E30 – Powered by ADHD + guest Angela Raspass

Julie Interviews Guests

Julie Legg chats with Angela Raspass, a Sydney-based business coach, mentor, author, and fellow late-diagnosed ADHDer. Angela shares her inspiring journey from corporate career to self-employment, discussing the unique strengths and challenges of being an ADHD business owner.         

Angela shares how her diagnosis reshaped her understanding of past experiences and influenced her coaching approach. Together, they explore how embracing an ADHD lens can lead to greater self-compassion, awareness, and empowerment.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Journey to Self-Employment and Business Coaching: Angela transitioned from corporate work to self-employment after realizing the inflexibility of corporate environments conflicted with her needs. Initially starting with a marketing consultancy, her career evolved into business coaching, driven by a passion for direct client interaction and creative problem-solving​.
  • ADHD Diagnosis and Its Impact: Diagnosed at 53, Angela reflected on her life with newfound clarity, seeing how ADHD traits like impulsivity and the need for stimulation had shaped her experiences.
  • Challenges as an ADHD Business Owner: Traits such as impulsivity, overthinking, and time blindness presented consistent challenges in running her business. She emphasized the difficulty of aligning her energy patterns with conventional expectations and the struggle with self-doubt and perfectionism​.
  • Strengths of ADHD: Angela highlighted her ADHD-related strengths, such as divergent thinking, big-picture vision, and resilience. Her creativity, adaptability, and ability to connect with others on a deep level were described as key assets in her personal and professional life.
  • The Role of Self-Belief: Fostering self-worth is essential for business owners, particularly those with ADHD. Self-doubt often holds individuals back despite having the tools and strategies to succeed. She advocates for combining business strategy with self-leadership to create sustainable and fulfilling businesses​.
  • Coaching Approach: Angela works with established business owners, helping them recalibrate their businesses to align with their strengths and values. She emphasizes the importance of ongoing support to maintain momentum and overcome setbacks, or as she calls it, the “ka-donk” factor.
  • Insights into ADHD in Women: Angela’s experiences echo broader themes in ADHD among women, such as masking, self-doubt, and the late realization of ADHD traits. Her advocacy highlights the power of storytelling in reducing stigma and fostering understanding​.

LINKS

TRANSCRIPT

JULIE: I’m Julie Legg, author of The Missing Piece and diagnosed with ADHD at 52. Welcome to ADHDifference. In this episode I chat with Angela Raspass, Sydney-based business coach and mentor, fellow author and also a fellow late-diagnosed ADHDer. We talk about who move from corporate to self-employment, some of the strengths and challenges that an ADHD business owner faces, and also how her personal experience has impacted the way she coaches and mentors. It’s wonderful to see you again Angela. 

ANGELA: Thank you very much for making yourself available. Could not be kept away from continuing the conversation we started when I was visiting. Delighted to be here. 

JULIE: I know it was great and, for our listeners, it was wonderful to meet you in person a couple of weeks ago now. So, Angela you’re Sydney based, you’re a business coach and mentor, you’re an author, and you’ve also been late diagnosed with ADHD. We could almost split your story into two, you know, the undiagnosed and post-diagnosis. So you’ve got a great story to tell and you’ve got a very rich and full, busy working life. I’m wondering if … let’s just let you roll and … [That could be dangerous.] And to share your story. How did you get into being a coach, let alone writing a book, let alone your learnings now post-diagnosis? 

