The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Messed Up Like You: How ADHD and anxiety didn’t stop me from becoming a successful entrepreneur by Rick Culleton

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

Messed Up Like You: How ADHD and anxiety didn't stop me from becoming a successful entrepreneur by Rick Culleton Rickculleton.com Amazon.com “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Rick Culleton’s answer never changed: not poor. Messed Up Like You is the wild but true story of a troubled man hustling his way to a better life. Honest, harrowing, and hilarious, Rick’s memoir weaves flight lessons with his journey from pizza waiter to serial entrepreneur, pilot, and athlete. It’s flight school for everyone who dreams of soaring. Rick Culleton was 15 when he was first arrested. Unathletic and written off by his teachers, he barely finished high school and went straight to prison. In his 20s he hustled used cars and spiraled into debt. Rick struggled with blows that would have most of us throw in the towel. He was too scared to tell his wife when he faced yet another prison sentence, this time levied by the IRS. Has life dealt you a bad hand? Do your past mistakes haunt you? Does your inner voice whisper big dreams are not for you? Messed Up Like You is the rags-to-riches story for the rest of us. If you like true stories that inspire, that make you laugh, that compel you to act, then you’ll love Rick Culleton’s memoir. His honest and profound advice will help you ✓ Honor commitments ✓ Avoid the woe-is-me-trap ✓ Let go of anger ✓ Like yourself with all your flaws Never, ever give up. Your past does not define you! Buy Messed Up Like You today and take that first step to achieve your dreams.About the author Rick Culleton is a hustler, survivor, and serial entrepreneur. He started working — and living! — in a Pizza Hut, and now owns businesses as varied as used electronics, hospitality, and real estate, including hotels in Costa Rica and Discount Electronics, an Inc. 5000 fastest-growing company. Culleton says the best way to build a successful business is to solve a problem. Beyond business, he’s a licensed pilot, taekwondo black belt, triathlon athlete, rescue diver, and advocate for at-risk children. A pilot afraid of heights, Culleton enjoys globetrotting and splits his time between Austin, New York, and Costa Rica. He and his wife, Katherine, have two grown-up children. His debut book, Messed Up Like You, proves that you can achieve your dreams regardless of your past.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Cause you're about to go on a monster education rollercoaster

with your brain. Now here's your host, Chris Voss. Hello, this is Voss here from the Chris Voss Show. Time come. Ladies and gentlemen, there are a few things that make some fish. Welcome to 16 years and 2300 episodes,, 24 episodes of The Chris Voss Show. And as always, you're bringing the most brilliant minds, the CEOs, the billionaires, the White

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Go to Goodreads.com for Chess Chris Voss, LinkedIn.com for Chess Chris Voss, Chris Voss one on the Tik Tokity and Facebook.com for Chess Chris Voss. Today we have an amazing young man on the Tiktokity and Facebook.com fortress. Chris Voss, Terry, amazing young man on the show. We're talking about some of his insights, his life experience, a couple of the books he's worked on and is working on and get into it. He is the author of the book that came out May 1st, 2023 called messed up like you. Me? No, I'm just kidding. Let me recut that. Messed up like you,

how ADHD and anxiety didn't stop me from becoming a successful entrepreneur. Rick Culleton joins us on the show. We're going to be talking about his insights in his book and some of his journey through life and how he was tied on the book again and how he became messed up like you, not me, you folks out there, some in the audience. I don't know. I'm messed up too. We all know that. Rick is a hustler, survivor and serial entrepreneur. He started working and living in a Pizza Hut and now owns businesses as varied as used electronics,

hospitality and real estate, including hotels in Costa Rica and discount electronics and Inc. 5,000 fastest growing company. He says the best way to build a successful business is to solve a problem. Welcome to the show Rick, how are you? I'm good Chris, thanks for having me. Thanks for coming. Give us your dot coms. Where do you want people to find out more about you on the interwebs? My personal website is rickcoulton.com and you can find links to just about anything there. If you're interested in the used electronics, it's discountelectronics.com and the hotels in Costa Rica are Hotel Haco, Haco is spelled with a J, so it's hoteljaco.com.

Oh, now I'm hungry for tacos. Way to go. Right at the beginning of the show too. So Rick, give us a 30,000 over you. What's in the book that you wrote, Messed Up Like You? Rick Bates, Author, The Book The book started, it had a really interesting beginning. It's my daughter giving me a subscription to something called Storyboard a few years ago, which was a, it started out as a series of questions that came to me in email. I was answering these questions thinking I was writing to myself. It's kind of interesting. You know, maybe I print a book at the end of this for myself. And about, oh, maybe three

months in, my mother replied to a question that I had answered. And I came to the realization there were other people reading what I was writing, which was rather shocking because I was writing very openly into myself. And then as I got to go look back through what I had written to see what everyone had seen, I saw some settings in there that allowed public views. And I turned on a few of these questions I had answered along the way to the public. And a little bit later down the road,

maybe another three months in, someone contacted me and said, look, this stuff needs to be told to the world. You could help some folks in a big way. So I finished that to that storyboard subscription. My daughter then printed all the books before I even got to proofreading and gave them out as Christmas gifts the following year. And shortly thereafter, I started on what became messed up like you, which is really

on what became messed up like you, which is really about living with ADHD and anxiety and overcoming the anxiety and using the ADHD as a tool. Because it's described as an affliction, especially with younger people, and that it can be difficult to educate them and parents have a hard time controlling them and so on and so forth, and you don't know what to do with them. But as you become older and you master it, ADHD is an asset that I don't think I could live without. So it describes a lot of that in that, you know, these business ideas, it's something that needed to be tamed along the way. But in my earlier years, I would run off on a tangent.

