Going on the record with ADHD (Rakia Reynolds’ story)

In school, a teacher made Rakia Reynolds push her desk all the way to the principal’s office for getting in trouble. Rakia had undiagnosed ADHD. She was energetic, creative, and the class clown. Rakia is now a businesswoman and creative leader with diagnosed ADHD — a diagnosis that she never shared publicly… until now. 

Hear from Rakia, the founder and executive director of Skai Blue Media, on why she shied away from talking about her ADHD until now. Did a level of success make it feel safer to talk about? And if so, what can we learn from that?  

Want to share your “aha” moment? We love hearing from our listeners. Email us at ADHDAha@understood.org.

Related resources

• Rakia’s company, skaibluemedia.com

• Why some kids clown around in class

• 32 examples of workplace accommodations

Timestamps

(01:41) Speaking publicly about having ADHD

(07:47) Rakia’s childhood and school life

(12:43) Hitting a wall in graduate school

(14:36) Rakia’s “aha“ moments

(16:51) ADHD strengths and weaknesses

(18:53) Coping at work

(21:36) How employers can create an inclusive and supportive workplace

Episode transcript

Rakia: I've always been pretty confident and I've always believed like, you know what, I am great. I'm amazing, I'm smart, I'm creative. I can do anything that I want to do. But yet and still, I was always nervous to say to people, "Hey, I'm ADHD and I have a differently thinking brain."

Laura: This is "ADHD Aha!," a podcast where people share the moment when it finally clicked that they have ADHD. My name is Laura Key. I head up our editorial team here at Understood.org, and as someone who's had my own ADHD "aha" moment, I'll be your host.

I am here today with Rakia Reynolds. Rakia is the founder and executive officer of the award-winning strategic communications agency "Skai Blue Media." Rakia is a thought leader, a branding expert, and overall just extremely impressive businesswoman. She's also a mom. Thanks for being here today, Rakia. How are you?

Rakia: I am so good. Thank you so much for that intro.

Laura: That was a fun one to do. There is so much I could choose from. I saw your bio and I'm like, How do I, how do I make this 1 or 2 sentences? There's just, you do a lot.

Rakia: I will say yes to that. I really do do a lot.

Laura: Yeah, end of sentence. I like that.

Rakia: My theme is everything, everywhere, all at once.

Laura: Rakia, That is such an ADHD movie. We did an episode about "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once."

Rakia: Oh my gosh, I had no idea. But in watching the movie, just everything happening, I felt seen. And I typically use that phrase in every meeting that I go in to.

(01:41) Speaking publicly about having ADHD

Laura: Rakia, is this your first time speaking publicly about your ADHD?

Rakia: You know what? I've spoken like to my teams and things like that, but like having it recorded on a podcast? Absolutely. I'm sure I've never said, "Hey, I want to talk to the world about, you know, my ADHD."

Laura: How are you feeling about it?

Rakia: You know, I'm going to be honest, I was a little nervous because you get judged. I think I've been leaving breadcrumbs for people and I'll say, you know, we're at this stage in time where folks are just becoming a little more transparent about who they are and how different people show up. So, I have seen a lot more folks talk about how differently they show up in terms of thinking. And it's nice to do that because then it normalizes and it doesn't make you as nervous to see those things.

Laura: I know it can be a lot. I mean, I was leaving breadcrumbs for about ten years after I got diagnosed, so it took me a long time. And, you know, I work at an organization that is, you know, focused on ADHD and learning and thinking differences. And even in that space, there is something, it takes a minute, right? It takes, you know, it's a thing.

Rakia: It's a thing. Yeah. And I think a lot of us, you know, mask and, you know, I admire, you know, senior level and C-suite executives that talk about their differently thinking abilities and capabilities. But I will say for me, for a really long time, I never wanted to get judged on stereotypes about folks with ADHD, and as a Black woman, I'm already in a category where people are like, "Oh this and this."

And we already have so many external compounded elements that we have to deal with just from societal pressures. And to add another layer on to that, I'm like, "No, I would never add another layer on to that."

Laura: Right. Like a double stigma, in some cases, a triple stigma. Do you feel like it's easier to talk about your ADHD now that you've achieved, I mean, I think it's fair to say such a high level of success, Rakia, in your career?

