Shownotes
A career pivot in his early 40s forced Nathan Karol to confront something he had not thought about since childhood: how his brain actually works. What followed was not a crisis, but a reorientation. Through therapy, testing accommodations, and a willingness to rebuild his systems from the inside out, Nathan found relief, momentum, and a version of success that fits him. This conversation explores late-diagnosed ADHD, identity, ambition, and the freedom that comes from finally working with your wiring instead of against it.
Guest Bio
Nathan Karol has played many roles in the world both personal and professional. Most notably he is a husband, father, Jew by choice, mental health advocate and mediocre golfer. He's spent his life figuring out what he wants to do when he "grows up," having been mentored and influenced by some amazing human beings. The years around forty have been full of change, reflection, awareness and hard work both professionally and personally.
Turning 40 and discovering why a lifetime of ‘normal’ felt so hard
Nathan Karol’s midlife transition did not arrive with fireworks or a dramatic breakdown. It arrived through pressure, persistence, and a growing realization that the way he had been moving through the world no longer fit his life or, more importantly, how his brain worked. In his early 40s, while pivoting into a new career in financial services, Nathan was forced to confront something he had not thought about since childhood: ADHD. What followed was a reckoning. Through therapy, testing accommodations, and a radical reframing of what success can look like, Nathan found clarity, self-trust, and a path that finally works with his wiring instead of against it.
In this episode, we talk about:
- Growing up curious, hands-on, and constantly in motion, and how early experiences shape adult identity.
- Losing connection to a childhood ADHD diagnosis and the quiet ways it continued to affect work, stress, and self-worth.
- Why traditional career paths and rigid structures can be especially punishing for ADHD brains.
- Hitting a wall in midlife when intense licensing exams forced Nathan to relearn how his brain actually works.
- The power of therapy, diagnosis, and accommodations in adulthood, and why none of that is a failure.
- Letting go of a solo business that no longer scaled, and stepping into a role that offers both structure and autonomy.
- Redefining success as building systems that work for you, not forcing yourself into ones that do not.
Midlife clarity often comes from revisiting old truths with new eyes. Nathan didn’t start over from scratch. But he worked towards understanding himself enough to choose a path that fit. His transition demonstrates how self-awareness, support, and flexibility can turn long-standing friction into momentum, and how learning how your brain works can change everything about how you live and work.
If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate, follow, and share The Big Four Oh Podcast. It helps more people find these stories and reminds them they are not alone.
Guest Resources
Connect with Nathan on Instagram
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Download Stephanie’s guide to the Ick to diagnose whether you or someone you love is suffering from this insidious midlife malaise. www.thebigfouroh.com/ick
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Sponsor
The Big Four Oh Podcast is produced and presented by Savoir Faire Marketing/Communications
Transcripts
Stephanie: Hey Nathan, welcome to the show.
Nathan: Oh gosh. Well thanks for having me, Stephanie.
Stephanie: You almost sounded surprised there. That shouldn't have been a surprise.
Nathan: Wait a minute.
Stephanie: You do know you're here right?
Nathan: I, I am here and you know why I am here. 'cause I'm not all there. Oh gosh. So Dad jokes. Dad jokes. Sorry I had to. I
Stephanie: Very, very bad dad jokes.
Nathan: To. Yeah. Terrible. Terrible.
That's not the entire story of my life, I promise.
Stephanie: Well, I don't know. We'll let, the listener make that, conclusion at the end of your story because it may actually be true.
I am thrilled to have you here. You're a fellow New Hampshire-ite. And you and I have met in real life, which is not, the, I know, which is not true of, of most of my guests.
So thrilled to have a hometown guy here on the show. And I also know some of your story 'cause we've crossed paths in the business community. But I'm really, really interested and intrigued to hear the behind the scenes, because you and I have met each other in very polite networking ways.
And uh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Which, when we first spoke recently, you said something so fabulous to me about networking. You said you had just learned a new phrase or somebody had told you a phrase about networking and sort of the, the good versus the not so impactful. Do you remember what you told me it was?
Nathan: Oh, I do. I was, I was like, oh, wait a minute. I know a few things about networking, but yeah, so, we talk about not having hair brushing sessions, right? We talk about,making sure that if we're going to meet with someone, or if we're going to reconnect with someone, that there's purpose to it, right?
The purpose can be simple. The purpose can be to reconnect and understand what's happening in life and personal. When we talk about these hair brushing sessions, we do this, this great, yeah, this little, this little coif, right? And, and it, and then it's like, oh, no, no, you are beautiful. No, you are beautiful. No, you know, like, come with purpose, come with purpose. Connect with me with purpose, whatever that purpose is, that's fine, but connect with purpose.
Stephanie: What I loved about that was I extrapolated it straight to my podcast immediately because one of the things I love about the podcast is that I get to jump in and have really meaningful, meaty conversations with people about real things in life.
And so when I say that you and I met each other in polite networking ways, like we know each other to sort of shake hands and say, hello, how are you? And how have you been? And how is business? But we don't really know each other.
