Ben McIntosh // From college football to demystifying (dis)abilities - the disability support worker the world needs!

Welcome back lovely people, what a week it’s been for the yayborhood!!! Nic aka Mr YAYvidson’s return to the show last week for a hilarious Valentine’s episode – thank you all so much for listening and for the cute littlee love notes… But even more excitingly, our first in real life event in over three years and it was EVEN MORE AMAZING THAN WE COULD HAVE IMAGINED.

I won’t spend much time on it this week because we recorded some audio on the night and are putting it together for a proper debrief episode with Ang about the event next week, but I just wanted to quickly reiterate just how incredibly special it was and how grateful we are to everyone who came. There was so much laughter, beautiful tears, wonderful new friendships and memories for a lifetime. And we’re doing it all again this week in Sydney for another sold out event, which still blows my mind! So we’ll have the full reflection yays of our lives episode next week for you but for now we’ve got a fascinating guest who I can’t wait to share.

I first heard of Ben Mcintosh when we joined my amazing management team at Day Management – should out to the Day family, we love you so much – and, along with nearly a million other people and counting, I very quickly wanted to know pretty much every detail about his life. He, like many others, has grown a loyal and engaged community and uses his platform to educate and positively impact others but unlike many others, it wasn’t born out of business, reality TV or nepotism – it’s through sharing his day-to-day life as a disability support worker.

In very Seize the Yay fashion, Ben spent most of his life unsure of what he wanted to do dabbling in AFL and even going to college in the US for American Football but not really knowing what his passion was. Turns out, he had been building the perfect skills for a career in disability support work as a big brother to Grace, who was born with Down’s Syndrome.

Today you’ll hear the story of how he stumbled into doing it for work and found that feeling of purpose we always talk about when you forget what time it is or don’t feel like what you’re doing is a job. His content is so endearing, empowering and educational helping demystify so much about disability – I mean I’m really only friends with him for Grace, but let’s not tell him that. I found this one so fascinating and different, and hope you guys enjoy it too! I think it night have been his very first if not second podcast ever so make sure to tag him and share to encourage him to do it more!!!

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