Rakia: I do. And that's no ego. It's like, "Wow, I've made it 14 years and I have an all-star roster of clients and I was able to do like all of this with having a differently thinking brain and a different approach. I do say sometimes like, "Look how far you've come. You have this big team, you've accomplished all of these amazing things. You won so many great contracts and you bid up against some of the big giant, some of these big agencies that are out here that have 500, 600 people."

And, you know, we have a 29-person team and we're out here like, you know, slaying it. So, I am actually comfortable enough to brag about it. And I'm comfortable enough to say that I am a founder who did all of this with a differently thinking brain.

Laura: As you should. And now, you know, in some ways it's kind of a shame that it takes like such a level of success for a lot of people to say, "You know, I have ADHD. You know, gotcha. I had ADHD the whole time and I still manage to to do it." And maybe you actually had additional strengths because of your ADHD but not everybody sees it that way.

I wonder if you have anything that you would say to the listeners out there who haven't achieved maybe the level of, you know, on paper of success that you have and the concerns that they have about sharing their own ADHD. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Rakia: I sometimes think like what I have said this earlier on, but I wouldn't have because I do think we and it's sad to say this, we do live in a society where, you know, there are really, like when people say "This is a judgment-free zone. Am I in a safe space?" I had, no I didn't have the psychological safety to come and say, "Hey, you all, I have ADHD." Not to my team, what I used to say is "My brain is different." I never said ADHD, you know, and I think people picked it up.

I always had to have, you know, an executive assistant working with me if I know what my ministry is and I know what my ministry isn't. My ministry has never been "Let me be the person that goes in and responds to all of the emails and schedules the meetings." Like that's just not something I can do. But noticing where I fell short or was an area of opportunity for me, that's where I hired people to do those things.

And for me, the ADHD piece of my brain goes back early on when I was younger, you know, my father noticed like, "Hey, you do things a little differently, you're learning a little differently." And so my father was like, "Well, maybe you can take the camcorder and record videos and you do things like that."

So, it was like my entry to TV production and all of the things that I got to do started in the fourth grade. In those early days when it was like, "I want to use a camcorder to record the things." It was like I was a producer in at nine.

Laura: I love it.

Rakia: And so, it allowed me to say, "OK, there's something that's different. I approach things in a different way," and that really for me, it was like the footprint and that sort of the guide of like if I was doing that in fourth grade and my parents were okay with it, then I should be able to do this in high school, then college, then post, you know, postgraduate school, all of the things.

And so, I say all that to say it is never too early to do things on your own terms in your own way because at the end of the day, net net, the result is going to be the same. Whether you had the upsets, whether you're hurt, whether there's trauma, whether anything, all of those things in between. At the end, the net result is going to be you had to end up doing it some way and I think you should be able to do things in your own special way.

(07:47) Rakia’s childhood and school life

Laura: Well, thank you for transitioning also to talking about growing up, because that's where I wanted to go next. So you were just talking about fourth grade. When were you diagnosed? It was in fourth grade, is that right? It was…

Rakia: Teachers started to say things in the fourth grade. And then I had a teacher in the sixth grade, Miss Fernikola.

Laura: We always remember their full name, right?

Rakia: Yes. I'm like her name. I remember how the coffee smell on her breath. I remember the raspiness of her voice. And she, at first I thought she was mean, but I think she was paying attention to me. She would send me to the office a lot. I got sent to the office a lot as a kid. So, although we didn't know, you know, in third grade when the teachers were saying, "Rakia is so disruptive, she can't be in a classroom." I'll never forget that my teacher say, "You actually don't belong in this classroom. So, we're going to put your desk outside of the classroom."

Laura: No way, when was that?

Rakia: This was in third grade.

Laura: That was in third grade?

Rakia: I'm like, "That is abuse, like Miss McCardle."

Laura: Yeah.

Rakia: And you remember the, you know, just the visual of pushing your desk outside of the classroom. And then after that, she was like, "Now you should push it down to the office," because I'm going to be honest, I was still talking, peeking my head in the class, laughing, doing all of the things. And she said, "Now you have to push it down to the front office."

They called it in-school suspension. And so, you put your desk outside of the front office and all of the kids wave to you. And it is embarrassing. It's humiliating. It's mortifying.

Laura: How far away was the principal's office or the front office from your classroom that you had to push your desk all the way?

Rakia: You know what? Now, when I look back at it, it was only four, yeah, it was only like four doors down. It was a really small school, but it felt like an eternity...

Laura: Yeah.

Rakia: Pushing my desk from the third-grade classroom all the way down to the office, like.

