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No Qualifications, Just Results: Why ADHD Made Me excel as a Rehab Coach

Dave Tompkins - Rehab coach with adhd.

A rehab coach with no official qualifications.

No diplomas framed on the wall.

No letters after my name.

And I used to feel shame about that.

Like I had to explain myself every time someone asked, “So... where’d you study?”

Truth is, ADHD made classrooms hell for me.

Sitting still, listening to someone talk at me for an hour, memorizing pages of jargon that made no sense until I did it with my hands—that was never going to work for me. I didn't know it was ADHD at the time. I just thought I was stupid, lazy, or "not trying hard enough."

BUT I tried. God, I tried.

But when your brain processes the world in a different way, traditional education can feel like trying to learn to swim by reading a book while drowning.

But here’s the twist. ADHD is the reason I’m so good at what I do.

Not despite it—because of it.

ADHD gives me hyper focus.

When I’m with a client, I’m all in.

I’m reading their body language, movement patterns, emotional state—without even thinking about it. My brain is scanning, connecting dots, adjusting on the fly. That instinctive pattern-recognition is my superpower.

ADHD gives me creativity.

No cookie-cutter plans. No rigid protocols.

Every client is a puzzle, and my brain LOVES puzzles.

I build rehab strategies like Lego—test, tweak, rebuild. I throw out what’s not working without attachment and double-down on what is.

ADHD gives me empathy.

I know what it feels like to struggle, to feel broken in systems that weren’t built for you. So I meet people where they’re at. I speak in their language, not textbook jargon. I make rehab feel doable, not like another mountain to climb.

I’ve learned rehab the hard way—through my own body.

I’ve had injuries, surgeries, setbacks.

I’ve felt the frustration, the fear, the grind of rebuilding yourself when your body doesn’t want to play nice.

But I’ve also felt the wins. The breakthroughs. The day you wake up and something doesn’t hurt anymore. The day you move in a way you thought you’d lost.

That’s where my understanding comes from.

Yes, I’ve read books and gone deep into biomechanics and movement science, but my real education? It came from doing. From feeling. From living it.

And I haven’t done it alone.

I’ve learned from people with qualifications—brilliant minds like Chiropractors, Occupational Therapists and physiotherapists. Most importantly, I’ve learned from my wife—my own personal musculoskeletal encyclop aedia. She’s a sports massage therapist with a sixth sense for the body, and our dinner-table conversations would bore most people to tears but light my brain on fire.

Between her hands-on magic and my movement brain, we’ve helped a lot of people get their bodies back.

I don’t say this to bash qualifications.

They definitely matter. However so does lived experience. So does a brain that won’t quit and sometimes, the best coaches are the ones who’ve had to coach themselves through the hardest parts.

So no, I don’t have a piece of paper.

But I have stories.

I have scars.

I have results.

I have clients who got their lives back.

And that? That’s the kind of qualification I’m proud of.