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How many times have you tried to understand ADHD...and were left feeling more misunderstood? We get it and we're here to help you build a shiny new relationship with ADHD. We are two therapists (David Kessler & Isabelle Richards) who not only work with people with ADHD, but we also have ADHD ourselves and have been where you are. Every other week on Something Shiny, you'll hear (real) vulnerable conversations, truth bombs from the world of psychology, and have WHOA moments that leave you feeling seen, understood, and...dare we say...knowing you are something shiny, just as you are.
Something Shiny: ADHD!
SUMMER REPLAY: You're a Champion Shame Spiraler. Here's How to Retire.
Drop Date: Wednesday, July, 29, 2026
*this episode transcription was auto-generated and might contain errors
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ISABELLE RICHARDS: [00:00:00] Hello, I'm Isabelle, she, her, hers.
BOBBY RICHARDS: And I'm David, he, him, his.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: And we're two therapists with ADHD who sit down to have some chats about ADHD. We can't promise we'll stay on topic- Or be professional ... or even remotely mature, but we can promise that you'll end up looking at you or your loved one's beautiful neurodivergent brain in a shiny new way.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: This is not a therapy session. This is Something Shiny.
DAVID KESSLER: I love it. Can this just be the intro of you saying that and me freaking out about how amazing it is?
ISABELLE RICHARDS: So without further ado, welcome to Something Shiny.
DAVID KESSLER: Who's gonna tell their first story?
ISABELLE RICHARDS: I think you should. I'm excited.
BOBBY RICHARDS: Yeah, David, what's been going on with you, man?
DAVID KESSLER: Yeah. Yeah, okay.
BOBBY RICHARDS: What's your story?
DAVID KESSLER: What's my story? Well, my story, I was thinking about what to talk about today, and I went back to, like, I think it's, like, second grade.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Oh.
DAVID KESSLER: Third grade.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Going deep.
DAVID KESSLER: Going, [00:01:00] oh-
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Mm ... mm,
DAVID KESSLER: deep. Mm-hmm. So the big game that we used to play was, like, follow the leader. Mm. Uh, and what we would do is we'd go to the jungle gym and, like, do various jumps and ninja moves, and, like, the next person would have to do the same jump and land in the same spot or they were out, right?
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Yes.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Yes.
DAVID KESSLER: I used to play with my friend David and a bunch of other people, like Drew and Dan, and it was like I never won-
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Mm-hmm ...
DAVID KESSLER: but I never, like, was the first to lose, and I always felt like my value wasn't understood. Like, I was a really good leader. Like, I could really nail this, right?
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Yeah.
DAVID KESSLER: And so
BOBBY RICHARDS: I can see second, second grade you going, "Guys, you're just, you're not appreciating my, my leadership."
DAVID KESSLER: Yeah. Yeah. Like, I can do this. I can do it. Yeah. I can make it difficult. And so it was finally my shot to be the leader, and I wasn't gonna, like, blow this, right?
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
DAVID KESSLER: So the jungle gym's like one of those stereotypical, like, late '80s, early '90s, like, wood and metal jungle gym where there's, like, a tower and then monkey bars connect to it and then, like, a slide.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Mm-hmm.
DAVID KESSLER: Right?
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Yes. I have the, the archetype in my [00:02:00] brain.
DAVID KESSLER: So I managed to do some cool maneuvers that I don't even remember now, it was, like, a long time ago, to get to the top of this tower. I'm standing on top of the jungle gym. Mm-hmm. Probably 15 feet in the air. Mm. Maybe a little higher, right?
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Mm-hmm.
DAVID KESSLER: And I'm second, third grade, so I'm maybe 4 feet tall, maybe 80 pounds, right?
DAVID KESSLER: Like, I have no business being this high in the air-
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Uh-huh ...
DAVID KESSLER: without a harness.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Mm-hmm.
DAVID KESSLER: So I look down, uh, to where the monkey bars connect to the jungle gym, and I say, "Follow the leader," which is, like, what we do before we do the cool thing, and I jump off the top of the tower- Oh, god. ... and I span maybe, like- Oh
DAVID KESSLER: like, 15 feet as I'm falling and jumping.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Oh.
DAVID KESSLER: Oh, oh, I feel- And I land with both feet-
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Uh-huh ...
DAVID KESSLER: on the wooden b- like, beam that holds up the monkey bars. Like- Are
ISABELLE RICHARDS: you... Oh.
DAVID KESSLER: Oh
ISABELLE RICHARDS: my gosh ...
DAVID KESSLER: li- like, landed it.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: All of my internal organs have scrunched up into, like, my chest cavity. That made me so anxious. And I- I did not like imagining what was happening.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Okay. Keep going.
