How Rich Davis Redefines Career Coaching With Assessments

In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets, host Pedro sits down with Rich Davis, Neurodivergent Career Strategist and CEO of Comfort Career Connections, to explore a radically more humane approach to career coaching. Rich shares how he uses the Harrison Assessment and a structured “career navigator” system to help clients, especially invisibly disabled and neurodivergent professionals, identify work they will genuinely enjoy and sustain.

Drawing from decades in psychology, workforce development, and lived experience with OCD, Rich explains how analyzing 175 character traits can remove guesswork from career decisions. He walks through his CFACE (Comfortable Fit Approach for Career Exploration) model, the realities of disclosure in the workplace, and how standardized coaching packages allow solopreneurs to scale impact without burnout.

This conversation is a powerful blend of data, empathy, and lived experience, challenging traditional hiring systems and redefining what meaningful, inclusive career coaching can look like.



Connect with

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/comfortcareerconnector/
Website: https://www.mycomfortjob.com/

Transcript

Rich Davis: 0:00

The solution that seems to be working is to have my clients purchase a standard package, which can be as short as 90 minutes of coaching, because I use the reports and tools available through a talent management system called the Harrison Assessment. And Dr. Dan Harrison has created an amazing system. But what you can have is a career navigator system. I have my clients take a questionnaire and the Harrison Assessment analyzes 175 individual character factors for that person's level of enjoyment of using each trait.

Davis Nguyen : 0:38

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets, the podcast where we talk with successful career coaches on how they built their success and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is Davis Wayne, and I'm the founder of Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, and even $100,000 weeks. Before Purple Circle, I've grown several seven and eight-figure career coaching businesses myself and have been a consultant at two career coaching businesses that are doing over $100 million each. Whether you're an established coach or building your practice for the first time, you'll discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business.

Pedro: 1:10

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm Pedro and today's guest is Rich Davis, NeuroDivergent Career Strategist and CEO of Comfort Career Connections, who's you guessed it, a career strategist who helps invisibly disabled professionals find work that truly fits. So after seeing how traditional hiring systems fall short, he created the Comfort Career Audit, blending predictive analytics with empathy to guide more effective career planning. His work helps clients understand their strengths, set realistic goals, and move towards economic self-sufficiency while also advocating for more inclusive and humane approaches to career development. Welcome to the show, Rich. Thank you very much for having me, Pedro. It's great to have you. And Rich, I'm kind of a sucker for origin stories, so I like to rewind a bit. So every coach has that moment where they look at their life and they say, you know what? I guess this is what I'm doing now. So when was that for you, Rich?

Rich Davis: 2:19

Well, Pedro, how far back do you want me to go? We could take an hour with this story, but I don't think that that would be everything we want to do.

Pedro: 2:28

Give me the best highlights of the best.

