My flow has been a bit wobbly behind the scenes. Just before Christmas, I more or less crashed. Not in a dramatic way, but in an AuDHD burnout or shutdown kind of way. Between a stubborn, snot-filled cold, the holidays, and the weight of running my own business, it all accumulated. Most of what happened after that was rest and recovery. Not much output. Just letting the system settle.

The good news is that things didn’t stop. My team did a solid job keeping the lights on and routine work moving as much as they could. That mattered. It also made something very clear.


Any system that depends too heavily on one person eventually hits a limit. That’s true in business, and it’s true in Scouting.

When a Scout unit relies on a single leader for everything, balance slips. Burnout creeps in. Momentum wobbles. The work still matters, but the load gets heavier than it needs to be. Good Scouting teaches us to share responsibility, build redundancy, and give ourselves some grace when things don’t move as planned.

This pause has me looking more closely at where I’ve become a bottleneck, and how to free myself from that role where possible. Long-term stability and care require sustainability.

Neurodivergence may amplify these patterns for me, but the core lesson isn’t unique. All of us carry limits. All of us get tired. And all any of us can do, in Scouting and beyond, is our best with the energy we have.

January doesn’t need a sprint. Sometimes it just needs a good dose of compassion and balance.

Keep on Wacky Scouting

Scott Robertson
WackyScouter.org