You know, I would just have an idea and I would act on it immediately and it often failed. Much more often it resulted in failure than success. But that built up the experience in a variety of fields and I was trying everything. I was a used car dealer. I had car loss when I was 19 or 20 years old. I had all sorts of businesses, boat metal companies, pager companies, cell phones. For a while, I bought a sold school at Silver. Whatever idea I had, I ran.

I had a coffee shop. And as time went on, I learned how to control that. I think the underlying theme now is just because I can doesn't mean I should. And I have ideas all day, every day. And as you mentioned earlier, I said that, you know, if you want to make a successful business, you have to solve the problem. One is I have, I see a lot of problems every day and I always see the solutions in my head very quickly and I want to act on it, but over time you learn to

just pick and choose carefully. Yeah. You got to pace yourself. You know, I suffer from the same ADHD, OCD disease. I'm not sure where I fit in there, but I've had it since I was a child. When I was like, I think it was about 10 or 13 years old. I started checking the door 20 times a night to make sure it was locked, paranoid that it, you know, and, and yeah, I go crawl back into bed and, and I was so worried.

And then I would be like, did, did you check the door tonight or was that last night you checked the door? And yeah, I go crawl back into bed and, and I was so worried. And then I would be like, did, did you check the door tonight or was that last night you checked the door? You know that my brother had the same sort of thing. He would scrub his hands until they bled. But the interesting thing is a lot of people refer to ADHD and OCD, so you can tell my brain's doing it already as the CEO disease. And it turns out, I guess, according to data that 30 to 50% of entrepreneurs have ADHD.

And it seems to work well for us if we can manage it. It's a big if. So, you know, like you, you said the same thing I felt being a serial entrepreneur I feel that It's it's both a weapon and power move or whatever you want to call it But it's it can also be a problem, you know to focus and get shit done and you know Sometimes you're fucking around all day and you're just like And then you're like, hey, did we get those things done?

You know, it's real easy to turn on, like I can turn on Tik TOK and four hours later, I'm like, damn it. And it almost seems like come to think of a Tik TOK is kind of an OCD, ACE ADHD thing. One of the bylines in your book is why it was from, I guess someone asks you when you're young, what do you want to be when you grow up? Tell us the answer to that question. I think you talked about in your book and the story behind it.

You know, I don't remember what the answer was to that question, but I imagine at that time I wanted to be anything before that was it. That was it. You win. That was the answer. Is that your final answer? Yeah, that's my final answer. I had an interesting childhood. I grew up in the country in upstate New York. Looking back, it was a fun childhood. It wasn't impoverished.

It was just, there was enough and there was just enough most of the time. I lived in a town, it was a tourist type town and it was very divided, haves and have nots. You know, either you belong to the country club or you didn't. And I don't want to belong to the country club today, but at that point in time, you know, there was a bit of envy. You know, it was like, hey, you know, I'm on the wrong side of the street and I want to be on the other side.

And that became a driving force for me. And later on, I saw my father leave his job as a mechanic and a, and a, a foreman at the Ford dealership, he was service manager, parts manager, and worked like a dog who came home dirty and tired every day and not very happy. And then he became an entrepreneur and he came home dirty and tired and very happy. Well, that's me around the office. You just described. And he said to me around the office. You just described. And he said to me one day, well, just in general conversation, he said,

they'll never be happy working for somebody else. And I don't know if he was speaking to people in general or me, but I, it's just something that stuck with me forever. And I've had jobs, I don't have any tangible skills, my formal education ended at age 17, so I'm not really employable and I didn't have any other choices other than to become self-employed. You know, I started out, I watched pot and pans. education ended at age 17. So I'm not really employable. And I didn't have any other choices other than to become self-employed. I started out, I watched pots and pans, pizza as you mentioned. You got to do something. You can't just start. I suppose I probably could have found something

to start out entrepreneurial right off the ground when I got to Texas. But that was kind of a gateway into meeting people and doing things and coming up with ideas and putting a little bit of money in my pocket. So I had some capital, but it wasn't long. You know, I was, I probably had my first business, my first official business by the time I was 18 or 19, the first one that I registered and just went to try one thing after the other, after the other. It was a lot of fun. There you go.

And so was there something about the other side of the tracks, the environment that was over there. Was there something that you found appealing or motivating? I'll give you an example. I grew up poor when my parents lived in North Hollywood next to Bob Barker and they meant they weren't rich. They managed apartments. So they got rent free by collecting and doing all the apartment stuff.

And we were literally two blocks from the, the man theater. I think it's the Kodak theater now, whatever it is this week. And I was surrounded by this opulence. I would see BMWs and Mercedes and Rolls Royces at every corner. I grew up that way. I thought it was normal. It's kind of fucked me up, but my parents were poor. They, they couldn't afford much.

And you know, I ended up living that life when they moved out of North Hollywood. But I never, I always wanted those things, those BMWs, those Rolls Royces, those, and I'll never forget when I first got my first one. Was there something about the, over the tracks that motivated you? Was there something that drew you to that? Or just ritual? Most definitely. I mean, there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that I was very motivated by things other

people had and what I saw at that time is lack in my life. I was lacking these things that I needed to make myself happy. And it really became the motivator behind everything. In retrospect, it wasn't a bad motivator because along the way, I've created a lot of jobs in companies and I've had a lot of fun, but I think it puts some misdirected values in my head that made everything that mattered have a dollar sign in front of it. It wasn't until just the last couple of years that I've really come to realize that that didn't really work.