DAVID KESSLER: Yeah. [00:03:00] Okay. Sorry. So no, no. So, so I remember this thought process before I jumped, right? Mm. This is a child brain. This isn't my adult brain thinking. Mm-hmm. But I remember thinking, like, "That could hurt. Oh, well, do it." Right? Like, just do it. It was like... And I did it, and I-
ISABELLE RICHARDS: And you did do it
DAVID KESSLER: nailed it, right? Nice. And I'm like, I'm, I'm, like, in my head, I'm like, "This is gonna be amazing." And everyone looks at me and goes, "Whoa. You win. We quit." Like, no one did the jump. Yeah, '
ISABELLE RICHARDS: cause no one had a
DAVID KESSLER: death wish. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, so this is- Yay
ISABELLE RICHARDS: self-preservation in second graders. Yeah.
DAVID KESSLER: They were all smart, right?
DAVID KESSLER: They all lived. The Darwin test was passed for them, right? Mm. But that's a perfect example of response cost, right? Of, like, that deficit. Like, how, how at this age, right... Response cost is this part of your brain that understands the consequences of your actions, like, later on in the future. Like- Mm-hmm ... if you miss a, like, every class, you're not gonna do well on the test.
DAVID KESSLER: Mm. Like, for whatever reason, you could be like, "I can make it up." Like, [00:04:00] your brain can, like, you know, make the circle fit the square.
BOBBY RICHARDS: Right. Right. Mm-hmm.
DAVID KESSLER: So as a child, I didn't think, you know, if I nailed this, uh, no one's gonna play anymore. So I don't get a wind, right? My brain, my brain didn't go like, "If you miss this, you could be a quadriplegic or dead," right?
DAVID KESSLER: There was no thought of those consequences, and then what they would even look like an hour later or like two hours later But I nailed that jump. You did nail that jump. Oh my God, like a ninja.
BOBBY RICHARDS: See, I'm imagining this alternate reality where you go, "I did it, I nailed it." I look back and just was like, "Come on, guys, follow the leader."
BOBBY RICHARDS: And they go, "Oh my God." And I looked down and my legs were broken in half.
DAVID KESSLER: I mean, ugh. Oh. Thank God no one went after me, and thank God all their brains were more sophisticated. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The memory of watching them hurt themselves, like in my head I thought would've been cool watching them not get it, but I never thought in that moment, right?
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Them not getting it would not be, like...
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Yeah, that would be bad. That [00:05:00] would be like a stand by me moment. Yeah. Oh,
BOBBY RICHARDS: God. Yeah. Like, let's... Oh, no.
DAVID KESSLER: It'd be trauma therapy for the next 10 years. Trauma
BOBBY RICHARDS: therapy.
DAVID KESSLER: But I had no idea what I was pushing them towards. That's the deficit right there. Like, the impulsivity in that jump, but like the lack of response cost.
DAVID KESSLER: Oh. Like, as a child I had no idea what I was getting into.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Oh my gosh.
DAVID KESSLER: The adult me, like, still goes a little, like, "Oof, I nailed that jump." Like, like I can't even think of that other reality.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Yeah. No, that's totally fair.
BOBBY RICHARDS: I'm thinking h-
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Oh. Sorry, I'm still in shock because a lot of physio-... I've had a lot of mirror, like whatever it is, like my mirror neurons have gone off.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: I don't know. I'm just... My body is still- Oh, no. Every
DAVID KESSLER: time I think about that jump, I feel what you're feeling ...
ISABELLE RICHARDS: like my heart is still racing. Yeah. I'm like, "Oh." You, like, see my pulse. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I literally am like, "Du, du, du, du." Like, okay. Well, you know what? You lived, you're here, you made the jump.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Response cost. We're learning from it.
DAVID KESSLER: But we're never gonna forget what response cost means, right?
ISABELLE RICHARDS: We're never gonna forget it again. That was the best story. Okay.
BOBBY RICHARDS: Have you found, have you found yourself weighing the response cost since that, [00:06:00] since that incident?
DAVID KESSLER: No.
BOBBY RICHARDS: No. Not at all?
DAVID KESSLER: No. I mean, I don't have to.
BOBBY RICHARDS: You're like, uh-
DAVID KESSLER: Move on. Yeah. Move
BOBBY RICHARDS: on.
DAVID KESSLER: We could, well, no, no. Jump
BOBBY RICHARDS: off a higher tower.
DAVID KESSLER: Right, right. Well, I realize in that moment it's never worth it to win that game.
BOBBY RICHARDS: Yeah.