Nathan: Exactly.
Stephanie: And, today we're gonna do that.
Nathan: Ooh, baby.
Stephanie: All right. All right, so let's go back to the beginning.
Tell me a little bit about the forces that shaped you as a person. How did you become the person you were when our story begins in your mid thirties? What's your background?
Nathan: Yeah. So let's see. I grew up in Massachusetts outside of Boston. My dad was a landscaper. My mom spent some time at home with us and then worked in, development, alumni and a number of other roles. But, I spent a lot of time outside. I think that was, that's, that comes back into my story later on.
But my dad tells stories that he had an old engine that he took out of a truck once for his business and, it was still in the yard. And one day I decided that I wanted to go outside and take the whole thing apart. And I stripped the whole thing down, except for the camshaft, which is that big, long thing that goes through the middle. I don't know anything about engines, but I was just like, I want to take this apart.
Stephanie: Mm.
Nathan: Really good at taking things apart. As for putting them back together, maybe not so much, but I would dig holes. My dad had a tractor. He was a landscaper, right? He taught me how to drive the tractor. We had some land, so drive the tractor, and, then to use the backhoe and, and pull out stumps and, and just do all this like, fun stuff,
Stephanie: Yeah, little boy stuff.
Nathan: Oh, total little boy stuff. Yeah. I got my son doing that at some point in his life too, and, and, so I spent a lot of time outside. I, um, I probably got into some trouble outside too. I think there was, I sunk into some mud when I was a kid, got a piece of glass in my foot. All that stuff that kids really should do.
Got really dirty, a lot. And yeah, had a, had a relatively, I would say, simple childhood. I traveled a lot with my uncle when I was older. My uncle was in politics in Massachusetts for a while. And he didn't, he doesn't have any children, no other family. And so my sister and I were his family.
And, we'd go on a summer trip. So it was right around the 4th of July and we would every year pick a place. Right. So, my goodness, I've been to, I've been to San Antonio, I've been to Seattle, I've been to British Columbia, I've been to LA, I've been here, I've been there, because that's what we did.
And, and of course I got the travel bug. I got the aviation bug at some point, at which then played into the rest of, of my life, and a number of fun things.I also, when I was about, let's see, 12 years old was told by my parents that I had ADHD. I was like, okay. 12 years old, I was like, I don't know what that means.
And they said, oh, you're gonna take this, this medicine, it's gonna help you. And it did, but it was, you know, 12 years leading, leading up to that, that sort of, was, was interesting. And, this was of course, a while ago. I'm what, 42 now? And it's interesting to hear, to think how far mental health and, and all of that has come. Because I was like, put in the back of the classroom with a study carrel around me and that sort of thing. And if anybody is ADHD and has ever had that experience where they're like, oh, here, go here and be quiet, like on purpose. What did I do with the cardboard study carrell in the back of the classroom?
I wrote on it. I poked holes in it. Oh, it was, yeah, it was not helpful. It was an absolute distraction. So, I'm this kid that started out outside. I got the travel bug and the aviation bug. When I went to college, that's when I sort of blossomed. I usually say to people, when it comes to, you know, milestones in life and things like that. I said, I don't always show up early, but when I show up I really show up. Which is the exact opposite of who I am as a person who, like, when I have to show up for a job, I'm always early. But when it comes to, life events and, and, and those sorts of things, I'm like, I'm never there early.
Stephanie: But when I get it, I get it. I'm there and I'm in. So high school was, was a probably a, a shit show if I can say that. And then I got to college. And a little freedom, a little,finding my space and my place. I was very comfortable where I went to school because I did these aviation camps when I was in high school. So I knew the staff and I knew the, place, right? Can I pause you for a second? You, you didn't happen to go to Daniel Webster, did you?
Nathan: I most certainly did.
Stephanie: Oh my goodness. Oh,
Nathan: this a parallel? Are we having a parallel moment?
Stephanie: Well, no, we're having a world's colliding moment. For those of you listening, Daniel Webster College was a small private college here in New Hampshire that was focused on aviation. And, um, my, aunt was the president for 25 years.
Nathan: Cut it out. Who's your aunt?
Stephanie: Hannah McCarthy.
Nathan: Oh my God. I didn't know that before right now.
Stephanie: that? How would you have known that?
Nathan: That is so wonderfully insane. Yes. Yes. She was there when I was there. Yes, indeed.
Stephanie: What a riot. Okay. Yeah, so small world. Up here in New England, it is a very small world.
Nathan: Oh my word. Yeah.
SoI went to Daniel Webster College. I was gonna be a pilot. After the first year, I said, wait a second. I don't think I wanna be a pilot anymore.
Stephanie: Interesting.
Nathan: So I had gotten involved. I had been, I, I found a mentor. I was doing a lot of campus activities and all this stuff. And I was finding myself. And I was using my hands like I am now to talk and, got into theater. I don't know how, I was not on the stage, believe it or not. But I was behind the scenes and all of a sudden it just sort of blossomed.
