Ok, let's have a #BuildInPublicTherapySession. I said it off the cuff yesterday, but I like it and I think I'm going to make it a thing.

I have to confront my #ADHD head-on at this point.

I'm a programmer who hasn't actually built anything that people are using in the 5 months I've been trying to build out my company. I've tried a few times to build things out that didn't quite make it to the finish line.

#ADHD has reared its ugly head when I've tried to program. I'm starting to realize that I burnt out at my last job worse than I thought. It's been hard for me to find the joy I used to find in programming. I can't get it to trigger the hyperfocus like I used to be able to.

Today I had a chance to meet with someone I'd been looking forward to meeting. I've followed her work for a while and I was hoping to get her on board. She was really open to the idea and we had a great conversation. But then she asked me what I've built so far.

The answer was nothing. I didn't have anything built yet. I mentioned how I'd started to build out a couple projects that I ended up scrapping because I realized they wouldn't be profitable soon enough, and I talked about trying different ideas.

But then I started thinking deeper about why I hadn't built anything. And that's where I noticed patterns of trying to build something, my brain feeling fried, and the project dropping from my priorities.

I've had a bit more luck on my #SellInPublic project, but that's more of a passion project with a longer timeline. That's not one with the pressure of money bearing down on me. It's a fun challenge. It's got a longer timeline.

But when I try to focus on the needing money part of the equation, my brain just freezes. It's been incredibly frustrating. I've been working on getting a prescription from my doctor for some help with the ADHD part. I'm currently 6 weeks into that process without being able to

find a doctor yet that will work with me. I went through a referral from my family doctor but was told that the one psychiatrist that I was referred to only works with patients between 18-30 years old. I ended up with a stack of phone numbers for others I can call.

Want to almost guarantee triggering my executive dysfunction? Give me a stack of phone numbers for doctors' offices where I am supposed to figure out who is accepting new patients, who would accept me, whether or not they accept my insurance...

I've got a chunk of time set aside on Monday to deal with that. We'll see how it goes. But until then, I need to figure out a way to build without that help. I've been thinking a lot about how my autism and ADHD shape how I view the world. I'm a big believer that neurodivergence

can be a superpower. It can also be debilitating and frustrating when you aren't in control. The key for neurodivergence to be a superpower is in the control. If you understand how your brain works, you can work with it instead of fighting it all the time.

I spend a lot of time reflecting. I examine how I respond to various situations. I think about outcomes and try to figure out how things could have gone differently. I look for places where I am weak so I can work on improving them.

When I got asked the question, "what have you built?", I was forced to confront a weakness. The hardest part for me is that my programming used to be a strength. I always felt like that was an area that was really strong for me.

I just haven't been able to use it as a strength. I've been trying to compensate with my other skills. I spent most of last night trying to figure out how I can overcome this challenge. And then I got an idea that I thought was so good, I had to do it.

When I first quit my job, I assumed that I would be able to share the vision in my head and everything would just start working. It turns out, getting a huge vision out of my head and on to paper isn't something that I'm particularly skilled at.

That was one of my first realizations. I wrote about it here: https://medium.com/illumination-curated/how-to-know-you-didnt-do-a-good-job-explaining-your-startup-13bc8006abb0

I recommend reading that article. It's going to be a key part of this initial build. But in case you don't, the story goes like this. I was trying to convince my dad that I had an idea for a startup.

I was trying to outline how companies like Facebook and Google make money off of user data. I explained how I was looking to help users regain control of their data. And I apparently did a terrible job of outlining it.

I heard through the grapevine that he repeated my idea as "he wants everyone on Facebook to pay him a dollar". Not exactly the vision I was trying to outline.

That's the story behind what I've decided to build. I want to have a little fun with it. I've been way to focused on how much money I can make. I've been trying to figure out how to pay the bills. I've lost the sense of fun with programming.

And now I'm ready to get it back. I'm going to let everyone on Facebook pay me a dollar. But they don't actually need to be on Facebook. They can be anybody on the internet who wants to pay me a dollar. The trick is in figuring out what people would get for their dollar.

That's when I realized I could sell an ownership stake in the article I mention above. I have other things that I am working on that I could put up first, but I like the idea of focusing on this one article. It gives me a concrete project. I have a very specific goal in mind.

It also makes a good story. My dad and I don't see eye to eye on many topics. He's extremely risk-averse, so he wasn't happy that I quit my job to launch my own company during a pandemic. He didn't see the opportunity that I did. I see some poetry in turning that around.

It's going to be pretty cool. The build starts today. I'm spending a little more time breaking out the chunks of the project. And then I'll start building. I don't have a time frame. It will take however long it takes. But I'll build in public and share the story. Stay tuned.