I have a theory that the vast majority of founders I have worked with have ADD or ADHD. (Some of them self-admitted.) This is obviously not a clinical diagnosis of my client roster. Please do not alert the medical boards. I'm an operator only in a business sense. (Despite my attempt at triaging appropriately.)
Still, I know the patterns. Five projects going at once. 47 tabs open on their three different types of browsers. (One of them is running agents! Because AI.) Three new projects before launch. A Slack message at 11:42 pm because they finally put together what we have been trying to work through all week.
Mad ability to move between multiple often unrelated things at once. Slightly less impressive ability to close the loops on all of these killer ideas. I’ve spent 15 years helping train and harness the power of that brain.
Then last year, I started my own fractional business. And BOOM. Turns out when it’s my baby, I am exactly that human.
I didn’t realize how much structure was holding me up.
I was diagnosed with ADD after starting my business.
Looking back, I assume it had probably been there for a very long time. I just functioned really well. Actually, some of the things I now recognize as part of how my brain works were things I considered strengths. I am fantastic at multitasking. In fact, it’s a real challenge for me to only work on one thing at a time.
I was always the glue person. Holding a million things at once. I could move from finance to marketing to CS without ever losing the plot. It even helped me connect the dots across departments for others. I could see relationships between things happening in totally different parts of a business. (This is, BTW, extremely useful when your entire career is basically: walk into messy company, figure out why the hell everything is connected, fix it.)
Once I started my own company, though, it wasn’t just connecting those dots across one company. It was connecting cross-functional dots across several companies at once.
There was a point in my first 6 months of building this where I had a real breakdown moment. I was completely overwhelmed and unsure how to get myself out of this spiral.
This is where I tried to listen to all of my own advice. Set up my own structure. Take time for me. (Yoga and breathing exercises work wonders…) Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
I talked about founder ADD in my recent live appearance with Cory Blumenfeld . The more we talked about it, the more I realized it shows up in my work.
Most founders are fantastic at opening loops. They can see the thing that no one else can see. They connect an issue CS is having with something happening in sales, which then reminds them of the product idea, that then leads to the partnership they’ve been thinking through. Which obviously then needs to be Slacked to their other glue person before they forget.
That brain can build a hell of a company.
The issue begins when the rest of the team is forced to react to ALL of these ideas and paths. At some point, your team cannot tell where you want them to go or how they can contribute to the success of the company. Meanwhile, the founder is wondering why the heck no one can follow at their pace, and they have to hold it all.
This is also why I’ve changed the way I think about my role with founders.
For a long time, I thought I was simply the Type A operator or integrator keeping a visionary person organized. There is definitely some of that. We all know how much I LOVE a system.
Actually, though, I think I’m good at working with these brains because I understand them.
I can follow the five jumps you just made in a conversation. I see why Idea #4 suddenly feels incredibly important. I can usually see the connection you’re seeing between three completely different parts of the company. My job is then to help you decide what we are actually going to DO about it.
So if you’re in one of those moments right now where EVERYTHING feels important, here’s what I want you to try.
Get it all out of your head first. Every project, weird idea, customer issue, Slack message you need to answer, thing you swear you’re going to remember later.
Put it somewhere you can see it. (Yep, literally on a doc.)
Then ask yourself three questions:
What actually needs me?
What can someone else own?
What am I willing to deliberately NOT do right now?
The goal is NOT to stop having ideas. Please, please don’t. Some of your very best founder instincts probably come from the same brain currently making you want to launch six things before Friday.
You just need somewhere for all of that energy to go besides directly into the operating system of the company.
I’ve had to learn the same lesson about myself. I don’t need to become a person who only has one tab open. Frankly, that seems unrealistic and a little boring.
I DO need systems that help me close the important ones.
Turns out that’s pretty much what I’ve been building for founders all along.
If you’re sitting in one of those moments where your brain has 47 tabs open, and you can’t tell which one actually matters, bring me one messy thing.
One process. One bottleneck. One project you cannot seem to close. One “I know this needs fixing but I don’t even know where to start.”
In Office Hours, we’ll spend 60 minutes pulling it apart together. You’ll walk away with a clear document outlining what I would do next, what matters first, and what can wait.
No giant consulting engagement required. Just one hour, one mess, and a plan.
Nothing helps myself diagnosed ADHD more than accomplishing something really simple, it's an amazing momentum builder