DAVID KESSLER: So that was the takeaway.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Oh, yeah. Like, the take- yeah, the takeaway is not, oh, I, like, the... How to put it? Like-
BOBBY RICHARDS: It's not a lesson learned.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: It's not a lesson learned.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: It's more like a, well-
DAVID KESSLER: You
ISABELLE RICHARDS: don't need to beat- ... not for me, because I didn't get people to follow me. Mm-mm.
DAVID KESSLER: Beating everyone by a lot- Beating everyone ... makes them not wanna play with you.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Womp, womp. Yeah.
DAVID KESSLER: And that was the takeaway.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: That was the takeaway. I, and you know what's funny? Is as we're talking about this, that is totally what I'm taking away.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Like, I, my brain is already well past the whole... I mean, I was living in it, and now I'm like, nope, totally the takeaway. Yeah.
DAVID KESSLER: Right.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Yeah. How are you feeling, Bobby?
BOBBY RICHARDS: I just, I can, I can feel, I can feel that jump in my groin.[00:07:00]
BOBBY RICHARDS: Because I feel like I've done that jump more times than I should have done that jump just off of tall things. That's my takeaway.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Oh, do, uh, do you have a story from the week?
BOBBY RICHARDS: Yeah, I feel like the week has been my story. Like, just exis- Mm-hmm ... just existing this week has been my story. I'm in a, I'm in a show right now where I'm an understudy, and I... The thing about being an understudy is that you have to do all the prep on your own because you don't have the, you don't get to rehearse, you know, with the other actors.
BOBBY RICHARDS: You don't get to r- have that r- You can go to rehearsal, and you can watch, you can watch everybody, but it, but you don't get to go up and, you know, do the reps. So you gotta, you gotta manage all that on your own. And when you have ADHD, that can get a little difficult. Just a little bit. And so, and when you have ADHD and you, like, run your own, you know, business, and you're doing all kinds of stuff and things are crazy, [00:08:00] uh, just work-wise, it's trying to find, find how that works.
BOBBY RICHARDS: And so, um, I just, I, I don't know if it's a story more than it's just kind of a, a, a state of being right now where I'm like, where I'm trying to figure out sort of the best balance for getting all the things done that I wanna get done and that I need to get done, and memorizing this show where I'm understudying the lead character.
BOBBY RICHARDS: Also, why I chose to do this when I already had a workload that was al- You know, it wasn't like the workload just appeared, and I was like, "Whoa. Man, I got this understudy gig, and now all of these clients need me to do videos." No, these are all videos that I've been, or content that I've been de- you know, developing for months.
BOBBY RICHARDS: And then I was like, "You know what? I think I'm gonna... Yeah, I think I'll understudy. This theater wants me to do that." So this week has been trying to, like, cram that in my head, but also, like you said, going In a way, like kind of h- my brain is sort of making these excuses [00:09:00] of like, "Oh, well, I didn't get to it today.
BOBBY RICHARDS: I only have, I only have three days now. I'll go- I'll st- I'll do it tomorrow. I'll be able to figure it out tomorrow." And then the next day comes and go, "Oh, shoot, I didn't realize I had a meeting, and I had this, and I had this. Uh, I still have, I still have a day left. I can memorize a show in a day." You know what I mean?
BOBBY RICHARDS: So it's just that I feel like that's where my, that's where my head space is right
DAVID KESSLER: now. Real talk, though.
Real
BOBBY RICHARDS: talk. Real talk.
DAVID KESSLER: Did you memorize a show in a day?
BOBBY RICHARDS: No. No, I have not.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: But you did memorize-
BOBBY RICHARDS: But I did- ... a
ISABELLE RICHARDS: massive scene
BOBBY RICHARDS: in a day ... what I ended up doing was I, I broke down... So for the last couple weeks, it's been trying to figure that out, and then finally when, uh, the show opened and the, the actor in the show was like, "Hey, I think that next week I might need you to go on for me," then I broke it down a scene per day so that I wasn't trying to cram the whole show in one day, and I was just focusing on one scene.
BOBBY RICHARDS: So I didn't even worry about the entire show. I just worried about one scene per day, and that's still been a challenge, but it's definitely... I've been more successful doing [00:10:00] that, breaking it w- down that way, than I have just even attempting to do it the way I was doing, which was like, "I'm gonna s- cram for the, I'm gonna cram for this, the, the final tonight before the, before the test."
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Well, but also your method is different. Like, your method is kind of ingenious.
BOBBY RICHARDS: Oh, yeah. I did a completely different thing. I, I, uh, I recorded the last run-through of the show, the audio, and then I broke up the audio into a scene, and then I listened to the actors performing that scene while I'm just...
