Learn about inattentive ADHD at www.iadhd.org.
Learn about inattentive ADHD at www.iadhd.org.
The mission of the Inattentive ADHD Coalition is to ensure that children with inattentive ADHD are diagnosed by the age of eight, and that adults with nattentive ADHD receive prompt and accurate diagnosis when seeking help. To learn more about our mission and how you can help visit iadhd.org
Katherine Ellison:david, thank you so much for being with us today. I've really been looking forward to talking with you. I'm Katherine Ellison. I'm a journalist and author of several books, including the ADHD memoir Buzz, A Year of Paying Attention, and I would love to know more about you and what you're doing for clients who need your help financially.
David Dewitt:As you know, money can be a challenge for people that have ADHD and for people that don't have ADHD, but it's extra hard in a lot of ways for people with and I experience some of that myself.
Katherine Ellison:Hang on. David, before you go into that, I would love for you to just introduce yourself and tell us what you do and where you are, and then we'll move forward because I want to hear the story of how you got into all this.
David Dewitt:I'm Dave. I'm a certified financial planner. I've focus on serving people that have. I've been a financial planner for about seven years now. I really enjoy it, but I've only been doing it for people with ADHD for just over a year It's been a great ride and fun journey. I'm outside of Philadelphia and I work with people virtually.
Katherine Ellison:Okay, so your dad is a financial planner, right? So you grew up with that culture?
David Dewitt:I grew up with the culture of investing. My dad would put me to bed and talk about his stocks, how they did that day, I was the kid in high school who was pitching stocks to his friends and in investment ideas and stuff. That's the culture I grew up in, but not necessarily in the here's all the rules of personal finance. The more basic things I didn't necessarily get ingrained in my head.
Katherine Ellison:Did you always know that you wanted to go into financial planning or had you thought about something else?
David Dewitt:No, my original dream was to be I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I did go to college for finance, but it was after college that I decided I wanted to pursue being a Wall Street investment analyst. I tried to do that. I pursued the CFA, which is the most rigorous credential you can get as an analyst. And I passed the first level, but it sucked six months of my life away from me, and it was incredibly hard. When I started studying for the level two, I just didn't have it in me. I'm just like,"I'm not doing this." but I guess the planning came about when I started to realize that I was struggling with my own money management, just basic stuff. I had to get my stuff together. That was also around the time that I realized how much the ADHD was affecting my life.
Katherine Ellison:Okay. So you knew as a child, did you know as a kid in grade school. Were you struggling in school?
David Dewitt:I started struggling in high school. I was diagnosed in high school.
Katherine Ellison:What led to your diagnosis?
David Dewitt:So my grades started slipping, but I think there was also some personal social things that happened. I had only a few friends in middle school and my core friend actually left the school. When I went into high school, I felt um isolated and so I was really trying to fit in and find friends and stuff. I just got really distracted by all that stuff and my grades started slipping and just juggling everything started to become very hard.
Katherine Ellison:Do you think you did things with your ADHD that put people off? Was it hard for you to make friends, if you're okay talking about that?
David Dewitt:No. Nope. It was hard for me to make friends mainly because I just was, and am to this day, I'm just more shy. I'm more shy. Now that I've had so much time to reflect on it, there's been lots of microtrauma experiences, like the multitude of times that I've just been put down or been told to listen up or speak up or the little nicknames and stuff. I just created a lower self-esteem.
Katherine Ellison:What were some of the little nicknames? What did people call you?
David Dewitt:Oh, like Dave, Dave Da'Dwitt, Oh my God. That's one I remember for sure. But, space cadet, things like that. That is the hardest. Yeah.
Katherine Ellison:Were you depressed? Is that what led to the diagnosis or was it grades slipping?
David Dewitt:The first thing that happened was I went to the doctor and complained about anxiety. I was given some medication for that, but it didn't really do much for me. So yeah, it was the grades slipping. Then I, got a girlfriend in high school that was connected to the cool people. I got into the"Pop"-- looking back, it's so silly-- but the popular crowd. Then I became a troublemaker. I gave my parents hell.
Katherine Ellison:When you say troublemaker, what did you do?