ANGELA: Oh my goodness. It is such a before and after thing. I am still obviously the same person but that whole concept of a new pair of glasses to see the world. With that ADHD lens, to see myself, my behaviours, all of the things I have and haven’t done in life through that ADHD lens just gives you a whole different perspective on so many things. I mean very … just to give you the best classic example of now I look back and go ‘aha’. When I was in New Zealand I was working for, way back way back when in the late 80s, The Auckland Sun newspaper, if anyone remembers that one being around. I’d been there, I dropped out of uni because I wasn’t doing very well, even though I did brilliantly at school. Once I got to uni the wheels fell off the bus because there was no structure and I was living with my boyfriend and best friend, having fun. So I took that, internalized that I was actually dumb and stupid etc, because you know, surely anyone … I should have been able to do well at uni. I was working at The Sun to get some money for the, you know, to try again the next year, and one of my colleagues said “Do you want to go to Sydney?” And I went why?  And she said “Well why not?!” And I went, checks out, how long for? “I don’t know, let’s see.” And I went okay, and three weeks later I was in Sydney with a suitcase and I think about 600 bucks and that was it. Just things just happened from there. And looking back through the lens, the impulsivity, the lack of thinking about anything, the follow through, was all evident there. And that just makes me laugh now because at the time I didn’t understand that. Plus, there was another piece. There was addiction going on which I now know is also a part of undiagnosed, untreated ADHD. So, I have I guess more self-compassion for a lot of the things that I did, understanding what was driving them or not driving them at the time. So you know, life continued over here. I was in corporate land for a while. I got married. And then once I went to go back to work in corporate land, when you’ve got two kids by that stage plus bonus boys, because I always had stepchildren, corporate world 25 years ago was not that conducive to the flexibility needed. I also look back at corporate land to now understand why I would fight to stay awake in meetings, long boardroom meetings. And I literally would have to slap myself and pinch myself because there was just not enough stimulation. But again, I just thought that I lacked focus and all of these things back then. So that’s why I went down the self-employment route. I needed the flexibility. I wanted the freedom. I chafed against the restraints and now I sort of know why. So that started back in 2003 and it went forward from there. I could keep going but I shall hand back to you for a moment. 

JULIE: No, no! I was just thinking a few things. I think with ADHD undiagnosed, I talk about ‘sink or

swim’ a lot and you know, I think as it turns out, we’re really good at dog-paddling, or at least staying afloat, or if not learning to swim really well. And we don’t necessarily understand why but we do, and it’s part of our survival process, trying to further ourselves, or get us through, or maybe subconsciously getting those dopamine hits that we didn’t know we needed. [Yeah.] So you got yourself into self-employment. And was this business coaching a natural step for you after your corporate life? 

ANGELA: Well, it didn’t actually start there. Where it was is that I was in marketing events, sales, trade marketing, that sort of thing. And what I noticed was that I had another little business on the side, of course I did, called Best Wishes where I’d read about in a magazine in America, a Parenting Magazine. This woman who’d started this service where she put together welcome packs for real estate agents to give to new people moving into the area. I thought “That is a good idea,” so off I went and raced around with you know, baby in the little cart beside me, to all the real estate agents and all the local businesses and put together these packs. I charged the local businesses to appear in the pack. I charged the real estate agents for the packs. I colour-coordinated them in their corporate colours. And then people in the pack started saying to me “This is really working for me. I love this. Could you help me with my marketing?” And I went hmmm I’ve been asked now by about half a dozen different people. I think there’s something in this. And hence ideas into action, my little marketing consultancy was born. And it was one of those … an idea that had its time, like it was just the right place the right time. I had a lot of marketing nouse and I’d studied or so at TAFE at night because I was determined to get some sort of qualification after dropping out of uni and it grew. And I ended up getting a casual staff member to help with this new fan-dangled thing called social media, and it grew. And I ended up with three part-timers who, or casual employees, who used to work in our spare room. We’d push away the Bakugan and the Barbies and work there. And then it grew and I went to serviced offices and had like full-time staff. And then it grew so I bought an office in Chatswood and had like, there were five of us and it was just going along swimmingly. But … there is something that I’ve learned along the way which is just because you can it doesn’t mean you should. And even though I had grown a business that was using my skills, I hadn’t grown a bit. I’d never paused and gone “Is this what I actually want?” It was just “Well of course you want to grow, don’t you?” And you want to get bigger,” and la la la and I bought into that dynamic but it didn’t suit me. Because the bigger the business got the more distance there was between me and the clients. And it’s that one-on-one, the connection, the brainstorming, the connecting the dots, the spotting the opportunities, which I loved. And now I was more about paying the freaking bills and keeping the staff on track, and it was just … it was just killing me. So that was back in about 2011 so I’d been running the business for about eight or nine years. And my husband, I call it your next chapter, my husband was undergoing his next chapter. He’d left corporate land and was consulting, and he was learning to sail. And he was away a fair bit doing that but I picked him up one evening from the airport. He’d just done a sail to Lord Howe Island and he was telling me about being out on the water, and the freedom, and the moon on the waves, and la la la la la. And then he turned around to me and said “How was your week?” and I just burst into tears because I don’t think I could do this anymore because the contrast and the resentment was so strong. And he looked at me and said “Then don’t.” And it was like oh actually maybe I don’t have to do it the way that everyone else says it should be done. You know, that narrative that I’d sort of accepted. But it still took me a long time to let go and move from delivery of services like that through a team to just doing coaching and mentoring myself. Because that disconnect between what you can do and what actually helps you thrive can often be very very different. 

