"I wish I had realized sooner that I was trying to fit into a place where I would never fit." These words from career strategist, Rachel Gaddis, capture the experience of countless professionals who've spent years trying to conform to workplace environments that were never designed for them. After cycling through nine different careers across publishing, advertising, technology and consulting, Gaddis discovered something surprising: what she once viewed as career instability was actually her neurodivergent brain seeking the stimulation and growth it naturally craved.
"I couldn't decide what I wanted to be," Gaddis recalls about her early career struggles. "Even deciding on a college major was really difficult for me." What followed was a winding professional journey spanning publishing, advertising, e-commerce, and technology consulting – a pattern she once viewed as a professional liability but now recognizes as her greatest strength.
During Mental Health Awareness Month, Gaddis's story offers powerful lessons about self-advocacy, embracing neurodiversity, and creating career paths that honor our authentic selves rather than forcing ourselves into roles that weren't designed for us.
The Diagnosis That Changed Everything
Gaddis was in her 40s when she received her ADHD diagnosis – a revelation that initially seemed absurd to her.
"I kind of laughed because that was just so ridiculous to me," she shares. "I had always been the quiet kid, the nerdy kid, the studious kid. I was the opposite of hyper,” she continues. “If anything, I was too focused on stuff."
This common misconception – that ADHD always manifests as hyperactivity – had prevented her from recognizing her own neurodivergence. As she learned more, Gaddis began to understand that what she experienced was not an attention deficit but an attention difference.
"I've learned even more, and now I think it's more of a matter of focus, that you're not able to control what you're focused on," she explains. Her focus would drift from conversations to nearby sounds, making it difficult to sustain attention on things that didn't deeply interest her.
This realization transformed how Gaddis viewed her professional history. The pattern of changing jobs every two to three years wasn't a character flaw – it was her brain seeking stimulation and learning opportunities when environments no longer provided them.
"After a while, it was much more about, I'm bored. There's nothing left for me to learn here," Gaddis says of her job transitions. "I just kind of embraced the idea that every two to three years, I would just change jobs, looking for novelty."
From Self-Doubt to Self-Advocacy
Before her diagnosis, Gaddis often found herself in challenging workplace situations that highlighted the mismatch between neurotypical expectations and her neurodivergence. One pivotal moment came while working as a consultant at a client site.
"My main contact with the client was super sharp, super technical, and super verbal," Gaddis remembers. "She would catch me in the hallway, and fire all these technical details at me, while I didn't have anything to write anything down on,” she shares. “I'd be looking down the hallway longingly at my laptop, my pens and my notebooks."
These experiences led to intense self-doubt. "I started worrying that there was something wrong with my brain," she admits. But what she now recognizes is that the environment – not her brain – was the problem.
"The reason that I couldn't get traction on things like promotions or bonuses or recognition in the workplace wasn't because I needed to change," Gaddis emphasizes. "It was because I was trying to fit into a place where I would never fit. I was trying to be five foot one in a place that was built for six foot people."
This priceless insight led to a crucial lesson in self-advocacy: knowing what you need to function optimally and having the courage to ask for it.
"It starts with knowing what you need in order to function," Gaddis explains. "In that hallway, what I needed to do was say, ‘just one second’, then go grab my notebook."
From Corporate Career to Coaching
A series of life events – including a breast cancer diagnosis in 2021 followed by a corporate layoff in early 2023 – created the space for Gaddis to reflect on what she truly wanted. When faced with updating her resume to return to corporate life, she felt physically ill at the thought.
"[Job searching] made me feel sick to my stomach. And that's when I started looking for something else to do," she recalls. "I realized what I really, really wanted to do and didn't believe was possible was start the coaching business."
Though she'd been informally coaching people on career transitions for nearly a decade, taking the leap into entrepreneurship required confronting her fears – particularly around charging for her services.
"That was maybe my biggest hesitation about doing [entrepreneurship], I wasn't sure about taking money because I liked to help people," she shares. Today, Gaddis runs a growing coaching business focused specifically on helping ADHD women in their 40s and 50s navigate career transitions. Her approach combines one-on-one coaching, group programs, and a low-cost membership community – all designed with neurodivergence in mind.
Lessons for Us All
While Gaddis's story centers on ADHD, here are four insights that apply to anyone who has felt misaligned with traditional workplace expectations:
1. Question the environment, not yourself. If you're consistently struggling in your work environment, consider whether the setting – not your abilities – might be the mismatch.
2. Recognize patterns in your career history. As Gaddis notes, "If you are feeling like you want to do something different and you don't know what that is...dig a little deeper." Often, the recurring dreams we dismiss contain important clues about our authentic path.
3. Advocate for what you need. "99% of the time, the thing that you need is going to be completely reasonable," Gaddis assures. Whether it's taking notes during conversations or requesting a different meeting format, small accommodations can significantly impact your performance.
4. Reframe perceived weaknesses as potential strengths. Gaddis's "job-hopping" eventually became her greatest asset as a career strategist with experience across multiple industries. The very quality that seemed like a liability in corporate America became her superpower as an entrepreneur.
Gaddis's journey reminds us that our greatest professional strengths often emerge from what we once perceived as weaknesses. Whether it's job-hopping, difficulty focusing in certain environments, or feeling perpetually out of sync with workplace norms – these aren't necessarily flaws to overcome but potential indicators pointing toward more authentic paths.
"Once I understood that, it made me forgive myself for the things that I felt like I had been failing at," says Gaddis. "I realized that I didn't have a chance at being just like other people." Sometimes the most powerful act of self-care is acknowledging that you're not supposed to fit everywhere – and having the courage to create a path that actually fits who you are.
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