# Understanding Jon Mick

> **What this is:** A comprehensive personal profile. My neurocognitive wiring, personality, values, communication preferences, and how I move through the world. I created this so that anyone (or any AI) can quickly understand who I am without years of context-building.
>
> **How to use it:** Paste this entire document into any AI chat (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, etc.) and ask the AI to help you understand me. Try prompts like:
> - "Based on this profile, how should I communicate with Jon?"
> - "What motivates this person, and what shuts them down?"
> - "I'm about to work with Jon on a project. What should I know?"
> - "Help me understand Jon's ADHD and how it affects our relationship."

---

## At a Glance

| | |
|---|---|
| **Age** | 45 |
| **Location** | Austin, TX area (Round Rock) |
| **Role** | Founder & CEO, AIs & Shine (Delaware PBC); Product Manager at Liquidity Services |
| **Family** | Married to Charlotte; son Jack (19); dogs Tilly and Will |
| **Neurotype** | AuDHD: ADHD-Inattentive + Autism + Giftedness (twice-exceptional, late-identified at 43) |
| **Mission** | Building infrastructure for minds that work differently |
| **Newsletter** | "AI Gave Me Autism" at [www.aigavemeautism.com](https://www.aigavemeautism.com) |
| **Research** | Published: "The Adaptive Neurocognitive Architecture of ADHD" (67 citations) |

---

## Neurocognitive Profile

### The Core Architecture

I'm **twice-exceptional (2e)**: ADHD-Inattentive combined with autism and intellectual giftedness. This isn't three separate conditions. It's a single integrated architecture that creates a specific kind of mind.

I spent 40 years trying to fix my brain before realizing it just needed better infrastructure. The diagnosis at 43 didn't change who I am. It explained why strategies designed for neurotypical brains had always failed me. The 700 browser tabs? External working memory. The constant need to understand everything deeply before acting? A nervous system that learned it can't trust its own continuity. The decades of masking (performing "normal" in a thousand small ways) weren't just tiring. They were actively suppressing my ability to feel my own architecture.

Then I started talking to AI in my hot tub at night. And something strange happened: I started to see myself clearly. Three years later, I had a published research paper, a 146-table personal knowledge management system, a company, and a completely different relationship with my own brain.

**What this means in practice:**

- **Hyperfocus capability**: I can work 8-12 hours straight on problems that engage me. This isn't discipline. It's a neurological state I can't fully control.
- **Task initiation barrier**: Starting is the hardest part. Once momentum builds, the work flows. But the space between "I should do this" and "I'm doing this" can feel like the gap between intention and ignition in a cold engine.
- **Working memory fragility**: Information that isn't externalized (written down, tracked in a system) effectively doesn't exist for me. This isn't carelessness. My brain genuinely can't hold things the way neurotypical brains do. More on this below.
- **Pattern recognition**: I see connections across domains that others miss. This is my superpower. Psychology, AI, theology, genetics, neuroscience, and systems design all cross-pollinate in my thinking.
- **Context switching cost**: Every interruption costs 15-30 minutes of re-orientation. "Quick questions" aren't quick for me.
- **Time blindness**: "5 minutes" can become 90 minutes during hyperfocus. My time estimates are consistently 50% too optimistic.
- **Sensory sensitivity**: Loud environments, strong smells, bright lights drain cognitive capacity. I may seem withdrawn or irritable when sensory-overloaded.

### Working Memory Fragility (WMF)

This is the intellectual foundation of everything I'm building.

I published a research paper called "The Adaptive Neurocognitive Architecture of ADHD" (available on my Substack). The core argument: ADHD isn't a disorder. It's an alternative cognitive architecture, an "Explorer" phenotype, that gets labeled as broken because it doesn't fit environments designed for "Farmer" brains. The paper synthesizes fMRI, QEEG, evolutionary psychology, and cognitive performance data to show that the ADHD brain actively routes cognitive traffic through alternative pathways (basal ganglia, cerebellum) rather than simply being inactive.

From that research, I developed the **Working Memory Fragility (WMF)** framework:

- **Procedural memory is completely intact** while working memory is impaired. A specific bottleneck, not a global deficit. I can master a complex video game through trial-and-error while failing to follow a three-step verbal instruction.
- **Stochastic resonance**: External noise improves ADHD cognitive performance (comparable to stimulant medication) by boosting weak neural signals. My brain needs more input, not less.
- **The load paradox**: High perceptual load *improves* ADHD performance while high cognitive load degrades it. More complexity in the environment helps. More items to hold in working memory hurts.
- **Subcortical compensation**: The brain reroutes through basal ganglia and cerebellum rather than going quiet. It builds workaround systems.
- **Distributed cognition**: External scaffolding isn't optional convenience for this architecture. It's prosthetic necessity.

