#100🥒 The Pickle Ranch: Building a Dream of Inclusion and Curiosity

A Letter to My Future Self

Welcome to Tech Atypically 👋, your weekly blog for navigating the challenges of ADHD and being in the tech industry.

I am an ADHD and product management coach, helping you change one belief and take one action each week.

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Part 14 of the Finding Happiness Series

🦋The Takeaways

Belief: Dreams are static and not achieving them is failure.

Reality: Dreams are meant to change and evolve as we grow.

Action: Find your values, and the dreams will follow.

⭐️Introduction

This is my 100th newsletter. While I've written more if you count vacation notices and special issues, this feels like a milestone worth marking. To celebrate, I want to write a letter to my future self about the dream I'm developing today: the Pickle Ranch, my version of a Wakandan Outreach Center.

This dream emerged from the ashes of burnout. Two and a half years ago, I started this newsletter to process the trauma, shame, and pain of leaving a toxic workplace. What began as a way to heal has led to a new future.

Today, I want to write that message to myself as a reminder of where to look when I get lost again.

AI made this. It’s not great, but it’s all the time I had today.

😵‍💫The Belief - Dreams Are Fluid

Dreams change. My dream three years ago is different from today's, which will likely differ from my dream five years from now. That's not just okay—it's how they grow.

The name "Pickle Ranch" dates back years to something silly one of my best friends and I created. We both love pickles, and for whatever reason, the idea of growing them stuck with us. Over time, it evolved into the term we’d use when discussing our dream business. That thing that was unlike anything else and made us happy to do.

More recently, watching Black Panther again, I was struck by the last scene where T'Challa describes buying a condemned building to create a Wakandan Outreach Center. The world assumed Wakanda was a poor African nation with nothing to offer. Meanwhile, they were the most technologically advanced society on the planet. When asked what Wakanda could possibly share with the world, T'Challa simply smiled.

That resonated deeply. Throughout my life, I've often felt underestimated. From academia to working in tech or the alcohol industry, I was usually the oddity in the room among my peers. I know the face and silent undertones of “what is this person doing here” all too well.

But I kept going, I fought the fears and shoulds, and kept learning new things. I don’t have a straight line in my career (look at my LinkedIn), but the values I hold have been consistent.

🤝The Reality - Building Inclusive Third Spaces

The Pickle Ranch isn't just a business—it's a statement, my invitation for others to be seen and connect with others, both like them and not.

The Pickle Ranch is a mixed-use development anchored by a distillery but expanding far beyond it. I chose a distillery because it creates products can bring people together and tell a story of the land ira ingredients come from

I also wanted to a challenge what the way think about distilleries as purely a place to create and drink alcoholic beverages. I want to do more than just create alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. I want a place of purpose.

A true "third place" for the community—not home, not work, but somewhere people gather, connect, and belong. A place where:

• People who've been overlooked can be seen

• Experts from marginalized communities can share their knowledge

• Supporting local businesses means supporting living wages and healthcare

• Access to mental health and coaching resources

• The local economy thrives because money stays in the community

• There's a pathway to ownership and equity for those traditionally excluded

From an ADHD perspective, I know I might eventually get bored running just a distillery. So the space needs to include multiple businesses—an incubator for new ideas, particularly from those who rarely get such opportunities.

I want to create a place that addresses real community needs: childcare, fresh food access, play spaces, and education. A place that tackles food apartheid and income gaps by actively providing sustainable solutions to them.

Most importantly, it would be a place of true inclusion. The spirits industry has traditionally been predominantly white and male. Having a space that actively invites others in—not as tokens but as valued contributors—is what I want to create in the world.

🛠️The Action - Leading with Values

Two core values drive this vision and my life are:

1. Inclusion

• Creating spaces where everyone feels welcome

• Ensuring people who look like me and people who don't can belong

• Building businesses that actively combat inequities while still generating wealth

• Developing pathways to ownership for marginalized communities

2. Curiosity

• Constantly pursuing new knowledge

• Having the courage to have beliefs challenged

• Supporting and incubating new business ideas

• Creating learning environments for those traditionally excluded

These values must guide every decision, from tech architecture to hiring, from business models to community engagement.

The Pickle Ranch isn't about building a distillery with some extras attached. It's about creating a space where these values can flourish, with a distillery as just one manifestation. The problem to solve isn't "how do we sell more spirits?"—it's "how do we create spaces where people can afford to congregate with their community?"

✨Conclusion

I know this dream will change. That's the nature of dreams. But the core—creating spaces of inclusion and curiosity where people can thrive—that will remain.

When I began this newsletter, I was processing pain. One hundred issues later, I'm building vision. I don't know exactly where this path leads, but I'm committed to following it.

The dream may shift form, but I won't let it die. I won't tell myself it's silly or bury it under practicalities. This letter is my promise to myself: The Pickle Ranch will never be forgotten. And it will never be static.

I don't have the wealth of T’Challa to make this dream today but I'm going to try.

To my future self: Don’t let yourself dwell on dreams not realized (aka the tons of things I’ve quit), but ground yourself in practicing the values you hold dear. Because eventually, with enough work, luck and connection, they will bring you the doorstop of the next dream.

Happy 100th, and here's to hundreds more.

“More connects us than separates us.” - T’Challa in Black Panther

⏭️Next Week

Learning to accept what we can’t control.