit and I managed to survive high school with, you know, okay grades, but I had to completely game the system.

00:04:56.923 --> 00:05:08.045
If you know what I mean and I know a lot of you know what I mean when we're talking about gaming the financial system, because a lot of us are playing that game balance transfers, you know those kinds of things until until until it runs out.

00:05:08.045 --> 00:05:17.322
So after my diagnosis I was given the meds, but from that point until recently, I pretty much felt like adhd was something you know, from 16 to 30.

00:05:17.322 --> 00:05:19.329
Uh, adhd, you know 29.

00:05:19.329 --> 00:05:22.319
I guess the adhd was something to hide, to become embarrassed about.

00:05:22.319 --> 00:05:23.322
You know kind of.

00:05:23.322 --> 00:05:30.202
You know like oh, I don't want people to know, I'm going to mask and I'm going to, you know, try to be, try to fit in.

00:05:30.202 --> 00:05:45.822
You know, nobody told me like I mentioned before, because I'm partially reading notes and I'm partially just ripping because this is, this is fun Nobody told me how much it was going to affect my, my life, every part of my life, every domain of life was going to affect in a big way.

00:05:45.822 --> 00:05:47.007
So let's keep going.

00:05:47.307 --> 00:05:56.341
So after college, I landed a job at an this is always the hardest thing for me to say at an investment firm as a mutual fund accountant, and I thrived there.

00:05:56.341 --> 00:06:05.321
I'm going to tell you right now this was the best job for someone with ADHD who had a very tumultuous college and high school experience, because I had the same job every day.

00:06:05.321 --> 00:06:06.403
I knew what I was supposed to do.

00:06:06.403 --> 00:06:07.226
I knew what I had to do.

00:06:07.226 --> 00:06:09.822
I knew I had to turn in my work and check it off.

00:06:09.822 --> 00:06:10.404
Done Like.

00:06:10.404 --> 00:06:12.370
It was like boom, self-efficacy, boom.

00:06:12.370 --> 00:06:13.540
I did it, I did it, I did it.

00:06:13.540 --> 00:06:19.482
I got promoted and during this time I also developed an obsession with stocks and trading and research.

00:06:19.482 --> 00:06:20.886
I loved researching stocks.

00:06:20.886 --> 00:06:25.338
I'm a researcher at heart and I loved investing and trading and learning.

00:06:25.338 --> 00:06:25.961
I just love learning.

00:06:25.961 --> 00:06:26.963
I always have loved learning.

00:06:26.963 --> 00:06:27.766
Let's be real.

00:06:27.766 --> 00:06:30.072
I know a lot of us ADHDers love learning.

00:06:30.360 --> 00:06:31.944
Then the shift, big shift, came.

00:06:31.944 --> 00:06:33.649
I joined my dad's investment firm.

00:06:33.649 --> 00:06:36.944
He basically just took me, just said hey, come here, I'll pay you more.

00:06:36.944 --> 00:06:37.646
I was like okay.

00:06:37.646 --> 00:06:46.795
And from the outside it looked like a dream, because you know it's a family business, you know there's client trust already there we're managing people's money, all this fun stuff.

00:06:46.975 --> 00:06:50.706
But on the inside, on the inside of the walls of this business, it was chaos.

00:06:50.706 --> 00:06:51.925
It was pure chaos.

00:06:51.925 --> 00:06:55.865
There was no structure my dad has ADHD no direction, no training.

00:06:55.865 --> 00:06:57.605
I didn't know how to get clients.

00:06:57.605 --> 00:07:05.833
I had no confidence to be like "'Hey, mr Smith, would you like to give me your $25 million and let me manage it for you?

00:07:05.833 --> 00:07:10.932
I'm just, hey, I'm just this 24-year-old who you know, who's really got, you know, knows what he's doing.

00:07:11.300 --> 00:07:12.685
No, that didn't come naturally to me.

00:07:12.685 --> 00:07:14.305
I was scared, poopless, to do that.

00:07:14.305 --> 00:07:21.447
Yeah, I was totally scared and you know, I was 25, you know, and I was full of imposter syndrome starting to get it big time, because I had no idea what I was doing.

00:07:21.447 --> 00:07:23.310
I wasn't able to get any little wins every day.

00:07:23.310 --> 00:07:23.971
I just sat there.

00:07:23.971 --> 00:07:24.632
I didn't know what to do.

00:07:24.632 --> 00:07:25.233
Half the time.

00:07:25.233 --> 00:07:26.656
I was literally told what to do.

00:07:26.656 --> 00:07:33.242
I was just like there as like, like there is my dad's son, the legacy, I'm the legacy, I'm going to take over and do it.

00:07:33.562 --> 00:07:50.096
And so, like I gave solid advice to clients and my personal finances were starting to get messier, and like it wouldn't you wouldn't say it was messy, because the truth of this and this is the truth that I've been very vulnerable over the last four years or five years or whatever, on my podcast and everything.