And it came to be by the time I had accomplished everything I had ever set out to accomplish in my life, including having a very happy family and homes all over and all the cars and all the things and all the numbers at the bottom of the balance sheet that mattered. And then coming to the realization that I still had a lot of anxiety, mild depression, and I wasn't truly happy. And that's when it, you know, it took a, it was a series of events with that as a backdrop that led me to realize I had been chasing the wrong thing all along. And I guess it's fortunate that I got to that finish line early enough in life where I could change direction

and reassess my values and my goals. But it's something that I think happens a lot. And it's not necessarily all bad in that, as I said earlier, by chasing those dreams, I created a lot of jobs. I've got a lot of folks who love to work. I've got some companies that do good for the world. You know, Discount Electronics keeps a lot of laptops and computers out of a landfill and Hotel Haku employs a lot of people that are happy to work on the beach and people

come there and relax and it makes their lives better. And so I'm happy with what I've done But now is the time that I've come to realize after after crossing the finish line that I was running the long race. Oh So what was the right race? How did you make that work? I mean, it's that's still a process but It's it's definitely been there's been a lot of change in my life since that first book was written. Did you notice that inside that, one of the, there's a byline of that book is learning to deal with ADHD and anxiety.

And what's changed in my life more than anything else is removing the anxiety rather than trying to deal with it is taking it out of my life and learning how to not have anxiety. Do you have some advice to people that are suffering from it and or on how to tame the beast there as it were? I do and you know a lot of what I put into practice is what's going to be in the next book and this first book, this well the second book or the first in the series is all about the mornings and what we do to set a foundation for the day. And it starts out pretty simple. And one of these that might be hard for a lot of people to adapt is called techno fasting.

And that's just staying away from all of the gadgets in the morning. And it's an important part of removing the anxiety from your life. Because when you wake up in the morning and you're in this calm state with data and alpha waves and you're ready to progress into the day nice and peaceful and you pick up a phone or turn on a computer or turn on the news, you're blasting yourself and all of a sudden you're in a state of data waves and you're shaking before your feet can hit the floor and it doesn't set a good stage. This is not the way that you want to start your day out but I've come up with a my stack stack in the morning is a ladder. It's probably more than anybody else.

Any sane person wants to get involved with. I cold plunge every day. I have a very extensive routine, but I'm gonna apply the 80-20 rule here. And then if you do 20% of what I do, you're gonna get 80% of the results. And we've put that into a very concise, small book that's more of a manual that really gives you a guideline.

And we start out with habits that you can use in your day that don't take a lot of time and don't take a lot of effort that are going to significantly improve your overall happiness, but then give you the ability to customize that so-called stack in a way that works for you, because everybody's life is different. Everybody lives in a different place, has different circumstances. Some people have young kids, some people are retired,

some people have all the time in the world, some have none. Now we're talking about the new book here that's gonna be coming out, correct? That's correct. Do you have a title for it and an anticipated date? It will be out this year. We, we haven't, there's not a title per se, but the website we're using for that book is my morning stack.com. And I doubt that that will be the title, but it could be. I mean, that's, that's really a pretty good description of the book,

my morning stack. And this is And this is what it is. And so helping people with ADHD, I mean, I think we were talking about Prisha about how I kind of beaten ADHD that I'd had all my life with old age. It seems like I just, my body had broken down. And then a couple of years ago, a year and a half ago or so, I discovered, you know, I had been working out for three years trying to, and I was trying to build this V taper body and this great muscle and this hard chest and every, you know, the dude sort of thing, sports naggered

looking thing. And I mean, not going that far, but you know, just building on my muscles. And for three years, I had just worked hard at the gym every other day. And I kind of in this place where I just could not get beyond a certain thing. I couldn't get my chest to tighten up, but muscle up. I could barely get, you know, muscle my arms. And so finally someone said, Hey, you know, go and, and, and see how your, your testosterone is doing.

And I actually had half of the testosterone I needed, but the free testosterone that you need for extracurricular activities, I guess, I don't know. I'm not a scientist. But basically, you know, for giving Chris extra muscle, eh, when he's working out, I wasn't getting enough of that. I didn't zero or something. And so they put me on it and it changed my life. The only problem was it brought back the OCD and ADHD like a mother. And yeah, it's been, it's still, it's still a daily fun grind to take and do, but I put on a lot of muscle. So I've got that going for me. And I do feel

great. I feel better than I ever have. I recommend any man out there who's over, I don't know what 40 or some 30, 35, 40. I see a lot of young guys in the, in the shop, but a lot of them, you know, there's, there's parabens and all these estrogenics that are our food and our cleaners and stuff that's really mucking with our stuff. So I'm glad you're putting out a book that helps people try and manage this because you really need it. Yeah. And you know, I don't, I don't see ADHD as an affliction. I hope that I have the level of it I have for the rest of my life. I hate to lose that flame.

