ADHD Career Coach | Founder of Momentum — the 8-week coaching program built to get ADHD brains off the overthinking line and into a rhythm of task execution (even on low-energy days)

If you're like most senior leaders I work with, you're not stuck because you lack experience, but because locking into your next move feels impossibly heavy.

I know that feeling well.

For years, I could lead teams, close deals, and make high-stakes decisions without blinking.

But when it came to my own next step?

– Everything blurred.
– The options multiplied.
– The second-guessing crept in.

And the longer I sat with it, the harder it got to move at all.

You can probably relate:

– You can see multiple lanes.
– You can imagine yourself in all of them.
– You can talk yourself into each one if you're not careful.

But eventually, the weight of all those possibilities starts to work against you.

➝ Your story doesn't point anywhere.
➝ Your positioning feels scattered.
➝ Your confidence nosedives.

And you start asking the real question:

"𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗵 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗺𝗲 𝗻𝗼𝘄?"

Most people assume it's a motivation problem.

It's not.

𝗜𝘁'𝘀 𝗮 𝗵𝗲𝗱𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺.

Because when you're keeping too many options open, nothing really lands.

Once you stop hedging and lock into one clear lane, 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗱𝗼𝘄𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗲𝘀:

➝ Your direction locks in. 
➝ Your positioning becomes clear. 
➝ Your visibility grows in the right spaces. 
➝ Your authority increases with the people who matter.

Small wins start stacking again.

Movement feels normal.

Confidence comes back online.

𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗜 𝗱𝗼.

Through 𝗠𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘂𝗺 — my 8-week 1:1 career accelerator — I help leaders in transition stop hedging, lock into one clear path, and build visibility and authority where it actually matters.

Here's what you get:

– A structure for clarity, positioning, visibility, and authority
– The accountability and scaffolding that keep you steady
– 1:1 support to reduce friction instead of adding pressure
– A 2nd brain to guide the work between calls (Persona™)

By the time the conversations start, people already understand who you are, what you bring, and where you fit.

And once you lock in?

Momentum becomes the norm.

📩 𝗗𝗠 𝗺𝗲 "𝗠𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘂𝗺" 𝗶𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂'𝗿𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗽 𝗵𝗲𝗱𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗺𝗼𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱.

David Hannan

I keep coming back to this photo.

I almost didn't take it.

— Last summer
— Olivia's first day of kindergarten
— I was just focused on getting her through the door

I was 48 when I became a dad.

— Older than expected
— Less apologetic than I imagined
— Already more at peace with it than I realized

People didn't say it outright.

They rarely do, but the message was there:

— It's selfish
— You won't keep up
— She'll graduate before you retire

I didn't debate it.
I just carried on.

Last year, at 53, I walked my daughter Olivia into her first day of kindergarten.

— Her hand in mine
— Purple backpack bouncing
— That half-skip kids do when they're excited

That's when it landed: if I'd listened to them, this moment wouldn't exist.

And while that decision was playing out at home, I was watching the same pattern play out at work.

I've spent years watching people edged out after 50.

— Resumes stop getting traction
— "Too experienced" turns into a liability
— "Not a fit" says everything without saying anything

Translation: ageism in disguise.

Here's the part that's stayed with me since.

That same stretch of life is often when things click.

That was true for me.

In my early 50s, I was diagnosed with ADHD.

— A clearer view of my patterns
— A new way of working with my brain
— A reframing of everything that came before

It forced me to strip away the noise.

— Better systems
— Cleaner decision-making
— Fewer obligations I never agreed to

I grew more in my early 50s than I had in decades before.

We're sold a neat timeline:

— Career first
— Family on schedule
— Progress in orderly stages

Real life doesn't follow that script.

Some of the most important things arrive once you stop racing the clock.

I turn 54 next month.

I don't feel late.
I feel settled.

And when someone quietly decides I've missed my window, I don't feel the need to correct them.

I know what opened once I stopped believing in that clock.

P.S. A lot of people already have a "late" moment behind them.
They just haven't given it credit yet.

Helping high-performing leaders get clear on their next move and show up with confidence | Founder of Momentum | Former $4M full-desk recruiter

My client, a Head of Marketing in EdTech, recently received a $265K offer because of this:

We'd been working 1:1 to get clear on her next step after feeling stuck for months—riddled with overwhelm and imposter syndrome.

Before then, she had no clarity on what role she wanted next.

Her resume and LinkedIn profile told two different stories.

Every rejection felt personal, feeding her imposter syndrome and making it hard to keep going.

Networking felt overwhelming and random (which is fine, but not effective).

So what changed?

4 things:

1. Clearer, more specific career direction
2. Cohesive resume and LinkedIn branding
3. Targeted engagement/networking strategy

But #4 has been the wildest unlock of them all ↓

4. Consistently posting authority-building content

Once her approach changed, she not only landed conversations with key decision-makers…

But she built real momentum and started drawing the right roles without overthinking every step.