00:07:50.096 --> 00:07:54.639
But I'm just going to be straight up with y'all I had access to a significant amount of money at this time.

00:07:54.639 --> 00:07:56.466
So it wasn't like I was.

00:07:56.466 --> 00:07:58.130
My finances were not a mess.

00:07:58.130 --> 00:08:06.814
If you were just to pick it out, you know, just like stop time and be like when date 25 year old Dave, let's look at his balance sheet, he'd be like, wow, he's doing great he.

00:08:06.814 --> 00:08:08.076
How did he get all that money?

00:08:08.076 --> 00:08:15.865
The truth is that I had access to an account, a UTMA account, which when you put the UTMA account, when you turn 18, it becomes yours.

00:08:15.865 --> 00:08:27.896
Your parents like put money in it and then becomes yours and just telling you right now don't give, don't, don't do that for your kids unless your kid is the literally the most responsible person in the entire world, but she's probably not so don't do it.

00:08:27.896 --> 00:08:30.637
So so I had this account that became mine.

00:08:30.637 --> 00:08:38.520
It was supposed to be for my college, but my dad didn't want to use it for college because the the, the stocks that he had invested in it wasn't the right time to sell them for college.

00:08:38.520 --> 00:08:40.484
So he just paid out of pocket for my college.

00:08:40.524 --> 00:08:44.350
Because I'm very fortunate and I've, you know, I've had a lot of things just handed to me.

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I'm not going to lie about that.

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I am a privileged white kid.

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You know who's been handed a lot, and that's just the truth.

00:08:50.965 --> 00:08:52.528
You know, I'm not going to deny that.

00:08:52.528 --> 00:08:57.145
But there's a story to every social class and the way that money is handled.

00:08:57.145 --> 00:09:12.623
And, to steal a line from my favorite band, I wasn't raised in the hood, but I do know a thing or two about pain and darkness, because while I was on paper, a very fortunate would have seemed to have a very fortunate, cushy life it didn't feel.

00:09:12.623 --> 00:09:14.070
It never felt that way.

00:09:14.070 --> 00:09:15.636
Yeah, we'll get into that, so yeah.

00:09:15.697 --> 00:09:17.363
So I had all this money and I was just trading it.

00:09:17.363 --> 00:09:22.344
You know, day trading, stock option training, all the trading, all the just I don't know gambling, really, really.

00:09:22.344 --> 00:09:38.203
I was just gambling, thinking, though, that I was being smart, and I developed a lot of hubris because I had a lot of these big wins where I'd make like 30, 40, $50,000 on one trade very quickly and I'd be like wow, like I'm set now I'm good, so just fast forward, not a whole lot of time at all.

00:09:38.203 --> 00:09:39.245
That was all gone.

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All the money was gone.

00:09:40.145 --> 00:09:43.308
We're talking a couple hundred grand we're talking about gone.

00:09:43.308 --> 00:09:51.344
You know, it had gone from a couple hundred to like 400 grand, back to a couple hundred, back, then to 100, then to 50, then to 10, then to zero, then to negative, then to dead.

00:09:51.344 --> 00:09:52.547
Yeah, that happened.

00:09:52.547 --> 00:09:54.912
So it was before it went to zero.

00:09:54.912 --> 00:10:00.611
I had also and there's so much to unpack here I have to keep going because this is going to take too long.

00:10:00.860 --> 00:10:03.686
You know, one day I wanted a car and I have all this money that I didn't earn.

00:10:03.686 --> 00:10:07.673
I was just like, oh just, you know, I made money on this trade so I'll just buy a car.

00:10:07.673 --> 00:10:08.822
But I didn't buy a car.

00:10:08.822 --> 00:10:11.149
I thought, well, you know what would be a better investment?

00:10:11.149 --> 00:10:12.140
I should just buy a house.

00:10:12.140 --> 00:10:25.056
So I bought a house because I could just take the money, I could do a 20% down payment and I could feel like I fit in with the world and that I earned this and that I worked hard and that I had you know, it was all of my own making.

00:10:25.056 --> 00:10:32.668
I could present that persona to the world, knowing deep down that I didn't do that, it was just given to me.

00:10:32.668 --> 00:10:48.984
And that, when I bought that house is what triggered what I am going to call the blackout era For the next six to 12 months the ADHD impulse spender came out in force Like, boom, I furnished the entire house in a day, just going to the store and saying I want that furniture, let's bring it in, let's put it in the house.

00:10:49.279 --> 00:11:04.932
Like the golf stuff happened and bought the house, put a golf simulator in the garage, like I'm telling you right now, I was depressed, I was very depressed during this time and, yes, I was absolutely filling a deep void with all of this.

00:11:04.932 --> 00:11:07.586
But, yeah, the money vanished and then the credit card debt happened.

00:11:07.586 --> 00:11:22.349
And then it feels like I woke up from a dream, because once I realized and took stock of what had happened over this period of time where it was like a manic episode honestly it may have been, I don't know it was as close to that as I've ever been.