Laura: That just sounds so awful.

Rakia: And I do think kids that are exposed to those things, you know, I made a joke about it and then you're voted, you know, I think I got like funniest in the class or class clown or something like that, a title that my parents weren't too proud of. However, it was a coping mechanism because the kids are like, "Hey, I see, I see you are kicked out of the classroom once again."

Laura: Class clown is a is a really common thing that, like a lot of kids with ADHD get labeled as because it is a form of masking, especially for kids, right? It's a way of getting kind of your energy out through if you're doing kind of like physical reactions and humor and a way to maybe distract from the quote mistakes that you're making. You know, that's, I've heard that before.

Rakia: Well, good to know. I wish I would have known these things. I wish like, I wish I would have known. It was such a stigma. It was like if you were ADHD, you weren't smart or something was wrong. And listen, I'm going to be honest, I've always been pretty confident and I've always believed like, you know what, I am great. I'm amazing, I'm smart, I'm creative. I can do anything that I want to do. But yet still, I was always nervous to, like, say to people, "Hey, I'm ADHD and I have a differently thinking brain."

And so, after that, like there were several accounts similar to that. Not as drastic as pushing my desk outside of the classroom. But I remember, you know, in sixth grade Miss Fernikola said, "I think Rakia is probably ADD or ADHD." And my dad was really adamant about like, "No, she's fine. You know, she learns a little differently."

And so they sort of glossed over it. And then, you know, you go through those tests and things like that. And so, I was diagnosed, but I never, I remember the teacher saying, "You need to medicate her." And my father said, "We're not going to medicate her."

Laura: Was it the fear of stigma that you were mentioning? What do you think that that was?

Rakia: Yeah, I think one, I don't think my parents were educated enough to know what ADHD was. You know, we've come such a long way. We have a whole toolkit, like a full lexicon.

And so, what I think was there were a few things. One, there was a stigma "I don't want my kid being labeled as this kid with ADHD. She's already being sent to the office. You all are already pushing her down outside of the office." And I went to a smaller Catholic school and I think my father felt good about "Let's just keep her here and let's just wait until she can make it on out."

And then fast forward, when I got into college, I got rediagnosed again because then it was like it was just too much.

Laura: But it sounds like your dad helped you channel things and helped steer you towards, you know, creative outlets for your energy and for maybe some of your ADHD behaviors.

Rakia: Yeah, he did, and I appreciate that. And take those sort of foundational learnings of "If you can't do it this way, do it another way." And I still apply that in my adult life, my career, in everything that I do.

(12:43) Hitting a wall in graduate school

Laura: So, it sounds like when you got to college, graduate school that you hit a wall, right?

Rakia: Yeah.

Laura: Tell me what happened.

Rakia: It was like I loved what I was learning. I was going to graduate school for counseling, psychology, and it was like, "I love this. Like, I don't understand what is wrong. Like, why am I forgetting? Like, it was like, I just don't know." And then I went and saw a therapist. She had asked me, she said, "Have you ever been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD?" You know, when she asked me, I said, "Oh, funnily enough, guess what? In the fourth grade, this is what happened and then in the sixth grade..."

And then she was like "Well, maybe it's time for you to get on a regimen." And I thought, "This is the time when I can really start training myself" because people would say, "You cut me off, Rakia, you cut me off." And so, I never wanted to be rude. Like, it was never intentional. So, I thought, OK, I know that for me, I get excited about things and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I've got to say it right now."

I started carrying a journal and I knew that helped. The management of the calendar, putting the reminders in the phone. You know, those things helped. Like it was a chore in college just to clean my room. That's when it was just like, "What is wrong with me? Why can't I even clean my room the right way? Why does everybody else's room when I walk to their room, it looks so nice. And they have these great spaces and like, you just had these amazing lives."

And I used to ask people like, "How do you do that?" And they would look at me and they'd say, "Rakia, we just, we just do it." So, after so much of that, you just get it. For me, it was like, "No, I know something's wrong and I really do need to fix it." And I wanted to try to fix it.

(14:36) Rakia's "aha" moments

Laura: Rakia, what would you say was your biggest ADHD "aha" moment?

Rakia: I'm going to be honest, Laura. I've had so many "aha" moments. Being married. When you're married, you are a partner with someone and noticing that, like most of my early arguments with my husband, it was like, "You don't put the toilet paper like this" or "You don't do this with your toothbrush." And every time you leave the kitchen, you leave these things on the counter. It was, there were so many moments where I'm just it was like, "Oh my gosh, this is the ADHD. This is it. This is, oh my gosh, this is it."