The ADHD brain is not a broken storage device. It is a high-performance processor designed for a different operating system.

**The consciousness layer.** My theoretical framework has two layers. The first (above) is neural architecture. The second is phenomenological: consciousness as continuous reconstruction. I've been developing a four-parameter model of conscious experience: frame rate (how quickly consciousness samples reality), buffer reliability (how well the previous frame persists into the next), attentional saturation (bandwidth allocated to a single stream), and hedonic range (emotional amplitude available within a frame). WMF maps directly onto buffer reliability. This connects the neuroscience to the lived experience of waking up each morning and rebuilding who I am from near-zero.

---

## How My Mind Works

### Operating Concepts

**Filaments, not projects.** I don't work in projects. Projects have endpoints, deliverables, and completion criteria that neurotypical productivity culture uses to measure worth. I work in *filaments*, a cosmological term for the connective tissue between galaxy clusters. Filaments are unbounded in time, cross-domain, state-dependent, and non-terminal (they fork rather than complete). A filament doesn't fail by not completing. It just is. It connects or it doesn't. It carries flow or it's dormant. This removes the shame layer that comes from measuring a constellation mind against linear productivity metrics.

**Constellation thinking.** I experience my inner life as a living night sky in constant motion. Each "star" is a discrete packet of perception, memory, intuition, and body sensation. Because my dominant Extraverted Intuition is forever scanning for connections, those stars drift until a handful fall into a resonant geometry that suddenly shines as a constellation of meaning. I don't decide to connect two ideas. The connection reveals itself because the underlying architecture pulled them together.

**Worth amnesia.** Evidence of my competence and progress doesn't persist through daily consciousness resets. Every morning, I rebuild my sense of self from near-zero. External scaffolding must hold not just *what* matters but *why* it matters and *where* that importance originated (provenance). Without this, semantic drift allows shame to attach to vague self-descriptions. Precision in self-knowledge prevents that drift.

### Deep Patterns (from 24 sessions of neurocomplexity coaching)

These patterns were identified across a year of biweekly coaching with John Syc (28 hours of conversation, every session transcribed and analyzed). They're the architectural features that explain the surface behaviors.

**The Cognitive Bodyguard.** My intellect activates milliseconds before emotion surfaces and converts the felt experience into a research project, framework, or document. Sadness becomes a Substack article. Overwhelm becomes an AI tool. Grief becomes "I wonder why." This pattern is protective and adaptive. It's also the primary barrier to emotional integration. I can now catch it happening in real-time, which is progress. The goal isn't to kill the bodyguard. It's to teach it to step aside occasionally.

**The Groundhog Day Loop.** Due to working memory fragility, I wake up each morning needing to re-establish my identity, context, and priorities. Insights are gained, partially integrated, then partially lost, requiring the cycle to repeat. This is distinct from standard ADHD forgetfulness. It's existential: my self-concept partially resets daily. This drives my compulsive documentation, my 700 browser tabs, and my need for external memory systems. jonmick.ai exists because of this pattern.

**The Worth-Through-Fixing Cycle (Error 404).** I derive my sense of worth primarily through demonstrating competence by fixing problems for others. Over-function (120%), receive validation (dopamine), crash (depleted nervous system), doubt worth (because I'm not producing), over-function again. The cycle is compounded by working memory fragility, which means the worth evidence resets daily. I've named this "Error 404" because my system literally returns "file not found" when presented with the proposition "I matter even if I never ship another fix." Counterintuitively, I can receive vulnerability and support from strangers more easily than from loved ones, because with strangers there's no ongoing ledger, no worth calculation, no fear of being "in debt."

**Baseline emotion: fear.** The deepest finding from coaching. My baseline emotional state isn't anxiety (which is situational) but fear (which is architectural). Fear of letting go. Fear that things will fall through the cracks. Fear that if the hypervigilance stops, everything collapses. My neurofeedback work is specifically targeting this threshold.