00:11:22.349 --> 00:11:28.732
When I finally took stock of what had happened and where I was, the anxiety, the shame, the shock.

00:11:28.732 --> 00:11:41.072
I was consumed with guilt and shame and disgust with myself and the cognitive dissonance of still being a financial professional while being financially wrecked was literally unbearable.

00:11:41.072 --> 00:11:42.201
And so what does that?

00:11:42.201 --> 00:11:49.087
What does someone who has now developed the pattern of spending with you know, with very, very poor executive function, do when they're feeling unbearable pain?

00:11:49.087 --> 00:11:50.392
They just compound it.

00:11:50.392 --> 00:11:52.184
That's what your brain's going to do to survive?

00:11:52.184 --> 00:11:54.431
Just what felt good even for five minutes?

00:11:54.431 --> 00:11:55.100
Do that?

00:11:55.100 --> 00:11:55.942
Keep going.

00:11:55.942 --> 00:11:57.845
This was like rock bottom number one.

00:11:57.845 --> 00:12:02.490
There's another rock bottom number two coming up soon, but this was rock bottom number one Turning point.

00:12:02.490 --> 00:12:08.331
Let's move it up a little bit here In 2021, coming out of this misery, like I was questioning, you know, am I?

00:12:08.331 --> 00:12:10.581
I'm probably not going to be in this industry much longer.

00:12:10.822 --> 00:12:24.014
I was trying things I was trying to do just to give you more insight into like the full, like me, trying to be something for the world that I didn't feel I was inside at all, but trying so hard to mask and just portray some image of someone who's successful.

00:12:24.014 --> 00:12:27.350
I started a podcast called the Invest Smarter Podcast.

00:12:27.350 --> 00:12:32.529
In fact, you could probably go look it up and listen to some episodes of the Invest Smarter Podcast with Dave DeWitt.

00:12:32.529 --> 00:12:46.335
But in trying to learn how to do podcasting, I was in this group and one of the people in the group was doing a ADHD podcast about like it was like some very niche, like sports and ADHD, and I just was like huh, adhd, like what?

00:12:46.335 --> 00:12:49.745
Like I have that and you know, up to this point I, every single thing I did stupid.

00:12:49.745 --> 00:12:52.211
I just literally, I put entirely on myself.

00:12:52.211 --> 00:12:56.950
It was entirely a reflection of who I was as a person and there was no explanation.

00:12:56.950 --> 00:12:59.583
Maybe I blamed it on some things in ADHD, I don't remember.

00:12:59.724 --> 00:13:11.249
And so I kind of just like casually, did some research and I found this book I call it, uh, delivered from Distraction by Ed Hallowell, and holy smokes, this was the moment.

00:13:11.249 --> 00:13:16.445
This was the first time I ever felt different and a little bit better, like at a deeper level.

00:13:16.445 --> 00:13:18.110
Um, the very first taste of it.

00:13:18.110 --> 00:13:21.397
This book was like someone wrote it dear David, here's a book about you.

00:13:21.397 --> 00:13:21.666
And when I he started listing out there was a taste of it.

00:13:21.666 --> 00:13:22.317
This book was like someone wrote it dear david, here's a book about you.

00:13:22.317 --> 00:13:31.072
And when I he started listing out, there's a part of it in the beginning where he lists like he just goes through like like a hundred things that like you'll struggle with if you have adhd.

00:13:31.072 --> 00:13:34.701
Oh, I think it was part of the like you know, if you struggle with a lot of these things, you probably have it.

00:13:34.701 --> 00:13:45.710
But like he was saying them in a very human and personal kind of like real, real way that I was in tears in the car listening to this book and I was like, oh my gosh, I had no idea.

00:13:45.710 --> 00:13:46.833
I just had no clue.

00:13:47.174 --> 00:13:51.745
And so, like, I finally felt like I knew now, I felt like I understood.

00:13:51.745 --> 00:13:55.380
Now you know, my money issues weren't my character flaw, you know it's.

00:13:55.380 --> 00:13:56.903
This is a serious thing.

00:13:56.903 --> 00:13:58.404
I have, you know, adhd.

00:13:58.404 --> 00:14:02.851
This is serious Like, and now that I'm going to like understand this, you know, things will start to get better.

00:14:02.851 --> 00:14:05.844
You know my brain was, you know my brain was just chasing dopamine.

00:14:05.844 --> 00:14:07.450
Uh, just chasing dopamine.

00:14:07.450 --> 00:14:16.407
Spending was my hit and there was no one there to stop me and I've never really liked being told what to do, so tell me not to spend any more money, I'll just spend more money.

00:14:16.407 --> 00:14:17.187
So I was like you know what?

00:14:17.187 --> 00:14:18.568
I feel a little bit more safe.

00:14:18.568 --> 00:14:22.332
For the first time in my life, my nervous system actually relaxed a little bit.

