S2E48: ADHD, Self-Trust & the Art of Simplicity + guest Dominic Carubba

Julie Legg speaks with Dominic Carubba, a former U.S. Army officer, sales leader, and ADHD coach who was diagnosed later in life after decades of high performance that masked a quiet erosion of self-trust. Dominic shares how ADHD can drive overcomplication, overthinking, and constant attempts to compensate for perceived shortcomings. Even when life looks successful from the outside, internally many ADHDers feel like they are always catching up, always trying to prove themselves. 

The conversation explores how cycles of abandoned projects, unfinished ideas, and chronic urgency can slowly chip away at confidence. Dominic explains why simplifying systems, building visible wins, and learning to forgive yourself are key to rebuilding self-trust. This episode is a reminder that ADHD isn’t about being broken. Often it’s about learning to design systems that work with your brain rather than constantly trying to fix it. 

Key Points from the Episode: 

• Late ADHD diagnosis after decades of high performance 
• The hidden cost of overcomplication 
• How unfinished projects erode self-trust Imposter syndrome in capable ADHD adults 
• Why ADHDers often add more systems instead of simplifying 
• Visible wins as a way to rebuild confidence 
• The importance of learning to say no Lowering the bar to rebuild momentum 
• Designing systems that work with ADHD brains 
• Persistence vs consistency 
• Self-forgiveness as part of growth 
• Why ADHD isn’t something to eliminate, but learn to work with 

Links:

• WEBSITE: https://momentum.theadhdleader.com/
• YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/salesandtechnologyconsultants
• INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/the_dominicx
• LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominiccarubba/

Thanks for listening. 

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🌐 WEBSITE: ADHDifference.nz  

📷 INSTAGRAM: ADHDifference_podcast 

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 ℹ️ DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect those of the host or ADHDifference. Read More

Transcript

DOMINIC: If you're creating your own system, I think the one thing that I learned the most is it's not the consistency that you should expect. That you should expect yourself to be inconsistent, but when you notice it, remind yourself that you're building the strength of persistence. And so when you fall off the wagon, be thankful you can get back on, right? And then the other thing I learned a couple years ago was maybe learn to forgive yourself.

JULIE: Welcome to Season 2 of ADHDifference. I'm your host, Julie Legg, ADHD advocate, author of The Missing Piece (a woman's guide to understanding, diagnosing, and living with ADHD), and an unapologetic doer of many things. This season, we're turning up the volume with a global lineup of brilliant guests, bringing their lived experiences, insights, research, strategies, and resources. And of course, along with a healthy dose of humour and humility, whether you're neurodivergent yourself or just curious, there's something here for every curious brain. Let's dive in. Today, I'm joined by Dominic Carubba, a former commissioned US Army officer and longtime sales leader who was diagnosed with ADHD later in life. After decades of high performance, his diagnosis helped him understand the invisible friction underneath the success, the over complication, the burnout, and the subtle loss of self-trust. Now he helps entrepreneurs with ADHD restore forward motion by simplifying, clarifying, and building systems that actually fit how their brains work. Today's conversation is about that quiet erosion of self-trust and how over complication, especially for ADHD brains, can slowly chip away at confidence even when life looks successful from the outside. It's about ADHD, self-trust and why sometimes the bravest move isn't doing more, it's doing less, better. Welcome to the show, Dominic. [Hey, Julie. Good to see you.] Good to see you too. Right, you were diagnosed with ADHD later in life, as myself, but for you it was after years of high performance in sales and leadership. So looking back, where do you now see over complication showing up in your life before diagnosis?

