Saying that ADHD makes you smarter is bullshit. However there are definitely tasks that ADHD can make you better at which is likely what this person was refering to. There’s a reason a lot of the best repair techs I work with have an ADHD diagnosis or show clear symptoms despite having never sought out a diagnosis. ADHD can make you really good and forming connections between different ideas that most people wouldn’t be able to do as quickly which can help with, for example, diagnosing issues in complex systems. However if you ask those same people to perform a basic task thoroughly and in a standardized fashion then we’re usually going to be way worse at it than the average person. It’s literally just being differently abled.

For example, when I’m off my sweet sweet prescription speed, I can narrow down and locate issues in a building wide automation system in a couple of hours where other techs spent all day trying and failing to find it. But at the same time, when I’m off my meds, cleaning an ice machine can take me 6 hours where one of our neurotypical techs would easily have it done even better in under 3 hours and I will have no idea what I spent all that extra time on because I will have felt like I was rushing the entire time.

Some people see being able to do complex troubleshooting quickly as beeing “smart” but it’s really just a different skillset. You could call me “smart” but I literally need regular doses of amphetamines just to be able to do the most basic prioritization like paying bills on time, and cleaning my house so I personally wouldn’t say that I’m particularly “smart”.