00:14:22.393 --> 00:14:29.551
Reading this book and feeling understood and feeling seen and feeling validated and something triggered in me and I started thinking to myself.

00:14:29.551 --> 00:14:32.995
I was like, well, if I'm going to survive in this industry, well I really ought to.

00:14:32.995 --> 00:14:36.024
You know, they always say get a niche, so I'll just make my niche ADHD.

00:14:36.024 --> 00:14:38.246
I'll work with people who I understand.

00:14:38.246 --> 00:14:46.168
The truth is, when I first started this, it was like I won't feel my shame as much with other people who are feeling shame about their money.

00:14:46.168 --> 00:14:47.331
So, like, what a great fit.

00:14:47.331 --> 00:15:07.542
So, while I pitched it as and I'm being just as honest as I possibly can, because being brutally honest is my thing now, because I despise fakeness While I was pitching the service as being a place where you can, we can work with your money and I can help you and understand your money and we can build systems and we can get you on the path towards wealth.

00:15:07.662 --> 00:15:16.130
And you know financial planners that are out there, you know they're really working for with people that already have a lot of wealth and, but, like, you need to learn how to like, get the wealth.

00:15:16.130 --> 00:15:17.481
So I'll be that guy.

00:15:17.481 --> 00:15:21.649
But really, you know, thinking about it, I'm kind of realizing this now, or at least clarifying it.

00:15:21.649 --> 00:15:28.374
It was more of a protection, self-protection for me in the beginning, because I was like, oh, we can wallow in our shame together.

00:15:28.374 --> 00:15:31.202
Oof, okay, that's a heavy one, but that's okay.

00:15:31.202 --> 00:15:52.559
So I started the business in focus wealth strategies and I was serving ADHD clients and in 2022, I passed the CFP exam because I was like you know what I'm going to do this right, I'm in recovery of my own financial issues, so I'm going to make sure that I know how to give people a financial plan, the responsible way to give them the right advice, all that stuff.

00:15:52.559 --> 00:15:53.462
That was the plan.

00:15:53.462 --> 00:15:54.748
And the business grew.

00:15:54.748 --> 00:15:57.177
It grew and grew and grew fast.

00:15:57.458 --> 00:15:59.964
I wouldn't even really call it business because I had no idea how to run a business.

00:15:59.964 --> 00:16:05.924
I had spent three years just dilly-dallying, blowing all my money, not being depressed and not knowing what to do.

00:16:05.924 --> 00:16:13.280
To now, like having all these clients willing to work with me because, turns out, there was demand for this and I thought maybe there would be demand, but I didn't know there'd be that much.

00:16:13.280 --> 00:16:18.187
And I just kept on taking clients and I kept charging what I thought I was worth, which was like pretty much nothing.

00:16:18.187 --> 00:16:26.837
And you know, at this point in time I didn't know how still emotionally raw and perfectionistic and broken I still really was like.

00:16:27.178 --> 00:16:34.658
So when I had like 50 clients, then I felt so much unbearable pressure that I, I collab, I crushed me.

00:16:34.658 --> 00:16:36.000
I couldn't take it anymore.

00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:38.706
I couldn't handle that many clients.

00:16:38.706 --> 00:16:44.245
I couldn't handle them needing so many people needing me when I couldn't even really take care of myself.

00:16:44.245 --> 00:16:50.427
It was just overwhelmed, total overwhelm, and I do have really pretty bad like executive function challenges.

00:16:50.427 --> 00:16:53.293
So it was hard and I had no plan.

00:16:53.394 --> 00:16:57.658
I was winging it, I was trying, it was tough and I, you know, I became so perfectionistic.

00:16:57.658 --> 00:17:00.265
I became so like I need to come up with something new and new and new.

00:17:00.265 --> 00:17:03.674
And oh, there's so much revelation around this that I had.

00:17:03.674 --> 00:17:13.807
There's so much revelation I can't get into it all right now, but this was the second flop, and this flop felt worse, and this flop was like harder and more deep, because now I also had a kid.

00:17:13.807 --> 00:17:17.401
So it was really painful because I felt like I I don't know, I didn't know what to do.

00:17:17.401 --> 00:17:19.325
I really did, I just really didn't know what to do.

00:17:19.325 --> 00:17:20.527
I still don't really often feel like I know what to do.

00:17:20.527 --> 00:17:21.709
I really did, I just really didn't know what to do.

00:17:21.709 --> 00:17:22.830
I still don't really often feel like I know what to do.

00:17:22.830 --> 00:17:23.912
And I just felt so broken again.

00:17:24.252 --> 00:17:28.625
And it was around this time that a friend invited me to church.

00:17:28.625 --> 00:17:41.474
Now, I wasn't looking for God, and and I and at that time I was a deeply skeptical, agnostic, right, and something and something happened, though, at this church, like I just was, like you know, I'll try anything at this point you'll take me to your church, whatever.

00:17:41.474 --> 00:17:49.311
Whatever you're my friend and I need to have friends and connection and uh, fine, you know what I'll please you by you know people please you by going to your church.