BOBBY RICHARDS: throughout the entire day. So I'll just listen to that on loop. So it might be like a 15-minute scene that I listen to 10 different... I'll listen to it 10 times in a row, and then I'll start to pick up the dialogue and I'll rewind it and... But this is also while I'm, you know, cleaning the house or walking to the, you know, to the library, or riding the train, or any time that I'm not doing something that I need all of my senses or I need my sense of, you know, hearing to- Mm-hmm
BOBBY RICHARDS: to focus on a task. Mm-hmm. I'll be listening [00:11:00] to the show while I'm cooking food, while I'm doing this. So that's what I've been, that's what I've been doing this, this last week.
DAVID KESSLER: I, I love, I love everything about that ADHD story, right? Because, c- c- 'cause it's so real. It's like-
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Like, we've all been there in a different- Oh.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Just pick a different, like, insert word here.
DAVID KESSLER: Like, "I, I have 15 minutes to do this entire book." Like, whatever- Yeah. Yeah ... you know, whatever your brain, like, can rationalize. But then there's this reality that you don't get to make the structure until you're in the crisis.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Yeah That's true So true
DAVID KESSLER: You know?
DAVID KESSLER: Yes And then you're like, "Now I have a plan. Why couldn't I have this plan, like, four months ago?" And it's like, you weren't in terror of your life. Yeah. Well, it takes a good spot You know, you actually didn't have the right stimulation though, right?
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Yeah, like you weren't in your sweet spot. Um-
BOBBY RICHARDS: Well, it, it comes down to like, you know, when we were talking about procrastinating and figuring out, you know...
BOBBY RICHARDS: I haven't gotten to the place, at least in this situation, where I've had a freak-out of just, like, being uncertain or [00:12:00] being mad at myself. It's just been that thing of like, "Cool. Now I gotta do it." And it, it's just, and I'm like, I'll get, I can, I can, I can piss on myself. I can get, I can get mad at that I, I should have done it these last couple weeks.
BOBBY RICHARDS: Or, "Oh, man, if I would've done better time management," or whatever. That hasn't even entered my brain because I was like, "Well, I can't change anything." Yeah. This is how I work right now. Mm-hmm. This is how I'm working in this situation. Maybe next time, because I know how I feel right now with a little bit of stress, maybe I'll parse it out a little differently.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: But you probably won't.
BOBBY RICHARDS: But who, yeah. That's the whole thing.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: I don't know. How would- You really won't ...
DAVID KESSLER: right, yeah. We, this is h- but you're learning your authentic way of working, right? And what you're not doing is you're not judging it.
BOBBY RICHARDS: Right. Well, I've also- That's true ... never done this before, so I think that, uh, understudy.
BOBBY RICHARDS: So I think this is, like, a learning experience, and I'm like, "Oh, I know that if I record the show, so I'll just record the first run-through, and then I can listen to it sooner." You know what I mean? So I can get s- I can get the ball rolling on listening to stuff sooner.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Gotcha.
BOBBY RICHARDS: Which I would d- I would've done 'cause I didn't even think to, I've never thought to do that.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Oh.
DAVID KESSLER: Wh- what would happen if, like, that day [00:13:00] you're, like I'm just calling it a freak-out. It, it was, I don't know if it was a freak-out or not. Right But the day that you're really, like, feeling the burn, and you're creating the structure, and you're like, "Oh, my God. I'm really behind the ball." What would have happened if someone was going, "Why didn't you do this earlier?
DAVID KESSLER: Why weren't you more on your game? Why did you leave this to the last minute?" Like, how would you have responded if someone else started asking you all the questions that you were, like, bubbling with in that moment?
BOBBY RICHARDS: Oh, I think I woulda just, I mean, I probably would've inside just started to crumble. I probably would've, that would've destroyed any structure I prob- had been creating in that moment.
BOBBY RICHARDS: Yeah. Mm. And I would've been defending myself, and I would've been also apologizing, and I would've been, like, falling apart, and I would've been getting mad, and I would've- Yep ... and then nothing, no, there'd be no productivity. There'd be nothing, nothing woulda, nothing woulda happened that would've been of any use.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Mm. see where you're going.
DAVID KESSLER: Where am I going?
ISABELLE RICHARDS: I feel like you're s- I'm slipping on what you're mopping.
DAVID KESSLER: Oop.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Well, is, it's that idea that, like, the work isn't, the [00:14:00] work isn't to try to, like, fight, like resist your natural state and resist the fact that the procrastination and the last-minute crisis mode will create stimulation-ness of it all, right?