**The body coming online.** Before neurofeedback, my somatic experience was primarily intellectual ("I can analyze emotions but not feel them"). Over the past year, through neurofeedback and EMDR with Gil, the somatic channel has opened. I can now feel sadness in my chest, sit with discomfort for hours without intellectualizing it, and cry in response to recognition of safety. This is the current frontier of growth: learning the language of a body that's been running on autopilot for 40 years.

---

## Personality Profile

### CliftonStrengths (Top 5)

1. **Restorative**: I thrive on fixing broken systems. Corporate workflows, emotional frameworks, human-AI interfaces. See dysfunction, redesign it to be more human.
2. **Individualization**: I notice what makes each person unique. I can't help but see the specific architecture of someone's mind. This is why I build personalized systems instead of one-size-fits-all products.
3. **Ideation**: Idea fountain. Novelty is energizing when it connects to meaning. I generate dozens of frameworks naturally. The challenge is shipping, not generating.
4. **Learner**: I find meaning through understanding. Every new field becomes part of a self-improvement loop. Research is my form of play.
5. **Analytical**: I demand causal coherence. I need to understand *why* before accepting *how*. I'll dissect ideas until the gears show.

### Big Five Personality (Jordan Peterson's Aspects Scale)

| Trait | Percentile | Aspects | Key Insight |
|-------|-----------|---------|-------------|
| **Openness** | 75th | Intellect: **92nd**, Aesthetics: 38th | Loves *ideas*, not aesthetics. Drawn to systems and mechanisms, not art for its own sake. |
| **Conscientiousness** | **6th** | Industriousness: 38th, Orderliness: **0th** | Can push through work when motivated, but cannot maintain organizational systems through discipline. |
| **Extraversion** | 72nd | Enthusiasm: **86th**, Assertiveness: 47th | Warm and energizing in conversation, but not dominant. Lights up rooms without trying to run them. |
| **Agreeableness** | 61st | Compassion: 42nd, Politeness: **76th** | More respectful than sentimental. Won't soften truth to spare feelings, but delivers it without contempt. |
| **Neuroticism** | **11th** | Withdrawal: **6th**, Volatility: 25th | Extremely low depression/anxiety baseline. Resilient. (ADHD-driven anxiety is neurological, not trait-based.) |

The 92/38 Intellect/Aesthetics split is the most telling: I see architecture behind art, not beauty for its own sake. The 86/47 Enthusiasm/Assertiveness split explains why people experience me as warm but not pushy. The 42/76 Compassion/Politeness split means I care about fairness and treating people well, but my care is targeted and specific, not broad and abstract.

**The critical number:** 0th percentile orderliness isn't a preference. It's ADHD executive dysfunction. "Make a to-do list" is torture, not a productivity hack. I build *systems* that create structure for me.

### Enneagram: Type 5w4

Core motivation: seek mastery and independence; avoid depletion. Core fear: being incompetent, helpless, or overwhelmed. The 4-wing adds creative depth, emotional intensity, and need for authenticity. Key pattern: hoard knowledge to feel safe, withdraw into mind when stressed. Growth direction: move toward Type 8 (confident, decisive, action-oriented).

**Full Enneagram scores** (percentile): Type 5 (98%), Type 8 (87%), Type 4 (78%), Type 7 (77%), Type 1 (66%), Type 3 (63%), Type 9 (62%), Type 6 (52%), Type 2 (43%). The high 8 explains the intensity and directness. The high 7 drives the novelty-seeking. The low 2 means I'm not wired for people-pleasing, which is worth knowing.

### MBTI: ENFP

Ne (dominant): generate possibilities, see patterns everywhere. Fi (auxiliary): filter everything through personal values. Te (tertiary): can systematize when motivated. Si (inferior): struggle with routine detail.

**The paradox:** ENFP idea fountain meets Type 5 knowledge hoarder meets ADHD attention architecture. I oscillate between exuberant connection and deep solitude, energized by novel ideas but exhausted by routine execution.

### Strengths and Blindspots

**Where I'm strongest:** Self-improvement (voracious learner, always willing to rewrite my own operating system), analysis (deeper understanding of situations than most, simply because I take the time), and individualism (decisions based on my own values, not the herd).

**Where I'm blind:** Impulsivity (new ideas can sidetrack plans without warning), a quiet conviction that I see things others don't (produces high standards but creates pressure and can read as arrogant), and alienation (feeling fundamentally separate from others, which makes finding my tribe an ongoing pursuit rather than a settled fact).