Rich Davis: 2:30

I'll go quick through a long period of time. I was a psychology major at the University of Connecticut for a bachelor's degree in psychology. There was a state institution in Connecticut right next door to the University of Connecticut in Mansfield. We called it uh it's it was called Mansfield State Training School, but on campus we just called it Mansfield School for the Retarded. Now, I don't mean to offend anyone with that word. But in 1970, when I was began with my college uh career, we didn't have any other word. And so I ended up taking a lot of courses from the head of the psychology department at Mansfield. I learned what we called back then behavior modification. A lot of the words have changed, but basically it's a system of rewards and punishments in order to change behavior. And I was hired there and worked full-time during the summer, part-time junior, senior year. And then I went to Temple University and uh was accepted as a in their educational psychology department for a master's. I also got married that summer before I started. We had no friends or family in Philadelphia. We're both from Connecticut. And then things started to unwind. After my first year, a very kind counselor tapped me on the shoulder and said, Well, son, graduate students don't get C's. Why don't you see the psychiatrist that I'm recommending near where you live? I started my recovery from mental illness of whatever they ended up calling it over the years. Today my diagnosis is OCD. And um, I never finished my master's. What I did, though, were a series of jobs that were not that well planned. But I learned over the years that I enjoyed recruiting staff. I became a manager of a jewelry store. I learned management training through a jewelry store in the malls. And also I learned that I enjoyed training. And uh I would say by the late 80s, I had applied for a master's degree in instructional design development at Penn State. And then I got another job. And I was married and I have a daughter. And so I never started my graduate education. Careers do really lead us in some interesting directions. And I knew that I didn't want retail jewelry for the rest of my life. And I also knew that, as I mentioned, I enjoyed following what you enjoy is very important. So then my next job was in sales management, branch management for the decade of the 80s in the temporary help service industry. So I got closer to that HR role, but never became actually the HR professional. I was using other skills, my sales skills, to move my career forward. From the temp industry, moved into workforce development, which is helping people who need help to get their jobs. And that's where the coaching really started. I was able to talk to clients. I worked for a major nonprofit, and I built a department for job development, is what they call it, in workforce development terms. So we helped people who had lost their jobs through downsizings and uh mergers uh and that type of thing. From there, that company in the mid-90s, that organization, completely changed and started to help people who were of low income. If you remember the welfare to work years, the Clinton welfare to work years. Well, I was introduced to a fabulous person who I still know professionally today. And she became, she was introduced as the director of job development. I was the manager of job development, so you can see it was not going to move forward in that organization the way I thought it could. And she looked different than I did. And that's fine. You need the right person in the right job. And so I answered the phone when a recruiter called and I took a position back in the temp service industry. Pedro, it was probably the worst job I've ever had in my life. You can't go backwards. I was a disaster. I hated it. And so I asked my wife at the time, I said, could I launch a business? I said, I want to help entry-level employees because the employers are not getting it right. I could see that, and the entry-level employee really needed support. And she said yes. So I launched my first business in 1998, and I was working with nonprofit organizations, service provider organizations that were helping people. Eventually, I focused on people with disabilities. And again, what I've learned along the way is that your career will kind of come towards you if you're open-minded and you move in the direction that things are coming your way. Um, I had to take a lot of actions along the way. But certainly answering an ad for a part-time job developer in the local newspaper made sense. And that took me to helping people with disabilities get their jobs. And that's my focus today. I will move all the way to 2016, where I found myself single. I found myself really with this passion to help more people with disabilities get their jobs. And so that's when I launched Comfort Career Connections with a whole new brand, a whole new way of looking at the problem and bringing some new solutions to the table. And that's what I'm still in the process of rolling out, which is a way to help people do career planning and job search, but I do things differently uh the normal uh supports that are available for people with disabilities. So it's something new. But um I got started because let me well this is another interesting story. Yeah, I was actually working for Strayer University because after 9-11, 1998 business, that first business I started in 1998, I couldn't move it forward. Our country was attacked on 9-11, 2001, and the federal government took a lot of money away from other places and created the Department of Homeland Security. So my clients, who were nonprofit organizations, couldn't afford a coach because I was coaching through uh and consulting to them. I didn't even know the word pivot back then, but I was pivoting a lot. And I I went to the Harrisburg, the capital, and I met with someone about consulting directly to the system, to our workforce development system, and I found I could not. That door was not open. And then I went to the businesses and I did have a project that was successful to actually help a business to recruit a person with a disability. And then, like I said, I got another job. I was with Strayer University, and I helped them to brand and to get established in the Philadelphia area. I did their outreach, which was enjoyable. I used skills I had, and I learned about marketing. I learned all along the way, that's for sure. I got a phone call from a man who introduced himself as a boyfriend of someone who I had placed earlier into her job. And he said, you know, he was autistic and he had lost his job and he needed help and he wanted to know if I could help. And I said yes, and I met with his family and I met with him, and he became my first coaching client. So that was a long answer to a simple question, but hopefully uh there was something in there.

Pedro: 9:39

No, definitely, because you answered my two follow-up questions. So yeah, uh, that's interesting. And um there's one thing that I would like to highlight. I think it's very important, is the invisibly disabled professionals. Can you expand a little bit on that? What exactly that means?