00:17:49.311 --> 00:17:52.797
But I'm telling you something something happened at this church that I went to.

00:17:52.797 --> 00:17:55.182
You know, something happened, something unexplainable.

00:17:55.663 --> 00:18:11.529
I broke down and I did feel something happening to me and I felt grace and I was bawling my eyes out in a church and for the first time in my entire life, I felt I don't even know how to put words to it it was like I was crying and I was sad, but I was happy.

00:18:11.529 --> 00:18:16.031
I didn't know what was happening to me, but I just knew that in that moment I was surrendering.

00:18:16.031 --> 00:18:22.006
I was surrendering a lot because I was already so down and this is not a religious pitch at all, this is just part of my story.

00:18:22.006 --> 00:18:31.324
I think I just surrendered all of it the shame, the pain, the wreckage, the embarrassment, everything I just surrendered.

00:18:31.324 --> 00:18:32.409
And from there, something you know had changed in me.

00:18:32.429 --> 00:18:49.269
And again, it's not a religious pitch, it's just the accurate detailing of my story and from there something did change, where I now felt like I had permission to proceed with getting help and I felt like I had a bit more boost under me, like a little bit more motivation, a little bit more safety, and it definitely was like the religious stuff, but like that's just the way it was.

00:18:49.269 --> 00:19:02.326
And then, um, yeah, but something definitely happened to me where, like I all of a sudden was like motivated to get help and to self-explore and to discover and to, and I had the courage finally to like get help.

00:19:02.326 --> 00:19:05.553
So I had never really gone to therapy, I had tried it, I would quit.

00:19:05.553 --> 00:19:09.488
You know, I didn't think it was helping me, I don't think, I think I wasn't ready to confront anything really.

00:19:09.488 --> 00:19:14.608
But finally did therapy, I did EMDR, which life changing, absolutely amazing.

00:19:14.970 --> 00:19:29.345
So I'd started doing therapy and, you know, one thing led to another and I just started becoming very, very into self-discovery and putting the pieces of my life together and healing, meditation, self-inquiry, constant self-inquiry, constant learning everything out.

00:19:29.345 --> 00:19:34.025
If you were to look at my youtube feed and podcasts I was listening to, it was all about that.

00:19:34.025 --> 00:19:38.544
Like I was getting so deep into like trying to figure out why, why, why, what.

00:19:38.544 --> 00:19:40.669
There's more to this story than just my ad.

00:19:40.669 --> 00:19:52.230
It's not just that I have adhd and can't manage like money, because it's not just, it wasn't just money, it was friendships, it was relationships, it was self-sabotage and just never ending that.

00:19:52.230 --> 00:19:56.874
And so, finally, just like was like I've had enough of this and I'm ready to do something about it.

00:19:56.874 --> 00:20:08.082
And so, like reading delivered from distraction had, like, introduced me to the possibility that, like I wasn't broken and that, like ADHD, like now that I understand the ADHD and I've been educated, like I'll be good.

00:20:08.082 --> 00:20:13.121
That was just like the tippiest tip of the iceberg, the tippiest tip In therapy.

00:20:13.181 --> 00:20:30.603
I saw how so many of my memories, my most vivid childhood memories, were stories of this unseen, hurt and humiliated and broken child and my therapist God bless her helped me meet, you know, little me, my inner child, and who I found when I went to go meet my inner child.

00:20:30.603 --> 00:20:38.556
The little Dave was a little boy who was scared, alone, sad, unseen, feeling unworthy, feeling like a disappointment, feeling like an outcast.

00:20:38.556 --> 00:20:40.983
And it's funny because like what little Dave needed?

00:20:40.983 --> 00:20:47.962
You know, when I met him at the grocery store, I was lost, I didn't know where my mom was and I was alone, I was crying, I was hiding in the corner.

00:20:47.962 --> 00:20:51.661
When I went to that memory and I walked up to little Dave, what did he need?

00:20:51.661 --> 00:20:58.363
He just needed a major hug, to be looked square in the eyes and be told you're gonna be okay, I love you so much.

00:20:58.623 --> 00:21:07.261
And when I was starting to put the pieces together of my life and all the things that I just thought were normal for people it's tempting to kind of unpack more than I need to.

00:21:07.261 --> 00:21:09.430
But you know people in my life who I you know.

00:21:09.430 --> 00:21:13.883
You know I had shame, deep shame about my identity and who I was.

00:21:13.883 --> 00:21:17.089
I had my beliefs about myself, I learned, were terrible.

00:21:17.089 --> 00:21:25.730
This pain that I had been harboring and holding on that because I've been the people pleaser, I've been the perfectionist, I've been the trying to not let anyone down.

00:21:25.730 --> 00:21:36.631
But by trying so hard to do that letting everyone down and on occasion I would something would break in me and I would my frustration and anger and my resentment at just life would spill out.

