We have all been there. You have a brilliant idea for your brand or creative project. You can see the direction clearly in your mind's eye, and you know it has potential.
When AI tools are forced into creative workflows, they often become distractions rather than solutions. This essay explores why the rush to integrate LLMs into design and writing is slowing creative thought, and why old-school algorithms — the ones that simply worked — might have had it right all along.
Some thoughts on why silencing your phone isn't enough—and why leaving it behind entirely might be the real path to focus, especially for neurodivergent minds.
What we have right now are Large Language Models (LLMs) and generative image processors. These are incredibly clever pattern-matching engines that have read the entire internet and are exceptionally good at guessing which word—or pixel—comes next. They are synthesisers, not thinkers.
I’m not “sober” in the traditional sense. I microdose THC gummies to help with some of my trickier autistic traits, particularly around unwanted hyperfocus, rigidity, and OCD-style looping. I also take prescribed medication for my ADHD. None of that feels contradictory to me.
Confidence and readiness often get bundled together as if they’re interchangeable. They’re not. I’ve seen plenty of people brim with confidence while standing on foundations made of very little. I’ve also watched brilliant ideas stall because their creators were waiting for the perfect moment.
Everywhere you look, there’s an algorithm pretending to care. An AI-written caption that sounds like a human who’s read too many self-help books. A brand that says it’s “for the community” but has never actually spoken with one.
Ideas on their own have almost no value. Everyone has them — in the shower, on the school run, in a meeting, while staring out of the window trying to look productive. The difference between an idea and something of value is action. It’s what you do with that spark that gives it weight, momentum, and meaning.
Over two decades working in branding and design — and twenty-plus years building, scaling and evolving brands (including my own tech brands and the alcohol-free beer brand Big Drop) — I’ve seen this confusion too many times: “We’re going to re-brand!” … but often what’s really needed is a brand evolution.
Across so many of my recent podcast conversations, there’s been a quiet but persistent theme: the importance of protecting the space — for doing nothing, for pausing, for letting things settle. It’s something I’ve had to learn the hard way, as someone whose mind rarely sits still.
The word neurodiversity gets used a lot these days — often as a shorthand for autism, ADHD, dyslexia or other specific diagnoses. But neurodiversity doesn’t mean “people with different brains”; it means all of us. Every brain, every way of thinking, every pattern of processing, is part of that wider ecosystem of diversity.