DOMINIC: I remember the very first time I was in elementary school. I think it was either first... I think it was first grade and it was a Catholic school. Of course everything had to be exactly right. And I remember writing... they had us writing a postcard and I remember writing my postcard like all the, like I filled out all the letters in the beginning and then I needed more room so I started writing all around the edges. I don't know why it seemed like a good solution, right? I don't know why I remember that but I was six or seven when it happened. You know, I have a... I don't know. Here's the thing. It showed. I didn't notice it showing up because remember that was 40, 50 years ago, right? So, I just got spanked a lot. I got, you know, reprimand, disciplined a lot. You know, it was.. I was a failed conduct. It wasn't complication as far as I could tell because I had the energy to keep up with all of the stuff. It was a lot easier to keep up with all the things that were going on. And I had a very turmoil upbringing, like high turmoil. My parents got divorced twice. All and all we go into the whole history of it, but it's just like there's a lot of things going on. It all seemed kind of normal, you know, and it all fit and I had a lot of energy to keep up with. I'm still a pretty high energy person, but after diagnosis and as I get older and as you know, life changes, it's what I see now is there's less runway that I have to correct my mistakes. And that's when it became more and more important to like adjust that complication. It didn't occur to me, but it didn't, it also didn't go with my diagnosis. And I got diagnosed. And then a couple years later is when I really I took on the... here's what I took on. I took on this idea that I wanted to be... I was tired of people not thinking I was reliable. And I wanted to be reliable. Like I thought look, I'm reliable. Why does everybody think I'm not reliable? So, I engaged in this effort to learn what it was that was keeping me from being reliable. Still never connected the dots with ADHD. Remember, I got diagnosed in '94. I was one of the first diagnoses after the it came out in the book, but there was no help for it, right? I was just on my own like go do this. And I went and I started to take medication and I didn't because I did a Tony Robbins seminar. I was like, I could beat my chest, do this. that lasted a couple of years till I went back to school and I realized that the medication actually did make a difference. It so there's a lot of things I discovered but I still didn't start getting treatment literally till about two years ago. I'd learned a lot, seen a lot, noticed that it had become really popular, lots of books, but didn't realize it they made a lot of... they covered a lot of ground in the last 30 years since I got diagnosed, you know. 

JULIE: Definitely. And I think being diagnosed with and then there being no follow-up, just relying on medication but no tools or strategies or mentors, it's almost like a wasted diagnosis in a way. Here it is. Here's your ticket. It's a ticket to nowhere particularly. So yeah, so much has changed in the last 30 years. It's been glorious. 

DOMINIC: Yeah. I had a friend who had an eating disorder. And the biggest challenge with like an eating disorder is that you still have to eat. And the biggest challenge like because you could stop, you could stop hanging out with people that do drugs or you could stop hanging out in places that serve alcohol if that's your addiction of choice, right? But you got to eat. Well, the symptoms of ADHD for me are the same symptoms everybody else has, just not to the same degree. And I think that's what the world they all they hear all this ADD stuff now because there's lots of influences out there doing their messaging and people are interested. We live in an ADHD world. We live in an ADD world, right? We're constantly bombarded with distractions, and so symptomatically, it's getting hard to tell who does and who doesn't have it, you know. 

JULIE: No, you're right. I mean purely by the clinical diagnosis when all of those questions, you're right. Are you distracted? Do you do you feel restlessness? All of these things 100% of the population could of course say yes I do. Yes I do from time to time. But it's the often or very often that sets us apart, isn't it, from a neurotypical versus ADHD really. I'd love to talk to you, Dominic, about your career and how you were feeling particularly on the surface you were succeeding, right? But internally, what was actually happening for you? 

DOMINIC: It's really funny because I thought about this, right? And I looked at the things I achieved early on in life. Like I achieved a lot of stuff really early on, but then I had and it looked here's the thing. A lot of it looked like circumstances, but as I look back and I can I can trace back, right? You know, like chronic urgency, all the mental noise. I didn't even know what anxiety was until a couple of years ago. I just thought that's how everybody lived with the voices in their head. You know externally I was confident but internally I was always compensating and it was for me the drive. I was the youngest of three boys and so survival was really my main goal most of the time, right? My brothers were three and four years older than me and I was a toy to them I think. But it's just it feeling like I was always going to get found out. I always felt like a criminal in some ways, right? I always felt like it was, what I had done wasn't like wasn't enough, wasn't good enough. No matter how good I did, it was just always a means of compensating and never this, the experience of accomplishment or satisfaction in all those ways because I was always thinking about all the other things I didn't do, right? And so and worrying about people finding out and so yeah I think internally that that never-ending feeling of I have to do more, that I have to comp. I have to make up for all the things I didn't do over all that stuff is just exhausting. 

JULIE: Yeah. In today's language we've now learned a phrase for that and that's imposter syndrome. Yeah, for the very high achievers who still doubt themselves. I've somehow managed to get to the top through luck or oh no, someone's going to find out that I'm really not as brilliant as people tell me that I am. It's very... Yeah, very, very interesting. It does hit a lot of us for sure on over complication quietly eroding self-trust. How does repeatedly overbuilding or overthinking decisions chip away at someone's confidence over time?

