Brain Dumps

I didn't get here by figuring everything out on my own. There are specific people whose work fundamentally changed how I see the world, and every one of them connects back to how I approach strategy, systems, and self-understanding. This is my way of giving credit where it's earned.

Jessica McCabe (How to ADHD) made me feel like my brain isn't broken. It just has a different operating system. She gave me the language to understand myself and the permission to stop masking.

Chris Voss taught me that negotiation is about understanding what people actually need. His tactical empathy framework is Point of Performance thinking applied to conversations.

Vanessa Van Edwards breaks down human behavior into patterns I can actually learn and use. As someone neurodivergent, reading social cues doesn't come naturally. Her work is like a cheat code for understanding people.

Spencer (SB Mowing) built a massive brand by just showing up, doing great work, and being real on camera. Proof that hustle and authenticity scale.

Midlife Stockman appeals to the technical demographic who appreciate details and have real purchasing power. His audience trusts his judgment, and that's where authentic influence lives.

Getting a puppy is one of those things that sounds amazing until it's 2 AM and they're crying, you haven't slept, the house smells, and you're questioning every decision you've ever made. It's completely understandable if you get stressed out and even think about giving up. That feeling is real and it doesn't make you a bad person.

But here's the thing I've learned — what matters isn't that you felt that way. It's what you do next.

How you handle the hard moment says infinitely more about you than the hard moment itself. You can feel overwhelmed and still choose to show up. You can be frustrated and still make the responsible choice. The feeling and the action are two separate things.

And honestly? This isn't just about puppies. It's about jobs that test your patience, relationships that push your limits, goals that feel impossible at 2 AM. The stress is understandable. The question is always: what do you do with it?

When you drive full-time and have over 7,000 rides under your belt, you don't have the luxury of a slow introduction. That's 7,000 times a stranger has opened my car door. I have exactly five seconds to figure out who they are, what kind of day they're having, and what they need from me.

Are they a talker? Are they running late and stressed? Are they about to be a problem?

It's basically an accelerated crash course in ABCs — Antecedent, Behavior, Consequence. You learn to read the micro-expressions, the way they close the door, the exact tone of their "hello." You match their energy, or you completely diffuse it. People think driving is about navigating traffic. It's not. It's about navigating people. If you can control the environment at the exact point of performance, you control the outcome.

A few weeks ago, my 2023 RAV4 threw a check engine light. I plugged in my OBD2 scanner and got the code: P0037. Oxygen sensor.

Now, I could have just hit a button and cleared the code. Boom. Light goes off, dashboard looks clean, and I can pretend everything is fine for another hundred miles. But the engine? It's still running rich. The problem didn't go away just because I turned off the warning sign.

It's wild how often we do this in our own lives, right? We feel overwhelmed, so we distract ourselves. We hit a bottleneck in a project, so we just switch to an easier task. We're constantly clearing the code on our own dashboards because fixing the actual oxygen sensor takes time, money, and getting our hands dirty.

I spent over ten years in logistics and warehouse operations before I started building my own businesses. If the warehouse teaches you anything, it's that when things back up, it's rarely a personal flaw. It's a design flaw.

When I'm working in my tiny home, trying to study for my RBT cert or design a new BrokenFilterCo shirt, my ADHD brain will find every excuse to derail. If I have to search for my laptop charger, the task is dead. If the lighting is wrong, I'm out.

You have to design for the exact point of performance. If you want to build a habit, you remove every single piece of friction between the thought and the action. You don't need more willpower; you need a better floor plan. Put the tool exactly where the work happens.

I've been doing a lot of heavy lifting lately when it comes to healing from trauma and navigating some deeply complicated family dynamics. And let me tell you, when you're literally living on the same property as the parent you're trying to separate yourself from emotionally, you learn about boundaries real fast.

The biggest lie we're sold is that a boundary is something you ask someone else to respect. It's not. A boundary isn't a negotiation, and it's sure as hell not a request for another person to change their behavior.

A boundary is a wall you build to protect your own peace when they don't change. It's deciding, "If you do X, I will do Y." It's an action I take, not an expectation I place on someone who has already proven they can't meet it. It feels harsh at first, but honestly? It's the most freeing thing in the world.