It's really it's an important part of what I do and who I am. And I enjoy seeing it in young people. I talk to Taekwondo young children for a while. More than once I've had a parent apologize for a child because of their ADHD. And one woman even told me directly, she brought her child that I am so sorry, but little Johnny didn't get his meds. This seems perfectly normal to me. And later on this, that particular individual had really shaped up and became an excellent

student. It's difficult to, sometimes it's difficult because we try to categorize these children and put them in a particular place. Even when I was in school they moved me around. One year they put me in, I was in the third grade, they put me in a combination third, fourth grade class with the idea that they were going to jump the fourth grade and put me in the fifth grade the next year. And then they didn't, they put me in the fourth grade and that year they were thinking they needed to hold me back and give me the fourth grade again. You know it's a challenge and the educational system, the way we had needs a significant revamping,

to put kids in one 40-minute class after another, after another, whether you've got ADHD or not, that's not the way we really learn and we need to address that. But it is a problem for people with ADHD more than it is for people that don't have ADHD. But I still think it's a problem for people with ADHD more than it is a problem for people that don't have ADHD. But I still think it's a great asset and I think it makes for some of the happiest people I know are just as afflicted as I am. You know we do great adventures right? We're always ADHD on some new adventure and you know my biggest thing is like just the focusing sometimes, you know, cause you can, you know, you can be like, yeah, I'm going to work on this project or I'm going to work on these ideas here.

And then, you know, then you get the notification on your phone from CNN or, you know, Tik TOK or just Facebook or whatever. And I think it's harder now to have ADHD with social media and the, and the ping pongs of, you know, the mobile phones. Cause you and I both, I think grew up in the age without the phones. So you didn't have that rotary phone that weighed 500 pounds you could murder someone with by hitting them. I had one of those.

You didn't get notifications from that, eh? No, you didn't. But, Chris, there's some really simple ways to deal with modern technology, social media, and ADHD. And some of them are fairly simple. And one that I, I didn't make this up. I learned from somebody. I leave my phone and do not disturb all day. It's never on buzz.

If I, if I have something really important that I'm waiting for, I might keep the thing close by so I can check it, but I'm famous for picking my phone up and finding 300 messages in there. Are you married? I need to ask you that Rick. Are you married? Yes, I am. I'm married.

So what does your wife think of this? This do not disturb. Does she have a bat phone, direct line or something? She and I talk all the time. Even when we're not together, we have a couple of video calls a day and we've been together since we were kids. I mean, we met when we were teenagers and it's have a couple of video calls a day. And we've been together since we were kids. I mean, we met when we were teenagers. But it is a...

That phone is a really big distraction. That's why I think techno-fasting is such an important part of the daily stack. A lot of the stuff that we talk about in this new book can be shuffled around and you can mix and match to make it work for your lifestyle. But I think that that's a deal breaker. mix and match to make it work for your lifestyle. But I think that that's a deal breaker. You've got to, you have to learn to do without that device for the first two hours of the day.

But I use a lot of other tricks. As you mentioned, you get distracted by all this stuff. The computer can be just as bad as the cell phone. I'm looking, my computer's over here. I have an hourglass. It's a 30 minute hourglass. And I make a list of what I'm gonna do on the computer and then I walk over that flip that hourglass over and I don't just limit myself to the 30 minutes that are in that hourglass I want as much sand left in that glass when I finished possible and it's a bit of a game that keeps me on task

Oh, wow. I like that you gamified it you you've got a you've got a way that you use it to motivate yourself But you know also keep it from getting out of control, you've got a way that you use it to motivate yourself, but you know, also keep it from getting out of control. You know? I mean, I, like I say, I have that I can, I can be just on tick tock laying in bed going one more video spin, one more video, one more video spin, right? And then four hours later, the sun's coming up and I'm like, damn it. The damn mean death scroll. Mean death scroll. We all kind of, I think we all kind of get sucked into it. I don't know how many people have ADHD, but so, I mean, let's talk about some of the ways you've utilized it. I mean,

you started out according to the book, Messed Up Like You, where you were 15 when you were first arrested. You had issues with teachers underestimating you, barely finishing high school. You went to prison. Tell us about some, barely finishing high school, you went to prison. Tell us about some, you know, how did you walk through this gauntlet of, you know, not really maybe understanding what the ADHD was doing and, and of course people around you defining yourself. ADHD was the diagnosis I was given back then they called it ADD with hyperactive disorder or something the sort of had a longer name to it but that was just one of the things you know the rest of it was this.

Did they put you on sorry to interrupt you but I think it's pertinent did they put you on medication or have you ever taken medication for it? You know I didn't have medication until much later in life and I don't even remember I tried Prozac or something it was recommended to me by a GP. Must have been nearly 40 and I think I took it for a week. And that was, that was not, I did not like the new me. I don't even know the drugs at the time. And I was never really that upset with the,

and this conversation started out like this, I said to my GP, and we've known each other since we were both pretty much kids, and I said, I think I got ADHD. And he said, no, duh, you interrupt everything I said. And so, and so you never took the, you never took the pills. I mean, some, some kids, they put them on Ritalin and, and Zoloft and Prozac. I think I've done two sits on Rdle in when I got really bad with where it became crippling after some events and overwhelming and I couldn't shut down.

