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What I don’t hear enough of is something more useful: discernment.

Here’s what I mean. There’s a term that went mainstream last year: “AI slop.” Merriam-Webster named it their 2025 Word of the Year. It refers to low-quality, mass-produced content generated by AI with no real thought, expertise, or intention behind it. You’ve seen it. The weirdly smooth Facebook images. The blog posts that say everything and nothing. The “thought leadership” that has the shape of an argument, but none of the substance.

Some people can spot it immediately. Others can’t tell the difference. And then there’s a third group (this is the one I want to talk about) who overcorrect so hard that they start calling everything AI slop, including work that is just... not very good. Written by humans. No AI involved.

That third group has the same problem as the first.

If you can’t recognize quality thinking without AI, you can’t recognize its absence with it.

This is the part the doom-and-gloom crowd misses. The “AI will do everything better” crowd misses it too. They’re both treating AI like it operates independently, like it produces output in a vacuum, untethered from the humans prompting it, directing it, reviewing it, and deciding what to do with the results.

It doesn’t work that way.

AI fluency isn’t about learning which tools to use. It’s about knowing your domain well enough to know what to hand off, what to question, and what to protect. That requires judgment. And judgment is built from experience, from hard-won expertise, from having gotten things wrong and course-correcting.

You cannot outsource judgment you never built.

Which brings me to the part that genuinely worries me.

Executives are restructuring organizations based on AI’s potential, not its proven performance. Many leaders have already frozen or reduced hiring in anticipation of future AI gains, even as many companies are still struggling to turn AI investment into measurable value. The people making these decisions often don’t understand what the humans they’re eliminating were actually doing, or what institutional knowledge walks out the door with them.

This isn’t just a corporate problem. It’s an information problem. When leaders can’t distinguish between “AI did this competently” and “AI did this and it looks competent,” they’re flying blind. And they’re making irreversible decisions in that condition.

Bad actors know this too. Slop isn’t just annoying filler content. It’s a vector. AI-generated images and videos are already being used to spread misleading narratives about welfare, benefits, and public policy, with audiences often unable to tell what’s real. The people most vulnerable are those who’ve never developed a framework for evaluating what they’re seeing.

I’ll be transparent about something: this post started as an AI-assisted draft. I had the thesis, the structure, and the point of view. I used AI to get it out of my head and onto the page faster. Then I did what the post argues for.

I fact-checked it.

I ran the draft through two other AI systems. One confidently flagged multiple claims as false, including the Merriam-Webster Word of the Year. I showed it a screenshot of the actual Merriam-Webster page. It reversed course and validated nearly everything, including claims it still hadn’t fully verified. That’s not fact-checking. That’s sycophancy in the machine.

The second system was more useful. It found primary sources, flagged specific attribution problems, and suggested more defensible wording. I revised accordingly.

Then I went to the primary sources myself.

The AI wrote a post about discernment. The human had to provide it.

Here’s what I want you to take from this.

AI is not going away. Pretending it will, or opting out of understanding it, isn’t a neutral choice. It’s a choice to let other people, executives, vendors, politicians, bad actors, make decisions with it on your behalf.

Fluency is not the same as mastery. You don’t need to be a developer or a data scientist. You need to be curious enough to understand what these tools actually do and don’t do and grounded enough in your own expertise to know when something is off.

The people who will navigate this well aren’t the ones who panic or the ones who uncritically embrace everything. They’re the ones who can look at an output, AI or human, and ask: Is this actually good? Does this hold up? What’s missing?

That skill isn’t new. It’s just more urgent now.

What’s your relationship with AI right now? Curious, avoidant, overwhelmed? I’m genuinely asking, because where you’re starting from matters.

A note on process: this post was drafted with AI assistance from Claude, fact-checked with Perplexity and Gemini, revised against primary sources, and rewritten by a human. The “Wood of of year” image is from Merriam-Webster’s own 2025 Word of the Year page, verified at merriam-webster.com. Live link was included as a caption to the image. What is cool about some of these AI models is you can actually click into their “thinking” to see where they are backtracking, how they’re reasoning, etc. It is very informative.

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*I found some duplicate messages in the cards, so it will no longer be 52 entries.

If all our emotions and experiences of life are because of the thoughts we have and the thoughts are the stories we are telling ourselves, why don’t we choose to tell ourselves more good stories?

I’m not saying be so delusional or out of touch with your reality that you are ignoring responsibilities. I am saying to monitor the little voice whispering things.

Ask yourself if something is true. Is it really, really true or are you just believing it because you never stopped to question it?

Can you think of a time when a day started one way, but you decided that you didn’t want it to keep going that way? What did you do to change it?

We have the power to write our stories how we want them; we might as well make each day as good as we can.

What is the story you want? Really want? Imagine you are six months or a year in the future and you’ve achieved it. What would that version of you tell you today so you can get there?

Leave it in the comments. I read every comment I receive.

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My water broke at 24 weeks, 6 days. He was born at 27 weeks, 1 day. If you’ve never experienced a NICU stay, I’ll just say this: it rewires how you think about what matters and what doesn’t.

A few years later, a coworker of mine was pregnant with her first. She was nervous about how she was feeling around 28 weeks. Some discomfort. Some tightening. She called her doctor’s office. They encouraged her to hydrate and rest.

She texted me afterward telling me how silly she felt. She was fine. The baby was fine.

“I shouldn’t have felt scared or nervous. It is nothing like what you went through.”

I want to sit with that sentence for a second. Because what she did—minimizing her own fear by comparing it to my experience—is something we all do. Constantly. And it costs us.

Why do we minimize an experience to be less than someone else’s because it doesn’t seem as intense or tragic or explosive?

More than one truth can exist at the same time.

I had preterm labor and premature rupture of membranes. That was terrifying. And she was scared because she was feeling something she had never felt before. That was also real. My experience does not make her experience less impactful for her. Her fear was valid; not because of how it compared to mine, but because it was hers.

Comparing our experiences to someone else’s should not diminish or exalt either one. But we do it reflexively. We rank suffering. We rank struggle. We rank worthiness of support based on some invisible scale of who has it worse.

This is either/or thinking. And it’s a trap.

The “And” Alternative

Either/or thinking says: your situation is bad, so mine must not be. Or: I had it harder, so your struggle doesn’t count. Or: they’re succeeding and I’m not, so something must be wrong with me.

“And” thinking says: your experience is real and so is mine. This is hard for me and that doesn’t mean it should be easy. I’m struggling and I’m still capable.

It sounds simple. It is not.

We are conditioned (by culture, by workplaces, by social media, by the way we were raised) to sort experiences into categories. Good or bad. Easy or hard. Worthy or not. But the human experience doesn’t work that way. It lives on a spectrum, and most of us are holding multiple truths at any given moment.

I can be grateful my son survived and still carry grief about how he entered the world. Both are true. My coworker could be relieved everything was fine and still have been genuinely scared. Both are true. Neither cancels the other.

Where This Shows Up at Work

I think neurodiversity introduces even more comparison and even more either/or thinking.

From the inside: Why is this hard for me but easy for them? Why can’t I just do this? Everyone else seems fine. I must be the problem.

From the manager’s side: What is this employee not getting? Why is this a struggle for them? I made a mistake giving this project to them; they can’t do it.

Both perspectives are missing the “and.”

The employee might be brilliant and struggle with task initiation. They might be your most creative thinker and need more structure than their peers to get started. They might deeply want to succeed and be hitting an executive function wall that has nothing to do with effort or intelligence.

The manager might genuinely care about their team and still be interpreting a brain-based challenge as a performance deficiency. They might have the best intentions and be causing harm by applying a one-size-fits-all standard.

“And” thinking doesn’t excuse poor performance. It doesn’t mean lowering the bar. It means getting curious before getting frustrated. It means asking “What’s happening here?” before deciding “This person can’t cut it.”