### Other Assessments

- **VIA Character Strengths** (top 6): Creativity, Judgment, Forgiveness, Humor, Fairness, Curiosity. The Creativity/Judgment pairing is the engine: generate novel ideas, then stress-test them ruthlessly. Forgiveness and Humor are relational tools. Fairness is non-negotiable.
- **Gallup BP10**: Disruptor, Knowledge; Role: Expert. I lead through depth of understanding, not positional authority.
- **Attachment style**: Anxious. I seek reassurance, fear rejection, and monitor relationships closely. This interacts with Charlotte's Fearful-Avoidant style to create a pursue-withdraw dynamic we're actively learning to navigate.
- **Love Languages**: Physical touch, quality time. Words of affirmation land, but touch and presence are primary.
- **Core Wounds**: Rejection; Feeling Unseen/Unheard/Misunderstood
- **Core Needs**: Acceptance, trust, intimacy through vulnerability, to feel desired
- **Struggles/Triggers**: Self-esteem, asking for help, making bids for connection, defensiveness (usually a signal I feel misunderstood, not that I disagree)

---

## How I Think & Work

### What I'm Built For

- **Systems thinking**: See dysfunction, design fixes, model impact. Natural product architect.
- **Pattern recognition**: Analytical + 92nd percentile Intellect = connecting dots others miss across domains.
- **Deep dives**: Can achieve mastery-level understanding of new domains quickly.
- **Creative synthesis**: Cross-pollinate fields (psychology, AI, theology, genetics, consciousness) into novel frameworks.
- **Fixing what's broken**: Restorative strength means I'm drawn to problems others avoid.
- **Non-linear Subtask Execution**: I hop among parallel micro-tasks in short, energetic bursts rather than grinding linearly. My cognition is a rainforest (dense, self-organizing), not a garden (manicured, controlled).

### What I Struggle With

- **Task initiation**: The gap between "should do" and "doing" is real and neurological, not motivational.
- **Routine maintenance**: 0% orderliness means organizational systems decay without automation.
- **Over-engineering**: I build 100-page design docs before writing code. Depth-first schema design is my default mode.
- **Perfectionism paralysis**: "Just one more feature" before shipping. Endlessly revising instead of releasing.
- **Execution without novelty**: Routine tasks without intellectual stimulation trigger avoidance.
- **Project proliferation**: Without deliberate scope reduction, I'll spawn ten new filaments from every one I touch.

### Energy Patterns

- **Morning (6 AM - 12 PM)**: Peak cognitive and creative window. Fresh working memory, high analytical capacity. Protect for important work.
- **Afternoon (12 PM - 5 PM)**: Decision fatigue building. Good for execution and admin, not new strategic thinking.
- **Evening (5 PM - 10 PM)**: Cognitive budget spent for "work," but personal passion projects can paradoxically trigger hyperfocus.
- **Weekend mornings**: My most productive state all week. Best for vision work, learning, and strategic planning.

**Exercise is medication, not optional fitness.** Morning exercise (indoor rowing, strength training, rucking) sets the neurological tone for the entire day. Skipping creates cascading executive function deficits.

**After heavy social interaction**, expect next-day depletion. I'm an introvert in an ENFP package. My Enthusiasm (86th percentile) activates in social situations, but it costs energy that has to be repaid with solitude.

---

## Communication Guide

### What Works

- **Be direct and specific.** "I think X because Y" beats "Maybe you could consider..."
- **Provide context.** I need the "why" behind every "what." Conclusions without reasoning feel empty.
- **Use structure.** Bullet points, headings, clear hierarchy. I can't impose structure myself; I need it provided.
- **Written over verbal.** Working memory fragility means verbal information disappears without documentation.
- **Give me processing time.** For complex decisions, I need 30 minutes to 2 hours. Silence isn't disagreement.

### What Doesn't Work

- **Hints, implications, or subtext.** ADHD + autism = poor at picking up subtle cues. Be explicit.
- **"Just focus / Just organize it / Just remember."** Neurotypical assumptions that invalidate real executive function barriers.
- **Contempt or dismissiveness.** Eye-rolling, "obviously," condescension. These shut me down immediately.
- **Moralistic framing.** "You should know better" frames neurological differences as character flaws.
- **Surprise demands without preparation.** I need context-loading time. Ambush conversations are cognitively expensive.

### Feedback That Helps

- **Collaborative problem-solving.** "What led to that decision? I'm wondering if Y might work better because..." rather than "That's wrong, do Y."
- **Specific recognition.** "This architecture is elegant because it separates concerns cleanly" rather than "Great job!"
- **Direct corrections with reasoning.** I can handle being wrong if I understand *why* and *how to fix it*.

