ADHD past lives - 'childhood trauma' in adults

Hey, new listener, thanks so much for checking us out and there's a good chance you have adhd, so I quickly wanted to ask you to please follow this podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whichever app you're listening to this on. Don't leave it until later because you will forget. Thank you. Hey new listener, thanks so much for checking us out and there's a good chance you have adhd, so I quickly wanted to ask you to please, please follow this podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whichever app you're listening to this on. Don't leave it until later because you will forget. Thank you. Squirrel. Squirrel, it's time for us to visit our ADHD past lives. Get ready for the ADHD seance. Hi, I'm Katie McManus, and this is business strategy for Weenie ADHDpreneurs. Squirrel. So today we are going to talk about ADHD past lives. And I'm not talking about how past life you got burned at stake or how you're a pirate or how maybe you were in Cleopatra's servant team that carried her around the Nile. What I'm talking about is all the different chapters of this life that you have lived. Now, I can say from personal experience, as a former serial career jumper that I used to hold so much shame around how little time I would spend in each job. We're brought up in the society that has normalized this model, even though it's outdated, has normalized this model of you get a job, you work there for 30 years. While you're there, you climb the ladder, and you're given a gold watch at the end of your 30 years as you retire. Now, obviously that is not realistic anymore. No one is sticking with their company for that long. And yet emotionally, we haven't caught up to it's okay to not do that. So today we're going to do a little seance. We're going to call on each one of your past lives, and we're going to acknowledge everything that was wrong about those different chapters that pushed you into the next thing. We're also going to talk about the unique set of skills that you've developed by jumping ship so many times. Because if there's one thing I know about folks with adhd, we are fast learners. When we're excited about something and it's new to us, we dive all the way in. We use our hyper focus and we absorb absolutely everything about that company, about that role, about the product, about the service, we go whole hog, which means that we get really good at it really fast. And those skills never leave us. We carry them from one career to the next, which gives you a unique collection of skills and superpowers. So join me on a journey, friends, while we go back in time to 21 year old Katie McManus, let's visit French professor Katie. Ooh la la. Bonjour. So when I was in college, I was convinced that I wanted to be a French professor. I loved the French language. I'd had some really incredible French teachers. And I know I, I kind of shamed some bad teachers that I had in previous episodes. But let me share with you my two favorite French teachers that had a massive impact on my life. Ms. Blanchard from Harwich High School was so inspiring. She was one of those teachers that, in hindsight looking back, she had a very ADHD friendly classroom. Because you'd arrive in her classroom and she would make small talk with the whole class. She would offer that transition time that folks with ADHD need whenever we're switching topics from one thing to another. Whereas other teachers, you'd sit down and they'd start rambling at you about whatever the lecture was that day. She'd tell you a funny story. She'd ask you how your weekend was. Hey, you guys all seem pretty low energy. Are y' all tired today? And you'd have this little talk and she'd ease you into it. And what was incredible is that we always learned so much more in her classes because she gave us this transition time. But she also made the French language seem so interesting and so much fun that I got addicted right away. The next teacher I had was Madame debauer. She was a teacher at the local community college. I spent my senior year of high school at the community college because I hated high school so much, because besides Mrs. Blanchard's class, like, it just wasn't set up for my success. But anyway, so in that community college, in Madame debauer's class, she again, just made it so fun. And she made it about travel and exploration and adventure, which you just can't accomplish with, like, math or biology, history maybe if you're talented. But we didn't really have any of those. So I was fully convinced that I wanted to be a French professor. And I wanted to be a French professor and not a French teacher because I knew that I would not be able to handle a class full of children or teenagers. It just wasn't going to be the right fit for me. It wasn't going to work. And then my French professor advisor told me how Little French professors actually make. And I changed my mind. So then I went on the Google machine and I looked up another thing that I was really passionate about. Wine. Time for us to visit sommelier Katie. You can't drink that wine out of the bottle. It must be decanted. I looked up the jobs that you could have in wine and there were two that came up. Winemaker, which had a lot of like farming and chemistry and that I was not interested in. And this thing called a sommelier. And I had never heard of a sommelier before, but I read the description. I was like, great, that's me. So boom. Like, I went to a training school to become a sommelier and worked in the wine industry for a couple years. But then I got bored. I got bored of the conversation about wine. And to this day, I'm still bored of the conversation about wine. If you ever come across me and you want to talk about wine, go and talk to someone else. I have no interest in talking about wine to the point that I actually won't date anyone who's a sommelier who's interested in wine. Just can't do it. Just can't do it. So from being a sommelier, I was kind of this lost soul for about six months. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I had like seven jobs in this time because I still had to pay the bills. And I was doing sales for a video production company. I was modeling, I was acting, I was. I was teaching knitting classes. I still worked at this wine shop and at a little wine bar that were associated with each other. And I think at that point I was also nannying a couple days a week. I was doing so much. Oh, and I also worked at a gym. I worked at a high end fitness club in San Francisco. So I was doing all these things. And I was talking to one of the people at this fitness club who was the regional director of sales, and he heard that I was doing sales for a video production company. He said, you know what? We're opening up a new club and I'm looking for new sales staff. I would love. I'd love to interview you for it. And I was like, oh, I kind of hemmed and hawed about it. And then one of the sales associates at that club, Jessica, who is now my best friend, came out and I told her about Ray inviting me to interview. And she said, please do it. You'd be phenomenal. I'm going to that club. So is this other person. It's going to be an incredible team. Do it now. We'll visit gym sales Katie. Now tell me, what are your fitness goals? And so I kind of just went for it, and I interviewed and got the job, and I worked in the fitness industry for about two years. By the way. Doesn't matter how fancy your gym is, people always poop in the showers, women and men. Okay? So if you're going into your fancy gym and you're thinking, I don't have to wear, like, shower sandals or shower Crocs, yes, you do. People are disgusting. And if you're a shower pooper, stop it. These clubs do not pay their maintenance staff enough money to make it worth cleaning up after you. Is that too crude? My mom is gonna hate this episode. She hated me talking about Luna farting. They have to warn me. After a couple years of working in the fitness industry, I honestly just got bored with the conversation. I just couldn't do it anymore. Now time to visit solar industry Katie. Yeah, that's a great roof. I think we can fit about 10 panels up there. And so I moved to the solar industry, which is a complete jump. I was basically like the cable guy who came to your house and, like, assessed the electrical box and your roof, and I design a system for you and tell you how much it would cost. I honestly had so much fun with it until, again, I just got bored of the conversation and bored with how much I had to drive. There were days where I had to drive, like, five hours a day. I got to the point where I was listening to so many books on tape and podcasts that I was that person that when you bumped into me, I would just, like, throw facts at you that I had learned in all these books because I didn't know how to have conversations anymore. It was really scary. So I worked in the solar industry for about a year and a half, and again, I got bored, and I got frustrated with a lot of the misogyny that was in that role just because of the type of industry it was, and so I quit. Here's yarn shop manager Katie. Do you want to make a sweater in worsted weight or in bulky weight? And I became a manager of a yarn shop, and I had so much fun with this, and I worked there. I was really just an interim manager while they were finding a more permanent solution because their manager retired right before the holiday season, and there was no way they could have done without someone. And I loved that job. Honestly, if a yarn shop could afford to pay me a livable wage, I would love to manage a yarn shop for the rest of my life. It was the most fun job I've ever had in my life. And yay, knitters. If you're a knitter and you listen to this podcast, I want to meet you. Side note, I found out recently that Monica Lewinsky knits. And anytime she's in a new city, she will look up any of the yarn shops that are in that city and she'll go to them. And I am so bummed that in my time running that yarn shop that she wasn't one of our customers. Like, I just would love to meet her. Anyway, so then the yarn shop gig ended and I found a new role. I was working in sales for at security company, you may have heard it, Cisco Systems. It's massive. Worked there for a couple years and in that time, a couple things happened. I was in a car accident that gave me a massive concussion that I had to be off work for about eight months. And during that time off, I got trained as a coach because I figured, I'm not going to do it now. I'm never going to do it. And I had always secretly wanted to be a coach. The common themes in all of the jobs that I've had were I wanted to help people, I wanted to guide people. I wanted to teach them something. One of the reasons I was really good in sales is because I have this drive to help people. And because I have this drive to help people, my clients always saw me as genuine because I was. And we'd create these incredible relationships. Like, I'm still friends with some of the people that I signed up at Equinox, which is the high end fitness club that I worked at. And then after I went back to work, I realized I just couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't