Like I said, like if I, I, I don't show up early, but when I show up, I show up, right? So I got involved, I was getting others involved, I was doing things. It, and that was a lot. And it was a lot of great stuff that I had never experienced. And at some point, going to the airport of this thing that I loved, I took flight lessons when I was a kid, but this thing that I loved, became this thing that I, I dreaded. I would want it to be a weather day when I go to the airport because I was like, I, I don't, I don't, I don't wanna do it. Like it, it felt like too much pressure, too much stress, too much, all of that.
Yeah. Remember that little ADHD thing that happened? Yeah. That's why. I know that now, but that's why. Because I was, I was off the meds because I couldn't get a medical if I was on those meds right to, to be or be able to fly.
So I was off the meds and I didn't have the structure and I didn't have the coping mechanisms. I, I didn't have a therapist because that wasn't a thing in early two thousands for young guys, right?And so it was kind of a mess. I told this story, a part of the story at a chamberdinner a few years ago and I said to someone, and I actually got claps from the back. I said to someone, I was on academic probation. In college, right?
And they, and, and that actually helped me to connect with others who had the same experience and, and, these are successful, wonderful people. It doesn't, it's nothing about our personalities or who we are, it's just that our brains work differently. That is a hundred percent what it is. Our brains work differently. My frontal lobe probably looks different than yours.
Stephanie: Well, and I know that to be true because in my family, my dad was an electrical engineer. My younger brother, right behind me, was a guy who not only liked to take things apart, he also put them back together. He became a mechanical engineer.
And my youngest brother thought he was gonna go to college for, industrial design, but ended up transitioning into, quality engineering. He, well, he is a quality engineer now. And then my mom, when she went back to college, when we were all in school, she studied geology. So my entire family is like science-minded and science-based. Then there's the pink girl over here who's like, who literally sees, in my head, I see words, I see how things are spelled. I see punctuation. I see. So, so you don't have to tell me the brains are different because, I think so differently than most of my family does, just for no reason other than I am me and they are them. And then let's not even put on the, like the ADHD or any of the other, challenges or quirks our brains might throw at us. So, we'll, we'll leave that there for now, and then we'll come back to it in a, in a little bit. But, so, academic probation, not doing awesome at college.
Nathan: That experience shaped me. It was, it was difficult. I had people that said, Hey, you have to do this. You have to get through.
Stephanie: Mm-hmm.
Nathan: And this is how we're gonna do it. I got a lot of chances given to me, by amazing human beings. Right?
Because they get it, because they got it. Because they saw the human and they saw the, the struggle. And, we got through it. So I stayed at Daniel Webster. I pulled away from the aviation major. I majored in business, which was perfect because there's so many elements of business and so many things that I could then explore, right?
And over time to kind of fast forward before we used the entire hour on my college career, was, different jobs, different positions based on either who I knew, what I knew, the skills that I had, changing over time. You look at my resume and what's interesting is that ADHD brain, right? Someone who's, that's, you know, at a position for a couple of years or at a position for a little while and, and then says, no, I wanna do something else. I wanna do something different. I wanna do something else.And that was, that was a theme, a thread, right? And so, I did some wonderful, wonderful work with, I worked for a while, which, with Blue Man Group in Boston, which is now closed unfortunately. that was a story that, that came out of my college career because I met some people, simply booking tickets for students to go. And I, so I called up one day and asked for an internship and the rest is sort of history. And, and ended up working there full-time after college for a while. And, there's yeah, experiences like that, that whether they were six months or whether they were two and a half years, they shape you in certain ways.
Then you take things from them. I took from my very, very first job, I learned how I wanted to be as a manager or not, right? How I wanted people to feel. How I wanted to treat people. My very first job from like 12 to 18. And then subsequently from, from all of those experiences, it was, again, how I want to treat people, how I wanna be treated, how best to, pull in groups of people and create community, or create a community within something.
And so, moved into a variety of roles. Was living outside of Boston one year, decided that I wanted to, I was doing a lot of hiking and stuff like that, I wanted to leave my job at a synagogue outside of Boston and I wanted to go work outside again. Right. So comes back.
Stephanie: Full circle.
Nathan: I wanted to go work outside and experience the outdoors, but do some education, 'cause I had been in that world, in the synagogue. I did that for a summer with high school teens in various places, some of the most amazing places, but then found myself doing seasonal work. I found myself one season, being a ski instructor. Because of a connection that I had made, not a hair brushing session, mind you, a real connection that I had made in this summer job that I had, and this gal said, Hey, I live out near Tahoe and I coached, I coached this race team at this mountain, and you should come out and be a ski instructor. And I was like. Okay.
Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah.
Nathan: I had moved to New Hampshire. I, I was working with the Appalachian Mountain Club at the time, but, you know, on the summer season and, then I went out there, in probably November, December and stayed till April and then came back.