JULIE: It’s amazing and so with your business coaching which you still do, you wrote a book which I think is so fascinating because it is Your Next Chapter: Ditch Your Doubt, Own Your Worth and Build the Business You Really Want. Which is … sounds amazing but you did this undiagnosed with ADHD? 

ANGELA: I did. I did and it’s yeah, it’s interesting looking back and seeing. I think what happens when you’re diagnosed, and I think so many of us do this, we can look back then and we can see the things, the strategies, the tactics, the masking, the workarounds, the things that we needed to get in place to facilitate our particular style but you didn’t recognize them at the time. You just … this is just the things that you did. And looking back now and reading my own book and going “Ah that’s why. Ah that’s why. Hmm, that makes sense.” So again, it’s that lens that makes things different. 

JULIE: Absolutely. But from an ADHDer, you know, I thought the book sounded great because self-doubt is huge amongst us. And particularly with a lifetime of being undiagnosed, and these incidents and accidents along the way, there’s a lot of self-doubt creeps in. Whether it’s imposter syndrome in the corporate or a work environment, and doubting whether you’ve turned the oven off, to doubting whether someone misread your email the wrong way and took it the wrong way, and overthinking. There’s a lot of things to self-doubt about so … So much. Yeah, so I can see how that was a very important topic to write about. 

ANGELA: It was just utterly essential and just on that point, all the women that I’ve worked with over the years, I’ve work with a lot of men but I specialize in working with women, and self-doubt was huge. Anyway, I did a couple of two-day events over here and I had people, this has going back a few years, I had people fill out like a survey you know, what’s holding you back from building the business you want? Oh, I don’t think I can. I don’t think I’m up to this. I’m not as good as … like self-doubt, 98% of people were basically saying “It’s me. It’s me that’s holding me back,” and I thought well that was rampant in women. Then when I started talking to ADHD business owners, oh my goodness, it was even higher. And I could hear myself in their stories. Stories are so important. I’m a huge believer in, not literally, getting naked in public, being honest about what’s going on. Because when you hear that “Ooh me too,” that not aloneness, that identification, it lifts that veil of shame which sits on us a lot I believe. And it gives us that, I like … I call it skylight thinking, it opens a skylight in your head and in your heart and you think well they’ve opened a door. I can step through it now because you have a little bit more understanding of yourself. So yeah, self-doubt? Rampant but I didn’t know about RSD. I didn’t know about emotional dysregulation. I didn’t know about all of that stuff. I just felt it and recognized it in other people as well which is why helping people believe more in themselves has to sit right alongside business strategy. Because I could like … we could develop a brilliant strategy but if you don’t believe in the value that you create and give to the world, it’ll just fizzle and you won’t move. That’s what I believe. 

JULIE: Oh yeah I agree. So how did you come about? What’s your story with regards to getting an ADHD diagnosis because the late diagnosis doesn’t surprise me. It happened to me. It’s happened to thousands of others but what’s your story if you’re okay to share that? 