have a conversation about Internet security. Like, I had never found it interesting, and I was never going to find it interesting. I literally went. We had this trip to North Carolina to the headquarters. There was where I met some other team members. We went to dinner and I was talking to my coworker who is fascinated with Internet security. And I just didn't understand. I had no comprehension of how anyone could find it interesting. It just puzzled me. It was like she is an alien from another planet. And that was my sign. And that's how I started my business. Let's go through. That was a lot of jumps. I literally went through eight different industries. And I was really, really lucky to be in San Francisco, because in San Francisco it's normal for people to change jobs every year or two. Okay. It's a startup life, and you generally don't stay with startups very long because a lot of them don't last very long. If I had been in the Midwest, if I had been in New England, this would have been looked down upon and it would have limited how many jobs I could have gotten in the future. So I come from New England, and so while the world wasn't treating me as if there was something wrong with me, I was looking at my resume and thinking, oh, my God, like, what's wrong with me that I'm jumping around so much? And for ADHDpreneurs who have had this kind of history, what we do is we tend to take all this evidence that we're job hoppers from the past, and then we look at our business and we're like, well, like, what if I do that here? What if I start this business and get bored with it three years in? What if I start this business and, you know, get a year in, make a lot of money, have all these clients relying on me, and then I decide I don't want to do it anymore? And when I work with clients who have ADHD who are building their business, this is why I stress that you have to pick a niche in an area that you are interested in that can have some variety. This is why I love helping new business owners who provide a service, because there are so many services that you could offer. There are so many different angles. I'm constantly learning stuff through my clients, and that's how it stays fresh for me. Now, let's also talk about how sometimes when you have adhd, you don't necessarily fit into the culture. You don't necessarily fit into the micromanager that you have into how they envision how you should be doing your job. And sometimes when you leave a job, it's not by your choice. I'm talking about getting fired. I'm talking about getting laid off. That is a traumatic event. It creates a lot of shame in you. I've been fired from two jobs in my life. They were both restaurants. And I think it's because I was just an awful server. Like, really. I was just really bad because I have adhd. Like, you'd think that would make me really good at, like, managing a whole section of tables because, like, you can multitask and everything. I would forget stuff all the time. Like, the poor people in my sections. Granted, the two businesses that I got fired from, they both were horribly managed and the culture was really toxic. You know, it could have been Them, it could have been me. Who knows? But the shame that comes from having been fired is awful. And we're doing this seance right now as I'm talking about my past careers. I hope you're looking back at your past careers and you're seeing how you ended and the theme and the meaning that you've created around all this jumping and what it means about you and what it means about your capabilities and your commitment and how others are going to see you as valuable. And I want to remind you that as humans, we are meaning making machines. So we take a bunch of data like you jump jobs a lot, and we turn it into this meaning that you can't stick with anything, that you are a commitment phobe, that you're not good in jobs. And maybe that's the truth. Maybe that last bit is the truth. Maybe that's why you're starting a business. In fact, I'm convinced that's why so many business owners have adhd. Because we don't fit into the typical job criteria. We don't work like other people. We're creative. And if you have a system where you just need people to plug in and do the shit that you need them to do and then leave, that's not for us. We come in and we see the problems and we want to fix them and we want to, like, rework the whole system, and they don't want that. So whatever shame you're carrying from past lives as you're listening to this, I want you to take a big, deep breath with me and just let it go. Let it go. That shame has no place in your future. And next, I want to talk about the skills and the superpowers that you have accumulated from all these past jobs. Join the weeniecast Hyper Focus community and unlock a whole world of support. Get direct access to me in exclusive calls. Turbocharge your network with unlimited limited referrals, and boost your productivity with Sprint calls and accountability sessions. But that's not all. We're talking expert talks, masterclasses, and more. Register now to get in front of the line for this at the introductory price of just $77 per month, it's time to elevate your entrepreneurial game. Let's do this together. Go to weeniecast.com hyperfocus all one word. That's weeniecast.com hyperFocus. Now, it may surprise you, but I'm convinced that the job that was most impactful to me being good at teaching my clients, at teaching classes, was working in the knitting Shop, being a knitting teacher, managing that store. Because when you're teaching eight different people how to take string and sticks and