We Never Have the Full Picture

We don’t usually have all the details of someone else’s experience. We see the output—the missed deadline, the emotional reaction, the inconsistency—and we fill in the story ourselves. Usually with the least generous interpretation.

“And” thinking asks us to hold space for the possibility that what we’re seeing on the surface isn’t the whole truth. That someone can be struggling and be competent. That something can be hard and still get done. That a person can need support and not be weak for needing it.

This isn’t just a nice idea. It’s a leadership skill. It’s a relationship skill. It’s a way of moving through the world that makes room for complexity instead of flattening it.

My coworker’s fear at 28 weeks was real. My NICU experience was real. They exist in the same world without competing. That’s what “and” thinking looks like.

The next time you catch yourself ranking your experience against someone else’s, your employee’s struggle against what you think it “should” be, your own capacity against some imaginary standard—pause. See if there’s an “and” in there.

There almost always is. If you need help shifting to “And” thinking, let me know.

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Knowledge workers are the people who remember an organization’s history, the decisions that were made, why those decisions were made, and the details that go into so many areas of the business. They also know things like regulations, how to do things, who to go to for other things. Even if an organization is using AI, unless the LLM is trained to know all these things and audited routinely, knowledge workers are the blood of an organization.

I’ve considered myself a knowledge worker for years (at least a decade). Yes, I can do things, but it’s mostly knowledge that I became known for. That said, calculating ROI for a knowledge worker is tricky, because they are rarely directly tied to a revenue-generating activity, but they have value. Value that is not broadly seen until they take a day off, have a day where they aren’t right on top of everything, or leave an organization.

So what happens when a knowledge worker needs a break?

One of the biggest challenges I’ve seen as a knowledge worker and managing and mentoring others, is the mental fatigue that comes with it. We are brought into project calls, maybe for a couple “consultations” to make sure nothing is going awry on the projects, we do our “regular” day job—whatever that looks like that day, we field “gotta second?” messages in Teams or Slack or Outlook. The context switching is pervasive. Never-ending. Exhausting.

And the data backs this up. Research has found that the average knowledge worker toggles between applications roughly 1,200 times per day. It takes about 23 minutes to fully regain focus after a significant interruption. Studies estimate that context switching can consume up to 40% of productive time in a given workday. That’s not a rounding error. That’s nearly half the day gone—not to the work itself, but to the recovery from being pulled away from it.

Now layer on the emotional weight. Knowledge workers aren’t just switching tasks. They’re switching contexts, priorities, stakeholders, and levels of urgency, all while being expected to maintain accuracy and composure. The person everyone goes to for answers is also the person who never gets an uninterrupted hour. Research on digital interruptions has found that employees experiencing frequent context switching report significantly higher stress levels and lower job satisfaction. That tracks.

I don’t know if other managers of knowledge workers or leaders in organizations realize this. Your reliable, “Oh just go ask...” person or people? They are probably mentally mashed potatoes by lunchtime.

So how can you support them?

Support and Lead Knowledge Workers

The instinct is to throw tools at this—better project management software, another Slack channel, a shared drive. But the problem isn’t information access. The problem is that knowledge workers are treated as an always-available resource with no cost of use.

Here’s what actually helps.

Protect their time. If you have someone whose primary value is deep knowledge and sound judgment, stop putting them in every meeting “just in case.” Every meeting is a context switch. Every “quick question” is a 23-minute recovery. Start treating their focused time the way you’d treat a client-facing commitment; as something that doesn’t get casually interrupted.

Batch the questions. Instead of pinging your knowledge worker six times throughout the day, create a structure. A standing 15-minute check-in. A shared document where questions accumulate and get addressed in one block. This isn’t about making people less accessible. It’s about making the interruptions predictable, which dramatically reduces the cognitive cost.

Name the role. A lot of knowledge workers don’t have a title or job description that reflects what they actually do. They’re officially a project manager or an analyst or a coordinator, but the real job is being the organizational memory. When the role isn’t named, it can’t be scoped, and when it can’t be scoped, it can’t be protected. If someone is functioning as your team’s institutional knowledge base, acknowledge that—out loud, in their performance review, and in how you structure their workload.

Watch for the fade. Knowledge workers rarely flame out dramatically. They fade. They stop volunteering. They start giving shorter answers. They seem fine, but the quality of their engagement drops. By the time it’s visible in their output, they’ve been running on fumes for months. Check in before it gets there. Not with “How’s your workload?”—that question always gets a “Fine.” Try “What’s draining you right now?” or “What would you stop doing if you could?”

Give them recovery time. After an intense project, a big launch, an audit, a reorg—knowledge workers need decompression time the same way athletes need rest days. Their brain is the tool. If you wouldn’t run a machine at full capacity without maintenance, don’t do it to a person.

Deriving Knowledge Worker ROI

This is the hard part, and it’s the reason knowledge workers are often the first to be cut when budgets tighten. Their value doesn’t show up neatly in a revenue column.

But it shows up everywhere else.

Think about what happens when your knowledge worker is out. Projects stall because no one knows the history of a decision. Mistakes get made that they would have caught. New employees take longer to onboard because the person who usually walks them through everything isn’t there. Compliance questions go unanswered. Stakeholders get frustrated because the person who always connects the dots is unavailable.

Research suggests that workers spend roughly 20% of their workweek (an entire day) just searching for information or recreating solutions that already exist somewhere. Your knowledge worker is the person who eliminates that waste. They are the shortcut between “I don’t know where that is” and “here’s the answer, and here’s why it matters.”

So how do you calculate that?

Start with the cost of their absence. When they take PTO, what slows down? What breaks? What gets escalated that normally wouldn’t? That gap is their value made visible.

Look at the decisions they influence. Knowledge workers often aren’t the decision-makers, but they’re the people who inform the decisions. What’s the cost of a bad decision made without their input? What’s the value of a good one that they shaped?

Consider the risk they mitigate. How many compliance issues, customer escalations, or internal conflicts have they prevented simply by knowing the history and catching something before it became a problem? That’s not revenue generated. Its revenue protected.

And measure the time they save others. If ten people go to one person for answers instead of spending 30 minutes searching on their own, that knowledge worker is saving the organization five hours of productivity per round of questions. Multiply that across a week, a month, a quarter.

Knowledge worker ROI isn’t a formula. It’s a story told in avoided costs, informed decisions, institutional continuity, and the quiet efficiency that disappears the moment they do.

Protect your knowledge workers. They’re holding more together than you see.

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The opening of this card is also part of a Semisonic song (look up “Closing Time” and enjoy the late-1990s music. I’ll wait).

Like the song, the idea of a new beginning coming from another beginning’s end is about the joy of something new and the possibilities the new beginning brings.

The thought of something ending, though, can also bring about feelings of grief and remorse.

Our experience of the beginning and ending is coming from the thoughts we have about the change.

I’ve been through some thoughts over the past almost year. Thoughts about work, about running my own business, thoughts about putting my full authentic self out for others to see, thoughts about my kids, thoughts and thoughts and thoughts.

Along with those thoughts, all sorts of feelings.

Change typically brings up anxiety in me. I get anxious about the unknown. I want to know that what I’m doing will have a good outcome. I want to minimize my discomfort.

At the same time, I also know that the anxiety is coming because I am thinking about the future. I can’t know the future; it doesn’t exist yet. I only know what is happening right now. If there is discomfort right now, what can I do about it? Is the discomfort physical? I can change my position or move around. I can take a drink of water. I can address the physical discomfort in my body.

Is the discomfort emotional? Ahhh. We are back to thought. I am uncomfortable because of a thought. I feel sick to my stomach at times when I think about posting on LinkedIn in any way that hints that I might be asking for someone’s business.

Here’s the thing. If I don’t ask or tell people about my business, they will never know. Something I desperately want to do (help people) will never happen because no one will know because I don’t like the way I feel, and I feel that way because I am thinking about what others might think.

