The Variance

On Independence as Dignity, Why Character Is the Word I Keep Coming Back To, and Why the Best Legacy Is Anonymity in Widespread Use I sat down with A.D. Edwards on Ingleside Reviews: Innovators Unveiled — a masterclass-style show on Bravehearts TV that goes beyond titles and success stories to explore the deeper journey of the people building ideas that change lives. A.D. structured the conversation in chapters, which forced me to slow down and go deeper on questions I don't

On Killing the Death Grip, Why Adaptive Design Isn't Charity, and Why the Cool Kids' Knife Should Be an Adaptive One I sat down with Amy Bolduc on Grounded In Maine — a warm, community-rooted podcast that explores lives lived with intention — for a wide-ranging hour-plus conversation that started with the meaning of NULU and wandered through the science of the kinetic chain, the ableism inside the disability community, the DARPA-style path for adaptive innovation, and why I w

On Cutting Without Grip, Why Kimberly's MS Diagnosis Made Her a Perfect Product Advisor, and How Adaptive Design Serves Anyone Who's One Second From a Diagnosis I sat down with Kimberly Nash on The Chronic Truth Podcast — a show built specifically for people navigating chronic illness diagnoses and searching for community and practical answers. Kimberly was recently diagnosed with MS and is losing fine motor control in her hands. She's exactly who NULU was built for, and our

On the In Medias Res Life, Why Ego Death Is Leadership, and How to Build Your Own Lightning I sat down with Matt Levenhagen on The Builders Podcast — a show dedicated to uncovering the first principles behind building businesses, products, and services — for a conversation that ran a little over an hour and covered ground I don't always get to explore in this depth. Matt is a builder himself (Unified Web Design, Unified Plugins) and asks the kinds of questions you only get fr

On Character as Currency, Ego Death as Leadership Strategy, and Why Retirement Is a Slide Toward Irrelevance I sat down with Dwight Heck on the Give A Heck Podcast — a show built around helping people live life on purpose, not by accident — for a wide-ranging hour-plus conversation that started with my origin story and ended somewhere I didn't expect: an argument against retirement as a life goal, and a case for character as the actual currency of leadership. Along the way we

On Military Training as Entrepreneur Training, Why Adaptation Isn't Surrender, and Why Advice Is Just Information I sat down with Peter Turner on The Break It Down Show — a veteran-led interview show with an audience of military entrepreneurs, creators, and adaptive innovators — for a nearly hour-long conversation that felt like two military guys who've been through the corporate wringer comparing notes. We covered everything from the accidental origin of NULU to why the sand

On the Science of Where Ideas Come From, Why Storytelling Is the Real Moat, and Regenerative Braking for Aging I sat down with Robert Gaines on the Free Time Mastermind Podcast — a show he built around helping entrepreneurs and inventors — for a wide-ranging conversation that started with red legs and West Point, moved through the biology of ideation, wandered into the crooked economics of the U.S. Patent Office, and ended on a philosophy I've been calling regenerative brakin

I sat down for another long conversation with Peter Marcus Bach on The Grand Challengers Podcast recently — this one going deeper into the philosophy behind NULU than the product itself. We covered adaptive design as a discipline, why "inclusive design" and "universal design" are really just windows into the same house, why the professional chef is often the hardest person in the room to convince, and the AI-driven approach I'm building to close what I've been calling the abi

I sat down for a long conversation recently on Unconventional Money Moves with Joshua Krafchick about NULU, about leaving 25 years in the mortgage industry, about ADHD and the military and Commander's Intent, and about why the knife in your drawer has been quietly wrong for 200 years. It ran about an hour. There's a lot in there — some of it about the product, some of it about how I got here, some of it about the 150 million people this company is actually being built for. Ra

Wrong question. Here's the right one — and a framework that actually holds up. I am headed out to the Blade Show in Atlanta, so I am recording this early. I pulled this question off Reddit this week. “How to cope with intolerance to being corrected or being wrong? I absolutely hate being corrected. It used to make me feel devastated and depressed but nowadays it makes my blood boil — especially if it’s something I’m supposed to be knowledgeable in.” Before I answer it I want

Why Managing ADHD Is a Practice, Not a Destination I've been back on the Aikido mat for a few months now. Different school, different style, a lot of relearning. And somewhere in that process — in the awkward, humbling experience of being a beginner again with knowledge I didn't have the first time — something clicked that I think is worth talking about. There's a concept in Aikido and other Japanese martial arts called shugyo. It doesn't translate cleanly into English, and I

A question pulled straight from Reddit — and an approach that the ADHD community usually won't give you. I pulled this question off Reddit recently. “I constantly am about 30 minutes to an hour late to everything, especially during the morning and I’m close to being fired. Every morning I get desperate and just can’t move. I even cry sometimes yet everyone thinks I’m just lazy.” If this is you — or someone you know — the struggle is real. But the answer most people give isn’t

A label does not change the contents and it will not be answer to everything. I use the word ADHD because it’s the common language. Not because I accept the disorder framework. What I carry doesn’t look like a disorder when I examine it honestly. It looks like a wiring profile — with costs and capabilities attached. The friction isn’t coming from something broken. It’s coming from a mismatch between how I’m built and systems that weren’t built for me. I’m not a clinician. Eve

I’m Doug Katz, the creator of Children of Chaos. It’s a fairly new venture, but you may have read some of the articles I have out there. I’m publishing here and a couple of other places, and you might see my shares under my other business ventures. I figured it was time to start adding video to what I’m creating — that’s a lot of the currency of how things are done today. Thanks for reading The Children of Chaos! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. As

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 →..

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

PART 1: Optimizing as a Team Member This is part one of a four-part series on ADHD, leadership and organizational dynamics. Full disclosure, I use the word ADHD because it’s the common language. Not because I accept the disorder framework. What I carry doesn’t look like a disorder when I examine it honestly. It looks like a mismatch — between the wiring and the systems that were never built for it. I’m not a clinician. Everything here comes from the wiring. In a stone arch ev

A diagnosis explains your wiring. It doesn't author your outcomes. The diagnosis is real. The wiring is real. The friction it creates — in school, in work, in relationships, in systems designed for a different kind of mind — is real. I want to be unambiguous about that before I say anything else, because what I'm about to argue is going to land as contrarian and I want to earn that position rather than dodge the weight of it. There are people for whom ADHD creates significant