make fabric, you have to come up with a bunch of different ways to explain it. Because some people are going to understand it by you explaining. Other people are going to understand it by watching you do it. Other people, people actually need you to, like, put your arms around them and hold their hands and guide them to do it. Other people need metaphors. And you have to be able to jump in and out of each one of these ways of teaching within the space of 10 minutes. Because by the end of that class, everyone needs to have made a hat. And that takes time. Also, working in the hospitality industry, there's this bar for experience. And I mean, they had bars, yes, but I mean, like, there's this expectation of like the quality of experience coming from the hospitality background. Like, the superpower that gave me is that when I'm holding a group space, like, I know how to make everyone feel welcome and comfortable. If I ever host an event, I know how to host it. I know it matters. If you've ever worked in a restaurant, you're probably really good at identifying people who are unhappy but aren't saying anything. And that's a really valuable skill to have as a business owner. Now, one of the skills that I learned when I was working in Internet security because I had no interest in it, was how do you schedule a sales call with someone else without really giving any information? Because you actually don't know the information because you had no interest in ever learning it. Like you did kind of want to learn it because you were convinced at the time that you wanted to continue with this company. But ultimately, whenever anyone explained it to you, you just glazed over because your brain just shut down because it couldn't even pretend to be interested. That's a great skill to have when you're running your own business because it's so easy to be at a cocktail party and have someone say, hey, like, you're a business coach. I'm starting a business. Can I ask you a few questions? Now, the typical way people handle that is, yeah, absolutely, fire away. Not me, I schedule a sales call. Oh, yeah, absolutely. If you want more information, why don't we do this? We'll schedule a 30 minute call. Like, I have this time and this time available tomorrow, which works best for you. As I was going through this very jumpy career, I had no idea which direction I was going in. But I always, I always told my friends and family this. I know I'm heading somewhere. I feel like I'm on the verge of baking a cake, but I'm not sure what kind of cake it's going to be. And I have no idea what kinds of ingredients I need. But as I change jobs, as I go through life, I'm just collecting different ingredients, and at some point, I'm going to look at the ingredients that I have collected, and it's going to click, and I'm going to know, oh, cool, I'm making a double chocolate German cake, whereas you might be making a cheesecake and someone else might be making an angel food cake. This reminds me of the episode where we were talking about that whole thing, like, you're just a quiche. If people. People aren't interested in you. Like, they don't understand that you're a quiche, you know? So this is one of those podcast episodes where I'm going to give you some homework because I actually want you to go and visit with each other each of your past lives, and I want you to ask yourself these two questions. Number one, what shame am I carrying from this chapter of my life? And I want you to write it down. And two, what's the skill or superpower that I got from this chapter of my life? And I want you to write that down, too. And I want you to do this for each and every chapter of your life. And it doesn't just have to be jobs. It could be relationships as well. It could be hobbies as well. Because especially if you're at this beginning stage of, I know I want to start a business. I don't know anything about what I want to do. I don't even know what the options are. Like, do I even have any special skills that I could offer? This is going to help you see exactly what your skill set is. It's going to help you see exactly where you have credibility, because even if you just worked in that job for one year, you have credibility in that industry. Unless you were me, like, in Internet security. And if you want to freak your friends and family out, you can go into a room, shut the door, light some candles, and do it there and just tell them you're doing a seance, because you are. Did I tell you about the time that Barry Bond signed up for membership with me and I didn't know who he was? He played for the San Francisco Giants, and this was in San Francisco. The fact that I didn't know him was, like, crazy. So I asked him what his fitness goals were, and then I also asked him what he'd done for workouts in the past. And he's like, oh, I played baseball. And I was like, oh, like for fun? Like after work? He was like, no, professionally. Time for us to visit acting. Katie, I'm sorry, I just saw a squirrel. Remind me of my line again. Again, again, again, again. Join the Weenicast Hyper Focus community and unlock a whole world of support. Get direct access to me in exclusive calls. Turbocharge your network with unlimited referrals, and boost your productivity with Sprint calls and accountability sessions. But that's not all. We're talking expert talks, masterclasses, and more. Register now to get in front of the line for this at the introductory price of just $77 per month. It's time to elevate your entrepreneurial game. Let's do this together. Go to weeniecast.com hyperfocus all one word. That's weeniecast.com hyperFocus.