00:21:36.631 --> 00:21:39.045
But for the most part I was just that perfectionist, people pleasing kid.

00:21:39.365 --> 00:22:00.424
But I now finally saw through therapy how my pain had become my identity and how it wasn't that I was making mistakes and that I made stupid errors and that I it wasn't, that it was, that I was a mistake, I was stupid, I am dumb, I am a disappointment, I am unworthy, I am unseen, I am unnoticeable.

00:22:00.424 --> 00:22:04.281
And so what do I have to do to be noticeable?

00:22:04.281 --> 00:22:05.104
I have to try to be special.

00:22:05.104 --> 00:22:08.250
I have to try to make the perfect systems for my clients.

00:22:08.250 --> 00:22:10.888
I have to try and make the perfect everything for everyone.

00:22:10.888 --> 00:22:19.401
And I can dress it all up and make it look pretty, because if I make it look pretty enough, maybe people will be convinced that it is pretty and that I am pretty.

00:22:19.401 --> 00:22:23.943
But the reality is I'm just covering for what feels pretty broken inside.

00:22:24.105 --> 00:22:28.826
You know, when this therapist squarely looks you in the eye and say like, like, what is the core belief driving that behavior?

00:22:28.826 --> 00:22:31.263
And we did drink down, it's like, oh wow, I am stupid.

00:22:31.263 --> 00:22:32.628
I believe I am stupid.

00:22:32.628 --> 00:22:36.381
Saying that I am smart, feels alien and feels uncomfortable.

00:22:36.381 --> 00:22:39.066
And so why is this even important for any of this?

00:22:39.066 --> 00:22:49.573
I mean, first of all, I like telling my story because I think people can see themselves in it, especially with ADHD, and it all comes back to money ultimately, because that's the area I've chosen to focus on to help people.

00:22:49.573 --> 00:22:56.092
But the point of all of this is is that, with shame, which is the business name, is shameless money right?

00:22:56.092 --> 00:23:02.886
It's so important to me, it's so personal to me, because the word shame I didn't understand and when I understood it, everything started to click.

00:23:03.086 --> 00:23:05.049
When you have shame, it means your belief.

00:23:05.049 --> 00:23:08.653
It's not a I was or I did a stupid thing, it's I am stupid.

00:23:08.653 --> 00:23:18.223
And so when you have that belief, your subconscious, the deepest part of your neurological being, believes that is what you are.

00:23:18.223 --> 00:23:27.030
Then, whenever you do something that's not stupid, or if you believe I am bad at money by nature, born to be bad at money when you have that subconscious belief about yourself, what are you going to do?

00:23:27.030 --> 00:23:49.987
When you start, like, when you start the new budget app and you have all that and all the dopamine because like it's new and novel and it's fun and it's it's, it's interesting and I'm going to set up this budget and then, when you do well with it for a month and you are making progress look at all that progress you made Well, what do you think your subconscious is telling you and wanting you to do next?

00:23:49.987 --> 00:23:53.113
Because you're not good at money, are you?

00:23:53.113 --> 00:23:54.957
No, no, no, you can't be.

00:23:54.957 --> 00:23:56.540
You are bad at money, remember.

00:23:56.540 --> 00:24:11.271
So we are going to set up conditions where you will self-sabotage, blow yourself up and go right back to where you were, because your subconscious is familiar with that feeling, it likes that feeling, it's the feeling it understands.

00:24:11.271 --> 00:24:15.157
So it will always revert you back, which is why shame is a cycle.

00:24:15.157 --> 00:24:18.924
You try, try, try to get out, you fight it.

00:24:18.924 --> 00:24:22.339
It becomes bigger ultimately and you're back to where you started.

00:24:22.339 --> 00:24:27.162
And this is how I finally got free from financial demons.

00:24:27.162 --> 00:24:39.272
And I couldn't let myself believe that it's just me, because what People with ADHD have 20,000 more negative instances throughout their life than the average neurotypical person?

00:24:39.534 --> 00:24:41.840
What does that do to your self-esteem, to your beliefs about yourself?

00:24:41.840 --> 00:24:52.313
You have developed neurological programs in your brain that are trained to tell you that when you do something stupid, it's not because you did something stupid that you can recover from, it's because you are stupid.

00:24:52.313 --> 00:24:58.773
That's what you have a program in your mind telling you to do, and you do it on repeat and nothing ever changes.

00:24:58.773 --> 00:25:07.731
And you just keep searching and thinking that this thing that I get, this, will be the thing that changes my life, because they are telling me that it will fix my problem.

00:25:07.731 --> 00:25:09.819
You have to fix yourself from the inside out.

00:25:09.819 --> 00:25:13.955
It's not fixing yourself, it's just befriending yourself, accepting yourself.

00:25:13.955 --> 00:25:15.382
Don't push away the shame.

00:25:15.382 --> 00:25:16.023
Understand the shame yourself.

00:25:16.023 --> 00:25:16.707
Don't push away the shame.