Rich Davis: 9:59

Sure. I am still trying to identify the best possible market for my current business right now to serve. Invisibly disabled individuals simply have a disability, but it's one that you'd never see. An example would be uh cancer. An example could be MS, multiple sclerosis, lots of disabilities in early stages, AIDS. And then, of course, we get into the whole realm of the cognitive differences. That's neurodiversity is the word that was actually coined in 1998 by a sociologist, uh Judy Singer in Australia. And um, it's used much more today because it just means neurodiverse. Your neurological system works differently. So you think differently, your brain functions differently. Individuals who are diagnosed with autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dysgraphia, any mental illness. My diagnosis is OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder, pick one. Could be alcoholism or you know, d addiction, but you can't see it. You'd never know unless the person told you in most cases it's invisible. So there are some disabilities that are visible, such as someone who's a wheelchair user, or someone who has hearing aids or cochlear implant or who's blind or visually impaired, someone might have a dog, service dog. Those disabilities are visible. But the amount of people who have invisible disabilities, think about it, Pedro.

Pedro: 11:37

I'm glad I asked because with your background on psychology, I immediately assumed psych brain or cognitive diseases or something like that, like the ones you mentioned, but there's not all of them. It's the ones you actually can't see. So I'm glad I asked because I had that that doubt in my mind if that was a good enough question. But that's the coaching side, right? Now let's talk about the part that you already brushed a little bit, but nobody escapes, right? Which is marketing. So how do people usually find you? Because you have a very different niche, I will call it that way. Yeah.

Rich Davis: 12:13

Well, it has been a challenge. One of the challenges that I have is that I'm a solopreneur. Another challenge that I have is that I don't have a whole bunch of money. Uh, another challenge that I have is, of course, the OCD gets in the way somewhat. And really fat fingers. I'm not someone who grew up with using the technology that is vital. So it's been a challenge. I am not actually really capable alone of managing as much information as uh today's marketing, thorough marketing, really requires. I'm not on Facebook, I'm not on Instagram, I'm not on Twitter, use LinkedIn, and I've used LinkedIn to the best of my ability. Could things be improved? Yes. And am I open to help? Sure. Actually, I'm at that phase of growth of a business that um, I guess Davis talks about being a pioneer and then moving to a different phases. And so I'm looking at how I can grow my business. And as far as connecting to the invisibly disabled, there are a couple of organizations here in Philadelphia that have made it a lot easier for me. One is Disability Pride, Pennsylvania. Disability Pride Pennsylvania started in Philadelphia a few years ago, a number of years ago, before COVID. And um, they had a parade in Philadelphia for disability pride, people with disabilities. And I wanted to participate because I had just launched uh Comfort Career Connections. And I went to the dollar store and I bought uh, you know, that press board, front and back, two pieces, and I bought some lettering because I knew if I just dressed like this in a pair of khakis and I walked down Market Street in Philadelphia, nobody would know I was disabled. And I had made the decision to disclose my invisible disability, and I wanted to be able to talk about it. So I made a sign. And the sign said, I am a qualified individual with an invisible disability. And I walked down Market Street in the parade, and I've been actually following those types of events that the Disability Pride Pennsylvania now runs all over the state. I've been out as far as Pit Pittsburgh and to Harrisburg a couple times. And the events are great. Actually, because the sign is a little bit awkward. I have a t-shirt now that says the same thing. I'm a because it's become a word. If you read it down on the sign, it says QIWID. I say quid, and I don't, Pedro, I don't care what it sounds like if it could go viral one day, though. That'd be nice. I I don't care what it sounds like. But there are a lot of quids, and I'm the world's first. But I I I did what I did because I didn't want the other names that people would call me. Introducing yourself as hi, I'm Rich Davis, and I'm mentally ill. It doesn't work that well. Depending on where you are, the uh stigma and the bias is just overwhelming. So now I'm a quid and I can help other people to see if they're qualified and the jobs that they would enjoy and their aspects of themselves that are actually strengths, and then I can show them their individuality, and um, I do that by using the Harrison assessment. And then um I can help them manage their own invisible disability. Because that question, do I disclose in the workplace or not? Can I actually feel comfortable enough to talk about my invisible disability and be authentic and still keep my job? It's a big question.

Pedro: 15:56

Interesting. You know, that got me curious to my other point here, which is business side, right? So let's say Rich is walking down that alley or the street and someone looks at your sign, and hey, that looks interesting, right? So they resonate with your work. And eventually they want to know what working with you actually looks like, Rich. Everyone builds their coaching business a bit differently, right? So when someone actually becomes a client, what does that experience look like right now?

