🧠Built for Chaos: Why ADHD Makes You a Better Travel Agent
I’ve been a travel agent for six years.
I was only diagnosed with ADHD about 18 months ago.
And suddenly? Everything made sense.
That stack of half-used planners? Check.
The rollercoaster between hyperfocused genius and “why can’t I return this one email”? Check.
The way I could solve a multi-country itinerary with five travelers and six priorities… but forget to eat lunch? Check, check, check.
And as I started sharing more openly about my experience with ADHD, a wild thing happened:
You all started raising your hands too.
In a poll I ran inside the How to Travel Agent community, over 65% of respondents said they either had ADHD or suspected they did.
That’s not a fluke. That’s a pattern. And it’s time we talked about it.
ADHD Isn’t What They Told Us It Was
Let’s get one thing straight:
ADHD is not a character flaw.
It’s not laziness. It’s not a lack of discipline. And it’s not something a new planner can fix (ask me how I know).
ADHD is a neurological difference in how we regulate motivation, attention, and dopamine. That’s it. That’s the secret.
As I like to say:
“ADHD is not a disorder of attention. It’s a disorder of self-regulation.”
It’s why we:
Work best in chaos
Have 47 tabs open (in our brain and browser)
Struggle to start tasks unless we’re on fire
Feel like we’re crushing it one week and drowning the next
Sound familiar?
Why Travel Advising Is an ADHD-Friendly Profession
Here’s the magic: being a travel advisor actually works for ADHD brains.
Like… suspiciously well.
There are five things ADHD brains love:
Novelty – every client, every destination is different
Interest – we get to geek out on the things we love
Challenge – complicated trips? We eat them for breakfast
Urgency – "The final payment is due in 12 minutes!!" = perfect focus
Passion – we care about what we do
“We are gas stoves, not slow cookers.”
“We don’t like punching in and out, because that’s just dumb.”
We are entrepreneurs, creatives, and problem-solvers. The travel industry doesn’t just tolerate our brains—it needs them.
Why Traditional Productivity Doesn’t Work (and Never Did)
Most of the world runs on neurotypical systems:
Do it because it’s on the calendar
Follow the plan you made three weeks ago
Use the same tool every day forever
For ADHD brains? That’s a hard no.
“If you’ve tried every system and still feel like a failure, you’re not the problem.”
Here’s what actually works:
Gamify it: timers (with dumb rewards at the end)
Visual lists (I dump everything is my brain on piece of paper every day)
Fire Days (when we’re on fire)
Potato Days (when we rest without shame)
“Write your goals when you’re tired and honest.”
“Potato days are not failure days. They’re part of the rhythm.”
You Are Not Lazy. You Are a Business Owner With ADHD.
So many of us were told we were messy, disorganized, dramatic, or inconsistent.
But let me tell you what I see in this community:
You are brilliant. You are high-capacity. You are running businesses, raising families, navigating 18 tabs of life at once—and still sending clients on the trip of a lifetime.
We just do it differently.
And that’s not a weakness. That’s your competitive edge.
“You’re not broken. You’re built for this.”
What Now?
If this blog post felt like someone just read your brain back to you… you are so not alone.
👉 You can join the How to Travel Agent Community
👉 You can catch the encore of the full ADHD workshop - Click here for the Facebook event
👉 And you can follow along as we keep creating systems, support, and (let’s be honest) memes for travel agents with spicy brains
Because here’s the truth:
ADHD is not the thing holding you back.
It might just be the reason you were made for this work.
Let’s be the best travel agents that we can be,
Kris