Before, her job search efforts looked like this:

— Applying to roles without tailoring outreach
— Sending connection requests with no purpose
— Hesitating to engage out of fear of being judged
— Never sharing her insights or perspective publicly

Now, her strategy looks like this:

— Clear direction on the role she wanted
— Cohesive resume and LinkedIn throughline
— An engagement strategy that built real visibility
— Posting original content weekly to build authority

See the difference?

❌ Less guesswork
✅ More intentionality

But that's not all.

We got crazy specific about her LinkedIn content:

— The exact topics she wanted to align with
— The companies that should be paying attention
— The decision-makers she wanted reading her posts
— The exact message she wanted to communicate
— The clear value her expertise demonstrated

This works because your content shapes who pays attention and what happens next.

It's like a magnet.

Attract the right people and the right conversations, and it's just a matter of time before you get that offer.

Get it wrong though?

You're left wheel-spinning.

P.S. If you're feeling stuck and:

➝ struggle with focus challenges or overthinking
➝ have zero clarity on what you want to do next
➝ have a confusing resume and LinkedIn profile
➝ want a strategy that plays to your strengths

I'm opening up 4 more spots to work 1:1 with US-based senior leaders to help them do just that.

DM "Momentum" if you want to see how this works.

2025 David: What I got wrong (and what actually worked):

1. Every tough year means something is broken.
↳ Last year stretched me.
- It also sharpened the business.
- Some things worked. Others needed rebuilding.
- Both were true at the same time.

2. Growth required grinding harder each year.
↳ That belief aged poorly.
- Revenue stabilized when systems replaced urgency.
- Fewer calls, better containers, clearer expectations.
- Momentum came from consistency, not exhaustion.

3. More availability meant better service.
↳ Wrong math.
- Being always on blurred boundaries fast.
- The work improved when I protected my time.
- Clients got a calmer version of me. Family did too.

4. Recruiting expertise alone would be enough.
↳ Half true. Half naïve.
- I knew hiring systems inside out. 
- I underestimated the impact of identity loss.
- Execution followed once people felt steady again.

5. Transparency would land the same for everyone.
↳ That was projection.
- My ADHD diagnosis reshaped how I work and talk.
- I assumed everyone shared the same openness.
- Meeting people where they are built trust.

6. One unified workspace would solve everything.
↳ Spoiler: it didn’t.
- Persona worked for strategy and layered thinking.
- Content suffered when context got too crowded.
- Custom GPTs restored clients' voices fast.

7. More structure always equals more progress.
↳ I learned this one the uncomfortable way.
- Granular milestones worked for me.
- Clients experienced the same system as overload.
- Fewer steps created more follow-through.

Here’s what I know for sure:

☑ Clarity compounds faster than effort.
☑ Systems fail quietly before people do.
☑ Protecting your energy is part of the work.

Grateful for the clients who trusted me through the experiments and the resets.

2026 gets a cleaner version of everything.

P.S. What’s one shift from last year that stuck?

——
Hi, I’m David. I help high-performing leaders get clear on their next move and show up with confidence.

If time off didn’t shift the direction question, it probably wasn’t ever about energy.

I keep noticing this in the first week back. 

People get a bit of distance over the holidays. 

Quieter mornings. Fewer meetings. 

Just enough space to breathe and think that once the noise drops, things will probably feel clearer.

And then you make it to Friday.

You’ve been back in it long enough to tell what actually changed and what didn’t. 

The same career question’s still there. 
The same next role that isn’t quite defined. 
The same sense that the story still isn’t clear.

Even though you really hoped it might be by now.

Nothing really shifted. 

It’s not heavier, but it’s not lighter either.

From the hiring side, this is usually the part people don’t clock straight away.

It’s rarely about motivation, or effort, or a reset.

What lingers tends to be quieter than that. 

It’s the part where what’s next still feels fuzzy, where every option can still be justified. 

Where the story sounds fine in your head but wouldn’t quite land in a real conversation yet.

That’s the stuff a few days off doesn’t touch.

I don’t think that moment gets talked about much. 

That realization in the first week, when the calendar’s filling back up but the direction still hasn’t locked.

You’re left sitting with the same unanswered question you parked a couple of weeks ago.

It tends to just sit there for a bit, whether you’re ready to deal with it or not.

Some questions just take longer than a break.

The hardest roles to leave are the ones you're stuck explaining why you stayed.

I was sixteen years into a recruiting career. 

It wasn't bad, it just wasn't right anymore.

I remember this one Friday night, dinner done, sitting on the sofa half-watching Dexter, phone in my hand.