David Dewitt:Drinking, going to parties, throwing parties when my parents were out of town, sneaking people over in the middle of the night. When I look back on it, I really deeply believe that it was born out of a place of wanting to have my friends like me. I would always offer up my house as the place to go so that I would have to be included in plans. I was always scared to be left out. I was always scared that I would lose the friends I finally got.
Katherine Ellison:I'm gonna ask you again, what finally led to the diagnosis? Was it the trouble making, drinking? Who diagnosed you
David Dewitt:I was diagnosed by a, what do you call it? After 10 years, my parents gave me the big report. I remember it being several sessions with a psychologist, with an educational psychologist. I remember getting a battery of tests, like a lot, reading tests and memory tests. I read the report and it said, severe ly inattentive.
Katherine Ellison:We're really interested in why people get diagnosed. So what brought you to the psychologist? Was that the anxiety or was that the trouble making?
David Dewitt:I don't know if it was so much trouble making. I think it was the grades, but I also think it was that my parents had gotten diagnosed, both of them.
Katherine Ellison:Oh, wow. That's a reverse because usually it's the kid and then the parents, right?
David Dewitt:Yeah. Yeah. They got diagnosed and so they were first. They both had ADHD? Yeah. and they most certainly do. Yeah. It's quite obvious.
Katherine Ellison:So that's what led them to think that maybe that was the cause of your issues in school? Is that what happened?
David Dewitt:Yeah. I think that's why that's why. It was the combination. If I was doing great in school, they wouldn't have. But it was the school and they now had the awareness. They had it and they're like, oh okay. All of my siblings, they also went for a.....
Katherine Ellison:How many siblings do you have?.
David Dewitt:Three, Uhhuh. My sister has it. She opted to never take medication. So she went that route, but she has it. And my brother, I don't know if he got formally diagnosed, but he at one point was prescribed, but he didn't end up liking it.
Katherine Ellison:David, I have to ask you, sorry to interrupt. Did you know that your parents, did you suspect that your parents were unnaturally distracted when you grew up? And why? What did they do? It's such an unusual story.
David Dewitt:My dad's just always been very aloof. He's just aloof.
Katherine Ellison:Maybe a workaholic, because that's one thing that I think happens when you just want to feel in control. Not to psychoanalyze him.
David Dewitt:Yeah. Yeah. Now it's I don't want to rag on my dad, but it's very hard to get him to follow through with anything.
Katherine Ellison:Did the two of you talk about ADHD and the challenges that you both have or does he not want to talk about it?
David Dewitt:He's not as publicly open about it as I am. That's hard to hear and to internalize, and since I'm submissive or passive, I'm not one to stand up for myself. I would hold it in and cry about it later, and then just try. Those are the kind of things that I've had to resolve in therapy now. My college coach, same exact thing. He asked me if I was high; coming to practice high. He humiliated me on a handful of occasions, like a bunch of occasions.
Katherine Ellison:What did you do? What did you do to provoke it? Not that you provoked it, but he should never have done that, obviously. But what were you doing at the time? Did you like drop a ball or....
David Dewitt:No. It's soccer. I had to stop playing basketball because I had a hard time memorizing playbooks. But in soccer I liked it because it was free flowing and I could use my creativity on the fly. But in these drills they come up with, these convoluted drills where you have to run here at point A, point B, and you pass here and do this or that, I would mess up drills over and over again because I wouldn't get'em right. And then so, the first time. Okay. This is where you go. Second time, whatever. But I had such a trauma response, as soon as I messed up a drill, I was panicked. Then I really wasn't going to remember how to do it, because all I could think about was how I'm gonna mess it up again. It just got really bad. I ended up severely fearing going to practice every single day like it was a crime. In fact, I started abusing my medication, thinking that if I took more, it would help me, but it made it way worse. I was lost, like, I was lost. I had no help, no guidance. I wasn't opening up. I wasn't speaking up for myself.
Katherine Ellison:I can't believe your parents weren't more empathetic if they were both going through the same things that they couldn't see that in you and, talk to you about it in a more helpful way.
David Dewitt:Yeah. I hate to say it, but there's some levels of resentment just from them not...., I wish they would've dug into me more and figured out what was going on as opposed to just letting me be oppositional and let me go to my room and be alone. I wish they'd get it. It must have been hard if I just wasn't wanting to talk to them, but I wish they just forced it because looking back it would've been really great for me to get that support. Yeah. Yeah.
