Herding Lightning: The Six ADHD Archetypes I Learned from 20 Years of Creative Chaos

There's a certain sort of electricity that happens when a number of ADHD and neurodiverse creatives are jumbled together as a team. It is not calm. It is not efficient. But it is completely alive.

I worked for 20 years at a digital and creative agency that serviced clients ranging from McDonald's Europe to EA Games, Mattel, Warner Bros., and Universal Music. We designed Happy Meal experiences for kids in 50 countries. We worked with game creators, toy creators, and brand teams who spoke 12 different creative languages.

At our level, we'd have around 250 of us spread over two nations — London meetings at 9 a.m., Ottawa production binges at 3 a.m., and Culver City brainstorming sessions somewhere in between. My schedule was a blur. My head? Pure static and sparks.

And yet magically, we created magic.

Not because it was methodical, but because it wasn't.

It took a while to realize what made that chaos worth it: it wasn't genius leadership or dumb chance. It was people.

Neurodiverse people. ADHD minds who thought outside the box, jumped ahead, broke things, fixed them, broke them again — and built something brilliant out of the pieces.

Over time, I started to see patterns in how those minds created strategy, fixed problems, and carried out creativity. They weren't job titles — they were archetypes.

And once I knew how to recognize them, I stopped trying to put everyone in the same box — and started running them like a symphony.

Below is what I learned: the six ADHD strategic archetypes that, collectively, generate lightning in a bottle.

1. The Connection Maker

"Everything's connected. Even the stuff that shouldn't be."

You know this person — maybe you are this person. They can find a link between a campaign for a Happy Meal toy and a UX onboarding flow for a smartphone game. They find connections among markets, technologies, and pop culture trends before the rest of us.

They simply can't just sit still during a SWOT analysis session — not because they're fidgety, but because their brain is half a dozen slides ahead, drawing imaginary lines on the whiteboard with an imagination they alone can interpret.

When we were building global campaigns for McDonald's Kids & Family, these were the individuals who could stand up and say, "What if we take game mechanics from EA and combine them with collectible toys from Mattel and storylines from Warner Bros.?"

The rest of the room was baffled. I just smiled. Because I'd seen this before — the synapse storm when ADHD brains start connecting dots.

Their Superpower: pattern creation, creativity, and leaps of imagination.

Their Kryptonite: idea excess — connecting everything until nothing appears actionable.

How to Support Them:

Give them the freedom to think, but anchor them to a purpose.

Establish "idea parking lots" — someplace to drop sparks without sabotaging flow.

Schedule regular "connection audits" — what patterns keep recurring?

The Connection Maker is your team's neural jazz soloist — they never end. Let them improvise. Just make sure someone's recording the song.

2. The Future Scanner

"I can see where this is all going… want me to skip ahead?"

If the Connection Maker spins webs, then the Future Scanner generates timelines. These are your visionaries — the people who talk about markets and technology as if they've already lived them.

Five-year plans? Please. They can view ten futures simultaneously.

When I was working out of London, my creative director would map out what toys would be trendy next year by reading Japanese vending machine catalogs, European licensing reports, and TikTok behavioral trends. He wasn't guessing. He was time traveling.

ADHD brains are hungry for novelty and possibility — dopamine spikes as we imagine what could be. That's why so many artists with ADHD are most themselves when they're speculating, predicting, or futurizing the next big thing.

Their Superpower: future-gazing, envisioning, and intuitive planning ahead.

Their Kryptonite: information overload — chasing every "next thing" before finishing the current one.

How to Support Them:

Use 90-day strategy sprints — brief enough to satisfy dopamine, long enough to make a difference.

Create visual “Now / Next / Later” boards to keep vision organized.

Celebrate follow-through, not just foresight.

The Future Scanner doesn’t dream small — they build universes. Just make sure they occasionally come back to Earth to ship the work.

3. The Pattern Recognizer

“I’ve seen this before — we’re about two steps away from it breaking.”

This one is subtle. They're quieter than the others, but their brains are radar technology for structure. They pick up on trends on the horizon before they can be seen, notice cracks in systems, and feel creative rhythms that anticipate what's coming.

When we were collaborating with game development companies like EA and Zynga, these were the folks who could look at a prototype and inform us exactly where the users would get bored or lost — weeks before user testing confirmed it.

They think in loops and feedback, not lists. It's an innate intuition built on years of cluttered observation — an ADHD advantage disguising a quirk.

Their Superpower: early signal detection, system tuning, course correction prior to disaster.

Their Kryptonite: false positives — seeing patterns where there aren't any, over-optimization prior to something even existing.

How to Support Them:

Give them data and independence — they need both.

Ask them to write "pattern reports" instead of PowerPoints.

Encourage them to slow down before acting on every signal.

When they do get it right, they bail out everyone's ass. When they get it wrong, it's usually harmless curiosity. Either way, however, is worth listening to.

4. The Momentum Builder

"Thinking's great. Let's do something already."

This is the ignition of any team with plenty of ADHD. The Momentum Builder can't sit still when there's an idea just waiting to be acted on. They must see action — a prototype, a mockup, a first cut, something.

They get the job done in the first moment of chaos — when the whiteboard's yet to be marked up and the clock's ticking.