I was having anxiety and panic attacks. But other than that, just the short time that I've been on them for both just to balance me out, most of it's just been a struggle. So I like that you're making this book. One of the things I came up with a couple years ago was studying stoicism. And I realized that I was just being whipsawed by my phone and the notifications like we talked about. I wake up in the morning, the first thing I look at is a stupid phone. And I'm an entrepreneur, so you're kind of looking for fires where in the middle of the night, you know, we have an international clientele whether, you know, somebody's

Hey, this isn't working stupid fix it. And, you know, you, you know, so you're thinking I gotta deal with that now. And then you open up your email and just everyone's at you. Everyone's a piece of you. Everyone wants your, your reply, your data, your information. Same thing with, you know, you get addicted to the Instagram likes, the Facebook likes. And I came with a thing where I check my more, I do check my phone in the morning for emergencies. Like I just give a quick scan to make sure there's nothing on fire that I got to deal

with. And then I go in and I make my coffee, talk to my dogs. And then I go out and I sit in the sun and I start my circadian rhythms. And this, I'm giving you my morning stack, I guess. And so I sit in the sun, get my circadian rhythms going, soak up my natural vitamin D that's really important. I read usually something random out of meditations or other stoic books, hepatitis, whatever. And then I kind of think about them, I make some notes.

And then I just kind think about them. I make some notes and, and then I just kind of pondered my play with my dog. So I kind of connect with my family, connect with the environment, breathe in some fresh air. And then I come in, I sit down, I start the, my computer and I, I just feel like more like I'm in the captain's chair, like Captain Kirk. I kind of feel like I have more control and, and then I feel like I'm more calmer like it's not It's not that assault of you know 500 emails from last night going The world's on fire, you know, and you're like for Christ's sake I shouldn't never sleep

You know Chris you're you're on to a really good start for a morning and those are some really important things and getting outside to Reset your circadian rhythm is important start for a morning and those are some really important things and getting outside to reset your circadian rhythm is important and I also believe that you need to be out there at sunset at some point in time. You don't need to be right at sunset but you need that signal going to your body. Although my next book is about your mornings, without a good night's sleep you're not going to have a good morning. And you know the fact that you, you know reading is a great way to start the day,

it's rather than getting any type of technology. If you're gonna read something, I love Marcus Aurelius. So if you're a stoic fan, we can talk. All of the things that this guy, you realize when you read that, this was meant to be, this was his own personal, they were never meant to be published. And they weren't.

And what he went through and how he managed to focus and decide what's important, what's not important. You know, another person I wouldn't call stoic, but Dr. Stephen Covey is a favorite of mine. What's important, what's urgent, what's not important. And most importantly, what's not urgent and not important. You know, ringing phones and all of the urgency of a ringing phone and a not important task, trying to keep things out of the urgent and important quadrant,

all of that kind of ties together. But in order to make all of that work to your best ability, you need to start your day out at a really good foundation because I'm a data junkie, I use an aura ring and I can, sometimes I wish I didn't know, but one of the first things when I do pick up my phone in the morning for the first time, the very first thing I go for is my sleep data. I need to know how much deep sleep I got. And sometimes I regret looking at that number because if it's below 44 minutes, I start to get this uneasy feeling

like, oh, this isn't going to be a great day. And I've got an hour and came and you know, I'm wondering, you know, which, you know, is it, is the, is who's leading who here? Because sometimes I feel like I had that data. I might've had a great day anyway, but you know, sleep is a, is a big focus of mine. And but you've got a really good start to, day. Just getting outside, if you could just leave that phone alone for the first two hours and do that. I like to put off the caffeine a little bit and I use it almost as a reward. Although some people suggest it's not a great idea.

I'll do some things in the morning first. I'll do stretching and exercise and get outside, get some natural light, do some push-ups and some other things and then when I journal I drink I drink espresso and I'll drink my first espresso. It's kind of a reward You've got a good you've got a good start. What's your espresso machine? What brand is your espresso machine? That one I'm still there I'm still doing an espresso I'm still doing an espresso. I got into it in December and now Now only when you know this machine's a little bit of an overkill I had to do again. I bought one of those simple espresso machines, especially now that they have I always felt guilty of those things when they were going to landfill

But yeah, and I and I and espresso is also for somebody with ADHD and you know a little bit of anxiety I was drinking 10, 12 espressos a day. And that's not an exaggeration. I brought that down to three and that has helped my sleep. That's something else that people with ADHD often deal with is sleep because your mind is so active that if you wake up to pee in the middle of the night, you got 47 ideas between the bathroom and the bed. Shutting that down is a problem. It takes a lot of, you need to be a mind control expert to really be able to sleep and focus when you have ADHD because there's so much more

going on there. Yeah. Or you think of something. The one thing I found is the worst thing that I can ever do when I get up in the middle of the night or I'm trying to sleep is look at that damn blue light phone. Cause immediately as soon as that blue light thing, you're bringing those little stupid, but I like, I like you like tracking my sleep. I always people where if I don't get ours is within a 24 hour period. I mean, I can kind of go for a day

But there's murdering that might take place and the judge says I can't do it anymore I get one of my six ankle bracelets off next week For the last one anyway, but no I I will usually check my and we have to express it right away I'm one of those bears Where my girlfriends call me the bear. Where basically when I wake up in the morning, you don't talk to me for two fucking hours, unless you want to lose a limb. Like I'm that guy.

I'm not a morning person. I'm, I'm you. Yeah. You, you'd have, you'd have a funner thing playing, I don't know, rock, paper, scissors with death in the morning than messing with me. And so everyone knows even my express machine has a little yellow sign that says, no coffee, no talkie. It's a warning sign.

