Designing Around My Brain

For most of my career, I thought there was something wrong with how I work.

I lose interest fast once a problem feels predictable. I jump between ideas before I finish one. I rebuild things that still work because I can already see the version that should exist. For years I thought that meant I couldn’t focus or finish.

Later I learned I have ADHD. It didn’t change who I am, but it helped me understand why my mind moves the way it does. My brain connects ideas quickly and chases novelty. It looks for patterns before structure. That helps when something is being built or reimagined, but it makes maintenance feel impossible.

When I finally understood my ADHD, it explained how I think. When I saw my Business Chemistry profile, it explained how I show up. I was mostly Pioneer, with some Driver and Integrator, and no Guardian at all. In that model, Pioneers are the ones who chase new ideas, move fast, and see patterns before they are clear.

It made sense. I start things. I look for possibility. I care about people and results, but I have little patience for repetitive work or long cycles. My brain runs on curiosity and energy. Once things become stable, my focus disappears.

That pattern has followed me everywhere.
I thrived in consulting because in the same week I might be deep in travel, health tech, telecom, recruiting, and meditation, working with large organizations, two-person founder teams, and scaling startups all at once. The variety was not a distraction. It was fuel. It gave me constant novelty, fresh problems to solve, and the freedom to keep learning fast.

In my early jobs, anything repetitive drove me crazy, so I found ways to automate it. I wrote scripts that removed the repetition. I took joy in optimization, in watching a system work without me. That joy in efficiency turned into a habit of design. I learned to find patterns, build standards, and turn chaos into something reusable.

That same instinct followed me into bigger work.

I helped incubate new product lines for businesses that were starting to lose traction, running lean value experiments, building MVPs, and testing Wizard of Oz prototypes to find real problems and product-market fit. Later I helped launch large-scale digital loyalty experiences used by millions of customers. They were completely different challenges but driven by the same mindset: experiment, learn, connect, and scale what works.

The common thread was always there: take something complex, connect the parts, and make it work better for people.

That mix has shaped almost everything about how I lead. I thrive in transformation work, where the problems are messy and the path is unclear. I can connect teams that do not normally overlap and see how the parts fit before they are visible. But in the same environments, I can also frustrate people who value consistency. What feels like momentum to me can look like impatience to them.

For a long time I tried to fight it. I forced focus. I tried to stay still. I tried to act like I enjoyed repetition. None of it worked. I burned out or checked out.

Eventually I realized I needed to stop forcing it and start designing around it.

Now I work in a way that fits my wiring.

I get ideas out of my head fast so they can be seen, tested, or challenged. I keep my work visible so it stays real, not theoretical. I build with people who love finishing as much as I love starting and give them full ownership early. I default to small bets and experiments that move learning forward instead of waiting for permission or certainty.

I turn messy patterns into systems and hand them off once they can stand on their own. I keep creative projects running on the side because variety keeps me sharp. I’m intentional about what I take on and choose work that challenges me, and actually makes something better.

It is not perfect. I still move too fast. I still forget things. But I no longer call it broken. The same traits that make it hard to sit still are the ones that help me see patterns early and build systems that last.

Over time, I realized those same traits also make me a good teacher.
I coach others through the same chaos I used to fight, helping them design their own ways of working instead of copying someone else’s. I build frameworks and systems that outlive me so teams can move faster without depending on my speed. Seeing something that once felt like a limitation become a structure that helps others grow is still one of the most meaningful parts of my work.

That mindset has become a core part of how I lead. I focus on outcomes over activity, context over control, and learning over perfection. I try to build systems that teach themselves, ones that keep improving even when I am not there to drive them. That is the real measure of progress for me now.

If you recognize yourself in this, you are not scattered. You might just be wired for novelty in a world that rewards repetition. The goal is not to fix it. The goal is to understand it and design around it.

That is what I am still learning. And it feels like progress.