From Unemployable to Unstoppable: How I Built Security by Choosing Myself
- Dec 16, 2025
- 3 min read
By Candice Grobler
The night I decided to change my life, I was locked in a bathroom, cuddled in a ball in the bath with just my nightie and a small towel to keep warm. This was after discovering my partner of nine years was cheating on me while at the same time apparently planning to propose. He'd spent years telling me I'd be nothing without him, that I'd live on the street, that no one would love me, and that’s why my family immigrated.
And worse, from the age of 19 to 28, almost nine years, I let myself believe him.
I was an event organiser during COVID, trapped alone in South Africa as my family had immigrated overseas. The industry collapsed when events went virtual. I couldn't keep a job—undiagnosed ADHD and autism meant I exploded at every priority shift, panicked uncontrollably at criticism.
My last boss called me "unemployable."
She was right, but not in the way she meant.
That night while shivering in the bath, I made a choice: if I survived until morning, I would become my own security. No more abuse. No more shrinking myself to be loved. No more waiting for someone else to save me.
What I Had to Unlearn
For years, I believed I needed to be less so others could love me. I needed their love to be safe. But the brutal truth? Those who loved me most abused me most.
I'd been waiting my whole life for someone else to make me feel enough, worthy, important. Taking poor treatment in the hope that support may someday come. The working world reinforced this—told me to mask my neurodivergence, hide my authentic experience, seek validation before speaking my truth.
Breaking free meant facing a harder reality: I could lose 95% of the people I loved and cared about and still make it through the other side.
But then I’d have to figure out how to be better off. Stronger. Contribute to a better world.
I spent four years healing, forgiving, rebuilding. I took every terrible job that would have me—literally ate dirt—just to prove I could do community work without a fancy title or traditional credentials. I tried writing, design, marketing. Community was the only thing that gave me energy when everything else drained me.
I learned that problems and opportunities are everywhere. I just had to open my eyes to what the working world taught me to ignore: that my unique perspective, opinion, and experience don't need validation from others to be true.
That abundance is a mindset — but so is scarcity. And that power comes from embracing the “special”, not from hiding it.
Why a Million People
I started Candid Collab to help scrappy entrepreneurs build community-led businesses with lean systems—so they can ditch feast-or-famine cycles and reclaim their power. But my real mission goes deeper.
As a neurodiverse woman navigating a world that wasn't built for me, I see how many of us are told we're "too much" or "not enough." How we're pushed into systems designed to exclude us. How self-employment isn't just a career choice—it's self-preservation.
So, I'm on a mission to help a million people become self-employed because self-empowerment is the first step toward building a world that actually works for all of us and our planet.
Not just neurotypical people. Not just those who can mask and conform. Not just money with fame or power. All of us.
If you've been waiting for permission, for validation, for someone to tell you you're ready—this is it. Say yes to the hard learnings, the long nights, the grind. You can build security for yourself. I literally lost 95% of the people in my life and I still made it through stronger.
The working world taught me to hide my "special." Now my personal mission is to prove to anyone who will listen: it's all a construct. Power comes from embracing my “special”, especially when I’m being told to push it aside.
I don't have to be less to be loved. I just have to choose myself first.
Connect With Candice
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