So it takes me a while to get going and I have to have the caffeine. I've got an eight sleep bed. It's really cool. And the eight sleep bed, like your R ring, tracks my sleep and then patterns of REM sleep and deep sleep. And I found that data is really handy. And it also tells me, you know, it was interesting what you said about how the, the, what, what the, the, the, the,

the wag the dog from the tail maybe with, with the R ring running your life. Where you're like, do I have a good day or day? Cause I didn't get enough sleep. But I've just kind of learned that if I don't get, you know, if it doesn't say eight hours on my eight sleep bed, I just go, Hey, I'm going to have to schedule a nap for an hour or two or something in the afternoon and balance it out. Otherwise there's a murdering. I get a text message from my eight sleep. And then I look at the app and you are, I compare the two. Isn't that thing? The great dude, there's one product that I have that

I cannot live with. It's the eight sleep. I can there's one product that I have that I cannot live with it's the eight sleep. I can live without everything else. I have one every place I live we have a sleep mattress cover and it's constantly you know telling you're leaving arriving and it can be a little complicated the absolute funky but yeah it's a big difference in it. It has really turned me away from travel a little bit because I love to go places and I just made a trip a little while ago to Buenos Aires and although I had a great time I didn't have the best sleep

Yeah, and I bring along a little light light with me so that I'm not getting blinded You know with using their bathroom lights and stuff because I don't want to stop my melatonin production. I got a smart team that's fine But without the eight sleep, yeah, it's tough, you know because I don't want to stop my melatonin production. And I got a pretty hard for my team. That's smart. But without the eight sleeve, it's tough. You know, you just the room's not the right temperature. I can't, you know, I need it to be 68. I need the eight sleeve. I need complete blackness.

You know, we we revolve to live in a cave. And that's kind of the environment that I create in my bedroom. Yeah. Our brains go, Hey, there's light. You wake up and go hunt tigers and make sure they don't come in the house. And, you know, Oh, you know, it's gone dark. It's asleep. But yeah, the eight sleep is in fact, I just went three weeks without mine here at the house.

It went down. I, I popped it somehow. I don't know. I, it's been two or three years and I run really hot. So I think I start melting some of the insides of it because I run on 10 like all the time. And so I went three weeks without it and I couldn't figure out why I was so miserable. And everyone was like, man, why are you being so miserable? You're really on really. What's going on with you? I'm like, I don't know. I'm just not sleeping. And then I realized it was the eight sleep. And so we just got the eight sleep four now

in and we're going to review it for eight sleep. And so I'm really excited. So now I'm sleeping this last few days. I've actually had good sleep. Yeah. I mean, these simple things, you know, we were talking about sleep, you know, getting out of the sun, vitamin D, getting some fresh air, You know, getting out of the sun, vitamin D, getting some fresh air, you know, not being towed through the social media, email, you know, assault in the morning. I mean, I literally was starting to feel just like I was under assault every time I'd open my email because it's just, you know, it's all these emails. You're trying to prioritize them. You know, you've got a couple of fires you got to put out.

So you're like, okay, we'll go to prioritize the fires. And I just really started feeling assaulting. And I found that doing that, I guess, if you don't mind if I call a stack, I know you probably have a different one that's more complicated. But by doing that, it just kind of prepared me. It was kind of like walking up to the podium, as opposed to running a full blast from, you know, across the, from a mile away and you're out of breath and you're just trying to scramble and take it all in. I don't know.

You know, having a plan for the morning is a big help too. If you've got, you know, whatever it is, it's on your calendar. Even this, this, our meeting today is on there. So I know what I've got coming on a piece of paper, not on the computer screen, but on a piece of paper where I can look at it when I get up and kind of think through my day, both at night before I go to bed. That's usually when I make that list.

And then look over in the morning and kind of get it just a game plan for today. And always try to leave myself enough space for urgent matters that pop up. And for time for myself where I don't have to be scheduled all day long and you know I of course you and I don't get any any commissions for these plugs for eights and we know we need to call them in I have another tool that you'll like you've mentioned email three times and I've recently started using an app called Superhuman.

Superhuman. That has been a bit of a game changer. So I, you know, our mail is done by Google's mail servers, Gmail, and that might, I've been using their default interface for as long as I can remember. And I was searching for a way to get, I love Manus, it's my favorite AI tool. I could go down a big rabbit hole without it, but I won't. But anyway, I was looking for a way, asking Manus how to sort my email and do a better job. Maybe you could ask for some of my email for me. And I think either it or Chat TTP suggested looking at Superhuman. And I did, I downloaded it. I want to say there's a little bit of a learning curve. And you know, maybe

the first day or two, I was less productive and a little frustrated. And there's a little bit of a learning curve and you know, maybe the first day or two I was less productive and a little frustrated and it took a little bit longer to get through the mail. But by day three I was at even and by day six I was like, wow, wow, the organization in your inbox could do that much for you. And it's more than just organization but it is a game changer. There you go. Yeah I'll have to check it out. I got it pulled up here. I think we're just promoting everybody but you and us or whatever. We're gonna have to make some calls after the show and say hey we used your guys' name. We need some money man. Eight Sleep.

You know I'd rather just help some people out you know if they can sleep better with eight sleep and they can spend less time on their computer with superhuman I maybe I'm earning a little karma credit. And full disclosure for those out there in the YouTube industry or whatever we've reviewed eight sleeps since eight sleep too so we don't pay for our eight sleep beds. So did I make you jealous? But full disclosure, but it really is seriously the best freaking, you know, bed out there. We've tried a few different ones and yeah, there's some good stuff out there,

but you know, the sleep is so important. And I think, do you think that's one of the top things that ADHD people need to kind of get control of and get a handle on, get that good, healthy, deep sleep? I think that everybody needs to get a handle on sleep and I don't think it's just related to people with ADHD because I've seen that it's made a big difference in my wife's life as well.