Rich Davis: 16:25

Absolutely. What I've done is I've created packages of virtual coaching, and they're on my website, mycomfortjob.com. So it's been another challenge. Certainly, everything is a challenge, but there's always a solution. And the solution that seems to be working is to have my clients purchase a standard package, which can be as short as 90 minutes of coaching, because I use the reports and tools available through a talent management system called the Harrison Assessment. And Dr. Dan Harrison has created an amazing system. But what you can have is a career navigator system. And uh, so I have my clients take a questionnaire and the Harrison Assessment analyzes 175 individual character factors for that person's level of enjoyment of using each trait. With that data, the career navigator system can show them on their dashboard over 700 jobs, numerically ranked according to how much they would enjoy doing each job. I believe very strongly that if you identify the job you're going to love, then you can do job search in a way that you're going to find that job. And many employers are so well, they use the Harrison assessment for talent acquisition so that they can sort their candidates according to level of overall job suitability or enjoyment. Dr. Harrison realized this was launched in 1990, so it's a robust system. He realized that you have to have eligibility, which is what you can do, and suitability, which is what you enjoy doing, in order to make a good hiring decision. So I can offer my career navigator, I call everything an audit. So it's a career navigator audit. I have a series of these different standard audits that you can purchase with different amounts of coaching time and Harrison reports that I use in the coaching. The other part of the audit is that in order to make this system work for everyone and for people with disabilities. I've never designed the audit just to be for people with disabilities. It's for anyone, all the tools I bring. So I built a coaching model that I call uh it's C F A C E. You know, I have a workforce development background, so everything has to be an acronym. I figured C face. C face works. Okay. So it's C comfortable fit approach for career exploration.

Pedro: 19:02

Okay, I like the name.

Rich Davis: 19:03

Thank you. And that's mine. So if you go to my website, mycomfortjob.com, and you uh subscribe, you can click and I will send you a copy of the guide, comfort job creation guide, which is free. And that will explain my coaching model. There's two components to it. One is a two by two matrix of we look at whether you're either comfortable or uncomfortable, and we look at whether you're in fantasy or reality. So there are actually four I call them hangouts. Number one, two, three, four. Hangout number one is where you're comfortable in fantasy. It sounds okay, right? It does. Absolutely. Only unfortunately, people tend to isolate in hangout number one. And uh I talked to my clients about their fantasy job. Certainly I asked them, you know. You know, to imagine what the job would be that they would absolutely love, but it's gotta be a fantasy. Everybody gets too real about it, but I try to help them. I say, you know, your coworkers can have four heads, I don't care, however, you wanna, but this is the job that you just can't wait to get out of bed to go to, describe it. And, you know, people say, you know, I always wanted to be a fireman or whatever it, whatever it might be, you know, or they describe some type of a work experience. For me, my fantasy job, I always wanted to be Superman. Superman was on my TV every single day when I got home from school and I could watch another episode, and uh, it was just the coolest thing in the whole wide world to be Superman. So anyway, but it does make it, you know, that's an interesting conversation to have about that. But then we talk about the other kind of fantasy job, Pedro. And I call that the fantasy job from hell. We all have it because we're not working, we're isolating, and we're thinking, heaven help us. Well, that thinking is not that healthy because typically we're going to have self-doubt. We're gonna wonder if we're good enough for the job, we're gonna have fears. Oh my God, my co-workers are gonna bully me, especially someone who's neurodivergent who might have been bullied when they were in school because they were different. My supervisor will never understand me. Well, they might have had teachers who didn't understand them as well. So it could be a scary place and an unhealthy place because what do we do to stay comfortable? Typically something to excess.

Pedro: 21:35

That lacks challenge.