Katherine Ellison:Maybe they were reacting against it in themselves. I can talk about my own feelings with my son. You almost don't want to admit that it's a problem for you, so you don't want to see it. Could be a factor. Yeah. But let's talk about your clients, because I think probably this background has given you so much empathy for people who are struggling in the same way. What are the most common problems that they come to you for?
David Dewitt:The most common stuff is debt.. You know, consumer credit card debt is a big one. An inability to have any understanding of what is coming in and what is going out and what it all means. Everyone struggles to stick to any kind of a budget. Many people come to me and they've designed this very intricate budget. They spend all this time creating the budget, but then, when it comes to execution, they can't do it. Or if one thing goes wrong, it just becomes this big mess. They just-- overwhelming-- go out and-- overwhelming. Yeah. And then say,"Screw it!" and go out and buy stuff and then just get themselves in more trouble. So impulse shopping? Yeah. Impulsive shopping. And there's a lot of common money psychology themes with people with ADHD. The trends that I see-- I have no proof of this, it is just my observations-- is very generous to a fault, to a fear of having money because they fear messing it up by having money. There's like a money avoidance where it's not avoiding looking at your money, it's avoiding having money. It's very subconscious.
Katherine Ellison:Do you find that you're talking about psychology as much as you're talking about the hard facts of money management.
David Dewitt:My practice has becoming very psychology focused and I'm fascinated by it. I read lots of books on it. The CFP board, they just introduce a new module to the curriculum, which is the psychology of financial planning. So it's a big thing that's happening because ADHD or not, anybody can be given the instructions of what to do, but the hardest part is to do it. That requires behavior, that requires understanding why it's important, what your habits are, and tactics and strategies to change your behavior.
Katherine Ellison:So how do you do it? That's the hardest nut to crack, I think. Somebody knows what they should be doing. So you turn into a life coach, right? What's the magic work?
David Dewitt:Secretly financial planners, a lot of them besides the ones that are really dealing with really high end stuff, are coaches. Really, when you come down to it, because the planning part's actually easy, it's helping the client stick to the plan. I spend a lot of time giving some assessments, some psychological assessments. There's a provider who offers some very well studied research-- money assessments that help people understand their internal money beliefs and where they land on some of these different things. If they're really money focused or if they're really money vigilant, or if they're money avoidant. They can see, and then you can say,"O kay, this is your tendency and just flesh out getting people to understand their money scripts. They call it money scripts, like the things you tell yourself about money. You have to go back into their history. How has your socialization caused some of this? How have your parents been with money? Like your ancestors, your culture? There are so many different things that affect the reasons why you do things with your money. So we try and get down to that, so there's an understanding. Once you have that kind of understood, we just really want to drill down into what's actually important to you. I know all this Amazon shopping isn't that important to you, so what's really important to you? We do exercises and lots of different kinds of questions to get people to really truly connect with their values. Then it's the question: what are you doing in your life today that's supporting these values? We find out that they're not doing a whole lot because Amazon shopping is not supporting their value of freedom or the value of exploration. If you want to explore and travel, we're going to have to slow down on the buying the new shiny thing on Amazon or the Instagram ad that gotcha!. That's super important, and from that, you get goals. So here's what you really want, and then you break down the goals into okay, here's what we gotta do, first step."
Katherine Ellison:How many meetings will you have with your clients? Like you'll have the initial one and do a plan. And then it seems it's almost like Weight Watchers, right? You have some accountability. You have to come in and confess to your spending.
David Dewitt:Yeah, that's the most fun part when we go through statements. I do offer more meetings than the typical financial planner because I'm working with this crowd. So that's what's needed. People want to meet every month. They'll have to pay for my time but I say, okay, yeah, we'll meet for every month for six months. But my goal is eventually to have you be a mature financial operator so that you're only needing to check in with me for a review, like twice a year or when something happens in life, you need a meeting, but not for the on and on. I'll hold your hand until you can be set free." Then we'll check in. Maybe I'm managing some of their money as well, because I can do that. But my goal is to say, I want you to see me as little as possible and pay me as little as possible. That's nice. That's the ultimate goal. Yeah.