Or being able to see my children experiencing, one of my children doing a reading lesson, and she was like, "I can't get this." And I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is it." Or one of my other children, she didn't like her zipper zipped all the way up or she couldn't wear hats. And I'd be like, "What the hell?" And then it was like, "Oh my gosh, Rakia, this is it." Like your socks having to be a certain way. They're all of these things. I've had so many "aha" moments.

And I remember this one time, I was like, "OK, enough." I hired this woman. She has this excellent business. Her name is Rose and she's an organizational specialist and her company is called "Rose Knows Where It Goes." And that to me was the "aha" moment. She came into my house, she came into my closet, she basically said, "Why do you have all of these things? There's no place for this. There's no place for this. There's no place for that."

And it was like it took an outside person to come in to tell me where all of the things in my house went. I think one of the biggest ones was when I like bought my dream house and I'm like, "I bought my dream house and it's still a mess." And I had to bring in an organizational expert and it was like, "Maybe it's not all the other things. It is me." So, I've had so many "aha" moments where it's just like, "Yeah, it's me."

Laura: You're a branding expert. It sounds like you give the stamp of approval to "Rose Knows Where It Goes."

Rakia: Listen, I haven't seen her in years, but I am about to bring her back into my life because Rose definitely knows where it goes.

(16:51) ADHD strengths and weaknesses

Laura: I love it. You were talking about messiness in your room and struggling with organization, right? Did that create a feeling of "I need to present myself a certain way in every other aspect of my life"?

Rakia: Yes, I'm sure. Because it was like people would always say "Rakia, why is your room so messy?" And then it's like, "Oh gosh, why is your house so messy?" And I would say, "I just, I don't want people to see me, you know, as this, like, messy person. And I think for a lot of ADHD people, well, ADHD people like me who become hyperfocused, we do have a bit of a superpower. So, I'm talking about the things of like disorganization and all of those things.

But when you can be so hyperfocused on something and pay attention to patterns, which is my form of ADHD, I am able to pay attention to patterns. I can read people really well. So, in the world of communications, that has been such an asset to me. So, where my room might be disorganized or my desk might be a mess, I can come to a meeting and know the answer just like that.

Or if there is a crisis occurring, you know, in the world of crisis communications, I typically have to step in with a crisis communications plan. And 98% of the time I am spot on. You know, and from a pattern standpoint, because I've been paying attention to patterns since the fourth grade, I've now nailed it down that I know patterns so well that I can look at this is what's going to happen in five months. This is what's going to happen in two years.

Like I've worked with the therapist over the past few years to help me nail down, like where people say, "Oh, you know, the title is Rakia knows how to future proof things. She's a futurist." Really it's I know patterns and I know them really well and I do it so well that I can anticipate what's going to happen in the next two years in a certain industry and a certain function. So, those things have been my superpower. I still have a messy room and a messy desk, though.

(18:53) Coping at work

Laura: What kind of things do you do at work to cope?

Rakia: Listen, so as a Sagittarius, my astrological sign is a true Sagittarius. You know, the bow and arrow is our astrological sign. And so, by my desk, I have an actual bow and I have arrows. And once in a while, in between meetings, you will catch me outside, you know, shooting a bow and arrow. And for me, that's helpful. Or my children will laugh because I do this thing where rub my arm and people now that I'm saying it, they'll be like, "Oh, I noticed that she does it in meetings." It's like a thing that I do.

I do a lot of like, grounding and that might be like just metaphysical and spiritual. For me, it really does. It does help. I sing a lot. Not because I like singing. I think it just, it does something, the humming, it helps me. So I have a lot of tools again. I have all of these systems in place now so that I can I mean, I have really big clients, so I have to be organized. What I bring to the table is that hyperfocus, futuristic approach, you know, the creative solutions and being able to think like no one else.

For me, ADHD has always been like, my brain is switching channels. It's like I have this remote and I'm like flicking, flicking, flicking, flicking, flicking, flicking, flicking. I am able to take on so much. I'm able to have, you know, 20 clients that I can work on at one time. I can switch from this to that, to that, to that, to that, and be my full self in every single thing.

