Re: I've achieved great succes in my career, but have also been fired over 10 times!

[Anonymous]

The ADHD psychiatrist I saw for a consultation said the same thing, he didn’t know of any accountants with ADHD. But I managed to successfully obtain a professional accounting designation. It was hard and I’m still not sure how I did it, because I never studied in school, was a very average student (poor at math!), dropped out of university, etc. I guess I just did it one step at a time, without expectations. I was surprised the first year at how well I did, so I just kept going.

I’ve never had a job that lasted longer than 5 years (the last one was a very good one at a large Japanese auto manufacturer, but I couldn’t handle the stress nor keep all the accounting rules up to date and in my head, so I basically retired from accounting), and most jobs were no more than 2 years. That’s about 26 jobs in my life (I’m 56). I’ve worked for myself twice now (different types of businesses), and what I do now is successful because I found a way to capitalize on what I do best, a small skill set, and saying no to anything else. Being an accountant helps me a lot (don’t have to pay someone for that) but I still hate aspects of that. I’m doing creative work and I love it.

luna, I too can do a lot of things, but as I found out, not that successfully when I’m working for someone else. I don’t usually meet up to their standards (which feel like a straitjacket, I hate authority). I always want to embellish the job, do more than I’m asked to do, and that usually means I don’t do what I should be doing, or don’t do it all, or on time. I’m sure that I have a learning disorder (I bet I have a math disorder for sure), so that might be part of it. And some times I get so stressed that I just spin my gears completely. Meds have been very, very helpful.

Like swordsman and lanakila, I thrive where the job isn’t the same every day. I would be (and have been) a terrible employee. I have been an incompetent manager and supervisor. So what’s working for me is working by myself, for myself. My husband helps out in my business, but most of the time it’s just me.

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