DOMINIC: I have built a lot of evidence from all the things I abandoned that proves I can't be trusted to finish things. And it took me a long time to accept that part of myself that things, some things would come in and be around and be I'd give them a lot of attention for a little while and then I'd let it go and move on to another interest, right? It's probably why I stayed single till I was for nearly five decades. Officially I married, I got married when I was 51. But it was a cycle of feeling behind and trying to catch up. So, I'd give a lot of effort and attention to something instead of feeling like it was okay to be where I was at and just build from there. So, I would kind of rush in, do a whole lot, and then, you know, it wouldn't turn out the way I wanted it to. So, I would just something else would catch my attention. And again, like I said earlier, that was okay. It was okay. I could justify it much easier when I was younger because I could see a much longer runway to life than when I until I was about 30, I was still immortal, right? So, I was going to live forever anyway. So, what's the difference? Now, I kind of I've woken up some mornings. I don't feel so immortal. My back will tell me different in the morning. So, but I would build the evidence to not trust myself because of the conversation I was having about what all that meant. And so, that's the cycle that led up to the lack of self-trust. And that's actually the topic that had me start finding treatment. I heard a podcast about self-trust. I was like, what is this? And it was a podcast on ADHD. It was about self trust. A friend of mine with ADHD, we had talked about it. Said, "Hey, you should listen to this. This is great." And that woke me up to a lot of ah, I'm trusting the wrong part of myself. There's a part of myself I can trust, but there's a part that I can always look for evidence of things I can't trust. You can always find evidence for the thing you don't want or you don't like or you don't love about yourself, others, anything. You can always find evidence for anything you want. That's the beauty of being human. And I knew all this stuff. I trained all this stuff. I am an expert at all this mental mind stuff, but I wasn't using it. I couldn't see it for myself, you know. Really interesting. I hear a lot and I experienced it myself too. This standard narrative or our self narrative, our story concentrating on the things that we didn't achieve. The evidence that we are bad at this and we shouldn't be trusted because we're never going to be reliable because of all these reasons, you know, at a flick of a switch. 

JULIE: You can also look at all the evidence that you have been reliable, that you have showed up, you know. Every single day of your life you've showed up for something, you know. So yeah it's very, very interesting but it does take some digging and some work to switch that mindset over. Interesting as you said you do it. You're on top of the whole thing for others probably but for yourself isn't. Self-work takes work doesn't it. It's tricksome. 

DOMINIC: It does create this sense of we talk about reinforcing the imposter syndrome too, right? I mean I've had people come back to me and tell me the things that I can't, I've not, I don't see myself as doing really well, come back and thank me for teaching them how to do the thing that they're now doing really much better than me in my world. I'm like well how did that...? 

JULIE: Why do you think so many capable ADHD adults default to adding more systems and more tools and more layers to help themselves instead of simplifying? 

DOMINIC: I think hope is dope in our minds and we just hope that this one new thing will be the thing that was missing. I remember three years ago toward the end of the year I was like okay dude, let's just write down, let's just focus this year like you know coming toward the end of the year like doing my little review. Let's write down everything that's important and then I have a big whiteboard on my office over there. You can't see it. I got it down to 16 things. I was like trying to work on one but I got it down to 16 and now I'm kind of down to three. I'm kind of down to three. Kind of down to three. Like, hey, now I can look at that and say, well, that's about as one as I can get. You know, like for me, I think some of it is over complication is sometimes avoidance. I think that you know, there's always... look we're always either seeking pleasure or avoiding pain but not from the things that cause us pleasure or cause us pain but rather the things we think how we associate pain or pleasure to things. And complexity feels like I'm doing something like I'm getting my motor's running. I'm really working like I'm building, I got a sweat going, right? And because of the things that I'm doing, it's especially when they disappear into my screens, right? I'm not out doing yard work, you know, where I can see the results of it. And I'm doing something that that requires me thinking about it again the next day. Like when I used to bartend, bartender was one of the greatest jobs I ever had. But you know, you were in and you were immersed and then you were done and then life came on and you just did it over again, right? I didn't see a bright future for myself as a 65year-old bartender one day. Like I didn't want, I didn't see that being my future. So, but simplicity, you know, it just seems, boring sometimes, too. It gets boring. And I think that's part of the challenges with the ADHD brain. Sometimes it also feels like a defeat to simplify, like I had to give like almost like I'm giving up on something again, you know? And so there's all that and I got all then I got that big pile of unfinished things and I go oh I'm going to put another thing in the pile when that's exactly what I need to do sometimes is just put some more [ __ ] in the pile and go that's the pile of [ __ ] That's what it's called that for, right? That's why it's that. It's not the pile of gold. It's the pile of stuff you discovered you don't want. And if you do want it, go get it and bring it back. 

