The Variance

Late diagnosed. No meds — bad heart valve, stimulants were never an option. For most of my life I was navigating this without even knowing what I was navigating. What I finally figured out through experience is that the wiring wasn't the problem. It was the environment. Find the terrain that rewards what you are, and everything shifts. That's what Children of Chaos is built on. If your wiring has ever felt like the enemy, it probably wasn't. It was the terrain. Learn more →..

How our inherited tools shape — and limit — what we think is possible. The kitchen knife was not designed around task optimization. It just ended up that way because of the connection to knife design in general. The shape made sense given the constraints of the time — forged metal, a handle you could grip, a blade that could be sharpened on a stone. But the linear knife wasn't originally optimized for cooking. It was optimized for staying alive. When a single blade had to ser

Part 3: Maximizing the Value of High-Variance Wiring on Your Team This is part three of a four-part series on ADHD and organizational dynamics. Parts one and two were written for the person living inside the wiring — how to add value as a peer, how to navigate the relationship above you, how to build the currency that funds everything else. This one changes chairs. Thanks for reading The Children of Chaos! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This one

PART 2: Value-maxing as an ADHD Subordinate This is part two of a four-part series on ADHD, leadership and organizational dynamics. Part one was about the team — how to add value as a peer, build currency horizontally, and stop performing as a normative version of yourself that was never going to hold. This one moves up. The relationship with the person above you. Same wiring, higher stakes. Because the person above you controls your terrain, your tasking, and your trajectory

The right structure doesn't suppress high-variance wiring. It gives it somewhere to go. I was recently fortunate enough to have the opportunity to appear on Faster Than Normal with Peter Shankman. Not only is he an amazing host but the interview covered a lot of common ground that can hopefully be beneficial to other Children of Chaos. Not only did our shared neurological wiring have similarities but also the way that we approach focusing it in a productive manner. FULL AUDIO

What a Miscellaneous Billing Classification Reveals About a System That Was Never Built for the People It Claims to Serve By Douglas Katz I did not come to this work as an expert. I came to it as someone whose body stopped cooperating. After years of military service and a lifetime of physical activity, the cumulative damage caught up with me. My shoulder. My grip. Upper extremity impairments that turned something as fundamental as preparing my own food into a daily negotiati