Do you see how easy it is for us to spin ourselves up by thoughts? We can embrace the change; acknowledge that something new is coming and we don’t know what that new thing is. We can acknowledge that something is ending in order for the new thing to exist. When we start to feel something, we should check in with our thoughts. Are we feeling nervous? What are we thinking? Are we feeling excited? What are we thinking?

There are so many possibilities that can come because of a change, and we have no way of knowing the future, so embrace the current moment and be aware of your thoughts feeding your feelings. Then enjoy what comes next.

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I sought diagnosis because I found myself really struggling with starting tasks (preferred and non-preferred) and I noticed my focus was waning more and more, among other symptoms. The more research (and memes) I saw, the more I started to suspect that, despite the academic performance and outward behaviors, there might be something more there.

I never needed extra support in school. I don’t think I missed a semester on the honor roll from elementary school through high school. I worked the system to graduate high school a year early. I was the first in my family to graduate with a bachelor’s degree. I attended law school, while working full time. I was consistently employed from when I was 16 until just recently. High performer/achiever was the name of the game.

I don’t share any of this to flex. I share it because from the outside, no one saw anything amiss. It was all inside and I could mask and cover mistakes like it was my job, because, in some ways, it was.

I began to dig into things that I experienced since childhood but hid. Lo and behold—ADHD, Predominantly Inattentive (though, in transparency, there’s some impulsivity in there, too).

Now, I know my executive function doesn’t function like it should, but what is it?

Executive function is the set of cognitive processes that are critical for managing daily life and achieving goals. It’s all the things we have to be able to manage to plan, organize, prioritize, focus, and remember, while controlling emotions and impulses.

Most people might not give any of that a second thought. They plan their day the night before. When the morning comes, they execute. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

People with ADHD, however, have a really hard time with executive functioning, but the issues aren’t carved in stone. We can work on things and get better. And, no, it isn’t as simple as buying a planner. (I wish it were, because I love planners and notebooks).

Executive function challenges can present in six areas and people with ADHD often have struggles across many or all of the areas. These six areas come from Dr. Thomas Brown’s model of executive function, which he developed over 30+ years of clinical work with children, adolescents, and adults with ADHD. Brown’s model frames ADHD as a cognitive condition (not a behavioral one) rooted in how the brain’s self-management system operates. His research found that these six clusters of impairment tend to show up together and respond to treatment together, which is why he describes them as a syndrome.

Here’s where it gets real.

1. Activation—Getting Started

This is the one that drove me to seek diagnosis. Activation is about organizing, prioritizing, and initiating tasks. It sounds simple: see a task, start the task. But for an ADHD brain, it’s anything but.

You know that thing where you stare at your to-do list and your body just... won’t move? Your brain is screaming at you to start. You know what needs to happen. You might even want to do the thing. But there’s an invisible wall between knowing and doing.

This isn’t laziness. Research shows that starting tasks requires dopamine, and ADHD brains often don’t produce enough of it for things that feel boring, unclear, or overwhelming. It’s not a willpower problem; it’s a brain chemistry problem. The thing that trips people up is that this isn’t just about non-preferred tasks. I can struggle to start things I genuinely want to do. That’s the part that makes you feel like something is fundamentally broken.

True story: This post has been percolating for 4 months. That’s how long I’ve wanted to write it. Convincing Brain to do it, that’s another story.

2. Focus—Sustaining Attention

Focus is the ability to sustain, shift, and divide attention as needed. For most people, deciding to pay attention to something and then actually paying attention to it are the same step. For people with ADHD, those are two completely different operations.

I can sit in a meeting, fully intending to listen, and realize twenty minutes later that I’ve been mentally redesigning my living room. It’s not that I don’t care. It’s that my brain grabbed onto something more stimulating and ran with it before I even noticed. That’s why I always take notes in meetings, even if there is a designated notetaker. It keeps my brain engaged so it doesn’t create side quests.

The flip side is hyperfocus. That thing where you look up and four hours have passed and you forgot to eat, drink water, or use the bathroom? Hyperfocus isn’t a superpower. It’s the same dysregulation in the other direction. The brain latches onto something interesting and can’t let go. You don’t choose what gets the hyperfocus. It chooses you.

3. Effort—Regulating Energy

This one is sneaky. Effort is about regulating alertness, sustaining energy, and managing processing speed. Many people with ADHD can perform well on short-term projects, but struggle enormously with sustained effort over time, especially when the task requires expository writing or extended focus without novelty.

And then there’s the sleep piece. Many people with ADHD can’t shut their brains off at night. You lie there and your mind runs a highlight reel of every awkward thing you’ve ever said or suddenly decides that NOW is the time to solve a problem you’ve been avoiding for weeks. Once you do fall asleep, you might sleep like the dead and have an incredibly hard time waking up. The alertness regulation is just... off.

This one masquerades as laziness or lack of discipline, which makes it particularly shame-inducing. You’re not lazy. Your brain’s energy regulation system is inconsistent, and it doesn’t respond to the same cues that neurotypical brains do.

4. Emotion—Managing Feelings

Here’s the one that doesn’t get enough airtime. Emotional dysregulation is present in an estimated 34–70% of adults with ADHD, and yet it’s still not part of the official diagnostic criteria. Many researchers—including both Brown and Russell Barkley, another leading ADHD researcher—consider it a core feature of the condition.

For me, this shows up as feelings that arrive too fast, too big, and take too long to leave. A small frustration can feel like a catastrophe. A perceived rejection can ruin an entire day. Disappointment can feel physically painful.

This isn’t being “too sensitive” or “dramatic.” The brain structures involved in ADHD—particularly the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala—are also the brain’s emotional circuitry. Working memory impairments can make it harder to hold perspective in mind when emotions spike. You can’t easily access thoughts like “this is temporary” or “that comment wasn’t personal” when your working memory is already overloaded.

If you’ve heard of rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD), this is where it lives. It’s not a formal diagnosis, but it describes the intense emotional pain triggered by real or perceived rejection or criticism. For a lot of people with ADHD, it’s one of the most disruptive aspects of the condition, and one of the least talked about.

I do a lot of coaching with recognizing feeling states and how thoughts tie into them. The self-awareness helps immensely.

5. Memory—Working Memory, Specifically

This isn’t about forgetting your childhood or not remembering facts. People with ADHD often have perfectly good long-term memory. The issue is working memory; the brain’s ability to hold information in mind while you use it.

Think of working memory as a mental sticky note. It’s what lets you remember why you walked into a room, hold the thread of a conversation, or keep several things in mind at once. When working memory is impaired, you put your keys down and they cease to exist. Someone gives you a three-part instruction and by the time they finish, the first part has evaporated.

It is like having a tiny mental whiteboard that gets erased constantly by a rogue hand. The information was there. I processed it. And then it was just... gone.

Working memory difficulties also affect the other areas of executive function. Research shows that stronger working memory is linked to better emotional regulation, which makes sense. It’s hard to keep perspective during an emotional moment when your brain can’t hold onto the perspective.

6. Action—Self-Regulation of Behavior

This is about monitoring and regulating your own actions—pacing yourself, reading social cues, adjusting your behavior in different settings. Even people with ADHD who don’t have visible hyperactivity often struggle here.

This can look like blurting things out before thinking them through, jumping to conclusions, or not recognizing when something you’ve said has landed badly. It can also look like difficulty with pacing—going too fast when you should slow down, or being unable to speed up when a deadline is looming.

For me, the impulsivity piece shows up in speech. I’ll interrupt. I’ll finish someone’s sentence. I’ll share an idea before it’s fully formed because if I don’t say it now, it will be gone (see: working memory). I’m aware of it. I’m working on it. And it’s still hard.

Here’s What Matters

These six areas don’t operate in isolation. They’re interconnected, and they compound each other. When your working memory is struggling, your emotional regulation gets harder. When your energy regulation is off, your ability to initiate tasks tanks. When you can’t start the thing, the emotional fallout from not starting the thing makes everything worse.