JULIE: And there are so many projects and hobbies always in our in our minds and on our yeah on our whiteboards or wherever we put them or just in our heads that we want to do and achieve. It's very difficult to prioritize some of those whether they bring us... whether it's we're doing it for joy or for money or whatever it may be trying to work out what's the best one. Yes, it can be tricksome. Dominic, there's something particularly painful about being outwardly competent but not feeling it internally. So if over complication breaks self-trust in your opinion, what actually rebuilds it? 

DOMINIC: It's a great question. What rebuilds self-trust is visible wins help. If you can create wins. I'll occasionally put check boxes on my whiteboard and check them off and feel building your relationship to your word and making commitments that you endeavour to, that I endeavour to keep, right? I mean I back that's when that reliability thought came up. I did a study on myself to find out, you know, was I reliable or not? Like I did a study for 30 days. I measured was I on time for every appointment in my calendar over 30 days and I was about 54- 55% on time. Now, my standard was if my appointment was at 12, like I was late for this call. So, by that standard, the standard was if it's supposed to be somewhere at 12:00, ready to go. And it was 12:00 in 1 second. When I showed up, I was late. I had a very strict standard. So then the next 30 days, I looked at my numbers. I said, "What can I do to improve?" I tried something different. I started I tried a practice of looking at my calendar in the morning and maybe looking at it at night. And then my numbers went up to about 70%. In the 70s and I was like, hm, that's interesting. So then I had two months worth of data that I could now look back on and go, I wonder what it is. And then I started to notice there was a pattern that developed after 60 days. There were some agreements I was in that six days 100% reliable. I was early. I could tell I was 100%. And the others give it who knows ruining my averages, right? Here's what it was. All the [ __ ] that I really wanted to do or if there was a serious... like I was in a men's group where there was a serious consequence of being late, like was important and urgent in my mind and I wanted to do it. If I was a yes I was a yes. I was a clear yes. What I discovered was I a yes person. I was saying yes to things I really meant no to. And so in that area that hit up all kind of notes of fear and all this other stuff, but again I was in a men's group so I had to man up, right? And I learned to say no a lot more often and so my percentages went up. 

JULIE: When someone's feeling stuck or a bit scattered, where do you actually start? Whether it's a mindset or a structure or I don't know, where do you start? 

DOMINIC: It's great because I've been practicing this for since 2010. And it starts with pick one thing that you're going to do for a period of time like 30 days, 40 days, 60 days, 90 days, whatever that is. And I've done it different time durations. They all create value if you're honest about what you're doing. And you just pick one thing. Read 15 minutes a day. And you got to get it in by midnight. And if you have somebody you can report that to by midnight, that just boosts it off the it makes it off the charts. That's how you start when you're stuck. You pick the smallest thing and build on it so that you can have a series of wins over and over and over again. And that's how you have because friction, we won't go into the physics of it, but like friction is right and it takes something to get over friction. That's how cars use like all this takes power to overcome friction. So lower the friction doesn't take as much power. So you have you can get started even with a low battery. It's all those things. So lower the bar to create motion and build on the wins consciously and when you fall off the wagon, be thankful you've created that little wagon to get back on. 

JULIE: Love that. Love that. And talking about strategies and approaches, you help people design systems that actually fit how their brains work. So what makes a system trustworthy for an ADHD mind? 

DOMINIC: It's I got to tell you it's no when I took my first psychology class way back when. The psych, the teacher said that when you go to a convention of speech therapists over half this the people there usually have a speech problem. I guess the same is true for psychologists, right? We got a problem. So, we go into it maybe there, right? So, I'm in that business of doing this for lots of other people, right? And it's actually counterproductive for me creating my own system because I jump into different systems all the time. But if you're creating your own system, I think the one thing that I learned the most is it's not the consistency that you should expect. It's you should expect yourself to be inconsistent, but when you notice it, remind yourself that you're building the strength of persistence. And so when you fall off the wagon, be thankful you can get back on. Right? I learned that from David Allen, wrote a book called Getting Things Done because I studied productivity because I had to. And so, and then the other thing I learned a couple years ago was maybe learn to forgive yourself. Not let yourself off the hook, but forgive yourself for being yourself and get back in. Just start back with the next thing there is to do. But it should be something, you know, simple to start. And like I teach complex systems that work, CRM and business and sales and all that, which I'm really good at all putting all that together. But for us with ADHD, if it works, use it. If it doesn't, let it go. And if you just happen to forget that it works, then be thankful you remembered and just start using it again. Give yourself a little grace. 