Before I had gone, I met my wife, after my first season of, of, trail work and working with AMC and, and whatnot. My brother-in-law, was my boss at the time at AMC. And long story short, he invited me to a party at their new house, not too far from where we are here in New Hampshire. And, party was supposed to be like work people and family, and it, by the time I got there, it was just family. His family. And I knew none of them and they weren't work people. And, uh, I had long hair and a beard, so for anybody watching the video, you see that for, if not just picture, not a great beard, but a lot of it, and really long pulled back hair. And I used to wear this buff, which was like this cloth to keep the hair back.
And my, what my wife now sees me from across the yard and, and was like, who's that pirate? This is how she tells the story. Who's that pirate? But thankfully for me, the closer I got, she's like, oh, the pirate is not as pirate as I thought he was from back there. So anyway, we met, we had our first kiddo in, let's see, what year was, 16?
Stephanie: Okay.
Nathan::Stephanie: And, so that's your early, your early thirties at that point? Early thirties. Mid
Nathan: thirties.
Yeah, yeah, that's the early thirties. Still figuring out what the hell I wanna do with my life when I grow up. Right. Because I, I didn't know it was also, going from that seasonal career to, back to sort of sales and marketing. I did some hospitality work for a while and, it was all very interesting.
Looking at it now, from where I am and where I've come in the last few years, I go, geez, okay. it would've been really great to have the great therapist that I have now to have like my ducks in a row, because that could have gone a different way.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Nathan: But it didn't, and that's okay. Right. I think that's, something that I don't struggle with is the fact thatwhat I, I say to myself, whether it's out loud or in my head every single day, is that everything happens for a reason. Everything. We may not know the reason, we may not ever know the reason, but it, it just does. And so I sort of can simplify and kind of, sit within that the fact that everything happens for a reason.
Stephanie: So how'd you end up getting to, I think the first time I became aware of you, you were working for one of the chambers of Commerce up in sort of mid New Hampshire, Northern New Hampshire.
Nathan: Well, Northern. I was, at the time I was working for the Littleton Area Chamber of Commerce, so I was on the board there for a little bit when I was starting to get involved in community, kind of finding my footing there. Then the, the role of executive director opened up and they, board members actually asked me to, to take that role. I was interested in it. I was there for about two and a half years, having fun, doing some great stuff in community. Love it. And then COVID hit,
Stephanie: Hmm.
Nathan: Right, of course. Right.
Stephanie: Yeah.
of a sudden, I, come July of:And so the chamber found itself not being able to pay me, and people not paying their dues 'cause they didn't know what was gonna happen. All that unexpected stuff. Right. So by no fault of anybody but maybe someone in a lab in China, I, I was jobless and, I started a small business strategy and consulting firm called Cardinal Consulting.
The Cardinal has a special place in, in my heart and my world because, every time I see a cardinal, I think of somebody who is no longer here.And that is just wonderful. So we called it Cardinal, and I knew that one of the things that I needed to do was promote myself. And I love to talk to people, and I wanted to continue to connect to people, because that's what I did a lot with the chamber. And so I said, I'm gonna start a podcast. And it was called Biz Cast NH. And I teamed up, really early on, like teamed up with the folks at, Business New Hampshire Magazine.
Stephanie: Which we need to pause here for a moment and say that I am an alumni of Business New Hampshire Magazine. When I moved back to New Hampshire in the early two thousands, I spent about two years as the editor of the magazine and then the associate publisher of the magazine for a while. So, so again, small world circles here.
Nathan: See, everything happens for a reason. There it is. And and yeah. And so I said to them, I said, Hey, I know you have an audience, a larger audience than I do. Let's figure this out. So we started a podcast together.That podcast is still going. I am not the host of that podcast anymore, butit is having an amazing run.
I think I did over a hundred episodes of that and we created it and grew it and met folks like you and other people from around New Hampshire, and that's how we met. We met in a studio in Amherst, New Hampshire, uh, you know, face-to-face in person at a table, having an experience, right? Yeah.
And let's see here. I'm trying to think of how old I am, was, whatever in all of that.
And so to go back to the the brain, right? Cardinal for me, in the beginning actually, it was really, I hate to say, but really easy because I had so many connections and there was so much relief money and, money towards building communities, resiliency, all of this stuff. I had this client and that client, and they had this money to use, and this money to spend here, and how do we do that? And so I would help them, they would work with me. I would strategize, we would, work together in a number of different ways. I utilized my relationships with Chambers of Commerce for one of my first clients to build relationships with them. So a lot of partnership development and these other roles came out of it.
Stephanie: Mm.
Nathan: Which was amazing. I, I had, Before I just recently sunset Cardinal, I had a client for I think all of like four and a half of the five years of Cardinal because they knew me from my prior role, they believed in what I could do, and they had a lot of work that they wanted to do in community. And we continued to just work month after month on building relationships, building partnerships, connecting within community, and it was wonderful.