Because I do have a lot of energy and I still need to exert energy and I get to do that in the form of using my brain or overextending my brain where, you know, sometimes people are like, "How are you not exhausted from that meeting? We just had a three-hour strategy session."

And for me, it's like "I'm just getting started. Like, I could actually do three more of those." I was in a meeting yesterday and it was like an executive team. We were doing a strategy session, an all-day strategy session, and I allowed myself to walk into that meeting without my notebook because I felt like because it was a strategy session, they wanted creative ideas, it was fine to showcase my outbursts in that meeting.

And I could tell when people were looking at me in the meeting, they were like, "Oh this side of the table has energy." Because I was like, "Here's what I saw. This is what we're going to do. This is how it's going to happen. Here's how it unfolds. This is the idea." And for them, they were like, "Oh yeah, Rakia is a creative genius." And I'm like, "No, I just didn't bring my notebook into this meeting. I just, I don't have my tool. So, now you all know who I am for real."

(21:36) How employers can create an inclusive and supportive workplace

Laura: What do you think that other business leaders and heads of corporations and organizations would you recommend that they do to support people with ADHD in the workplace?

Rakia: I think it's really simply listening and learning, you know, from an executive functioning standpoint, you know, do a listening tour with your teams. And obviously there are mechanisms that have to be put in place because people, when they divulge certain information, you know, there's a human resource component. As a leader, I have to say, you've got to be a responsible leader. And if you have mechanisms in place where you have human resources or you have an employee resource group, you know, consider neurodiversity as a part of that.

Because I do think that if you sit and you can listen and you can learn how people respond to things, how people like to show up on calls, how people like to show up at meetings, you know, for a very long time, I would be annoyed at team members because they didn't you know, the impulsivity wasn't there. So, for me, impulsivity is like, "Oh my God, as soon as you tell me the thing, I have the answer right away." And other people, I'll be like why does it take them so long to come up with a response? Or why are they sitting there so quietly?

So, for neurotypical people, they would be like, "That's what you're supposed to do. You wait until the person is finished and you are listening and you're quiet." So, even for folks that have differently thinking brains, you should think about the other people that aren't like you. You should listen and learn. We had a company come in and they did a test on how people think, and that was my first sort of entryway into saying like, "Oh you could actually bring this in the workplace, how people think differently."

And there were all of these different types of how people thought. And it made me aware as a leader. One of my team members cracked me up and she was like, "I am not always hot and ready, like Little Caesars pizza." And I fell out. And in a typical sense, I would have been annoyed. But after the learning exercises of like, OK, people learn differently, they respond differently, they consume things differently, they think differently.

So, I would encourage leaders to really listen and learn from the people around you, how they think, how they show up, what their strong suits are, ways that they are consuming. Because as they're sitting there thinking, you could be thinking that they're just not paying attention to you. So, listen and learn.

Laura: That's great advice. And I'm sometimes one of those people who I'm taking a moment. I'm less, you know, kind of expressive in my thought process as a person with ADHD. I'm actually, it takes me a while to process when I'm in a meeting. So, I appreciate that advice that you're giving.

Rakia, it was so nice to connect with you today, and I'm just so glad that we've crossed paths in our lives and we've had a chance to get to know each other a little bit. And congratulations on sharing your ADHD story on mic.

Rakia: Oh thank you. On the record, like on the record. So, I appreciate you, Laura, giving me the space and encouraging me to do this podcast. Honestly, without you saying this, this would have never happened. So, I appreciate you for the space, the agency, the freedom, the psychological safety to talk about my ADHD. So, just want to give snaps and claps to you for that.

Laura: Thank you. I'm honored.

Thanks for listening. As always, if you want to share your own "aha" moment, email us at ADHDaha@understood.org. I'd love to hear from you. Be sure to check out the show notes for this episode. We have more resources and links to anything we mentioned.

This show is brought to you by Understood.org. Understood is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. If you want to help us continue this work, donate at Understood.org/give.

"ADHD Aha!" is produced and edited by Jessamine Molli. Jessamine, are you there?

Jessamine: Hi everyone. I'm still here.

Laura: And Margie DeSantis.

Margie: Hey, hey.

Laura: Our theme music was written by Justin D. Wright, who also mixes the show. Ilana Millner is our supervising producer. Briana Berry is our production director. Neil Drumming is our editorial director. Creative and production leadership from Scott Cocchiere and Seth Melnick. And I'm your host, Laura Key. Thanks so much for listening.