ADHD, autism, and pattern recognition: the way I read money

Pattern recognition is how I connect numbers, behavior, and the stories behind money. I am Janell Borrero, founder of MoneyPOP, and I was diagnosed with ADHD and autism later in life. Growing up with trauma also shaped my hypervigilance and observation. This is my personal story of how I use those experiences in my work.

When I call that a superpower, I am talking about my own experience. I am not saying every neurodivergent person sees the world the way I do. And I am not saying trauma is a gift. What happened to me was not something I needed or deserved. The strength is in what I have made of my way of seeing, not in the harm itself.

Late-diagnosed ADHD and autism gave me language for my experience

My ADHD and autism diagnoses came later in life. They did not create the way my mind works. They gave me another way to understand it. I had already been observing, connecting, and noticing patterns. Now I could describe that part of myself with more context.

There is a difference between knowing how you do something and having words for why it feels natural to you. For me, patterns are a language. I do not only see a single number or an isolated decision. I notice repetition. I notice when something shifts. I notice when what someone says and what their numbers show are not quite telling the same story.

Growing up with trauma: hypervigilance and observation

I survived an attempted murder at 13 and have been on my own since I was 16. That history is part of my story, not the whole of it. Growing up with trauma helped shape the hypervigilance I describe today: paying close attention, staying observant, and catching details that other people might pass over.

I want to be careful about how I tell that story. Being alert to everything is not the same as feeling safe. I can value my capacity to observe without celebrating the circumstances that shaped it. I can recognize a strength without pretending that survival came without a cost.

This is a personal reflection, not a claim that trauma causes financial insight or that ADHD and autism guarantee pattern-recognition skills. I am describing the threads of my own life and how I understand the work I do now.

How I use pattern recognition to read money stories

A number can tell you what happened. A pattern can help you ask why it keeps happening. That is the part that holds my attention. Revenue, expenses, prices, and the timing of decisions can tell a much fuller story when you stop looking at each one alone.

Consider a hypothetical beauty professional with a full book and very little money left at the end of the month. The first conclusion might be that they need more clients. But what if the pattern is repeated discounts? What if products cost more than the service price allows? What if the busiest appointments leave the smallest margin? More bookings would not automatically solve those problems.

Or imagine someone whose spending rises after a slow week. A list of transactions shows where the money went. Looking at the timing, and asking what was happening around those purchases, might reveal a different question worth exploring. Was the spending connected to fear, pressure, or something else? The numbers give us a place to begin a conversation.

These are illustrative examples, not stories from identifiable clients. The point is not that I can know someone's whole life from a spreadsheet. I cannot. The numbers help me notice something, and the person helps me understand it. Observation starts the question. Listening gives it context.

Catching what others miss means asking better questions

When I say I catch what other people do not catch, I am not claiming that I am always right. I mean that I often look for the connection between details rather than stopping at the details themselves. A change in income beside a change in pricing. An expense that repeats. A business that looks successful from the outside but is not paying its owner enough.

• What keeps repeating?
• What changes just before the money changes?
• Does this price cover the work it takes to deliver the service?
• What does the person know that the spreadsheet cannot tell me?
• What would we need to check before drawing a conclusion?

Those questions matter more than an impressive-sounding answer. A pattern is a clue, not a verdict about someone's character. I want the person looking at their numbers to feel seen, not reduced to a mistake or a balance.

Why I built MoneyPOP around money and behavior

MoneyPOP is a behavioral finance app that combines the psychology of money with financial data to help beauty professionals think, feel and behave better with their money.

That connection matters to me because money does not happen separately from life. A service price is a number, but the decision to keep it too low may have a story behind it. A purchase has a dollar amount, but its timing may be part of a recurring behavior. Tracking moods alongside money gives you context to explore those patterns over time, rather than treating each decision as unrelated.

The app does not diagnose you or read your mind. It gives you a way to bring your financial information and money-related moods together, so you have more context for your own decisions. For more on that connection, read why we spend when we are stressed.

My story is bigger than what I survived

I am a founder, a speaker, an author, and a researcher. I am also a person whose experiences shaped how I notice the world. None of those descriptions has to erase the others. My diagnoses do not explain everything about me. My trauma does not get to be the only story people hear.

I built my business from a laptop at my dining room table and grew it without outside funding. I built MoneyPOP because I believe a lack of money should not prevent entrepreneurs from accessing the guidance and resources they need to reach the next level. You can read more about that journey on the MoneyPOP About page.

What I call my superpower is the way I bring those parts of myself to the work: observation, connection, and the willingness to look beyond an obvious answer. I see and speak in patterns. And through numbers, I help people begin to see their own stories more clearly.

If you want a place to begin with your own numbers, try the Service Pricing Calculator or read how to charge for your services. To bring your money and behavior into the same conversation, download MoneyPOP free.