Here's the thing. Here's the thing. The brand, the brain power, for lack of a better phrase, was me.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Nathan: And that's great, right? It's who I know, what I know, how I work, how excited I get, things I can get done, all of that. But it is really hard to replicate that
Stephanie: Oh, I, I'm aware, I
Nathan: You are fully aware as someone who is a, is a solopreneur. I mean, it is hard to replicate that. It is also really hard to build and grow something when you are riding the bike, flying the airplane, as, as it were, all of that, and have this thing between your ears to contend with, right. And have the stress of family and, and, just the world and, and everything.
Stephanie: Well, and especially. Especially the way you were doing business, which is similar to the way I started out doing business. It was, it was me, my skills, what I had on board, and the people I knew and the, the, the connections that I could make.
Nathan: Right. Like, here's my basket. Like this is what I got.
Stephanie: Yeah. And that doesn't scale.
Nathan: No, it doesn't.
Stephanie: So, and to your point of, when you start, it's pretty easy. It's like, oh, I'm gonna write this, or I'm gonna, do this press release or this outreach or whatever. And, but at some point you have administrative work that you have to do, or you have business development work that you have to do, or you have networking that you have to do, or you have all these things as a business owner that you have to do that are now taking away from the hours you can actually do your work. And so, you know,
Nathan: We have to work on our business at some point, not in our business.
Stephanie: Right. And so there are other models that as a solo person might scale better, but the way you were doing it and the way I was doing it at the beginning, they're just, they're just not that wildly scalable.
I ended up taking on team members who, let's see, Savoir Faire will be 19, And I have somebody who's been with me like, you know, 16 of those 19 years. And another person who's been with me 15 of those 19 years. So it's like, I, I, I took that path of like, finding the right teammates to come on and, and, and build, build community with here.
Nathan: Right. And I mean, I, I, so I tried that at some point. It was more of like a contract role. I had a, a client come on that I said, well, I'll pull this person, and they're amazing. And we like, did, did the work, did the project, right? And then the project is done, and you don't necessarily have something else for them to do, or what you're doing is not within their skillset, And so it's like, oh, shoot. Okay, what do we do now?
Stephanie: Yeah, yeah. I followed my nose on that one. And we were able to, find a vein that, that, that really worked for us, where I did have recurring and ongoing work for, for my team. So I was able to retain them over, over the long term really.
But now one of the things I want to, I wanna dig into here is during all of this, during your twenties and during your thirties. Your twenties, when you're kind of following your nose and wandering and trying lots of different things. And your thirties as you know, now you're a married, a married guy and a dad, and you're starting to sort of buckle down a little bit more and. You don't have any thought during this period of your life or any consideration or memory of sort of being ADHD, do you?
Nathan: No.
Stephanie: Right. This is like, this was like, oh, that was a thing I had when I was a kid, and you've like never thought it again.
Nathan: You're, you are absolutely right. Absolutely right.
Stephanie: I just want to point that out because it becomes salient in a moment.
Nathan: Yeah, yeah. You're, you're absolutely right. I'm just like, I'm doing life. I'm doing, and like, some things are a real struggle, and some things are amazing and it, it's just, I don't think it ever felt easy by any means. Easy, running a business. Easy managing my time. Easy being a dad. Easy being a husband, right? It's still not, my wife is just like, wait, what? What's wrong with your brain? What?
Stephanie: Right, right.
Nathan: So we have those conversations now, but there was a turning point, and, and of course this, when I first met this person, it was probably a little bit of a hair brushing session. Maybe not. I don't know. I'll have to ask him.
But I met someone about a decade or so ago in the financial services industry, and we just got to talking and I think, uh, an associate of his sold me some life insurance or those sorts of relationships and, and whatnot. All good people. And for some reason along the way we just sort of like kept in touch. Kept in touch, right. We didn't like go out for dinner and have for drinks every month or whatever. But it was every once in a while see a LinkedIn post or you get a phone call or say, Hey, what's up? How are you? What's going on? And over a year ago we were having a a Zoom call. We had set it up. We said, oh, we should reconnect. I think the intent of the conversation on his side was that he would get names from me of people that he could recruit to hire, as he had just joined a new firm. And at some point in this conversation, it turned to a conversation about me joining him.
Stephanie: And what you were doing. Yeah.
Nathan: I was like, I. I, I think, I think this is what I need. Now, long story short, I told him no, at least one or twice. I rated myself a five out of 10, but I knew that I needed to go back and sort of figure out if indeed this was the right role, the right path, the right place, right. Did a lot of research on the firm and the industry and all this, and called him back up. And I remember saying to him, Hey, Sam, remember how I said I was a five when we talked last, and that was months ago? He says, yeah. I said, I'm a 10, I'm a solid 10. So what are we gonna do?
He said, okay, alright, so here's a few steps. Do this, do that. Right? We have an interview and tell the firm who you are, et cetera. That started a path and a journey for me that has continued to change my life. It's been over a year, year and a half, absolutely changing my life for in so many ways. And so
Stephanie: And so now we're at about 40 right when this is happening? Yeah,
Nathan: Yeah. Yeah. When you enter the financial services industry, there's a var, a variety of licenses depending on what you're doing. And those licenses require you to study and learn content and a variety of things.