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Like, like y- it's, it's like I keep getting the... This is like a theme for the week for me, where I was reading up and listening to a lot of podcasts and things about anxiety. Like, I was just kinda like catching up on some stuff for work, and, and I feel like the message I kept getting was, you know, the more you resist, the worse it is.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: The more you just go, "Ha, yes, I'm anxious, let me roll with it." But it feels like it applies here, too. If you just roll with it and, like, ease up on yourself... 'Cause I think that's the thing, is you, you get... I know I have gotten into habits where the way I convince myself I motivate myself is by beating myself up internally.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: But actually, that's not what helps. Like, I've started to learn, like, oh, I can remove that part- Yeah, but more g- ... and then still do it last minute-
BOBBY RICHARDS: More, and, and more gets done ...
ISABELLE RICHARDS: and still get it [00:15:00] done. Yeah. But like, it'll always be last minute, so I have to accept that.
DAVID KESSLER: It, I came to this realization late in life, uh, totally my partner, right?
DAVID KESSLER: My- Mm-hmm. I was talking with Robin.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Mm-hmm.
DAVID KESSLER: And I was talking about, "All right, we're gonna get the house ready and I'll, I'll clean a little bit every day, and we'll be ready for when these people come in town, and it'll be a, you know, w- we have a plan." And, and Robin looked at me and was like, "Uh, you're not gonna do anything.
DAVID KESSLER: You're gonna freak out, and the last minute, the night before, you're gonna do a lot of cleaning while I'm at work and it'll be done." And I was like, "
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Yeah." "
DAVID KESSLER: Yeah, you're right. Is that okay?" And she's like, "Yeah. Just do it while I'm at work." It was that realization that- Mm ... instead of trying to pretend like I'm something different, I could just do, do it the way I do it, talk about it without shame, and then- Yeah
DAVID KESSLER: it just gets done. And when you're trying to beat yourself up so someone else can't- Mm ... you, like, get totally distracted from, like, the task.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Can we make the truth bomb noise?
BOBBY RICHARDS: Kaboom.
DAVID KESSLER: That's the- [00:16:00] Can we just make that the noise forever?
ISABELLE RICHARDS: That's the one. Kaboom. Kaboom. Wow, that was a truth bomb- Yeah ... and a half. Wow.
BOBBY RICHARDS: Yeah, you're right, because if it doesn't... Yeah, if we're beating ourselves up, m- that gets in the way of the thing even getting done, and then it's just this, like, perpetual- Yeah
BOBBY RICHARDS: motion machine of shame.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Mm-hmm. Well, and I feel like shame takes so much energy that, like... You know what, in a, in an interesting way, like, I don't know how to put it, but sometimes you know, like, that sense... I don't know if either of you relate, I'm imagining you do, but that feeling sometimes where you have, like, a motor running and you can't stop the motor, or it's like a, like you said, like- You're saying
DAVID KESSLER: motor, but you're, you're pointing at your head
ISABELLE RICHARDS: and my head is, and I'm making a gesture like a- Your head motor ... spinning my head motor. Or it feels kinda like, like, like somebody has locked your brain in accelerator mode, and, like, you have no more brake. Um, and it's like you don't have a choice about anything that's happening. You're just like, "Well, that's what's happening."
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Like, there's, there's a way in which being in the thick of that [00:17:00] mode could also include when you're in a shame spiral. Do you know what I mean? Like, I feel like I could be a champion shame spiraler. I'll just own that. Like, I could be really good at it.
DAVID KESSLER: It's going towards the kinds of stimulation you have the most tolerance for.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Ah.
BOBBY RICHARDS: Kaboom ...
DAVID KESSLER: right? But like let's think about that. Okay. Like I'm much better at dealing with excitement than anxiety. I have very little experience in it, with anxiety in my life. But like I have a lot of experience like being a golden retriever and getting really excited about something- ... I shouldn't be excited about, right?
DAVID KESSLER: So-
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Yeah, yeah ...
DAVID KESSLER: I don't, I'm not gonna say like my brain decides or I make my brain, but I au- like I authentically label things a little closer to excitement, whether they are or not.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Yeah. And- And they are technically physiologically the same. You're just choosing a label sort of.
DAVID KESSLER: And so, and so like where does shame or anxiety, where does that displace the stimulation from the task?
DAVID KESSLER: For some people it makes like you need the shame, and this is where it's like, "What?" And it's like, wait, let's honor this [00:18:00] differently. Like sometimes you need the shame, and shame is, I've always seen like- Mm-hmm ... something that someone else makes you feel, right?
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Mm-hmm.
DAVID KESSLER: Like if you peed your pants in public, you would get shamed because of people seeing that, right?
DAVID KESSLER: But if you peed your pants- Mm-hmm ... in private, you'd have guilt 'cause no one could see it, right?
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Sure.