Rich Davis: 21:37

Oh, yeah. Just like sitting in front of the screen, playing a video game, eating while you do that, or drinking, or taking drugs, or other activities that are just not healthy. Hangout number one is not a good place to stay. You can't stay there because you'll get in denial, depression will come, and even God forbid, suicidal ideation. So, how do you get out of hangout number one? Well, number one, you have to realize you're gonna be moving towards discomfort. There's no other way. You're going from comfortable, comfortable to uncomfortable. However, in hangout number two, you can start to get real. Look at yourself at depth, look at the workplace as in reality. How am I gonna fit? So, hangout number two can be a great place. Typically, you need a coach. I also help my clients build a team, a comfort career connection team, but there have got to be other people that they trust and who only want them to define their own comfort job. Comfort job is hangout number four. That's where we're all gonna hopefully get to and create that. But you got to be careful who you put on your team. If there is someone who has their own agenda for you, no. And so it could be challenging, boundary setting, et cetera. But that's the coaching that's necessary in order to move into hangout number two. And then I use the Harrison reports to help my clients see themselves more clearly. And then I also help them get a better perspective on the workplace. There are other tools available to help people see jobs. And then if you can identify what I call your next step job, that's hangout number three. And then you start to make money. It's a next step job. That's when we get into professional branding, LinkedIn profile, good resume. Now you've targeted what you really want, and you can use LinkedIn for networking, which actually is an amazing tool, particularly for my neurodivergent clients. It also helped my clients, well, depending. In the past, I've worked with typically adult children, and a challenge has definitely been the networking, getting out. And so sometimes I I'll be to an event with a client. So I'm there networking and they're networking as well. Another organization that's been very helpful in Philadelphia is the uh Neurodiversity Employment Network of Philadelphia, Greater Philadelphia. It's expanding. And um, it's an organization that brings together individuals, parents, and support people, educators, and employers. And they have regular events face-to-face as well as as local, they've been able to grow. They've become a really great resource. Um, and as as a member of NEN, I've had the opportunity not only to be there myself, but also to bring a client. And I remember, you know, introductions that I was able to make right there on the spot uh to help my client get connected to a potential employer. Um again, with the help of your team, you apply. I think it's important to identify the company first. Based on a company's website, typically you can get a good feel as to whether it's a company where they would want you. And again, that decision has to be made first, even before LinkedIn and all, because I have some clients who have already disclosed their disability and other clients who have never done it. So, yeah, that's that's where it takes some really working all that through. I would like to say that creating the workplace where someone can be comfortable and authentic is the ideal. But I'm I'm realistic and I don't think that that exists. And that for some people, the decision not to disclose, which is a legal decision, is very important. So I also provide information about, I'm not a lawyer, but I provide information about the ADA and how to understand your rights as a person with an invisible disability and that whole process. And so it's a series of well-planned next step jobs where if you decide to disclose, you're able to help your supervisor and your coworkers just get to know you and to allow you to have any accommodations that you may require, like noise canceling headphones if the noise in the work environment is distracting. It's really common sense. And uh some employers treat it that way, other employers don't. But I think it's the process that works is just a conversation between the employee and the employer to decide what is a reasonable accommodation. The employer is not gonna have any undue hardship based on that accommodation. And then once the workplace is changed, it might be the lighting or whatever needs to be changed to the extent that it can be. I just think that any employer is gonna get the best possible employee. And there's research on that as far as people with disabilities being having longer retention, but they're no different than anyone else. If they're managed well, they're gonna have longer retention. Now that's the bottom line. And so I try to offer a service that's for everyone. And I don't try. I offer a service that's available and can work for anyone, not just people with disabilities, but I specialize in people with the invisible disabilities. And that's kind of the market that I've expanded to and that I'm in now. And I feel that the growth for that market should be pretty good.

Pedro: 26:56

I mean, Rich, your work seems pretty hands-on, right? From using Harrison's assessment tools to coaching, your questionnaire. So especially as a solopreneur, right? Like you said. So how do you think about capacity? So you don't stretch yourself too thin.