ANGELA: Yeah absolutely. It’s pretty garden variety. My daughter, she has … I’d been looking for solutions to her anxiety and tipping into depression for years. No one suggested she had ADHD. She was a perfectionist. She did really well at school. All the signs were there now but again she’s one of those young women who slipped through the gaps because she didn’t exhibit a lot of the behaviours that they were looking for at the time. But finally at the ripe-old age of 19 it was suggested perhaps that was what was under the surface. And when she was diagnosed, I started reading the material and going oh well, hmmmm. I see possibly and I said to her “I’m thinking Charly that this might be me,” to which she went “Oh dur, why do you think it took so long for me to get diagnosed because you thought everything I was doing was normal.” So we’ve got through that but she was right and so I pursued a diagnosis based on that. And also a good friend of mine who I do these long walks around Narrabeen Lake here on the Northern beaches in Sydney was diagnosed as well. And she would say things to me like “I think you’re one of us,” and when you know, I’d be apparently exhibiting particular behaviours. You know, the squirrel behaviours when we’re talking and walking and zapping all around subjects etc and I would keep resisting that and saying things like “Oh you just think everybody is now that you’re diagnosed.” But once Charlotte was and I started reading the material I couldn’t ignore what was right in front of me. So my diagnosis took a little bit longer because I mentioned before that I have addiction in my background. I’ve been sober now for 18 years next week so that’s fantastic, but I had to go through some extra hoops so that the psychiatrist could feel confident that it wasn’t that I had you know, sort of unwired my brain in some ways because of the addiction, because of the alcohol. But we got through that. I spoke to an addiction specialist. He checked all my brain out through talking, found my school reports finally in New Zealand and they filled in all the gaps and it was like boom, yes. You are so … you’re combined, absolutely. And yeah, went from there. So that was 53. 53. I was like yeah wow, it took long time. 

JULIE: May I say congratulations on working hard at beating your addiction and it is so common for undiagnosed as a form of self-medication … [absolutely] … when you don’t have the tools and understanding to know that, you know, it’s unsafe and not healthy and all of those things. It’s quite common, yeah quite common. All sorts of addictions are quite common. 

ANGELA: It’s really related to that self-belief piece you touched on before. For me it was it was a low self-worth issue and now understanding, spending some time with therapists and an ADHD coach, understanding what was driving some of those beliefs and that disconnection from self-worth. Brene Brown opened that door for me. And seeing that the escape, the numbing, was an attempt to I feel like crap. The messages I’m getting around the world quite often are crap and therefore I internalize that a lot. And yeah, that’s what’s the addiction helped me, at the time, get through. And yeah my beautiful beautiful narrative psychologist, which means someone who helps you look at your stories, actually gave me a huge gift when she did say to me “Do you realize what an achievement it is to get and stay sober when you were undiagnosed and unmedicated?” And I was like no, I didn’t realize. And that really I think healed a little bit of that, of those self-worth issues, or lack of self-worth issues inside as well. That was really powerful. 

JULIE: Incredible. Tell me, as self-employed as you are, doing the many things you currently are doing, what challenges can you identify that you have now, and how do you go about combating them? I know in a workplace environment, say back in your corporate land days, there’d be different triggers and some of those will be alleviated now that you’re working for yourself. But what little trip hazards as I like to call them, what ADHD traits um come up or … yeah come up in your self-employed working life? 

ANGELA: Things that I’m noticing. Yeah, well definitely the impulsivity and the rapid shifts because understanding now that I have an interest-based nervous system, not an importance-based nervous system, knowing that I thrive on challenge and novelty and things like that, I want to reinvent my business every 12 months at least. And my husband actually was like “So that’s why you kept changing it up so often!” So that the impatience. That well I’ve done the thing, I want to see the results immediately and if I don’t, then obviously I’ve done the wrong thing and I should try something else. So that bouncing from thing to thing to thing. If I’m unconscious, if I haven’t got my awareness dialled up, if I’m not physically or mentally, emotionally traveling well, I can be far more impulsive than is good for me, my business, or my clients. So that’s a work in progress. I am medicated which does help, definitely does help my focus without a doubt, but it’s still there. Consistency. Believing that there is a certain way that things should be done because that’s what the, you know, the sage on the stage of the business world tells you. It should be done this way. So trying to do consistent content creation, for example. Thinking that things should take less time than they actually do for me because I’m not good yet at estimating time. Still not good at that. So starting to realize that you don’t have to do it the way everyone says it needs to be done but I can still fall into that trap of thinking that I should. Whenever I hear the word ‘should’ in my own head then I need to pause, take that as a trigger, pause and have a look at that because I don’t but I have got that narrative running from so many years of being self-employed that perhaps I should do it a certain way. That self-doubt comparison is still there, still there. So even though the self-worth wound, so to speak, has been healed the scar, the scar tissue is still there. And so the comparison trap, looking what other people are doing, can take me off course. So we you know, we push our noses up against maybe the websites or the emails of people in the business world and assume that all sorts of amazing things are happening. But I’ve seen the back end of hundreds of businesses now and I can, hand on heart say, it’s not always what you think it is. There is truths very well told. So that comparison trap is definitely still an AD … it’s a human thing but it is enhanced because of our, well my understanding is that can be more in that negative head space if we’re not careful. So that definitely happens and our good old DMN, that default mode network, that leads me to overthinking because I can imagine hundreds of different ways something should be done. So I don’t procrastinate. I’m pretty much the opposite but then I will overthink what it is that I have done and think about how it can be improved. And I’ll update my homepage website, the homepage of my website 22 times in a month and things like that. So those overthinking can happen and probably the last one is it’s explained to me that we are sprinters in a marathon world and you cannot sprint a marathon. But I try which means that I can get burnt out and I need to be very aware of the ebbs and flow of my energy and make it okay to have a couple of full-on days and then have a break, right? I can, I need to move to my pattern not the advised pattern because it’s not going to work for me. Absolutely. So those are the sort of things that I that I notice but there’s lots of good stuff as well. 