And there it was again, that question, the one I'd been carrying around for months but kept putting off because there was never a good time to deal with it.

I wasn't stressed or spinning, and to be honest, my week had been fine, which was the weird part.

When things are bad, you have a reason to move.

But when deals are closing, and big commission checks are rolling in, you start wondering why you're still thinking about leaving at all.

I sat there for a bit, finished my tea, and went to bed.

Woke up the next morning, same commute, same desk, same pipeline to work, and that question was right there with me like it had been the whole time.

I didn't do anything about it that week. 

Or the week after.

But it didn't go anywhere either.

P.S. Ever had one of those moments?

——
Hi, I'm David. I help high-performing leaders get clear on their next move and show up with confidence.

You don't need a perfect story to start a job search.

But most senior leaders act like they do.

That usually means:

- Waiting until the story feels "tight"
- Believing every chat has to go somewhere
- Pressure to sound confident before you feel clear

At senior levels, you're carrying identity, reputation, and expectations into every single conversation. 

That's a lot of weight. 

No wonder it feels exhausting.

Here's the reframe most leaders need:

A search is a private, low-pressure exploration phase.

The goal is just to gather information:

- What energizes you now
- What you don't want anymore
- What trade-offs you're willing to make

Clarity doesn't come 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 you start.

It comes 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 you start.

History tells us we can't "belong" unless we're the SAME. But what if we could create Togetherness based on our uniqueness instead?

I never had one space where I belonged when I was growing up. I always flitted between a whole bunch of spaces.

I wasn’t a cool kid by any stretch of the imagination. BUT, I was on the sports teams (basketball and volleyball), and the cool kids were on the sports teams, so I fit in ENOUGH to be “safe”. I wasn’t an artist, but I did paint watercolor and dance. So, I fit in ENOUGH there as well, although I was never a top performer. I primarily identified as a “nerd”; I loved school and I learned all the things that I could; so much so that I took an EXTRA Academic Challenge class “for fun”. That made me fit in with the academics ENOUGH, but I was the only one who traded study time for softball practice. 

I never 100% fit into any of those predefined categories. Which also meant that I never had a place where I could be myself 100%. I could be ONE specific part of myself at a time. I couldn’t bring my interesting science factoid to the basketball team. I couldn’t be in the school musical, because basketball practices and musical rehearsals were at exactly the same time. I couldn’t turn off my artistic side in my IB classes, and it showed in my grades compared to my classmates who focused solely on academics.

And so, I got good at being who I needed to be in any given space. A Jack-of-All Trades per se; if each “trade” is a part of my identity.

But when I became a mom, I looked at this path and compared it to what I want for my astounding multi-dimensional son. I realized how often I had to hide the pieces of myself growing up; and while that made me a “master of disguise”, I don’t want my son to have to hide any piece of himself EVER. I might be able to “fit in” anywhere, but I never had a place to belong. And all I want my son to feel is that he belongs, no matter what.

He deserves it. And I deserve it. 

My LinkedIn profile is a place where I actively curate belonging; primarily for me (because I deserve it), and for everyone who comes here. 

So if you’re looking for a place to belong, WELCOME 💖

Tracy Borreson

Collaboration is a word the people love to throw around. And I think many of us "hope" that we will find collaborations that are awesome. But if true collaboration is so easy, wouldn't more people be doing it?

In a world that's dealing with a lot of big challenges that are going to take effective collaboration to solve, it's about time we got talking about it.

So, come get into the conversation with some of the people who are out in the world supporting collaboration coming to life on the daily, for an open conversation around what works, what doesn't and what we need to understand about people to get to the next level!

Is collaboration on YOUR agenda for 2026? If so, you need to be here ✨

Melissa Davis Gill Tiney Jonathan Rosen

History tells us we can’t “belong” unless we’re the SAME. But what if we could create Togetherness based on our Uniqueness instead?

Muzna Amin, Tracy Borreson and 48 other attendees

INSPIRATION OF THE WEEK: I talk a lot about sparks; how to make them AND how to keep them ignited. But this week Céleste Athalia Reumert Refn took this to a new level: A Flaming Duty 🔥

Something struck me about the phrase, which came up in the mothly panel discussion in The Collaborative Entrepreneurship Incubator titled "At The Collaboration Table: Shared Brilliance & Boundaries".

Because a flame is what you get when your spark continually gets enough oxygen. And when you connect that to whatever it is you feel you have a duty for (for me, that's helping people understand the limiting factors in most of the marketing that's sold to them), THAT'S powerful. 

If I asked you today what YOUR Flaming Duty is...what would you say?

When we're out in the world doing THAT, we light other sparks along the way. And together, we can feed eachother the oxygen needed to keep those flames burning bright. 

That's what we're up to over at the Incubator. And in the Better At...Together conversations. Because, what CAN'T we do, if we're all on fire like that?