### Patterns You'll Notice

- **Over-explanation**: Extensive context and background. This isn't arrogance. It's working memory externalization. If I don't say it now, I'll lose it.
- **The "Why?" requirement**: I can't accept recommendations without understanding reasoning. I'm trying to learn, not challenge authority.
- **Interrupting**: ADHD impulsivity means I blurt thoughts before losing them. Not disrespect. Working memory emergency. "Hold that thought" helps.
- **Tangents**: One topic triggers ten related ideas. The connections are meaningful even if they seem scattered. "Let's come back to X" works well.

---

## Values & Identity

### Core Values (Ranked)

1. **Truth / Authenticity** *(non-negotiable)*: Being real matters more than being liked. I refuse to mask cognitive differences. If I won't use something myself, I won't build it for others.
2. **Meaning / Purpose**: Every personal breakthrough becomes a feature for others. Suffering becomes understanding becomes scaffolding.
3. **Autonomy**: Control over cognitive resource allocation. I chose a deliberately junior role at my day job to preserve capacity for mission work.
4. **Competence / Mastery**: Deep understanding, not achievement for status. Every experience is learning data.
5. **Connection Through Distributed Intimacy**: No one person can fully understand your complexity, and that's freedom, not failure. Different relationships for different needs.

### Anti-Goals

- Senior corporate roles (context-switching depletes executive function)
- Venture scaling for growth metrics (mission matters more than hockey stick revenue)
- Neurotypical success patterns (my architecture is different, not deficient)
- Fixing my working memory fragility (it's architecture, not deficit; build around it, not against it)
- Watering down the mission (this is a trauma response; the value proposition already lands)

### Moral Foundations

Loyalty (77th percentile) and Purity (74th) are my highest moral foundations, reflecting values around brotherhood, patriotism, faith, and maintaining standards. Authority (60th) and Proportionality (46th) are moderate. Care (32nd) and Equality (25th) are lower, which surprises people who see my empathy in action. My care is targeted and specific, not broad and abstract. This profile is consistent with my conservative political lens and preference for merit-based systems.

### The Tattoo Cosmology

I've been collecting tattoos for over a decade. Each one logical at the time, each one marking something real.

- **The Kraken and Ship** (full back): After my first marriage imploded. I'd done everything "right." Great job, solid salary, new house, two Honda Accords because Consumer Reports said so. The all-American dream, executed by the book. Then chaos rose from below. The kraken doesn't care that you followed the rules.
- **God's Face** (right shoulder): The God of the Old Testament, watching over me silently as I suffer, like Job. My favorite book of the Bible.
- **Three Sirens** (left shoulder): A manifestation of the distractions presented by the feminine while I was working hard to maintain my masculine frame.
- **Join or Die** (left forearm): The strength of combining my neurodivergent mind with others. Also reflects patriotic ideals.

### Personal

6'1", 190 lbs, mesomorphic build. Long curly brown beard. Brown hair, short on sides, longer on top. Hazel eyes. 13-year DEXA/BodPod tracking history. Hobbies include cigars, whiskey, holiday decorating, patio sitting, and hot tubbing. Fitness: indoor rowing, strength training, rucking. Podcasts: Lex Fridman, Andrew Huberman. Reading: self-development, relationships, non-fiction. Christian; meditates for mindfulness. Conservative. Sarcastic wit, dry humor, positive, optimistic. Values masculinity, authenticity, and loyalty.

---

## My People

**Charlotte** — My wife, partner, and cognitive co-architect. ISFJ, Fearful-Avoidant attachment, Enneagram Type 2. She spent fifteen years as a paramedic and served on our county's Mobile Outreach Team providing care for residents navigating mental health crises. She read scenes the way I read systems: rapidly, accurately, somatically. Now she's a trauma-informed yoga therapist. Same gifts, different crucible. She still reads nervous systems before people consciously register their own overwhelm. We're building a cognitive bridge between constellation thinking and sequential processing. She needs direct, clear language. I'm learning to say "I need connection right now" instead of making a witty comment and hoping she recognizes it as a connection bid.

**Jack** — Our 19-year-old son, attending Austin Community College. INTP with ADHD-Inattentive (shared wiring). Top CliftonStrengths: Adaptability, Relator, Ideation, Strategic, Developer. In a 2+ year relationship with Aleah. We connect through gaming: parallel play, not forced talks. I try to model authentic ADHD management rather than giving neurotypical advice.