JULIE: Thank you. You know, with the fight or flight, there's also a freeze. And I think if we don't forgive ourselves and we stuck in that freeze moment because we don't trust ourselves, hence the self-trust thing and we become procrastinators because we don't want to make a decision because we don't trust ourselves. And we no longer take risks that we're actually really good at, even positive healthy risks, because we're even too scared of our own shadows. So, yeah, I agree that forgiveness is really the a starting block, isn't it. From painting things up in your current work and you're talking about CRM and if I had that right and the rest, what's most exciting for you right now in your work? 

DOMINIC: So, what I do for a living, apologize. I'm writing a book and it's called Unfuck Your Sales CRM because most times they're [ __ ] And they're [ __ ] not because of the technology, but the people and the way they use it and the way they think about it is mostly stuck, right? So, I can apply that to this. So, what excites me now is I had one of my clients call me up and say, "You know, after we I spent three and a half hours trying to figure this thing out, I called you, you were available, and in seven minutes, you solved it." This technical thing that I knew about. And he says, "Every time I call you, I just feel this sense of relief. I just I like ah I could call like so you know and that helping people achieve that little bit of okay that's not as big, it's not as bad, it's not as not big of a bummer that I thought it was. We can move through it." And I started a little group coaching group on my own because I'd been putting that off for 25 years and it's I'm just always amazed when people show up every Monday and Friday. I'm like, awesome. Somebody showed this is great. And I'm finding I trust myself by just hosting the call and being, you know, hey, they're not who didn't show. I didn't whatever. So, I'm finding and I'm learning. I'm doing that. But, I really do and have found a real excitement in helping people go from what I call the drift to the gift. That's what my little website says, right? Way disorganized, rushed, frustrated, inconsistent, tired. All those things we feel when we go down that tunnel of beating ourselves down to where you can get grounded, clear on your intention, focused, if not for long, but little while, right? And trusting yourself. That's the gift. And I'm really excited about watching and helping people in some of the conversations. And it turns out the less that I do, the less that I say, the more they discover on their own and the faster they're getting results now. So I've got some coaching and that's the most thing I'm talking about. Oh, I get to shut up. That's great. I'll talk on podcast now instead of talking in the group and I'm letting them do the work and they... because they know what to do. They just need somebody who loves them and cares them and knows what they're going through. 

JULIE: So many ADHDers are also really good at problem solving, solving other people's problems and you know other business issues. But to turn that in and would be, and I can see how it does work with you as the coach, you don't necessarily have to tell them what to do, but to put them in a in group environment where together they can piece things in and solve it together is wonderful. So a final question for you Dominic and that's for someone who is listening who feels stuck in cycles of overthinking or rebuilding and doubting themselves. What would you most want them to understand about self-trust and ADHD? 

DOMINIC: You are not broken. You're likely compensating, which is not necessary. There is an action for you to take and it's just closer to you than you're thinking about it. Instead of being present and looking at what's right here right now, bringing your attention to this moment. And you know, if you feel stuck in overthinking and trying to rebuild, which I do a lot, it's not a character flaw, it's a design flaw. And the great thing about design is you can change the design. You are the designer. And you're going to rebuild again anyway, right? You're going to go through it again anyway. So why not redesign it in a way that works for you first and see if that helps. And you know, what it... I come to this conclusion that it may never go away. Like this thing I think the biggest problem with ADHD is that we think that there is a solution. Oh yeah, if I take this medicine, if I do this thing or listen to this, it's going to all go away. No, no, no. You're just going to get better at getting back. So you see it. My best friend gave that to me. I have friends that go, "Hey man, you're kind of Domplicating things." I'm like, "Uh." So, it's always good to like train the people around. You already trained them in a lot of ways. Why not train them to help you notice what you can't see while you're in it? And that's when my friends came up with this idea of you're Domplicating it. I'm like, whoa. Okay. So, that gives me permission to breathe. It gives me permission to get present. It gives me permission to be aware that what I think is happening may not be happening. I could get here and see if I could think of something else. 

JULIE: That's marvellous. Oh, thank you so much, Dominic. Look, I really appreciate your time on the show today and I wish you all the very best with your very exciting business things and I really appreciate your insights on self-trust and over complication. It's been marvellous. 

DOMINIC: It's a journey and I'm glad to be on it and I'm glad to meet people like you that are in the conversation that are spreading the word that are getting you know, it's... I don't know if I let myself feel shame my whole life but I definitely know that as I would get deep into the focus of the things that weren't supporting my energy positive outlook and all those things that I could do that, there was a lot of shame, grief, regret, all those things that happened, right? And I think having conversations like this is going to allow people to know that, you know, maybe there's a purpose in it. Maybe there's a lesson in it. Maybe there's something that you could learn, share with other people, and maybe they'll you'll save somebody from making a really bad decision. So, thank you for that.