But—and this is the important part—these aren’t fixed. They aren’t character flaws. They aren’t moral failings. They’re brain-based challenges, and they respond to support.

That support might look like medication. It might look like coaching. It might look like therapy. It might look like environmental changes, body doubling, accountability structures, or learning to work with your brain instead of against it.

It definitely doesn’t look like just trying harder.

If any of this resonated, if you read this and felt a little less alone, that’s the whole point. Understanding what executive function actually is and how it shows up in daily life is the first step toward working with it instead of being baffled by it.

Your executive function might not function the way it “should.” But understanding why it works the way it does? That’s where things start to shift.

I’d love to hear from you. Which of these six areas hits closest to home for you? Drop it in the comments—even just the number. You might be surprised how many people share your answer. Transparency: This article took me at least four months to write (from idea to published), partly because of the challenges with executive function, so I get it.

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I’ve been reviewing job descriptions lately (because, until very recently, I was returning to the workforce) and I keep seeing certain phrases pop up like they’re the secret handshake of the professional world.

Thrives in ambiguity. Excels in fast-paced environments. Self-starter who’s comfortable with uncertainty.

And I started to wonder: is there any actual science behind “thriving in ambiguity,” or is this just a polished way of saying we haven’t figured out how to scale, define, or explain this role, but we need someone who won’t notice?

Because honestly? It sounds exhausting. I’m pretty sure I’ve been in more than one ambiguous role in my life. And I can tell you firsthand — I was not always sure whether I was thriving or surviving.

So I did what I do: I went looking for the science.

Okay, But Is “Thriving in Ambiguity” Even a Real Thing?

Turns out, yes. And it has a proper name.

Psychologists have been studying what they call Tolerance of Ambiguity (TA) since 1949, when researcher Else Frenkel-Brunswik first described it as a personality variable: Essentially, the degree to which a person perceives uncertain or unclear situations as threatening versus interesting. It’s been measured, validated, and studied across medicine, education, business, and psychology for over 70 years. There are even standardized tests for it (the MSTAT-II, if you want to sound impressive at parties).

Here’s the key distinction the research makes that most job descriptions completely ignore: Ambiguity and uncertainty are not the same thing.

Uncertainty means you’re missing information. Ambiguity means there are multiple valid interpretations and no single clear answer. You can reduce uncertainty by getting more data. Ambiguity is trickier. More data doesn’t always help if the situation itself has no single “right” answer.

So when a company says they want someone who “thrives in ambiguity,” they may not even be using the term correctly. But let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and ask: What does the science say about people who actually do well with it?

Who Actually Thrives? (Spoiler: It’s a Pretty Specific Profile)

The research is interesting here, because it’s not just “confident people” or “resilient people.” Tolerance of Ambiguity correlates with some very specific traits.

The strongest predictor is a specific facet of Openness to Experience. Not openness in general, but intellectual curiosity specifically. Not aesthetic appreciation, not adventurousness. Intellectual curiosity. The kind of person who genuinely finds an ill-defined problem interesting rather than terrifying.

Research from the University of Melbourne found that ambiguity tolerance was more strongly tied to the assertiveness facet of extraversion (decisive action under incomplete information) than to general sociability or energy. So it’s less about being an extrovert and more about being someone who can act when they don’t have all the answers.

A 2024 study found a significant positive correlation between growth mindset and tolerance of ambiguity, which makes intuitive sense. If you believe your abilities can grow through challenge, uncertainty starts to look less like a threat and more like a Tuesday.

High TA also correlates with greater self-efficacy, internal locus of control, and lower burnout. A study of nearly 500 university professors found that higher ambiguity tolerance predicted significantly lower burnout, even after controlling for enthusiasm. That’s a finding worth sitting with.

And here’s the hopeful part: it’s not fixed. Longitudinal research shows that TA increases with experience and time. It can also be developed intentionally through exposure to open-ended problems, mindfulness practices, deliberately delaying the urge for closure, and seeking out perspectives that challenge your existing assumptions. International experiences seem to help, too. Basically, structured practice with discomfort builds the muscle.

Here’s Where It Gets Interesting: The Neurodiversity Question

This is the part I wasn’t expecting to find, and honestly it might be the most important piece of this whole conversation.

I started this inquiry wondering whether “thrive in ambiguity” was more of a neurotypical job requirement. Whether neurodiverse folks run toward these opportunities or away from them.

The science has a pretty clear answer: it depends on the neurotype, and it’s more nuanced than a simple yes or no.

Research consistently shows that autistic individuals tend to experience elevated intolerance of uncertainty and this isn’t just preference or rigidity. A 2020 systematic review and meta-analysis found a large, statistically significant correlation (r = 0.62) between intolerance of uncertainty and anxiety in autistic people. That’s a strong effect. Ambiguous social cues, unclear expectations, shifting rules…these aren’t just annoying for many autistic people. They’re genuinely distressing in a way that’s rooted in how the brain processes unpredictable environments.

But here’s where the nuance matters: a 2025 study in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders found that this intolerance of uncertainty leads autistic people toward more deliberative thinking (more careful, thorough analysis before acting). The uncertainty itself triggers deeper cognitive processing, not avoidance. That’s not a deficit. That’s actually a strength in a lot of industries like medicine, research, engineering, quality assurance, legal work, finance. Fields that reward getting it right over getting it fast.

For ADHD, the picture is also mixed. Many people with ADHD struggle in unstructured environments. Not because they can’t handle complexity, but because ambiguity removes the external scaffolding that supports executive function. At the same time, the novelty-seeking tendencies of ADHD can make some kinds of ambiguity genuinely energizing. It really depends on the type of ambiguity and whether there’s enough structure underneath to work from.

What this means practically

When a job description lists “thrives in ambiguity” as a requirement without defining what that ambiguity actually looks like, it’s functioning (probably unintentionally) as a passive screening mechanism against a significant portion of the neurodivergent population. People who might be exceptional at the actual work, who bring precision, depth, and deliberative brilliance to complex problems, are being filtered out at the door by a phrase that nobody has really defined.

That’s worth naming.

The Dirty Little Secret About the Phrase Itself

Here’s the part where I want to be honest about what I actually think is happening in many of those job postings.

Researchers at Google’s UX team coined a term for it: toxic ambiguity. Their argument was that the UX field (and by extension, many knowledge-work fields) had started pitching the ability to handle dysfunction as a desirable personality trait, rather than fixing the dysfunction.

No hiring manager wants to lead with, “Our team is in a bit of a tire fire right now.” But “We need someone who thrives in ambiguity” says roughly the same thing while making it sound like an opportunity.

One Google UX researcher put it bluntly: people can manage ambiguity. They may even enjoy certain kinds of it. But thriving implies an element of stability — and genuine, sustained thriving is not compatible with constant uncertainty, unclear expectations, and an absence of psychological safety.

There’s also a critical distinction the science makes that most workplaces ignore: the difference between complexity tolerance (what “thrive in ambiguity” is supposedly measuring) and role ambiguity (when your actual responsibilities and success metrics are unclear). Research consistently shows that role ambiguity (fuzzy job descriptions, undefined ownership, shifting priorities with no explanation) leads to anxiety, burnout, and unproductive conflict, even in teams with excellent relationships. That’s not a personality problem. That’s a structural one.

In other words: the trait is real and valuable. The phrase is often a red flag.

So What Does This All Actually Mean?

If you’re a job seeker reading this, “thrives in ambiguity” is worth interrogating in interviews. Ask what ambiguity looks like on this team specifically. Ask whether there are processes in place to actively reduce ambiguity over time, or whether it’s just a permanent operating condition. The answer will tell you a lot.