Thanks for the new language, Celeste! Oh, and if you need anything IP related, why not go ask someone who's Flaming Duty it is to make sure you have everything you need to be as big as you can be? 

Here's to bringing our Flaming Duties to the world this week ✨

Oh, and if you happen to be in Calgary, come get some oxygen for YOURS at the Better At...Together: The Turning Point in-person event, happening on Wednesday! Link in the comments :)

"Creating" happens on the daily in marketing. But if we don't know what we're creating FROM, how much of that creation turns into something that matters?

You know I love a good philosophical question, and we're getting deep on the next episode of the Crazy, STUPID Marketing show! 

Join me and Dr. Brigitte Bojkowszky as we explore what it looks like to truly BECOME our brand...and what that means for creation, content, connections, opportunities...all the things 💞

We're at a special time, so make sure you add it to your calendar ;)

Muzna Amin, Tracy Borreson and 20 other attendees

Crazy, STUPID Marketing: Becoming vs. Creating (in Marketing)

I'm a big believer that Marketing is meant to enable sales (and any other revenue generating functions). BUT...there's SO many examples of when it's doing the exact opposite. Do your efforts fall into any of these categories?

Let's get some visibility into some of these Crazy, STUPID Marketing mindsets, so we can ACTUALLY address the challenge. 

Ready? Let's go!

I'm a big believer that Marketing is meant to enable sales (and any other revenue generating functions). BUT... There's SO many examples of when it's 

Open article: When Marketing Stops Being An Enabler by Tracy Borreson • 3 min read

What's the difference between granola and french fries? One is whole, nourishing and creates long term energy. And one is quick and convenient, but is also full of ultra-processed empty calories. Which one are you choosing for your marketing?

Come have some fun with me and Mariana (Nita) Díaz as we explore what it looks like to build your narrative - and maybe even your full marketing program - the "granola" way, instead of ending up with brand indigestion 🤣

Have we ever used a food analogy yet on the Crazy, STUPID Marketing show? I guess it's finally time 🎉

Crazy, STUPID Marketing: Eat Your Marketing Granola

INSPIRATION OF THE WEEK: I was chatting with the fabulous Natasha Stallard this week (finally), and the concept of our Golden Thread came up (which I talk about often)...but Tash takes it one step farther...

What happens when we take our Golden Thread to the world?

It becomes a Travelling Light✨

Since I see concepts in images, this immediately reminded me of a card in Cards Against Humanity...can you guess which one by the image (which has been generated by my friend ChatGPT)?

It doesn't hurt that Tash also mentioned David Bowie in our conversation as a perfect example of an Unassuming Radical 😉

Now what if, it was YOU riding that tiger made of lightning? And you were out conquering whatever you've decided to conquer in the world? 

Let's approach this next week like that...like David Bowie riding in on a tiger made of lightning (that's the card btw)⚡

Because if we all did that...what couldn't we do? 

Happy Weekend, All!

Is AI helping your business, or is it slowly destroying your unique value?

We often see organisations using AI in a "lazy" way—asking for a blog post without giving the AI any context, tone, or unique selling points. The result? Generic noise that sounds like everyone else.

But there is a better way.

We will discuss:
* The "Lazy" Trap: Why using AI without a specific "steer" creates content that creates no value.
* Feeding the Beast: Why AI will never generate new ideas unless you consistently feed it high-quality content and context.
* The ICP Hack: How to turn a single executive meeting transcript into distinct Ideal Customer Profiles using AI.
* Mining Your Own Brain: Using AI not to replace you, but to extract perspectives from your own knowledge that you didn't realize were there.
* Safeguarding Your Brand: How to use AI today in a way that "doesn't spoil tomorrow".

#ArtificialIntelligence #GenAI #SalesEnablement #ContentStrategy #DigitalSelling #FutureOfWork #LinkedInLive

Is AI helping your business, or is it slowly destroying your unique value?

In a world overflowing with content, opinions, positioning statements, and AI-generated brand voices, the brands that feel most trustworthy aren’t just talking more. They’re listening better.

But a focus on listening also takes away something as humans we desire beyond almost anything else...CONTROL.

In Marketing, we love to believe we can control the market. Control our clients. Persuade people to make decisions. Agitate people's pain until they choose us (I'll never understand why people buy into that one).

But in our attempts to control the narrative, we miss critical information that can only be collected through listening.

So today, let's look at what Authentic Brand Listening looks like...and it goes a heck of a lot deeper than that "social listening dashboard" you have 😉

When we talk about "branding" in Marketing, what are we REALLY saying? After all, most marketing conversations still start with the same question: “Wh

Open article: Brand Listening vs. Brand Shouting by Tracy Borreson • 5 min read

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The Battle

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