JULIE: I was going I was going to say just that. Flip side. Flip side. You did mention on your website you talk about your ADHD superpower or parts of that. Can you talk about the upside? What you know works really well for you and you can pat yourself on the back because that’s something you’re proud. 

ANGELA: Yeah, I’d love you to share your positives too. Yes, I like to balance the scales. Well, one of the things and I understand this is about the divergent thinking which is a part of many of us who have this differently wired brain, the ability to see the big picture, connect the dots, see the opportunities, notice things with a client’s business that they can’t see. And this ability which people have said to me that I can be very big picture and visionary but I can go right down granular as well. I can you know, write a headline just as much as I can help them itemize a vision and that ability to move so quickly between those two places. I love, I love that about my brain. I love the fact that it just delivers ideas off the cuff so quickly. I love the speed with which it goes. It excites me. It energizes me and so when I am typically in a workshop environment with a client and we’re going for five or six hours, with breaks and snacks, but I don’t lose any energy. Like I love the amount of energy and enthusiasm that I have. I love the curiosity that’s a part of me, that desire to learn but then to share. I love learning what I share. It really helps. So sharing what I learn, it really helps solidify you know, the lessons. I love the fact that I’m pretty resilient and adaptable, you know. There’s been a lot of proverbial hitting the fan in my life in the last 10 years when you’ve got four kids and all sorts of things going on, but I’m very resilient. I can get back up again and that’s, I think, that’s incredibly useful in business because so often the thing that you think is going to work will not work and that doesn’t mean that you’re a failure. It just means that there may be a better way of doing that thing. And so being able to get back up again is a huge part. And empathy. Like we, I’ll say we, I know I’m talking about me but I believe it’s a we, we have beautiful profound empathy and the ability to really put ourselves in someone else’s shoes and really listen. I know I might interrupt a lot because so much I’ve got to tell people but I really hear people and I really see them and feel them. And that to me is so important. To me a business heart you need a sense of contribution, so you’re doing something meaningful. You need a sense of fulfillment, so you feel fueled and sustained by it. And you need good financial reward for the value that you create but you can’t just do it for the money. It feels empty. Like we have big emotions and I love the fact that we do because you know, you’re going to love me or you’re going to not want to work with me at all. Either way is fine! I believe in “I’m polarized to mesmerize” and I’m good with that. So lots and lots of positives. So I like who I am today. I couldn’t always say that. 

JULIE: Oh that’s wonderful and so you should like you are today. You have a lot of energy and as you said with this Blue Sky thinking and all the other cliches that I can think of, what else can I throw in there? But you know what I mean, it sounds brilliant. So what sort of … who would come to you for coaching? Where are they at in their business? Are they starting out? Have they come across a roadblock that they’re … what are your clients like? 