DAVID KESSLER: Right, right. It's-
ISABELLE RICHARDS: That's, side note, that's a great example ... yeah,
BOBBY RICHARDS: no, I, I, I feel super guilty.
DAVID KESSLER: Right? Yeah, yeah. But like avoiding shame is very- Mm-hmm ... stimulating. It's like Indiana Jones running out of the temple and like diving and the, the ball just barely doesn't hit him, right?
DAVID KESSLER: Mm-hmm. It's like, if I don't get this done, I will be nothing- ... or I will be tr- I'll
ISABELLE RICHARDS: be so socially rejected and annihilated.
DAVID KESSLER: And then that fear-
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Mm-hmm ...
DAVID KESSLER: that, that shame turns right into fear, right? Yeah. Because it hasn't happened. And what does that do to your heart?
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Speeds it up. And- Gives you adrenaline boost
DAVID KESSLER: that's the stimulation you're more akin to. Oh my
ISABELLE RICHARDS: gosh, I'm such a s- adrenaline junkie. Like-
DAVID KESSLER: We all are though ... whoa.
BOBBY RICHARDS: So then my question is how do you use the sh- how do you turn the shame into a tool?
DAVID KESSLER: How would you turn [00:19:00] it into a tool based on what we're... I'm just totally putting you on the
BOBBY RICHARDS: spot. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
BOBBY RICHARDS: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that you said it. I'm just trying to-
DAVID KESSLER: Okay ...
BOBBY RICHARDS: find the answer for myself. And there's a, uh, we live in a, a landing strip, we're- ... we're recording in a landing strip right now. Um, it's like- It's
DAVID KESSLER: more stimulating to dodge planes.
BOBBY RICHARDS: This is... I know, right? Um, so because I, I, because I, I heard you start to say it, and I think what happened, my, my brain was going, "How am I...
BOBBY RICHARDS: I'm trying to figure this out." And then I think you gave the answer, but I was in my own, in my own head. But when, when you would use, you would use shame to sort of... I don't, I, I, I don't know. I'm
ISABELLE RICHARDS: trying- For some reason- ... I'm trying to figure this out ... I'm picturing, like, the scene in Star Wars for some reason, where, like, Luke goes into the cave.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Like, like-
BOBBY RICHARDS: Oh, that's Empire Strikes Back.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: I'm so...
BOBBY RICHARDS: Yeah.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: I, I should have known. Um, no, for some reason, what I'm picturing is, like, that scene. It's, like, that idea of, um, you can't run f- like, y- if you [00:20:00] know that fe- you have to use your fear. If you imagine that shame is generating fear, then you... If, if you can just somehow, while you're in there, acknowledge that that's what's happening, and go, "Ha ha," like, I see, I see, I face...
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Like, literally you go into your own cave, and you're like, "I see my fear. I see the..." You know? I actually... This is- See, it's about seeing ... I don't even remember what he
DAVID KESSLER: sees.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: I love that you're, like-
DAVID KESSLER: Exactly ... nailing the Star Wars, like, force metaphor. I mean, I-
ISABELLE RICHARDS: And I'm, like, pr- and I will admit- I- ... of the three of us, I am the least well-versed in Star Wars.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Yeah.
BOBBY RICHARDS: And I, I don't know. I might not be, uh, I might not be right, but I think it's when he goes in the cave to confront Darth Vader because he has to confront the dark side of himself.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Oh.
BOBBY RICHARDS: That's the fear.
DAVID KESSLER: You could have just let that win happen.
BOBBY RICHARDS: I know, right?
DAVID KESSLER: You could have though. Yes. I think- Oh. I think the way we look, like, the way that I've used...
DAVID KESSLER: I think, like, using shame is, like, a really, like, like, great question, right? Because it's like we're taught to avoid it. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Right? So one of the talks that I gave, I'm in a baseball stadium, and I'm, like, talking to people in this baseball stadium, and I'm [00:21:00] organizing this event. And every year I do this, like, talk for this event.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Mm-hmm.
DAVID KESSLER: And the first time I did the talk, I was freaking out about looking like an idiot, and my brain went like this. It went, "Oh, my God, I'm gonna make a fool of myself with this talk, and then no one's gonna like me, and then I'm not gonna get back my job, and then I'm gonna lose my job." "And then my partner's gonna leave me, and I'm
DAVID KESSLER: gonna be homeless." Like, I, I go to this, like, very black and
BOBBY RICHARDS: white extreme of- Yeah ... if I mess up this talk, I'm gonna be homeless. Like- Your, your life's gonna end.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Wow.
DAVID KESSLER: And so here, here's all of a sudden, like, putting some pretty intense pressure on this talk.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Mm-hmm.
DAVID KESSLER: And so the first time I worked on it for, like, weeks.