Stephanie: And pretty intense stuff too. I have friends who have done this in the past. Right. This is not like, this is, this is not like, Yeah. don't even know what I wanna
Nathan: This is 400 very thin pages of content, right? This is hours and hours of studying. This is, 150 questions or something like that. I don't even remember now because I try to block most of it out. But first test, relatively easy to concepts to understand. Not bad. Great. Did great Second test. It was a bit of a slog. Did okay. Then come the two big tests.
Stephanie: Well, and let's remind ourselves of your experience in college.
Nathan: That we are now 42. We do not have any different mechanisms of, of coping than we did then. We may have developed some things and, and whatever. So here we are. I'm trying to like, take tests. I'm trying to study. I'm trying to focus and concentrate for like over the course of hours on this one thing.
Stephanie: And I think the best of us at this point in our adult lives are sort of out of the habit of that level of intense study and attention, and absorption of material. I mean, yes, we all have intense periods in our work lives, and we all have things that we, you know, focus on, but this level of like study and absorption and having to regurgitate it back is just,
Nathan: Well, and you said habit too, right? But if you don't have the habits
Stephanie: Correct.
Nathan: You can't recall the habits 'cause they don't exist.
Right.
I, I never was a great studier. I, I never could really concentrate. I'd go to the libraryin college and, and, and that wasn't more helpful 'cause I'd see people, or a magazine or I'd get up or I'd hear something and I'd, you know, the lights flickering or whatever.
And, and then it's, it's all done with, I didn't have anything to, to sort of fall back on and go, oh, I know how to do this. I gotta, this is, this is my, the way that I do this. And it got really interesting. Really, really interesting. Because the stress level raised right? Because they said, Hey, here's this window that we want you to be in.
Here's a window that we want you to start here, end here, here's the date, whatever. Well, I start to study. Time comes for this first big test. I go in and I miss it by two points, two points. When you miss something by two points, it is not for lack of understanding of the subject matter. It is because there are other factors. Like, my brain, first of all. The fact that, maybe it's the anxiety and the stress that then actually like physically and, and chemically change your brain in these moments and you cannot function. Right? Being in a room, now granted, there was like dividers and stuff. And white noise machines and all that. And to me the white noise machines are more distracting anyways, 'cause I start to hear like the little noise within the white noise machine. But that's just my brain. I don't know about yours. But I'm like, oh, this is great. So anyway, first time didn't pass. The crummy part, there's a 30 day lockout until you can take the test again. So now I have the stress of, hey, my timeframe just changed. And, oh, by the way, let's start to study for that second test as well, so that we can kind of, you know, make up some of the time here. It was very interesting. So at some point, I don't know exactly when, but at some point I found a, a great therapist.
It's a, a place, and I'll, I'll shout their names from the rooftops Growing Roots in Plymouth, New Hampshire. God bless these human beings. They have a wonderful guy that I work with. He's my therapist. And we are working through my brain, reminding myself of like who I am, what my strengths and weaknesses are, how my brain works. Because there is a way to say, Hey, if you have ADHD, this is what happens or cannot happen within your brain. This is the stuff that's hard, right? And he's helping me. And at some point I realized, hey, I can apply for accommodations.
Stephanie: Well, before we even get to that point, he reminded you that you had ADHD.
Nathan: Yeah,
Stephanie: He, he was the one who said to you, Hey Nathan, might it be an issue that when you were 12, somebody diagnosed you with ADHD and you were medicated all through high school and college, like, do you think that might still play a part here?
And, and you went.
Nathan: Well, and he also, 'cause I said to him, I had a therapist a while back and he said that I might have like bipolar. And he looks at me and he goes, you don't know how many people come into my office because some other therapist told him they are bipolar and these people are straight up 110% ADHD.
He's like, you do not have bipolar. You are ADHD, are a classic case. Quite literally. It was like in order to get, a, an initial diagnosis, had me do this, this,assessment online on his computer in his office. And of course I'm like answering the questions and I know you know what's coming. And he's like, yep, okay, you are. And so now he can write the letter to send to this regulatory organization that will help me
Stephanie: Yeah,
Nathan: to find ways to get through these tests. I think in the meantime, I took the test another time and I failed it by
Stephanie: Two points.
Nathan: Two points. Again. Well, when I went for the third time, now I was able to go to this testing center. Rooms full of white noise machines and cubicles and cameras and regulatory things. Anyway, I now get to go with extra time. That brings the anxiety and the stress down. And I get to go into a private room.
Yeah. So basically like I feel like I have a all the time in the world because I, I did it within the, the confines of the time. And the time wasn't an issue, but in my brain, the time, was an issue. My brain said is a stressor, right? It was like, Hey, you're not gonna have enough time. You're not gonna have enough time.