ANGELA: I think it’s a great question because there’s different sorts of, like I call myself a coach and a mentor, because I don’t … a coach, a pure coach, really just asks questions. But because of the fact that I’ve been running businesses for 20 years and I’m actually a co-director in sailing businesses with my husband as well, I’ve seen a lot. So I’m not afraid to consult, to mentor, to give advice, to let people know what I think, to help them articulate things. So I’m a real mix. So where I work best, where I can add the best value, is someone who has a business. They’ve had that business for at least 2 or 3 years, because I want to see what they’ve done because that then allows me to see where the gaps are and that’s where I can really sink my teeth in. Rather than someone who’s going “I’m thinking of starting a business. Wonder what it might be?” That to me, I can’t add as much value there. So usually it’s service-based businesses because I use products but I don’t really market them. I don’t know how to make you sell more shampoo. That’s just not my thing. It’s really purpose fuelled businesses. I’ll often say that next chapters are built on skinned knees. So it’s often the lessons that we have and have gone through which shorten and sweeten the journey for others. Ie: I ran a marketing agency for a long time and I shouldn’t have run it for that long because it was not fuelling me. And I don’t want another person to have a business and think that it has to be this way when they could make changes that leverage their natural strengths and skills and interests and they’ll find that they will flourish more. Now I don’t believe in that ‘If you do what you love, you’ll never work another day in your life.’ Nice story but no. You still have to work but you don’t have to feel trapped by your business and so people that are open to allowing me in and allowing me to work with their ideas and to, I call it recalibration. It’s not reinvention because often your instincts are good. There’s just areas that you can’t cover yourself because you’re standing on the spot. That’s why I have a coach and mentor because there’s sh*t about me that I can’t see the forest for the trees. So that’s where I add the most value, if someone who has a business but knows that there’s more potential sitting in as well as their business. And I want to help pull it out and help them. 

JULIE: That sounds a magical service that you’re offering, not only for neurotypicals but for those with ADHD, women with ADHD, like late diagnosed women with ADHD also going through the whole thing. So and due to your understanding about some of those trip hazards I can see, you know, as you alluded to before, just creating a strategy unless it’s personalized not only to the business but to the business owner, it’s not really going to … it’s just going to be a list isn’t it. It’s not going to be activated. So all your links and bits and pieces will be in the copy of this podcast. So if anyone wants to go and check out Angela and your services. And so you, do you do any one-on-one in the New South Wales area, or is it mainly online? How do you work? 

ANGELA: Oh if you’re close, if you’re physically close to me, I love getting started face to face. There’s nothing like the energy of being in a room on a table, not on the table but working at the table. The Post-it notes, and the flip charts, and the coloured pens, and really working through it you know. There’s that real connection from brain to pen. But I’ve got clients in America and New Zealand, all over Australia. So it can be done on the beauty of Zoom as well. It’s really it’s that to me it’s … there’s two book ends to it. There’s strategy, because you got to have strategy, but there’s also self-leadership which is especially … it’s important for everybody, but it’s especially important for us ADHDers. And self-leadership has components to it. I can very happily give you a wee diagram that you can pop on the page if you like. But the first point is self-knowledge. Okay, so you need to know who you are, what’s important to you, what are your strengths, what are your values? Because when we really do the deep-diving, get the clarity on that and what you want to, what you believe in and want for your clients, then we can design, or redesign, recalibrate that business so that it is leveraging what comes most naturally to you. That makes a business much more sustainable. So that’s done. That’s … there’s prep work, there’s we work in a workshop environment where we pull the business apart and you know and sort of put it back together in a new way. And then mentoring can happen after that to keep that momentum because there’s a thing which I call the ‘ka-donk’ factor, right. So you can be in this workshop or whatever the case is, at a conference or whatever, and you’re so excited and you’re so motivated. Everything’s going to be different. Then you get back to your real life and ka-donk. It just feels really hard again. It’s like “Oh what was I thinking?” and that’s where the ongoing support is. It’s really important to make sure that you know, you keep moving forward. So I like … [No, no, no more ka-donking.] No more ka-donking. Well ka-donking is sort of inevitable but we’re not going to let you stay down there. We’re gonna lift you back up again. 

JULIE: Well it is, that sounds amazing. Angela, it was so lovely to chat to you again. Thank you so much [you’re welcome] and I’m sure ADHDifference listeners will get a lot out of this podcast. So thank you. 

ANGELA; You’re most welcome. [And we will talk again soon.] That would be wonderful. Take care.

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