She's anything but ADHD. I lived the first 38 years of my whole life as a drinker. And I don't think I ever really had a night's sleep until I stopped drinking. And that's just been about a year ago. That's when I, you know, I went through a lot like, ah, you know, I've never had a hangover. I sleep great to realize that I never really slept. I just passed out and I had a hangover every day. I just didn't know it because that's just the way I felt.

Yeah, it was that when I quit drinking that I really started to fall asleep and understood the difference and not realizing before just how great you really can feel. And then like you said with the eight sleep just a minute ago when that thing broke, you're so used to feeling great and having a great night's sleep that when you don't it's like what just happened, you know Feel but yeah, I got me a like a heating blanket and then I was supposed to you know Send him a message saying hey, we need a new thing Sonani and I you know, I have ADHD So I fucked around and didn't get in contact with him for a week and a half So I went three weeks that I couldn't believe it.

But yeah, it's, it's, I did the same thing with alcohol. We must be twins Rick, or we must have been separated at birth. So I did about 20 years of hard vodka drinking. I was in an addict. I want to make that clear, but I did abuse it. And I was using it mostly for ADHD and entrepreneurism. So the sugar in, in the alcohol would, you know, I could be tired. I could be at the end of the night, but you're just like, I got these

projects that need to finish or this paperwork or accounting, you know, whatever you're working on as an entrepreneur 24 seven and you know, I'd shoot back at night, a little bit of a half bottle of vodka, and then I get more work done, I'd be fired up and I'd be like, Hey, I've worked on it. Relaxed. I'm moving. And I actually believed for 20 years, like an idiot, I wish somebody would have just, I don't know, punch me in the face a couple of times, but I actually believe I slept

better having vodka and I cap vodka before bed. And you're right. I was lying to myself and, and bargaining with myself. And, and in reality, yeah, I fortunately around 50 or whatever COVID was around 2020, somewhere around my 52nd birthday or something, my body gave out, said, we're not doing this with you anymore. If you want to, you want to drink for a couple hours every night, we're going to make you feel dehydrated, shitty for three days. And I really tuned into my body too. I started eating well.

And so I started really noticing the effect it was having, but yeah, now I get the greatest sleep of my life. There's no hangovers. Edibles are a good thing. Edibles. I don't know if this is a topical or in any of your books or anything, but have you ever tried edibles as a way to kind of calm. But remarkably, when I quit drinking, I drank every day for 38 years.

I took two nights off to take my son on a boys scout camp. So I would use THC at the same time I was drinking and never, you know, it was fine when I quit drinking and I tried to use THC. It was just too much. Really? Well, this is this is anxiety causing and you're getting anxiety from it. Wow. And it's dosing.

So I use a dropper and if I am feeling a little wound up and I don't know the milligrams, but I think my correct dose is about two milligrams of indica in a drink, maybe three milligrams and that's enough to really kind of really bring me down and calm me down and feel good. And I do use CBD every night. So I can't say I'm completely drug free. I use 200 milligrams of CBD and I take 24 milligrams of melatonin every single night, about an hour before I go to bed. I've got a pretty good ritual.

I'm in bed every night at the same time, usually before 10 o'clock. I've just changed that a little bit. It was 9.15 and that wasn't getting me enough deep sleep. I found that I got better deep sleep. I waited a little bit longer in bed, so I'm going to bed a little bit later now, but pretty strict routine. And now I'm cutting longer in the bag. So I'm going about a little bit like now, but pretty strict routine. And, and now I'm cutting back on the caffeine. Gone from 12, espresso is down to three and that seems to be good.

Who knows? I might cut that out. I don't know. Every time I think about it, we won't be friends. If you cut out express, I live for that. But no, I've been, you know, I used to drink 10 to 15 mountain dues back in the day when I was, I mean, dude is, yeah. I mean, you know, I used to drink 10 to 15 Mountain Dews back in the day. I mean, dude is, yeah. I mean, you know what it's like.

You drank for three years. You there's a lot of what's the old dire straight song, heavy fuel. You know, you got, you got a lot of heavy fuel to keep the fires burning there. And the entrepreneurial journey, but my daytime poison was diet coke. Yeah. See, got all that caffeine and, and the entrepreneurial journey. But my daytime poison was diet Coke. Yeah. See, got that caffeine and, and pop and sugar. And, but yeah, I, I, I hope I never have to give up coffee. I really like coffee and espresso now.

The espresso has helped me, you know, just make better coffee and, and really appreciate coffee more. And of course it tastes way better than that shit you put in it. And you get from Starbucks, but having a, probably a sleep schedule where you have a, a S you keep, keep yourself on a schedule is probably really important as well too. It definitely is. I mean, the strategy really must become really important to me.

And then, you know, I, if I, if I follow my own rules, I see really good. And if I see really good, I have amazing days. And when I start to break those habits and I don't do what I need to do to get the right sleep, I was abusing caffeine, keep myself going through the day, not borrowing on my future. And then causing myself to get worse sleep the next night because I'm so amped up from the caffeine. I tried to see that movie.

