I said something in a meeting once. When I was just a Junior FX broker trying to make it in an extremely male-dominated industry. It was an idea I believed in, one I’d thought through, one I knew had value. Silence. Then five minutes later, a man repeated it almost word for word. Suddenly, it was “brilliant.”

I used to think progress looked like more women in leadership. More women at the table. More women at the top.

And for a while, that felt true. After all, in a world where men are still holding quite a substantial amount of leadership roles – 90% of Fortune 500 CEOs to be exact – any shift felt like something worth celebrating.

I was diagnosed with ADHD in my late 20s and putting a name to something I always struggled with was such a relief.

You see, I wasn’t failing. I had a thriving business, managed a team, powered through a to-do list that never seemed to end. But under the surface, things felt harder than they should. I was constantly overwhelmed, mentally drained, quietly wondering why everything took so much out of me.

I used to think the way you speak was just a part of who you are. A reflection of your roots. Your family. Your story. Something to be proud of.

But then I started noticing just how quickly some people make judgments based on someone’s accent. How a certain voice in a meeting gets listened to more seriously. How a regional twang gets laughed off.