So you start to rush and you, and you, it goes off the rails, right? So now, third time for this first test. I go in. I do the thing, and I believe I audibly screamed when it came up on the screen that I passed. And they were happy for me. And I was happy for me and, and all that. But I had another test to go. And I think in the meantime I had taken the first round of the second test. Same deal. I think this was one point.
Stephanie: Yeah. So painful because these are like multi-hour
This is not
Nathan: The addition of time made it close to like five hours of time that I would have.
Here's the thing. You can get up, right? You can get up as many times as you want, but I also, because I was stressed, I felt self-conscious, so I don't wanna get up, I don't wanna, I don't wanna run out of time and this and that. That private room, I'd get up every few questions. I'd stand there, I'd stretch, I'd move around. I'd shake my brain, out. I'd shake my hands out, the whole thing. And I would start to talk to myself like, Hey, you got this. Sit down. If you don't get it, skip it. Take a breath. Do what you need to do. Talking to myself. And, and, this is something that I couldn't comfortably do over the years, to talk to myself about myself.
I don't know if others can do that or not, but I even just, saying, you're great. You got this, whatever it is. I, I couldn't do it. For some reason, I was like self-conscious of myself. I don't know what it was. It just, it, it, it seemed like foreign or to me. But anyway, I think, so, long story short here is that I got through those tests. I was supposed to start at this firm in, I believe it was September or October of last year. I started in April.
Stephanie: Oh,
Nathan: But remember what I said earlier, I may not show up early, but when I show up, I show up.
Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah.
Nathan: I, I start this new role andI'm like a sponge. It's like, tell me everything that I'm doing well and not doing well. Teach me ways to do things differently because I've been doing things the same way for a while and I've also been in my own head, in my own business for the last five years.
So get me outta my own head.Help me put my network of people together. Get me outta my own head. Help me, to to understand better ways to do things. Change my mindset. We talk about mindset every single day because mindset is huge. Mindset is about how productive your day is, how much you believe in yourself, in the work that you do, all of that. And so it's always around mindset.
Stephanie: Yeah, that is true.But beyond mindset,
Nathan: mm-hmm.
Stephanie: you could be the most positive person you could meet. Be someone who's manifesting the life of their dreams. You could be someone who's living in that positive future. Like you could be all of those things and still be struggling with your own brain.
Nathan: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And so I think what I have done, again with my therapist, is quite literally learned what, like, for example, the executive functions are. And just understanding what executive functions in the brain are has allowed me to say, to look at situations at home, like, why do I leave the knives in the sink after I do all the dishes? Or, why do I leave that light on? Or, why do I do this? Or why can't I remember to like, you know, go get the laundry out. Or, all of these things are based on executive functions or the, or the lack of them working appropriately.
But for me, and this is for me in life and, and work too, is like if I understand one of my inadequacies or something that I don't do well now I'm like all over it. I'm gonna tackle it. I'm gonna say, well, you know what, I, I don't do it well, so how can I do it
Stephanie: Mm.
Nathan: Right. and that's, that's really like what my life is every day now is going, okay. This is the way they want it done, or they recommend that we do this to be successful. I know that I work this way and that.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Nathan: How do I need to change the what I need to do to get the same outcome.
Stephanie: Well, and it's how do you, how do I develop my own way of doing this, right? How do I take the structures that this new firm is trying to teach me, all the good stuff, all these great habits and great processes that they know will make people successful,
Nathan: Right.
Stephanie: may not work with my brain and how I think and process. So now I have to take column A and column B, and make them work for me so that in column C, Nathan has a successful approach to all of the different things he has to do.
Yeah.
Yeah. I had a sales coach many years ago, who you know, was teaching us his process and he was very adamant about it. And he was, frankly, a bit of a bully. And I always resistedsome of the, some of the more aggressive things that, that he wanted us to do, that he was teaching us to do. And, and so at one point he sort of tossed off, this statement and it was really funny. I would, take all the Rick-isms and Stephanize them. And I was like, yeah, yeah, I get your process, but I'm never gonna do it like you. Right? So let me take your process and figure out how I can adapt it and make it work for me, and then I can implement it in a way that will make me successful in my way. Not necessarily in your way, but in my way.
Nathan: Right, right. We're, we're, we're driving to the same outcome, but we need to, we need to take a different road. Or take a left when someone takes a right and, and still end up in the same place as it were.
Stephanie: Well, well, one of the reasons, Nathan, that I wanted to have this conversation with you and wanted to, to talk to you about this, this whole transition of really getting to know your brain again and, and really understanding how it works and trying to optimize how it, how you're, you're using it now.
Nathan: Yes.
Stephanie: In the last 12 months, I have had a very similar thing happen to me in that I also have a great therapist. And, over the course of time, just in the course of conversation and telling her stories and telling her things about me, she'll, she'll, she would just drop them like little, like little berries in the forest, little seeds.