Katherine Ellison:But it sounds like you're also giving these folks what you wish you'd had as a kid, like some understanding of why they behave the way they do and some tools to deal with it.
David Dewitt:Yeah. the most common thing I hear, when I first meet people, they just say, I'm happy you exist."There's a level of fear to bring a mess to a financial professional. I think there's this view, or maybe even stereotype, that a financial advisor or planner is sophisticated and smart. They will use big words. That you need to have a lot of money to work with one is another thing which isn't true anymore. There's a lot more people that are able to charge fees in a different way than just from investments. But they're happier you exist because, they're scared to open up about it, and so, by just me opening up and saying,"I've got this thing, I get it. I've gone through some stuff." It just lowers that fear so that they can take that first step.
Katherine Ellison:Even with that, what percentage of your clients do you find, after that first meeting, didn't tell you the whole truth?
David Dewitt:They mostly tell me the whole truth. Do they? Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay. I make it very clear that I need to see every part of your financial life. I need anything in your life with a number on it. My checklist of things that I need is quite extensive. I want to see every client's like tax returns. That tells the whole story. You can't hide anything unless you're not doing your taxes, which is also a thing that happens. So I have a number of clients where I just help them stay accountable to getting their back taxes filed because they just haven't done it because...wow. And that's another thing that would cause an embarrassment to go to someone else because you know----they'd be, Why haven't you done that? They don't want to feel stupid.
Katherine Ellison:The ADHD specific financial problems are number one is debt, getting into too much debt, which I can imagine, not filing your taxes. Anything else that's particularly just common?
David Dewitt:Those are the pressing things, but then there's just other not basic so to speak, but other things that should be done and just don't get done. Like a married couple, having no insurance, not contributing to their 401k, or a family with kids, that they have no guardianships set up.. All these things that are really important that they know they need to get to, but they just never get to it. They're not protected. They're one bad instance away from a really bad situation. Mm-hmm.
Katherine Ellison:It sounds like you really have to focus to give these people the help they need. What strategies do you have to help you
David Dewitt:Lots of notes, lots of notes. After every meeting, I need to be able to read my notes and think this is where we left off. This is what we talked about. This is what we're doing this time. So I don't feel scrambled. It's been getting tougher. I'm at a point now where I really need to have organizational structure. I try and have a meeting always scheduled on the calendar, so there's always a deadline. I can always see my calendar and meetings with this person, so I know I have to prepare for that meeting. That's a natural deadline. That helps me a lot.
Katherine Ellison:You've got to really focus to help these clients, so what are some other strategies that help you keep on track.
David Dewitt:So my notes is the big thing, that's the big one, having really well taken notes after a meeting so that I know what I need to be doing for the next meeting. I know where we're at in the process. That's really the big thing. Then I use some software that helps me. Whenever I have a thought that comes into my head, I'm able to just hit control space on my computer and then I type it so I brain dump it so I can get it out. Wow. It becomes a task. It becomes a task that I have a list of things so things don't fall through the cracks. Because when you're opening up investment accounts and you're preparing for meetings and there's kinks. You have to do this and that. There's so many things going on that it really is taxing. This is the one of the biggest stressors I have, so I'm very anxious to get to a point where I can afford help. That's going to be huge, someone who's my right hand man or woman. My dream is just to do new client meetings and meetings, and then just have my notes for me and everything. But for now--, that sounds pretty good.-- Yeah. Just right now I'm like a chicken with his head cut off, running around and trying to do a million things at once. But it's okay. I'm staying very busy and I like being busy. My wife doesn't like it so much when I'm working all the time, but I've become a workaholic, but it's okay. I'll figure it out.
Katherine Ellison:Maybe you've got to watch that tendency, because that's something that happens. I know that when I'm working I feel in control so I love it, but it's almost harder to do weekends sometimes. There's just too many choices. But it's great that you, it sounds like you have a good relationship with an understanding partner and that's a huge part of all this, and one day you'll get your obsessive compulsive assistant
David Dewitt:I would love that. Oh my gosh.
Katherine Ellison:Yeah. Thanks so much. It's really been great talking with you and I'll try to take some of your instructions to heart.
David Dewitt:Awesome. All right. Thank you so much. This was a great experience.
Katherine Ellison:Okay. Thank you.
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