If you’re a hiring manager or leader reading this, consider what you’re actually asking for and whether you’re accidentally signaling that your organization hasn’t done the structural work of defining roles and processes. Ambiguity should be something you’re actively working to reduce, not something you require candidates to absorb indefinitely.

And if you’re neurodivergent and that phrase has made you feel like you don’t belong in certain rooms, the science says the problem may not be you. Your intolerance of uncertainty might be the thing that makes you excellent at your work. You just need an environment with enough structure to let that show.

As for me? I’m still figuring out whether my years in ambiguous roles were building tolerance or just survival. Probably both. The research says that experience builds TA over time. so maybe all those undefined, unclear, “figure it out yourself” roles were doing something useful after all.

I’ll choose to believe that. At least until the next shower thought tells me otherwise.

Want to keep reading about the science behind workplace culture, AI, and operations? Subscribe to get new posts delivered when I actually finish writing them — which, in the spirit of this piece, is delightfully uncertain.

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Some things have gotten easier. Some things are still about the same.

I started out on prednisone and methotrexate. The prednisone was weaned during the first month. It helped immensely, but I knew I didn’t want to stay on it longer than absolutely necessary, so I have stayed off it after the first 25 days or so. The methotrexate, as the doctor had explained, took a while before I started to notice any improvement. Unfortunately, it wasn’t full improvement and I still experienced active disease just with it. After three months of methotrexate, he prescribed Enbrel, a biologic.

That was in December 2025.

I didn’t have health insurance of any kind. Pharmacy discount programs don’t really help with name-brand, no generic available, specialty meds. So I waited. I kept applying to jobs, hoping to land something that included benefits. I couldn’t afford any plans on the health exchange platform either.

This is what it looks like for chronically-ill folks in the US. Take away our insurance and we have to make a choice to not receive medication or not eat or not pay bills. I chose to not start a new medication for my RA.

I was approved for Medicaid in February and was able to start Enbrel then. After the first four weekly injections, my range of motion is improved, and my pain is largely gone. My energy is up. I still get tired, but now I can’t tell if it is from active rheumatoid arthritis or if it is because I did too much and I’m just tired.

Nothing will reverse the damage already done, so my hands will probably always be stiff and a bit misshapen now, especially my right hand where most of the damage is. Because of this, typing is still a bit tricky. The joints in my fingers make some of my fingers lock up or move slightly out of where they should be. I’ve adjusted my hand placement so my typing speed isn’t as impacted.

The brain fog is much improved, too. I still write down lists of ideas or things I need to get done, but that could be the ADHD and life in general and not so much the RA. Before, it was hard to keep days straight and hard to stay awake. I can’t always get everything on the list done, since I am still catching up from so many months of not being able to do so many things, including writing on Substack.

I’ve had to learn how to be very gentle and understanding with myself. I can’t push through things as easily as I was. I mean, I guess I still could muster up the push-through, but I have a much better understanding that I shouldn’t because I will pay for it later on.

This doesn’t mean I have become lazy. No, I’ve had to become more deliberate in where I spend my energy. I am more thoughtful about what I do and when I do it.

Through the RA, I’ve launched two LLCs (one for my husband and one for myself). I’ve built websites and have done some promotion work. I’m also working on some certification and training programs. I know the things I’ve done are largely backend, behind the scenes infrastructure things businesses need, but businesses also need someone talking about them. With the RA active like it was, that was the part I couldn’t do.

I couldn’t wrap my head around offers or niches while in pain and fog. Now, it is a new month and a new quarter for 2026 and I’m still navigating meds and rheumatoid arthritis, but I feel better and more like me. I’m excited to see how the medications continue to work.

I’m getting my strength back (physically, mentally, emotionally), and I know there will be days where I can only get done the bare minimum and there will be days when I can hike three miles. This is what life with a non-visible, chronic illness looks like. This is me, now. I’m getting okay with that.

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Here's the thing: This house has so much neurodivergent l-necessary routine that the pets do not take kindly to bedtime disruptions.

The Great Pyrenees, who sleeps on the floor in my bedroom, despite having two beds and a couch in the living room, is vastly inconvenienced if I get out of bed.

He will follow me to the living room and “hrmph” himself onto his bed or the couch, as if I told him to wake up. Or, and this is worse, he will decide it is time to protect our chunk of mountain, which also includes whatever he can see since private property signs and government property lines mean nothing to him.

The cats will also wake and follow me. But they judge. They judge me for disrupting the routine, their sleep, for turning on a light, for not feeding them breakfast yet, for the dog moving around. I judge them back because they can fall asleep sitting up. None of them care.

The house panther will attempt to subdue me if I lay on the couch. The old man cat, who came with the house, will ask for breakfast more than once to ensure it really is, in fact, not breakfast time and this is just a case of lack of sleep for all of us now (except the other people. They are immune. The cats probably judge them for that). The girl cat will attempt a cuddle or she will swat at the old man or she will convince the house panther it is time to wrestle. She's the wild card.

For now, though, everyone is asleep, except me, but I am not awake because of debilitating RA pain. Pain from blankets lightly resting on my feet or pain from laying in one spot too long or pain from merely existing. No.

No. This is the awake that comes from the mental hyperactivity of ADHD. It has been a long time since I've dealt with just this and, in a few hours, I will be officially awake, because one thing I have learned is that all the styles of neurodiversity in this house are sympathetic to each other, but, so far, no one else wants to party all night like my brain (not even me). They will all wake up rested and I will zombie my way through part of the morning until the rave finally closes.

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The hold that stories have on our lives is so incredibly tight: New-jar-of-peanut-butter tight. Ebeneezer-Scrooge-before-the-Ghosts-of-Christmas tight. Toddler-with-anything-they-aren’t-supposed-to-have tight.

How often do we ask ourselves, “Are they true? Are they really true? If they aren’t true, why do I cling to them?”

I wish I had an answer to that. I have held so many stories true, even the stories I didn’t want to be true, but seemed as though they should be true because someone I respected told me.

In the corporate world, when someone is trying to grow or climb, they look to the people in charge, people in higher positions, but on different teams, or to people with more tenure in the organization or industry. They seek acknowledgment and validation that what they are doing is right.

When someone is starting out in the career, finding a mentor can be invaluable. The mentor, hopefully, becomes someone the person can trust and an advocate for advancement or additional learning opportunities. The relationship between someone new in an organization and someone tenured can have a lasting impact on both people.

Where we mess up (sometimes), the people we are looking to for answers are only able to give us answers or guidance based on their own reality, which, is made up of the stories they tell themselves. The stories might be based in academic learning or real-life authority; they might be based in trauma or fear. We have to be able to determine if what they are telling us really makes sense for us.

Should we stop seeking mentors? No.

Should we stop believing everything they tell us? Maybe.

We need to be able to hold feedback and self-awareness: Is this person telling me something that does not align with my values? Do I believe this person is telling me something from a place of mutual respect? Does this person know enough about me, as a whole person, to be able to offer meaningful perspectives? Am I in tune with myself enough to be able to act on their feedback in a productive way? Do I want to make a change that this person is suggesting?

When we are starting in our careers, it is easy to ignore some of these questions. We might not even realize we are ignoring the questions; maybe we don’t realize we should be questioning the feedback. We take our understanding of success and start applying it to the people we see. Oh. She’s a director. She’s successful. He has a very booked calendar; successful. That group sitting together at the meeting were some of the first people hired. Successful.

That booked calendar could be someone afraid to delegate or someone who uses their calendar to protect their time (one of my favorite tactics).

The director? She might be happy. She might be an amazing leader. She might also have been promoted because she was with the company for years and hit a salary cap in other roles. Leadership promoted her, not because she was the best fit, but because she wanted more pay and they couldn’t do anything in her previous role. Now, she is leading but wasn’t developed to lead.

The tenured folks? They might be happy and content being SMEs; they might feel stuck and be looking for ways to advance but have been told they’re “Too valuable” to lose. They’re on every project. They’re the onboarding team. They’re possibly burned out.