She would say, oh, that's an ADHD behavior. And I would go, I don't know what you're talking about. Like gimme a break. I don't know what you're talking about. And then, you know, there'd be another one. And then a month or a couple weeks later, there'd be another one. And I would like scoff at her. I'm like, I have no idea what you're talking about. I am like, have been the most ambitious, independent to go-getter. Like I built my own business, like, like to stop talking to me about ADHD. But at the end of, I don't know, a year, I finally made a list of them and there were literally like a dozen of these different things. And, and what finally got me was she said. No, they don't look like the typical, like, like for you, right? The classic boy, 12-year-old ADHD. I think we all have a picture of exactly what that looks like and exactly what you were doing behind the cardboard study thing frame. Because go tell a 12-year-old boy to sit still and be quiet and you'll get exactly the opposite, right?
So I was, I had that over my, you know, as a, as a filter of what I was thinking about when I thought about ADHD and she was saying, Steph, it's so different for not only for women, but for adult women. Like, it is, it, comes out so differently. And so some of these things that I was experiencing, this list of dozen long.And then I started looking back at my history and it was like, oh man, oh. So I mean, just for example, my professional history is similar to yours in that I didn't go work somewhere for a decade.
My first job outta college. I stayed five years, and there are great reasons that I stayed there, but every job after that was like less than two and a half years, until I started my own business. Started doing things my own way. And like I said, it'll be 19 soon, so I just didn't work in other people's structures. And I didn't realize that that could be as fundamental as my brain can't operate in the structure that you have determined, instead of one that I can adapt and make work for me or
Nathan: Well, and that's the, that's the key to, I would say, success for me right now is that there is a framework, but I'm building my own practice.
Stephanie: Right.
Nathan: Right. And sure there is a framework, but if I need to take a day and go out and network with people and not be at my desk, and do that for a time. Or on the other side, if I need to be with my family, if I need to prioritize that, that I can. If I need to do things slightly differently, and also understand that like there's expectations, I'm gonna go to the team and say, Hey, this is what I got going. And this is the help I need, right? Or like, this is the, the guidance and direction that I need. And there's some amazing people. And what's interesting is that someone at that firm, when I first started, I was talking about my ADHD, and I was talking about the, the accommodations and this and that. And they looked at me and they said, there's a lot of people here probably have the same diagnosis as you do. And those people do really, really well because they understand their brain. They find their space. They do the way things within the framework, but the way that they need to do it, and off they go.
So the sky's the limit for, for this. And, and I made a commitment to my family, to my team, and to the people I work with, and for, who are my clients to do this until I can't do this anymore. Because every day is different. Today was way different than yesterday and the day before that. Sure. Same framework, but very, very different. Which is great, by the way, for the ADHD brain.
Stephanie: It's one of the things I love about running my own business too, is that we, never doing the same thing. Even though we have long-term clients, we're never doing the exact same thing over and over again, and you don't know what you're gonna do on any given day, which kind of speaks back to my journalism training and my journalism experience of, you don't know what story you're covering today, or tomorrow, or Right. It's, sure, there might be a couple, longer, bigger picture things you're working on, longer term projects you're working on. But like, on a day-to-day basis, it's like, the unknown is so, exciting to me and, and appealing to me. Whereas for some people that unknown would be terrifying and, and, you know, disruptive.
And within this kind of organization, I mean, I think we all have friends who are in the financial business. Sure, there's a framework and you have marks you have to hit. But beyond that, it's like, it's like going back to, I don't know, algebra class. Like how you get there from A to B is your own thing. As long as you get to the answer, right. As long as you hit your mark. How you know how you do your math is for you to build.
Nathan: Right.
Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. And isn't it such a relief? Isn't it such a relief to find something that fits, and that feels good? And it feels like something you can be a part of for the long term.
Nathan: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.And, the big piece of this is that everything happens for a reason. A hundred percent every day. Everything happens for a reason. I met this guy at a networking event over 10 years ago, and his associate sold me some insurance, for a reason.
Stephanie: Yep.
Nathan: And now you could say, sure, now we know the reason, but maybe there's more reasons. Maybe it's more to it, right? We don't have to just say, oh, found the reason.
Stephanie: Yeah. No, absolutely
Nathan: This is a relationship. It is ongoing.
Stephanie: Oh, that's so great. Nathan, I, I love this story. It's, it's great because it's relevant to me personally and this, this late in life news about your own self, that that ends up making things a little bit easier. I'm so glad that you, you reached out to me that you wanted to come on and, and share the story. And thank you so much for being so generous with your story.
Nathan: Well, thanks for having me. I'm always happy to talk about experiences in hopes too that someone else says, oh, hey, I have had that experience. Or, oh, hey, I've got self-worth, or, oh, hey, I should go get a therapist or whatever. if I can give somebody a tiny little nugget that can change their life in some way, great. Awesome.
Stephanie: That's what we're doing. Yeah. All right. Thank you so much.
Nathan: Say hi to your aunt for me.
Stephanie: I will.
Nathan: Thanks, Stephanie.