DAVID KESSLER: Weeks. Mm-hmm. Weeks, months, right? And then I got better at it.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Mm.
DAVID KESSLER: And so I didn't need weeks to work on it.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Mm-hmm.
DAVID KESSLER: And all of a sudden I was freaking out because I wasn't starting early like I did before.
BOBBY RICHARDS: Yeah.
DAVID KESSLER: And then all of a sudden one day I was like, "Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. What if I just plan on freaking out on the plane and just doing it?
DAVID KESSLER: I have six hours." It was a six-hour flight.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Mm-hmm.
DAVID KESSLER: So then every time I'd start to get nervous, I'd go, "Oh, it's not [00:22:00] time to work yet."
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Oh, so you literally compartment... Like, you keep it in its place. You go, "Cool." The
DAVID KESSLER: shame horse is ready to go at this time.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Oh, like you time your shame horse.
DAVID KESSLER: We're, we're like, yeah, we're gonna go 'cause, uh, there's no way I'm gonna be homeless.
DAVID KESSLER: There's no way I'm gonna lose my partner. There's way... no way I'm gonna let these kids down. There's no way I'm not gonna do this thing right. And-
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Yeah ...
DAVID KESSLER: all of those things, all of that black and white on failure for me, it's like we could talk about it like shame, right? But we have to honor shame is what we wanna do to avoid the perception from another person.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Mm.
DAVID KESSLER: I had my own guilt on not working for 40 hours on the talk, but I had no shame in nailing the talk.
BOBBY RICHARDS: So it's, is it reframing the shame as guilt, and then using the guilt as fuel?
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Wait Sometimes, David, you say things that are so smart that it takes a lot of time for me to
BOBBY RICHARDS: untwist- For us dum-dums. ...
ISABELLE RICHARDS: the pretzel in my brain.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Whoa. 'Cause literally my brain was like, "Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh." And then you get to the end, and I was like, "What?" And [00:23:00] then Bobby talked, and now it's lost. Wait, time. Tell the story. Which is the story
BOBBY RICHARDS: of our lives.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Okay. So you have all the guilt of not doing it the way you think you should be doing it, and every time you feel that, you kinda go, "Oh, but no, I am gonna do it.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: I am gonna do it." So you kind of lose that, that part of the shame spiral. Like, you lose the like, "Oh, I'm, I'm bad at doing it the way I think I should be." Mm-hmm. So you kinda drop that off. Mm-hmm. Like, that's off the plane. That's not on the plane. And then you keep the, like, the homeless shame spiral, you know?
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Or, like, which sounds- The fear of failure ... fear of failure, and you just, like, harness it and then set it free- Yes ... at the appointed time when it will do its magic, and it's almost like you ke- you, you know it's there to help, but you save it. Because you need that to
BOBBY RICHARDS: prime the
ISABELLE RICHARDS: pump. But, yeah, but you don't prime it ahead of time.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Right. You don't, you don't waste a ton of energy- But you know it's gonna be there to prime the pump ... dragging yourself down ahead of time.
DAVID KESSLER: Oh, yeah, because I go, "If I don't start now, I only have six [00:24:00] hours and I'm gonna fail." And every once in a while I'll be like, "That's a good idea," and I'd, like, write an idea down and, like, put it on the calendar for that date, because it was like I wasn't gonna worry about it until then.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Oh, so you just don't worry about it until then.
DAVID KESSLER: No, I go, "Do I have a plan?" What I never had as a child growing up, or I think a lot of people with ADHD-
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Mm-hmm ...
DAVID KESSLER: we don't have plans 'cause we have ADHD, so all of a sudden, like, we d- we, we have these real-life plans of like, "Oh, I can do work on a plane, and that's when I'm gonna do it."
DAVID KESSLER: And then we gotta honor that plan. It's not time to work yet. I'm not on a plane.
BOBBY RICHARDS: Oh. So then here... And I know that we're, we're... I'm just gonna, I'm... Feel free to, anyone, to reel us back wherever we need to be or, or aim to be or whatever, but that- It's both stories where we're gonna... Yeah. That, absolutely. We will go
ISABELLE RICHARDS: there, there, but this is all relating- Yeah
ISABELLE RICHARDS: to it, so of course, it's synchronicity.
BOBBY RICHARDS: Well, and I think too, this is all, we're all, we're all kabooming in our brains from s- from all this stuff too, all these truth bombs. So I'm finding, I think, and I think we're all finding extreme, and by we, I mean me and Isabelle are finding [00:25:00] extreme value in everything that you're sharing with us, David.
BOBBY RICHARDS: So, like, I, I think that, like- Yeah, thanks for Yeah, no. Yeah, you know,
DAVID KESSLER: we got this. Thanks for, thanks for fixing us. There, Sam's fixing.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Ah. Ah, you're making it okay.