Rich Davis: 27:14

Well, I'm kind of at that place right now where I've been putting a lot of thought into how can I grow what I'm doing myself to serve more people, to grow the business. There's two directions, and I haven't decided yet which I'm going to move into. I think number one, uh, I am looking for someone who is like-minded, has the same passion that I do for this type of work, who is proud of their own invisible disability, and who can help me because I'm a much better CEO than I am a COO. So I am open to someone who wants to talk to me about their career. Let's say they have a master's in organizational psychology, and they are fascinated by the workplace and how everyone can fit together. I also am definitely going to be looking at their fingers because if they don't have fat fingers, they're going to qualify a lot to help me come on board because I don't need another fat finger person with me. I mean, I got enough of that. So I think that with first of all, someone who can help me with more effective marketing and really get brand. I think I've created a strong brand, but I need to get it out there. And um, as far as the growth, I have looked at the possibility of bringing other coaches in to be comfort career coaches. I'm a uh consulting partner with Harrison Assessment. So that means that I'm able to actually sell systems. So for my company to grow, instead of doing uh, let's say, charging more per hour or whatever for my coaching services and just buying the reports that I need from Dr. Harrison, so I can generate them in my system and then use them in my coaching. I can actually sell a coaching system to someone else and they can then get the online accreditation. Once they're accredited to use the Harrison assessment, then I can license CFACE, the use of a comfortable fit approach, and they can become comfort coaches. So I'm definitely thinking that that would be a way for me to grow what I'm doing because I would be able to offer the people who come to come to my comfortjob.com looking for the career coaching services that we provide, and they would be able to look at having a comfort career coach who is not an old white guy. Everybody doesn't want to be coached by an old white guy. Um I'm very much in favor of a peer-to-peer approach. And the Harrison is available in 40 different languages. I want to give people a comfortable experience so that they can talk to someone just like them as a coach. So I think that's one way that I would expand the private career coaching.

Pedro: 30:02

Yeah, that makes that makes perfect sense. You're trying to, you know, take off your plate part of the ops, right? Get someone that's possibly aligned with your way of thinking, but at the same time some fresh new ideas to marketing all and all that, so you can impact more people. So I love that. I think that's the next natural step. That makes perfect sense. And Rich, if someone listening wants to connect with you or follow your work, where can people find you and connect with you?

Rich Davis: 30:30

It would be either on LinkedIn, Rich Davis, Comfort Career Connections, or go to my website, mycomfortjob.com. And there's a lot more detailed information about the packages and there's sample reports for the Harrison assessment. So you can see. And I've even put my pricing on the website. And um, I offer a free comfort career conversation. Just through the website, check my scheduler, and please, I would love to talk to more people about this because we have to talk about this. These invisible disabilities have to be discussed. So my people that I can help most now are adults who are thinking that they may be neurodivergent in some way, or they're self-diagnosed, or they're late in life. Yeah, but uh for sure, the uh people who are early in life diagnosed are very complex. I think that I found anyway. I'm not gonna get into all that. Let's just say that they can certainly find me and have more of a conversation at mycomfortjob.com and uh they can get their job but comfort job creation guide as well.

Pedro: 31:35

Great. You know, there were a few things you shared today that really stuck with me. I would say not trying to rewrite rewrite history, you know, when you were talking about your origin story, you used the terms that were used in that same time, you know, and that's so authentic. I think that's so true. And not trying to rewrite history by itself is something I think really resonates with me, at least. You know, I think that's like I said, authentic. Uh the co you know, raw and it is what it is, you know? I like that. And also the term the invisibly disabled professionals really, you know, ignites that type of fire, at least in my mind, like uh, maybe I was not aware of that. I never thought it that way, so I really like that too. And you know, the sign you were wearing, the Q it, right? Yeah, that that really that really resonates with me because in a way, and it's been like twenty days ago, something like that, I was having this type of conversation. I realized I guess I have a you know, and I it is I haven't done my research quite well. And I kind of have a doctor's appointment, so I've created several coping mechanisms to, you know, circumvent that type of behavior. And that's what we do. And uh I really like the way you put it, like you know, the way you said it. And I appreciate what you do, and I appreciate you being here and sharing so openly today, Rich. It was great having you.

Rich Davis: 33:06

Well, it was my pleasure, Pedro. Thank you.

Davis Nguyen : 33:08

That's it for this episode of Career Coaching Secrets. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this episode to catch future episodes. This podcast was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, or even $100,000 weeks, all without burning out and making sure that you're making the impact and having the life that you want. To learn more about our community and how we can help you, visit join purplecircle.com.