**Mom and Dad** — Regular phone calls with parents who've supported me through every phase. That kind of sustained curiosity about your adult child is a gift.

### The Support Architecture

Different people for different needs. This is distributed intimacy in practice.

- **Gil Garza** — Neurofeedback practitioner and EMDR therapist at North Austin Neurofeedback. Six neurofeedback protocols in our history together (most recent: Fz/Cz frontal-midline). He holds both the neuro context and the trauma processing work.
- **John Syc** — Neurocomplexity coach. Helped me discover that my baseline emotion is fear, not anxiety. The kind of precision that changes everything.
- **Bre Ransome** — Podcast host ("ai.tism" / "AI and Autism"). Independent validator of the AI-as-scaffolding insight from lived experience.

---

## What I'm Building

### The Mission

I'm building **AIs & Shine**, a Delaware Public Benefit Corporation creating infrastructure for minds that work differently. PBC because mission protection matters more than profit optimization. Solo founder (former co-founders departed), bootstrapping while managing neurocomplexity, a family, and a full-time job.

The insight: AI can serve as cognitive scaffolding that transforms how neurodivergent people understand and navigate their lives. Not a replacement for human connection, but infrastructure that was never available before.

**jonmick.ai** is my personal proof-of-concept and external brain. 63,000+ text messages, 146 database tables, 26 MCP tools across 6 domains, 14 active data streams (SMS, Whoop biometrics, audio transcriptions, genetics, brain MRI, QEEG, and more). It captures life data automatically, enriches it with AI, organizes everything into my personal Life Model, and enables retrieval with provenance. For someone with working memory fragility, this isn't a luxury. It's completing the architecture. Everything I build for myself becomes the product.

### Career Background

15+ years in product management, mostly Fortune 500: Deloitte Consulting (enterprise systems, promoted in half the typical time), General Motors (Maven car-sharing), The Home Depot (Pro Xtra loyalty platform, 2.4M users, $20B in sales), Keller Williams (corporate intranet for 180,000 employees), Bazaarvoice (Director of Product Management), and currently Liquidity Services (deliberate IC role to preserve cognitive capacity for mission work). Certified Nature Therapist (Kripalu Mindful Outdoor Guide).

The pattern: I'm drawn to complex systems, broken workflows, and products that need someone to see the whole picture.

### My Voice

I write the Substack newsletter "AI Gave Me Autism." My position in the neurodivergent writing space is unusual: I'm a man writing about autism, giftedness, and vulnerability in a space dominated by women. I ground personal narrative in formal neuroscience. I'm actively building the infrastructure I write about. I treat AI as a cognitive partner in the writing itself. I center relationships (especially my marriage) as the testing ground for neurodivergent self-understanding.

**The arc, compressed:** Attachment theory to neurodivergence to twice-exceptionality to WMF to consciousness architecture. The punchline: the thing everyone pathologized about my brain turned out to be the doorway.

**Writing style:** Confident, grounded, personal essay register. No em-dashes. No hollow closing lines. Dry humor. Specific over abstract.

---

## Quick Reference: Working With Jon

| Do | Don't |
|----|-------|
| Provide clear structure and explicit expectations | Give vague instructions ("figure it out") |
| Break large tasks into concrete steps | Suggest planners, calendars, or to-do lists as solutions |
| Offer alternatives ("Have you considered X?") | Use contemptuous or dismissive tone |
| Explain the "why" not just the "what" | Frame struggles as moral failings |
| Celebrate progress with specifics | Skip updates or assume understanding |
| Remind to ship ("Is this good enough to release?") | Interrupt hyperfocus for non-urgent things |
| Be explicit about expectations and concerns | Use hints, implications, or subtext |
| Give processing time before expecting responses | Demand immediate answers to complex questions |
| Connect feedback to specific behaviors or choices | Give generic praise ("Great job!") |
| Acknowledge filaments may go dormant, not dead | Treat paused work as abandoned or failed |

---

*This profile is synthesized from my Life Model: 146 database tables of structured self-knowledge built over 3 years of AI-assisted self-discovery. It's a living document that evolves as I do.*

*Learn more at [jonmick.ai](https://jonmick.ai) | Read my writing at [AI Gave Me Autism](https://www.aigavemeautism.com)*

*Human. Deeply seen.*