DAVID KESSLER: Um. But I think we're just, we're just talk about, like, what everyone actually does- Yeah ... and everyone is shooting for. And, like, we shouldn't.
BOBBY RICHARDS: So, so here's, so the- Okay
BOBBY RICHARDS: here's the, here's the question. My question is, then if we're always setting plans and goals and, and, and, and doing that, and if, and if, and if... And I'm being very, very broad and general here. But if, um... And if I'm misquoting you, let me know. If, if we're doing that and it doesn't tend to really reap any of the benefits or rewards of, like, okay, well, we're gonna set all these goals, but then a lot of times the, the goal kind of disappears, or the steps get jumbled up, and it doesn't really, and, and nothing really comes of it, or, or we don't follow through, um, then how, how can we plan to succeed in those plans?
BOBBY RICHARDS: Do you know what I'm saying?
DAVID KESSLER: So you're saying if we fail, how can we [00:26:00] learn something from that and, like, not fail next time?
BOBBY RICHARDS: Yeah. Or when we find... You know, if we find that if, that, okay, well, if I set a goal, I'm not gonna achieve it. So then how might... The thing that I'm seeing i- is sort of a, a, like a... The conflict there is, well, if we do need to achieve goals, how do we figure out the, the, the path to get-
DAVID KESSLER: The way
BOBBY RICHARDS: to get to... Yeah. To get to that, that success and that goal.
DAVID KESSLER: We've talked about this a little bit before. We have. Yeah, yeah. It's like, it's about that, it's about that effectiveness conversation rather than, like, how we should. Like, the Norman Rockwell painting of what winter and Christmas is supposed to look like versus, like- Right
DAVID KESSLER: everyone in Utah- Yeah ... or like everyone in Tucson. Like, right? Yeah. Are they doing Christmas wrong? It's like- Yeah ... it's like they're not. It's about so many other things and the way it looks, and everyone has these really sophisticated ideas of what studying looks like or what preparing looks like or what effort looks like.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Mm-hmm. 'Cause we're like simulation machines. Right. And so we're constantly observing and comparing all the time. So we're always like, "Ha ha," like, [00:27:00] "This is how the world and television and everything I've read says I should do a thing."
DAVID KESSLER: Right. And so here I am in real life, you know, nailing this, like, introductory talk, working with these groups, getting these kids, like, icebreakers, and nailing it, and it's super fun.
DAVID KESSLER: And as I leave, and I, you know, I'm getting paid, and I really truly believe I did a great job, I'm feeling horrible, like, "Oh, man. I probably should've spent more ti- if I spent more time, could it have been better?" And that's the trap It's not about if it could have been better because now we're not living in life.
DAVID KESSLER: If it could have been better, we're like counting ... That's why when you asked me before, are you worried about it? Right, right. We count the possi- like the, the endless possibilities of what something could have been. So was it good enough? And then if the answer is yes, it's like the next question I have is what would I do differently?
DAVID KESSLER: And so then one year I thought, "I'm not gonna spend as much time beating myself up about starting when I was just super effective on the plane."
BOBBY RICHARDS: Hmm.
DAVID KESSLER: Like, what if we actually looked at our, [00:28:00] like, our outcomes differently and we didn't judge our process and we just judged where we were effective?
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Yeah, like almost like, uh, if I'm hearing right, you focus more on actually sitting with w- what really got done.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Did it get done? Did you do the thing? And did you do it well enough? Cool. How did you get that done? That is probably how you're gonna do it again. And then now that you know that, try to make it a little bit easier on yourself.
DAVID KESSLER: And those last three things you said, I... It took me, like, 30 years to learn.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: I feel like it's gonna take me another 30-
ISABELLE RICHARDS: but I'm really excited. But, but see- Knock on wood ... that's why I'm
BOBBY RICHARDS: asking all these questions so that we can figure it out by the end of tonight. Yeah.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Okay.
BOBBY RICHARDS: Um, so- That's a good
ISABELLE RICHARDS: goal. Talk about setting goals. Thank
DAVID KESSLER: you so much for listening. If you ever have that thought where you think, "Hey, I'm nothing," stop.
DAVID KESSLER: Remember, you're something. Something shiny.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: That's right, just as you are. If you like what you heard and you want to hear more free episodes of this podcast, please subscribe, rate, and [00:29:00] review anywhere you listen to podcasts. We're on Instagram as somethingshinypodcast, and if you're looking for more information, useful links, definitions, visuals, everything we can think of and more is on our website at somethingshinypodcast.com, and it's all free.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you in two weeks.