Without knowing more, we place our stories of success onto them. We assume we should listen to them. We should emulate them.

Somewhere, though, maybe something shifts. We no longer want the full calendar of meetings. We no longer want the bigger office. We don’t want to be on every project and still have the expectation of getting our regular work done, too. Or maybe we do want the bigger office, but no one told us we could do it.

It is all stories. We can decide what works for us and what we want. We need to be able to reflect on things honestly and work toward our real definition of success. Things that align with our values and our goals. We may have to deprogram ourselves to find those real things.

No one has to tell you what to want or how to define success. You don’t need permission to be yourself. You can make a choice to listen to the stories others and you tell you. You can untangle the web that has been woven around you. You can want the big team, the big office, the quiet cabin, the sportscar, the homestead. You get to choose your adventure in life.

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Not the skills. Not the frameworks. Not the communication templates.

The mindset.

And here’s what the data shows: only 32% of leaders have achieved what the report calls “healthy change adoption.” But those who have? They’re reporting double the year-on-year revenue growth of their peers.¹

So there’s a mindset gap. And it has a measurable business impact.

So what is this mindset? And why can’t it be trained into existence the way we’ve been trying to train everything else?

Organizations pour resources into change management frameworks like Kotter’s 8 steps, PROSCI, and Bridges’ transition model. I’ve been through the training myself (Kotter at a previous employer, Bridges in my master’s program, and I’ve read up on PROSCI). These frameworks are useful for what to do during organizational change.

But here’s what they don’t address: How does a leader guide people through uncertainty if they themselves don’t understand their own experience of it?

The frameworks give you the roadmap. They don’t help you when you’re too anxious to follow it. They tell you to communicate clearly when your own mind is spinning. They assume the leader has a foundation that most leaders simply don’t have.

Not because they’re incompetent. But because no one’s ever helped them understand how their minds actually work.

The Leadership Panic

I see a pattern in the leaders I work with.

The market shifts. The strategy pivots. The reorganization gets announced. And suddenly, the leader who seemed so confident, so capable, so together is... not.

They’re working longer hours but getting less done. Snapping at their team. Overthinking every decision. Lying awake at 3AM running worst-case scenarios. Performing confidence in meetings while drowning in self-doubt between them.

And then, because they’re good leaders who care about their people, they try to lead through it. They craft the message and probably schedule a town hall. They say the right words about resilience and adaptability and “we’ve got this.”

But their team can feel if there’s disconnection or if it is too much of a performance. A leader’s own anxiety can leak through every reassuring word.

You can’t guide someone through a storm you don’t know how to navigate yourself.

Not because you need to have all the answers. But because you need to understand how your own mind works when you don’t.

The Misunderstanding About Uncertainty

Most leadership training treats uncertainty like a skills gap.

Learn to make decisions with incomplete information. Build your risk tolerance. Develop scenario planning capabilities. Practice transparent communication. Get better at holding space for others’ anxiety.

All useful. None of it gets to the root.

Because the problem isn’t that leaders don’t know what to do during uncertainty. The problem is that they don’t understand what’s actually happening when they feel uncertain.

They think:

• The circumstances are creating their stress

• Their anxiety is a signal that something’s wrong

• They need to figure everything out before they can lead effectively

• Their job is to absorb everyone else’s uncertainty so the team doesn’t have to feel it

• If they’re feeling this way, they must not be cut out for leadership

And from that misunderstanding, they do what stressed humans do: They try to control everything. Over-function. Micromanage. Make premature decisions just to escape the discomfort of not knowing. Perform certainty they don’t feel.

Which is exhausting. And it doesn’t work. And it makes the uncertainty worse for everyone.

What Leaders Actually Need to Understand

There’s something fundamental about how human experience works that most leadership development completely misses.

Our psychological experience is created from the inside out, not the outside in.

What we’re feeling in any moment (the anxiety, the clarity, the overwhelm, the confidence) is coming from our thinking in that moment. Not from the circumstances.

This isn’t positive thinking. It’s not cognitive reframing or managing your mindset. It’s something deeper: understanding the actual mechanism of how experience is created for all human beings.

And when leaders begin to see this (not just intellectually, but actually see it), something shifts.

They stop waiting for the circumstances to change before they can feel clear.

They stop taking their 3AM catastrophizing as truth.

They notice when they’re in a low state of mind and know not to make decisions from there.

They stop trying to absorb everyone else’s uncertainty because they understand that experience doesn’t work that way.

They lead from a completely different place.

I can’t fully explain this in a blog post. It’s not information you download. It’s an insight that deepens over time and that understanding changes everything.

The Neurodivergent Lens

I have to bring my own experience in here, because it’s relevant.

As a neurodivergent person, I’ve spent most of my life feeling like my mind was the problem. Too much thinking. Too much sensitivity to uncertainty. Too aware of all the variables and possibilities and things that could go wrong.

I thought other people (especially leaders) had minds that just worked better. More certainty. More clarity. Less noise.

What I’ve come to see: everyone’s mind works the same way. Thought creates experience, moment to moment. States of mind shifting constantly. The illusion that circumstances are creating our feelings.

The difference is, neurodivergent people often see this more clearly because we can’t not notice it. We feel the shifts. We see our thinking. We’re aware of the noise.

And in a culture that values the appearance of certainty, that awareness looks like a deficit.

But here’s what I know now: that awareness is the asset.

The leaders who can guide people through uncertainty aren’t the ones who feel certain. They’re the ones who understand their own minds well enough to not be derailed by uncertainty.

They’re comfortable with not knowing because they understand that “not knowing” is just a state of mind, not a crisis.

They can hold space for other people’s anxiety because they’re not trying to fix or manage or take on their own.

They make clear decisions not because they have all the information, but because they understand when they’re in a clear state of mind to make them.

I believe this is the mindset recent reports and data points to and it can’t be trained through traditional leadership development because it is not a skill. It is an understanding.

What This Means for You

If you’re a leader reading this and recognizing yourself in the struggle:

You’re not broken. Your mind isn’t the problem. You’re just misunderstanding how it works.

The anxiety you feel during uncertainty isn’t evidence that you shouldn’t be leading. It’s just thought. And thought passes. States of mind shift. Clarity returns. This is how consciousness works for everyone.

You don’t need to manage your mind better. You need to understand it better.

When you do, uncertainty stops being the enemy. It becomes just... what’s happening. And you can lead from there.

Not because you have all the answers. But because you understand that nobody does, and that’s okay, and that your team’s resilience (like yours) is built-in, not built through your efforts to protect them from reality.

What the Data Actually Shows

The CHRO report shows that only 32% of leaders achieve healthy change adoption. But those who do are reporting double the revenue growth.¹

The report identifies the barrier as a mindset gap. What they don’t say is what that mindset actually is or how leaders develop it.

That’s the question I’m interested in.

The Work

I work with leaders who are exhausted from trying to lead in ways that don’t align with how human beings actually function.

Who sense there’s something deeper than better communication frameworks or resilience training.

Who want to understand their own minds so they can stop feeling at the mercy of them.

This isn’t therapy. It’s not stress management. It’s not another leadership program with modules and workbooks (though, I do have some materials that include workbooks if that’s your thing).

It’s a conversation about how experience actually works. From that understanding, everything else becomes simpler.

(I’m still getting comfortable calling myself a “coach” — there are some shady operators out there who’ve given the word a bad name. What I really do is help leaders/aspiring leaders/people see something about how their minds work that shifts how they show up. You can call that coaching, advising, consulting, or just... a useful conversation. The label matters less than whether it’s actually helpful.)

If you’re leading through uncertainty and feeling like you’re doing it wrong, or that everyone else has figured something out that you haven’t, you’re probably closer to the truth than the people who think they have it figured out. (It took me 20 years growing as a leader and hours upon hours of academic and personal research to uncover the simplistic beauty).