We used to have a producer like this in our Culver City office who went 72 hours without sleep to take a half-baked sketch and turn it into a functioning demo for a pitch. Half-asleep, we went to the meeting with something to show. We secured the deal.

Their Superpower: rapid action, contagious energy, fearless starting.

Their Kryptonite: burnout, boredom after launch, struggling with long-term maintenance.

How to Support Them:

Use high-feedback, brief cycles.

Celebrate publicly small wins — they love momentum.

Pair them up with a "Structure Seeker" to keep the fire in check.

They're the spark in the engine. Without them, nothing ever gets airborne.

5. The Adaptive Navigator

"Okay, Plan A's dead. Time for Plan G."

When the world goes skew — and it always does — these are your survivors. The Adaptive Navigators don't just survive chaos, they thrive in it.

I had one working in our London office who could re-spin a campaign plan on the fly if the client changed their mind. The rest of us would be stumped. She'd smile, tilt her head, and say, "Cool, let's pivot."

ADHD brains are improvisational instinctuals. We rewire in conversations, meetings, life. It is not carelessness; it's adaptive thinking — the ability to pivot in real-time.

Their Superpower: adaptability, improvisation, fluid problem-solving.

Their Kryptonite: impulsive turns, inconsistent follow-through, forgetting original goals.

How to Support Them:

Allow them to call crisis mode — they're calm when everyone panics.

Help them chronicle decisions after the pivot.

Debrief each turn — not as punishment, but as pattern recognition.

They're your field medics and firefighters. Keep them close. Just maybe hide the matches.

6. The Structure Seeker

"Give me a rhythm, not a rule."

This one's rare — usually achieved after decades of chaos and burnout. The Structure Seeker has discovered that creativity without a structure overwhelms and falls over itself.

They're not "Type A." They're "Type Still Surviving.".

In Ottawa, one of our senior designers was this in a nutshell. Her desk was a gallery of post-its and color codes — chaos in perfect harmony. She wasn't fighting her ADHD; she was leveraging it.

ADHD brains crave stimulation, but they also need constant rhythms to replenish. The Structure Seeker builds just enough scaffolding to stay creative without burning out.

Their Superpower: balance, sustainability, and system design for neurodiverse teams.

Their Kryptonite: perfectionism — over-systematizing until spontaneity dies.

How to Support Them:

Ask them to assist with codifying what's working for the team.

Don't burden them with "fix everyone's chaos" tasks.

Allow their systems to grow — strict rules choke them.

They're the quiet heartbeat under the madness — the reason the ship remains afloat when the storm hits.

???? Why This All Works

When you take a step back and look at these six archetypes, you start to realize why ADHD and the arts are a match made in heaven.

These brains don't think in linear terms — they think in networks, loops, and leaps.

They thrive in states of uncertainty, pattern detection, and momentum.

They require stimulation, but they also create coping mechanisms that become innovations.

We used to joke that our agency ran on caffeine, chaos, and eleventh-hour genius. But the truth is, we ran on neurodiversity.The mix of brains — the impulsive, the analytical, the intuitive, the structured — brought balance to the storm.

It's amazing what happens when you stop treating quirks as deficits and start seeing them as design principles.

Last Thoughts: Herding Lightning

If ever you find yourself with a circus-sounding team — where ideas explode like firecrackers quicker than you can get them contained — breathe before freaking out. You might be herding lightning.

The trick is not to tame it. It's to channel it.

ADHD and neurodiverse brains are not broken planning computers; they're improvisational pattern-followers running at full voltage. When you give them trust, simplicity, and a beat that they can move to, they'll amaze you with brilliance that no step-by-step plan could have come up with.

I still live in the mess today. But I recognize what I'm seeing now.

I can spot the Connection Makers, the Future Scanners, the Pattern Recognizers.

I can see the Momentum Builders charging ahead, the Adaptive Navigators pivoting midair, the Structure Seekers quietly keeping everyone from combusting.

It’s not perfect. It’s never quiet.

But it’s real.

And when it clicks?

It’s lightning.

Coming Soon: The ADD Creative Guy Field Guide to Chaos

This piece is part of a bigger series I’m slowly pulling together — kind of a handbook for the beautifully wired brain.

Think of it as the notes I needed 20 years ago, when I believed my head was broken rather than just running hot.

Coming soon: Shame, Self-Sabotage, and the Silent Burnout Cycle.

Tune in.

FURTHER READING, SOURCES & DEEP DIVES:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/juliewroblewski/2014/05/14/adhd-the-entrepreneurs-superpower/
Forbes - ADHD: The Entrepreneur's Superpower - 30% of entrepreneurs have ADHD, identifying entrepreneurial archetypes and traits.

https://www.thekimfoundation.org/entrepreneurship-and-adhd-strengths/
The Kim Foundation - ADHD entrepreneurial strengths: creativity, high energy, hyperfocus, comfort with chaos, systemic thinking.

https://onlinegrad.syracuse.edu/blog/adhd-entrepreneurship-benefits/
Syracuse University - ADHD and entrepreneurship benefits: hyperactivity, urgency, risk tolerance, intense work on passionate projects.