It's a, it's a vicious circle. It's alcohol is very self-serving in the same way. You know, it was causing anxiety and then I would mute the anxiety with the alcohol at six o'clock the following day. Yeah. Yeah. I think we, it sounds like it's going to be a good book that you're going to have come out on how to do these stacks because it sounds like, uh,

some of us are entrepreneurs. We have a kind of a problem, but you know, we were, it's the heavy fuel man, six cigarettes. It's tough for entrepreneurs, especially in the beginning, you know, and because when you get to the point where it's not a complete struggle every single day anymore, you do start to run out of excuses. But I lie. There are two types of people in the world. Those who have lied awake in the middle of the night wondering how they're going to make

payroll and those who haven't. And when you live that life, it's easy to become abusive of alcohol or anything else because you feel the need to shut it off because it won't stop. The end of the day doesn't bring the end of the anxiety. It doesn't bring the end of the worry and the concern. And that's a tough part. I know a lot of entrepreneurship gets this glamorous shiny thing attached to it, but there's some, it's a, I don't know that I would take that path in my life again.

I'm certainly glad I would never change anything I've done this go around, but I don't know that I would make the same choices if I had not done that. I would definitely start eating better earlier and taking care of myself sooner. You know, tell me if you did the same thing I did, I kind of had this Faustian bargain. I play with myself. I'm going to just do the heavy fuel now, the cigarettes cocaine all night and the girls, and then I'm just going to make the money and finally make it work.

And then when it's successful, I can kind of, I don't know, go to the gym. And Chris, I think we all do. You know, it's successful, I can kind of, I don't know, go to the gym. Chris, I think we all do. It's not just that, but we do that with a lot of things. I'll be happy when or I'll be happy if. But in my real turning point where I started to get healthy and got the idea that two things happened pretty close together. When I turned 30, I had my first kid and there were no cell phones back then. We sent the photos off to get them developed and they came back. I was like, who's that fat kid holding my kid?

I had to look at the picture twice like, shit, that's me. You know, and shortly at that point, I was doing nothing for myself. I mean, I was just chilling my body slow, quick and proud. And then shortly thereafter, a very good friend of mine, he's really kind of my adoptive father Ron Fleming We we had a party for him and I want to say it was his 50th birthday party He's probably 78 or that so I don't but anyway, he told me at his birthday He said Rick if I had any idea I was gonna live this long. I'm taking better care of myself. Yeah, and that's

I was going to live this long. I'm taking better care of myself. And that's, isn't it funny? You know, it's funny. I watch, it's funny. I'll watch the guys from the who, Roger Dalton and, and I can't remember the guitarist name on top of my head. I didn't get enough sleep last night. Evidently. I actually went to the gym, worked out really hard and I've been up all night. I've just been fired up with dopamine or some shit. Tick tock. Yeah. That too. And, and you know, what was that line that they famously saying? I hope I die before I get old. I think we all kind of have that mentality where, where, you know, I, yeah,

getting old is like down the thing. And then you wake up one day and you're like, Holy shit, I'm old. You know, you got little girls at the, not little girls, but they, they seem a little to me now, you know, at the, at the grocery store going, sir, and you're like, I'm not a what sir. So as we round out, what else do we want to promote to tell people things they want to find out more about you? Do you do any coaching or consulting? Can people reach out to you for the help advice on all the

different things you're working on? I don't do any consulting or coaching. Anybody's welcome to reach out to me if they need some advice in some regard. And you know, more than anything else, I think if I wanted to leave somebody with one thought is that, you know, your past doesn't define you. And you've got a lot of choices. I learned this flying an airplane. You don't die until you run out of choices.

So you, you, you, you are in complete control of your destiny, no matter where you are in life right now. Just take a look, decide what it is that you want to do, what you want to be, and then make the right choices and turn yourself in that direction. It's hard work, but it's worth it. Yeah, it's definitely worth it, but take better care of yourself. So many entrepreneurs, they kill themselves, and I think they might die an earlier death. I don't know. But it takes a toll, the stress of being an entrepreneur, the stress of life, even if

you're not an entrepreneur, it takes a toll. Things aren't easy right anymore if you haven't looked around lately. There's always some new thing coming. We had the COVID crisis a while ago. You know, right now we got tariffs and no one knows what's going on with the economy. And you know, there's always challenges, there's always stress. And you know, you've got to be able to manage it. But taking care, I think of what you're talking about in your upcoming book, that stack of setting a foundation in the morning, launched on your day, right?

Taking care of the most important things about yourself starting out with calmness with peace It just it just changes your whole day in my experience from the little stack I use So Rick as we go out give us your dot-coms tell people any place they want to reach out to you, et cetera, et cetera. If you want to see more about the new book, you can find that at mymovingstack.com. That's probably the best place to go. And then I couldn't remember, there's not a title yet, right? There's not, no, that'll probably be the very last thing to happen. If it's anything like the last book, it'll be when we need to make the cover, we need a title.

You know, I couldn't remember? Cause I have ADHD, scroll. That's my excuse for everything these days. Thank you very much Rick for coming to the show. We really appreciate it. Thanks Chris. It's been great talking to you. It's been wonderful to talk to you as well. Lots of fun.

Brother from another mother evidently. Messed up like you, how ADHD and anxiety didn't stop me from becoming a successful entrepreneur. If you have ADHD, it will definitely help you out and order it now because otherwise you're going to go squirrel. So get on Amazon. Anyway, thanks for tuning in.

Go to goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, Chris Foss one on the Tik Tok, Gideon and all those other crazy places on the internet, be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time. And that should have a.