Want to talk about what understanding your own mind might make possible? Reach out. Let’s see if this makes sense for where you are.

Footnotes

Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), “2026 CHRO Priorities and Perspectives Report.” Based on survey of 129 CHROs. Available at https://www.shrm.org/

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Your CHRO just made workplace culture a Top 3 priority for 2026. The budget’s approved. The consultant’s been hired. The survey’s going out next week.

Here’s what I want you to consider: what if that’s the problem?

The Culture Construction Project

I’ve watched this pattern for years. Culture becomes a priority, so organizations do what they know how to do — they build.

They build programs. Culture committees. Value statements workshopped across fourteen meetings. Engagement surveys that slice and dice sentiment into color-coded dashboards. Town halls where leaders read scripts about psychological safety while everyone’s cameras are strategically off.

More initiatives. More frameworks. More communications about the communications.

And somehow, the culture... doesn’t change.

Or worse, it does change. People get better at performing the culture while the actual culture continues revealing itself in the 10,000 small moments between the initiatives. The moments when someone’s idea gets shut down in a meeting. When the neurodivergent person stops masking and the room goes quiet. When leadership says, “We value work-life balance” and then praises the person who answers Slack at 11PM.

The 2026 CHRO report shows culture jumping from 15% to 31% of top priorities. That’s not because culture suddenly matters more. It’s because everything organizations have been building isn’t working.

What If Culture Can’t Be Built?

I’m going to say something that might sound strange coming from someone was part of leadership team who helped define a mission and vision statement.

Culture isn’t built. It’s revealed.

You can’t construct it any more than you can construct trust, or manufacture genuine enthusiasm, or mandate someone into a good mood. Culture is what naturally emerges from how human beings actually function, from the inside out.

Culture is always being revealed:

• In how your leaders respond when the plan falls apart

• In whether people feel safe to think differently (and whether neurodivergent brains are valued or just “accommodated”)

• In what actually happens when someone makes a mistake

• In the quality of thinking happening across the organization

• In whether “our people are our greatest asset” is a belief or just a slide

The culture you have right now? It’s not a problem to be solved. It’s information. It’s showing you something about the collective consciousness of your organization. About what people believe is safe, what they believe is possible, what they believe about themselves and each other.

A Different Understanding

This is where most culture initiatives miss the mark entirely. They’re working outside-in: change the structures, the processes, the programs, and hope the people change with them.

But human beings don’t work that way.

We work from the inside out. Our experience of work, of culture, of leadership, of pressure, of change. All of that, is created through thought, moment to moment. Not through circumstances.

When leaders understand this (and I mean really understand it, not just intellectually agree with it), something shifts. They stop trying to build culture and start paying attention to what’s being revealed. They get curious about the thinking that’s creating the current culture. They notice their own state of mind and how it ripples out.

This isn’t about positive thinking or mindfulness practices or resilience training. It’s about understanding the fundamental nature of how human experience is created. Thought, consciousness, and the life force behind it are the only things creating our psychological experience, 100% of the time.

When this understanding deepens in a leadership team, culture doesn’t need to be built. It reveals itself differently because the consciousness has shifted.

The Neurodivergent Advantage

Here’s where I have to bring my own lens in.

I’m neurodivergent. My brain doesn’t automatically filter the way neurotypical brains do. I don’t instinctively perform or code-switch or ignore the gap between what’s being said and what’s actually happening.

For most of my life, I thought this was a deficit. That I was “too sensitive” or “reading too much into things” or “not a culture fit.”

What I’ve come to see: this isn’t a deficit. This is the skill.

Neurodivergent people often see what’s being revealed because we’re not as conditioned to unsee it. We notice the micro-moments. We feel the incongruence. We’re the canaries in the coal mine of organizational culture; not because we’re fragile, but because we’re perceiving what others have learned to filter out.

The organizations that are actually shifting culture? They’re the ones learning to see what their neurodivergent people have been seeing all along. They’re valuing that perception instead of pathologizing it.

They’re letting culture be revealed instead of performing culture being built.

What This Means for Leaders

If you’re a leader reading this and feeling the pressure to “fix culture,” I want to offer you something different:

What if there’s nothing to fix?

What if the culture you have is perfectly revealing the quality of understanding in your organization about how human beings work?

What if instead of building programs, you got curious about:

• What you believe about your people (really believe, not what you say in the all-hands)

• What state of mind you’re in when you’re making decisions about culture

• Whether you’re leading from fear of what might be revealed, or genuine curiosity about what’s already there

• How much space there is for neurodivergent ways of thinking, processing, and leading

The CHRO report shows that 64% of leaders lack the mindset to guide people through continuous change. That’s not just a training gap. That’s an understanding gap.

Leaders who understand how the mind works (how thought creates experience, how states of mind shift, how resilience is already built-in) don’t need to “build culture” through sheer force of will and programmatic effort.

They create the conditions for a healthier culture to reveal itself.

The Question

So here’s what I’m sitting with, and what I invite you to sit with:

What would become possible if your leadership team stopped trying to build culture and started learning to see what’s being revealed?

What if the neurodivergent person on your team who “doesn’t fit the culture” is actually showing you exactly what needs to be seen?

What if culture change isn’t a construction project, but a deepening of understanding?

I work with leaders and organizations who are tired of the hamster wheel. Who sense there’s something deeper than another culture survey or values rollout. Who want to understand how human beings (including themselves) actually work.

If this resonates, let’s talk. Not about building your culture, but about seeing what’s already being revealed.

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We all have days where we think, “I cannot do this” and we, somehow, do the thing. We find the strength or courage and make it happen. I’m certain this is true for anyone partaking of the human experience.

But. Being people, we forget when there’s something new or uncomfortable. We forget that we have overcome challenges. We forget that every day we make it another day is one more rep of our strength and resilience.

We sometimes give in and try to resist. We spiral mentally or emotionally. We panic. We fear. We catastrophize.

What can we do instead?

First, recognize the spiral. Acknowledge the emotion or feeling. If you can, realize that the feelings you are feeling are not truth.

The back of the Beyond Hope card provides some grounding tips:

1. Embrace the journey. Think back on your own story and when you needed your strength and resilience. What happened? How did you come through?

2. Celebrate the path. Name three moments when your resilience shone through the fear. How did you grow from these experiences?

Now, without staying in the past (because the past is over), can you find a way to quiet your mind and find a single action you can take to move through the feeling of overwhelm or anxiety or however your “I cannot do this” is felt?

Our nervous system likes to try to keep us safe, but we aren’t usually staring down monsters or other true dangers. We are making statements or decisions. We need to send an email that might be a bit more direct than we typically are. We might want to post an opinion or a new idea on social media.

We might be facing job loss (hi) and needing to do some rebranding work on ourselves. All of these things are possible and the fact that we have made it as far as we have is a testament to our ability to rally strength and be resilient. You are amazing.

(It is also completely okay to just want a damn break if adversity seems to have personally latched onto you for a season. Don’t give up or give in. Take a breath. Find someone to talk to. Find a small action you can take. Move through).

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On March 12, 2026, I’m hosting my first live webinar designed to help early and mid-career professionals find clarity and their definition of success. Seats are limited. Find out more here: Sustainable Ambition

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Leadership & Clarity Coaching with Magpie & Squirrel Consulting (Notion page)

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Behind every good model is:

• clean data

• clear guidelines

• consistent labeling

• well-designed processes

• humans who understand the system

AI doesn’t replace operational excellence. It requires it.

In my recent work (including data annotation and workflow QA), I’ve seen firsthand that:

The quality of the data is the quality of the outcome.

Not the hype.
Not the speed.
Not the model size.

The data.

Language
Another thing I’m noticing is AI does much better interpreting direct, sanitized language. The potential impact for brand voices is huge. If someone has a brand that has a certain tone or voice, if SEO AI is trained to use more “corporate” language, the brand may not be ranked or found when a potential customer searches.