00:25:16.707 --> 00:25:17.127
Understand the shame.

00:25:17.127 --> 00:25:18.653
Don't push away the demons.

00:25:18.653 --> 00:25:20.480
Keep your enemies closer.

00:25:20.480 --> 00:25:22.006
Right you understand it.

00:25:22.006 --> 00:25:23.750
Become a friend, become curious about it.

00:25:24.051 --> 00:25:26.718
So I ended up talking way longer than I wanted to, for this.

00:25:26.718 --> 00:25:28.502
That's my one of my habit.

00:25:28.502 --> 00:25:35.835
I don't know how to get across the intensity of which I feel and things in in just 10 minutes or whatever, like most youtube videos out there.

00:25:35.835 --> 00:25:38.182
I I tried, but I failed at that.

00:25:38.182 --> 00:25:43.738
But that's okay because I'm thinking I'll just do me and if me is longer, so be it.

00:25:43.738 --> 00:25:45.056
It was fun to do longer.

00:25:45.056 --> 00:26:00.101
So the freedom came not just from accepting ADHD, but from accepting my entire self, from decoding my story, putting the pieces of the puzzle together, understanding, confronting people in my life who needed to be confronted, seeing my pain and not fighting it.

00:26:00.101 --> 00:26:04.318
Understanding my pain, accepting the pain I'd been through and just pursuing real answers.

00:26:04.318 --> 00:26:09.480
I mean, there's so much freedom and this was a lot of work and this journey that I'm on is not over.

00:26:09.480 --> 00:26:11.030
This video that I'm doing right now.

00:26:11.030 --> 00:26:12.513
It's just a stop.

00:26:12.513 --> 00:26:14.417
It's just a stop in the road.

00:26:14.417 --> 00:26:18.813
It's just a temporary reflection of an ongoing story and I don't know what's next.

00:26:18.813 --> 00:26:20.438
Like I can't wait for the next chapter now.

00:26:20.438 --> 00:26:20.880
Like this is.

00:26:20.920 --> 00:26:24.819
What's so different about me is that I used to be fearful about every step I would take.

00:26:24.819 --> 00:26:27.653
I would just be fearful, I would just think I will fail.

00:26:27.653 --> 00:26:32.077
And while I still have that lingers, I've really built up the part of me that can fight it.

00:26:32.077 --> 00:26:33.799
So here's what's different for me now.

00:26:33.799 --> 00:26:36.604
You know, the best part about this is I can say this with a smile.

00:26:36.604 --> 00:26:44.644
I can say this with confidence, with pride, and without that little voice in me telling in my head, telling me that you're being a fake-o right now and that it's not true.

00:26:45.067 --> 00:26:46.412
I've stopped impulsive spending.

00:26:46.412 --> 00:26:49.720
The impulsive spending that I used to do was outrageous.

00:26:49.720 --> 00:26:56.317
I've pretty much completely put a stop to that, and it used to be where I would stop for three months and then shame spiral back.

00:26:56.317 --> 00:26:57.680
Now it's like it's.

00:26:57.680 --> 00:26:58.681
I have no interest.

00:26:58.681 --> 00:27:06.888
Now that I know why and there's a lot more to the why there's so much more to all this I've done so much on this, but now that I know why, I can't be bothered to.

00:27:06.888 --> 00:27:09.459
Oh, that's just a part of a narrative that was built upon.

00:27:09.459 --> 00:27:13.010
Shame and built upon and now I understand that story.

00:27:13.010 --> 00:27:13.532
So why?

00:27:13.532 --> 00:27:16.559
You know that's not a story I'm interested in anymore, not interested in that story.

00:27:16.559 --> 00:27:19.827
So, while you know that's not a story I'm interested in anymore, not interested in that story anymore I've stuck to my financial plans.

00:27:19.847 --> 00:27:20.891
I've gone pretty much out of debt.

00:27:20.891 --> 00:27:28.012
There's still some, some debt left, I'm not going to lie to you and and when I slip up, I don't spiral because I do still slip up.

00:27:28.012 --> 00:27:29.934
And when I do slip up, I don't know.

00:27:29.934 --> 00:27:38.044
I just have, I've built up a groundedness and an understanding of who I am and such a hyper awareness of who I am and I just can't be bothered now to be to let it get me down too much.

00:27:38.044 --> 00:27:39.526
Do I still get financial anxiety?

00:27:39.526 --> 00:27:45.872
Yes, do I still get stressed out?

00:27:45.872 --> 00:27:57.763
Yes, do I have two kids and a family and I'm trying to grow a business and I still, like I'm learning so much, like, yes, there's a lot of pressure still and I try and deal with that all the time and and I don't know, I think that's probably what it is so like at InFocus Wealth Strategies.

00:27:57.763 --> 00:28:00.932
You know the financial planning business, which still exists, and for the right type of client.

00:28:00.932 --> 00:28:11.071
I'm still taking clients at InFocus, wealth Strategies for people that are, you know, do have a lot of income and maybe have gone past some of the most the deepest emotional kind of financial issues.

