Last week, while visiting the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA), I was immediately captivated by the exhibit "John Scott: Blues Poem for the Urban Landscape" in the Great Hall. Scott's monumental woodcut prints, which capture the very soul of New Orleans, confronted me in a stimulating and thought-provoking way. As I studied his work, I couldn't help but notice how his creative process embodied the concept of "spherical thinking," a non-linear approach to simultaneously looking at the past, present, and future. This idea resonated with me as a Turbo Thinker, and I began to see parallels between Scott's artistic mindset and the way our minds work.

To create each print, Scott carved into the surface of large sheets of plywood with a power saw and routing tools, creating lines and forms that are impressionistic yet visually imposing. The composite nature of these prints exemplifies Scott's jazz-inspired explorations of spherical thinking. Like a jazz musician, Scott improvised, riffed, and layered elements to create a cohesive whole that tells a story — in this case, the story of New Orleans.

At Mind Coach, I often encounter high-achieving professional clients who feel they are always catching up. They own up to the fact that they can’t get ahead with anything new because they don’t have the time and space to develop strategies and see the big picture. They are constantly falling behind, trying to catch up. Even though they cannot take on more, they seem to always say yes, forcing themselves to work late into the night or on weekends. Yet they don’t let anyone know, because they feel they should be able to do things faster and better than anyone else, able to do it all alone without complaints.

This is due to a form of time blindness. We Turbo Thinkers© really struggle with time estimation, so much so that our magical thinking extends to the point of making us delusional.

At Mind Coach, I often encounter high-achieving professional clients who feel they are always catching up. They own up to the fact that they can’t get ahead with anything new because they don’t have the time and space to develop strategies and see the big picture. They are constantly falling behind, trying to catch up. Even though they cannot take on more, they seem to always say yes, forcing themselves to work late into the night or on weekends. Yet they don’t let anyone know, because they feel they should be able to do things faster and better than anyone else, able to do it all alone without complaints.

This is due to a form of time blindness. We Turbo Thinkers© really struggle with time estimation, so much so that our magical thinking extends to the point of making us delusional.

At Mind Coach, I often see a phenomenon I call idea hoarding in my high-achieving, Turbo-Thinker© clients. It may look like 87 open tabs crowding a screen. Or thoughts scribbled haphazardly on Post-it notes plastering the office walls. We are driven by a fear of losing something potentially valuable - an idea that might be useful or important one day.

Neurodiversity presents itself differently in every individual. As a coach, I work with you to idenity and celebrate your unique talents. It is not our goal to eradicate your neurodiveristy or to mask as “normal.” We get to know your own unique brain and what it needs to succeed. Armed with this awareness and information, we can then take responsibility for communicating our needs in an effective manner. Rather than guess what “they” want and try to do that, we can learn to advocate for ourselves so that everybody wins.

As we near the end of Q2, it's time to revisit those goals we set back on January 1st when we were full of excitement and optimism, armed with a fresh planner and a world of possibilities. We flip through those early pages, reading over our aspirations. But then comes the inevitable question: Have we ticked off everything on our list? As a high-achieving Turbo Thinker with sky-high expectations, it's rare that everything is neatly crossed off. So, how do you find that balance of feeling motivated and empowered as you review your goals at this time of year?