How our unmanaged energy burns more than just us. Lying in bed, mind racing. Inbox open. Texts flying. I'm dropping messages at 1, 2, 3 a.m. I know I shouldn't, but I tell myself it's fine. Just a few more thoughts. A few more sparks. Then morning hits. Everyone wakes up to a pile of pings and half-baked ideas. Now they're scrambling, reacting, trying to catch up to my chaos like it's a fire drill. It felt like I was moving fast. Really, I was just lighting fires. The Illusion of Momentum Those late-night brainwaves? Not always bad. Sometimes they were even brilliant. But a lot of the time they were just impulsive. There's a difference between movement and momentum. I confused the two for years. Just because my brain was lit up at night didn't mean the rest of the world should pay for it in the morning. Turns out, my productivity was someone else's panic. The Emotional Backlash I'd wake up later, usually groggy. Meanwhile my team was already in motion. Often in the wrong direction. Text threads were chaos. People misread the message. Or worse, they dropped everything to respond at 7 a.m. Then came the shame. The regret. Sometimes the defensiveness. And often I'd rewrite the whole plan by noon anyway. I Underestimated Who I Was in the Business I ran a creative digital agency and a game studio. The work was fun, fast, and highly addictive. Every new idea, pitch, or project win set off a full-on dopamine feeding frenzy. We were doing what we loved, and that made it even harder to slow down. I saw a lot of the people who worked with me as friends and creative partners. So when I sent those idea-starters and bursts of inspiration late at night, it wasn't meant to light fires or force anyone to jump. A lot of the time it was just me needing to get something out of my head before I lost it. And it wasn't only creative stuff. Sometimes it was operational. How do we scale? How do we fix our systems? Things that didn't add direct value to a specific project, but mattered for the long-term health of the business, and were completely disruptive to the right-now of it. During the day we had work to deliver and clients to keep happy. Sometimes the only window to think through the guts of the operation was lying in bed at 1 a.m. And sometimes it was just emotional pressure that needed somewhere to go. But I forgot something important. I wasn't only a friend or a colleague. I was the owner. The founder. The CEO and chief creative. Whether I meant it that way or not, when I sent something, it carried weight. I should have known better. Looking back, the expectations I piled on myself? I never should have projected those onto everyone else. And I should have invested a lot deeper in family time. Our Rhythms Weren't the Same My rhythm wasn't my business partner's rhythm. That got clear pretty fast. We figured out how to play to each other's strengths, and that part worked. What I wish I'd done better was manage boundaries. With the team. With their time. With how much we pulled from their families. We got the work done. But at what cost? The Family Fallout While I was burning the midnight oil, I was also burning time I could have spent sleeping, showing up, being present. My family didn't get the productive-genius version of me. They got the exhausted, distracted, short-tempered one. I told myself I was sacrificing for them. I was just absent in a different costume. I wasn't working hard for my family. I was working hard around them. The Passion Problem This isn't about laziness. It's about passion with no off-switch. That inability to regulate drive, to set a boundary and hold it, shows up a lot in entrepreneurial and creative brains. We chase the dopamine, the fix, the next idea. And we justify all of it as necessary. But there's a cost. And the people closest to us are usually the ones who pay it. What I'm Learning to Do Instead Delayed send. I still write it. I just schedule it for the morning. Sleep first, ship later. Ideas are almost always better with rest. My status isn't their alarm clock. Just because I'm up doesn't mean they should be. Ask, don't assume. "Is this helpful right now?" beats "here's ten new tasks." I don't want to be the guy who's always one step ahead if it means everyone else is two steps behind, cleaning up my mess. Fire Can Warm or Destroy Passion is fire. Left unregulated, it burns. But with structure, with intention, it can warm. Light a room. Inspire. I'm still learning the difference. And I'm trying to be someone who builds with fire, not just someone who starts it. Further Reading ADHD night owls: how genes set later sleep and wake times (University of Arizona). On the CLOCK-gene differences behind ADHD sleep timing. Delayed circadian rhythm in ADHD (NIH PubMed Central). Research on later melatonin onset in adults with ADHD. Night-owl behavior and mental health (Stanford Medicine). A 75,000-adult study on circadian timing and mental health.