00:28:11.472 --> 00:28:27.276
But when I was working with clients at In't focus, you know, part of the thing was like like, while I did have financial shame and imposter syndrome and all that, like I still like handed people like really detailed plans of like with with all the subtasks breaking down, like I followed all of the ADHD guides.

00:28:27.276 --> 00:28:32.500
You know all the tips and I followed all the instruction manuals that you would have to do to help someone with ADHD.

00:28:32.500 --> 00:28:42.247
You know, help people's hands, help them implement systems where, like money would just go where it goes, and like you have, there's your, here's your rule.

00:28:42.247 --> 00:28:42.537
You have to follow this rule.

00:28:42.537 --> 00:28:42.654
You can't do that and you have to.

00:28:42.654 --> 00:28:44.307
You have to cut this much spending and here's exactly where you're going to cut.

00:28:44.307 --> 00:28:48.270
No matter what I would do people, just some, a lot of clients couldn't make progress.

00:28:48.270 --> 00:28:55.199
And I was frustrated because it felt like you know, cause at that point I was internalizing everything as a me like, oh, I'm doing this wrong.

00:28:55.440 --> 00:29:14.996
But through my journey that I've just shared, I pretty much learned through that journey that well, it's because the shame and I think shame is the center issue for so many people with money not just with ADHD, mind you, like I like to talk about ADHD and all that, but for a lot of people it's financial shame and it's real, it's super real.

00:29:14.996 --> 00:29:24.640
There's money scripts, money beliefs we have that we get when we're kids, that if we don't understand them and don't explore them, we just live by those scripts and it can be very destructive to our futures.

00:29:24.640 --> 00:29:28.498
There's so much to unpack and we're going to talk about all of this on this channel.

00:29:28.498 --> 00:29:30.851
I promise not every episode is going to be this long.

00:29:30.851 --> 00:29:40.063
This was just like I wanted to get my reintroduction, my story, out of the way, because since the last time I did a story, I've come a lot of miles since then.

00:29:40.304 --> 00:29:54.259
But the mission of Shameless Money is about helping you not stop abandoning yourself and to break cycles through compassion and self-exploration and becoming grounded in who we are and what we want, and healing.

00:29:54.259 --> 00:29:55.923
I mean this is the mission.

00:29:55.923 --> 00:30:02.171
The mission is to help people break free from financial shame so that they can build sustainable progress over the long term and so on.

00:30:02.171 --> 00:30:03.238
This channel, we're going to have fun.

00:30:03.238 --> 00:30:04.768
It's not all going to be heavy like this.

00:30:04.768 --> 00:30:08.038
We're going to talk about money, emotions systems, tools.

00:30:08.038 --> 00:30:12.571
I pretty much professionally just build people financial systems.

00:30:12.571 --> 00:30:15.455
At this point it feels like most of the time and I love doing that.

00:30:15.455 --> 00:30:17.539
I've learned I'm a builder at heart.

00:30:17.539 --> 00:30:21.730
We're going to talk about money, emotion systems, psychology, all through ADHD lens.

00:30:21.730 --> 00:30:35.637
We're going to have fun and coming soon we're going to have coaching, courses and community a tribe of people all decoding their money stories together and understanding shame together and labeling it, naming it, becoming friends with it, accepting it, moving forward with more freedom.

00:30:35.637 --> 00:30:37.480
We have courses yeah, we talked about that.

00:30:37.740 --> 00:30:39.785
The stakes are too high to keep ignoring this part of life.

00:30:39.785 --> 00:30:46.193
If I'm speaking to you, then please, I'll just know that the stakes are too high to keep ignoring this part of your life, your future.

00:30:46.193 --> 00:30:49.082
You is going to thank you in a big way If all this resonates.

00:30:49.082 --> 00:30:50.231
Subscribe to the channel.

00:30:50.231 --> 00:30:53.559
If you want to go check out old things I've done ADHD Money Talk podcast.

00:30:53.559 --> 00:30:59.997
If you want to get on our newsletter and get a free ebook, free value packed updates coming soon and freebies and stuff.

00:30:59.997 --> 00:31:01.359
It's going to be a very exciting time.

00:31:01.480 --> 00:31:04.056
Then we do have a financial transformation coaching package.

00:31:04.056 --> 00:31:06.461
It's three sessions, a deep discovery call.

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You get a personalized roadmap with your money story decoded and a financial system built for you, and then we do two sessions implementing that system.

00:31:12.992 --> 00:31:16.057
It's going to help you start to understand your money story.

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It's not going to solve the emotional problems, but it's going to give you the seed.

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It's going to seed the energy that you are going to want to have to go down that path.

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If this is speaking to you and I'll see you in the next video, let's make money less scary together and maybe even a little fun, and I'll be with you all the way through it.

00:31:32.917 --> 00:31:34.221
All right, guys, see you later.