Do we risk missing out on human connection because we’ve trained AI to be so clear to minimize interpretation issues and the AI just can’t quite handle all the nuance that comes from lived experiences?

AI can tell us the ingredients of a salad, but can it accurately portray the experience of combining arugula, goat cheese, diced beets, and a lightly candied pecan or walnut? It can give us video of slicing into burrata, but can it reflect the subtle twinkle in the eyes of the people around the table as they slice and scoop it onto crostini?

What Do We Really Want?
I’ve seen some posts (and wish I could find them now!) suggesting that people are starting to question if something clearly written (think academic level) could be AI-generated and people are starting to crave mistakes and signs of life.

I think we are craving AUTHENTICITY. With AI advancements and social media filters, it can be so challenging to quickly identify what is and is not AI-generated. We want to see the scribbles in notebooks, fewer em dashes, the texture of oil on canvas. We want clarity, but not sanitization, because we crave a deeper connection with life.

Can we leverage technology to improve our processes and make things happen faster while still connecting with each other on a human level or are we moving down a path that will have us more and more behind screens, pointing out that the computers did a task, maybe correcting the computer a bit, but screaming for human-creative genius?

The future of AI isn’t just technical — it’s operational, human, and process-driven.
And, hopefully, leaders who understand that intersection will build better, safer, more impactful systems.

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Have you ever been sitting somewhere and find yourself judging someone? I think it is part of the human condition. We see or hear something, we have a thought about it.

The parent at the school pickup or drop off in their pajama pants and hoodie? They must be too lazy to get dressed properly. They aren’t taking pride in themselves; they can’t possibly be a good parent. The person “too old” for rainbow-inspired hair. The person talking about chronic illness or neurodivergent living that “wants attention.” The parent with the kids at the store who “must be” single.

I am that pajama-clothed parent. Some mornings, the aches and stiffness are more than I want to deal with, but I still get to my kids fed and to school. I might not have slept well the night before and my husband might have something going on where he can’t do drop off. To be fair, there is a really good chance that same hoodie and different pajama pants will make an appearance at school pick up. Not because I’m lazy, but because I work exclusively from home right now and I work best when I am comfortable. I don’t need jeans or a bra to work.

If we have judged someone and we can reasonably assume most, if not all, people have judged someone at some point, why do so many of us worry about what other’s think? Most people don’t know the whole story.

If people haven’t read my Substack or LinkedIn posts or talked to me much, they probably don’t know that I have rheumatoid arthritis and have started the journey to remission. If they don’t know that about me, they can’t really make any sort of informed thought about what I’m wearing or how I’m moving or why I am wearing a mask (I do, occasionally, wear a mask in public. I also wash my hands a ton. Don’t argue with me about it; you won’t win).

When we judge someone, we are inserting our opinions into what we know (or don’t know) about a person and we rarely have their full story. If we aren’t careful, the judgment can make us think something probably untrue about the person since we have no information to counter the judgmental thought. The more we are exposed to a thought without a counter, the more we begin to believe it.

If we understand that these judgments are thoughts, we can NOT have them or just acknowledge them and let them go on their way; let the thought float on like a bubble. The same is true for how we live our lives. We realize people will probably judge us. Let that thought float away. Acknowledge that the people judging don’t know your story or your motivation for doing something and live your truth.

Wear the pajamas. Dye the hair. Overshare on socials if that’s your thing. Dance in the rain. Change careers. Follow your truth.

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Guiding you back to your own wisdom (Notion page)

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One of the greatest challenges in my life has been launching and talking about Magpie & Squirrel. Having an LLC and referencing it has worked against me while applying to corporate roles (well, it has at least once from what I heard through the grapevine).

I recently met with a training company to talk about becoming a trainer with their organization. It felt much more relaxed than any of the corporate interviews (To be super honest, it felt damn good). When she asked me the infamous “Tell me about yourself” monologue prompt, I went through my standard “I’m known for being a translator between business and technology. I’ve trained processes, technology, leadership. I love finding the aha! moments with people. I created an LLC after exiting my last company as sort of my Everest. I wanted to see if I could do it…”

And she said, “That’s so great! Always bet on yourself!”

In that moment, I figured out my phrasing and found that some people are going to be okay with it. I was still invited to the next round of the hiring process. One stepping stone that I can balance on.

I also suck at self-promotion. I text a couple friends to get their ideas about something I want to build. I opened the messages with “I need a brain that isn’t mine.” Then summarized what I was thinking. They both provided feedback and thoughts almost immediately. I was able to merge their thoughts and my thoughts to create a new printable. What’s funny is the printable is basically what I’ve used over the years to get my head straight.

On some level, I needed the social acceptance that others might benefit. After a few days, I finished the printable and sent them a link to it. Both came back immediately showing love and support for it.

Another stepping stone. This one to help me remember that through this journey, because of my lived experiences, I am creating things and others are finding these things useful and are supporting this journey.

I posted all my links as comments on a personal FB page post. Another stepping stone. From that, I gained one more Substack subscriber, one Skool member, and I think one more Instagram follower. Not one of these people commented on the post to tell me they signed up or joined. They did it quietly; waiting for me to find it, I guess. I love the quiet support from all the supporters on all the platforms, whether brand new or from day one. Thank you. (Please don’t feel like you have to stay quiet! I do love interacting with people, too!)

All of this takes an immense amount of courage. And, I have some of the first stones in place that I know I can leap from and to when I need to remember that it is okay to be more visible in what I’m creating.

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Guiding you back to your own wisdom (Notion page)

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Energy is not the same as effort.

Some days, you can give 100% and still have energy left.
Other days, 20 minutes of focused work is the victory.

Good leadership recognizes this in others — and in ourselves.

Not every employee needs a lighter workload.
Some need a different rhythm.

Not every team member needs more motivation.
Some need recovery.

Not every high performer is “on” every day.
Some are managing entire invisible ecosystems of effort.

The best leaders don’t just ask “What needs to get done?”
They ask:
“What would make this sustainable?”

And that’s where real performance begins.

For the days I haven’t been able to be “on,” I created a mental checklist, which I recently turned into a printable PDF. If you’re navigating leadership, work, or caregiving while managing variable energy, you can find my checklist here:

Daily Energy Check In Printable

There are three pages — one for morning, one for midday, and one for the evening. This has helped me better recognize what kind of day I’m actually having instead of forcing energy for productivity that isn’t there.

You can be incredibly capable and still… completely exhausted.

After years of leading operations, building systems, mentoring teams, and translating complexity for a living — my biggest growth edge right now isn’t skill.

It’s alignment.

Not every role needs your full force.
Not every company deserves your extra mile.
And not every season of life demands the same pace.

These days, my metric for a “good fit” sounds like:

• Does this role value clarity and humanity?

• Is the environment structured, or am I being hired to be the glue for systemic gaps?

• Can I thrive here as a neurodivergent, chronically ill professional without burning out?

• Will my strengths matter here?

I think a lot of people need permission to say this:

You can be a tour de force and still choose where, how, and for whom you show up.

If you’re in a similar season — you’re not alone.
We’ll find the right fit.

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Guiding you back to your own wisdom (Notion page)

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When people don’t feel safe:

• they hide their mistakes

• they don’t ask clarifying questions

• they avoid risk

• they minimize their creativity

• they give you “just enough,” not their actual brilliance

You can have beautifully written goals, OKRs, or metrics —
but without safety?

You’re just measuring someone’s ability to navigate fear.

The leaders who get the best performance aren’t the ones with strict systems.
They’re the ones who build environments where people can:

• tell the truth early

• admit confusion

• ask for guidance

• experiment

• recover from missteps

• grow

Great performance is an outcome.
Psychological safety is the driver.

And it’s not “soft.” It’s strategic.

If organizations want better results, they have to start by making sure people feel safe enough to show up as their whole selves, and safe enough to actually learn.

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