Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams

🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Sheldon Guy, Director, Women's Athletics, Improve Her Game https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-12-18-2025/

In this deeply moving episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Dr. Adams speaks with Sheldon Guy, Director of Women's Athletics with Improve Her Game and, by his account, one of the only blind basketball coaches, about the sudden, life-altering loss of his vision and the raw, real-time process of rebuilding a life. Sheldon recounts how quickly his world shifted, the heartbreak of what that meant for his son, and the moment he reached a breaking point, only to find a reason to keep going through messages of love and belief from his son and the players he coached. From there, he made a conscious decision to "pivot," return to the gym, and keep his commitments, launching a story of resilience that later drew major media attention and led to documentary coverage of his journey.

The conversation expands beyond personal triumph into advocacy and systems change. Sheldon shares how he's pushed major organizations to improve accessibility (including voice-enabled options that reduce barriers for blind customers) and how his guiding philosophy, "see something, say something", turns everyday friction into concrete progress. He also speaks candidly about the added reality of navigating disability as a Black man, including harassment and safety concerns, while continuing to pursue hard goals, speaking to schools, inspiring young people, and taking on athletic challenges like obstacle races as a fully blind competitor. Together, Dr. Adams and Sheldon explore the evolving question of purpose, and how vulnerability, community, and relentless forward motion can become a lifeline, and a platform for change.

TRANSCRIPT:

Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Doctor Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. I am, said Doctor Kirk Adams, talking to you from my home office in rainy Seattle, Washington. And today I have a really interesting guest, Sheldon Guy. He's director of women's athletics with Improve Her Game and as far as I know, he's the first and only blind basketball coach that I am aware of. And Sheldon, say hi. Hello. Thanks. We'll be back to you. So I, I was born when my parents were in college, attending Western Washington college at that point in Bellingham. And my dad was a basketball player, college basketball player, highly competitive. He held a single game rebound record at Western for over 40 years. 29 rebounds in one game. Sheldon. Wow. And then my dad was a high school basketball coach. For for his career. He's he's passed away four years ago, but I I spent a lot of time at the gym. I spent a lot of time at basketball games. I, I had a I always had a hoop in our driveway, and I shot lots and lots of free throws and I was totally blind since age five, so my dad rigged up. It was actually like a light weight chain that you would use to chain for a dog, and he attached it to the bracket and the back of the back of the basket.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And then I would hold one into my hand and tug on it so it would make a noise so I could know where the hoop was, and I'd release it and I'd shoot. And I owe many, many thousands of baskets as a kid. So I read about you in access Information news. And for those who aren't aware, that's a weekly publication that talks about what it sounds like new news about accessibility, disability inclusion. And I'm a sponsor. My consulting company is called Innovative Impact, LLC. And I'm a I'm a sponsor of Access Information News. And I read it weekly, and I read about a blind basketball coach who happens to live just north of Surrey, B.C., British Columbia. And so I reached out to Sheldon via LinkedIn and said, just read about you in Access Information news. I want to get to know you. So we had a call and chatted a little bit and invited Sheldon onto the podcast and really want to hand the microphone over to you. Sheldon would love to hear about your journey. Looking at your LinkedIn profile, it looks like you've been a sales sales executive. Very successful. You talk about public speaking, you talk, you use the word pivot. Which of course is also a basketball term, but just would would love to love to hear your story.

Sheldon Guy: Well, thank you Mr. Adams, and thanks for having me on your podcast. I really appreciate it. I'm not a I'm not as polished as maybe some of your your other guests may have been on your podcast. And the reason I.

Dr. Kirk Adams: We look for authenticity. Sheldon.

Sheldon Guy: Yeah, well, I think.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You're.

Sheldon Guy: I think you're you're going to get it today because my story is real. It's raw, it's authentic, and it's mine. Three years ago. Let's just go. Three and a half years ago I was at my dining room table putting together all of my player packs for my team, meaning backpacks, hoodies, pants, socks, all that sort of stuff. As I just finished tryouts and I just selected my team. I then started to notice something, but didn't pay too much attention to it because I was more focused in on getting into Into the season, so I didn't pay much attention to really anything other than basketball like he mentioned, because I spend a ton of hours at the gym. I was able to drive around, do what I needed to do to get prepared for the for the season. A few, a few weeks went on and I flew up to a city called Kelowna. It's north of me for some meetings with some customers. And I rented a vehicle and we were driving from Kelowna down to Penticton to see some product and a customer and all that sort of stuff. And I noticed that I couldn't really see the passenger beside me or the road. And so I just kept rubbing my eyes and thinking, okay, you know, maybe there's something in my eyes I didn't really understand, but I could see, I could still see.

Sheldon Guy: I was still fine, but just I would I'd have to turn my head to look over instead of seeing her in my peripheral. So that was very scary. And I think that's what prompted me to go and see my ophthalmologist. And so I went in and saw my ophthalmologist when I got back. So I flew back the next day, and then I went in and saw my ophthalmologist and she, she did some tests. And then, you know, she got very concerned telling me that my optic nerve was inflamed and that I needed to go see I'm trying to remember the the the series of doctors, but it was an ophthalmologist. And then I went and saw an no, I saw an optometrist. Then I saw an ophthalmologist. Yeah. And then I moved on to a couple other people and ended up seeing a neurologist. And so you know, that's when stuff started to go really sideways. And the neurologist wanted to admit me into the hospital, and I just didn't want to go in the hospital. So he's like, okay, you know, take these prednisones. See if we can bring down the inflammation. And things are happening very, very quickly. This is in a span of three weeks.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Sheldon Guy: And so it was so I, so I took the prednisone. I felt really bad because at the time, I was out for dinner and I drove to dinner and you know, they gave me all these, I don't know, it's 30 tablets that I had to take three times a day. And there is a steroid to bring down the inflammation or stop the inflammation. So I'm at the dinner table in this restaurant. I'm counting out 30 pills on a table. I kind of felt like it felt felt like, oh my gosh, people are gonna look at me like a drug dealer or something like that. But it wasn't the case. I was. Those were legal drugs that I was, I was on, so I took the prednisone and that didn't work. And so after that process it was a Saturday morning, I woke up and I went to make my bed, and I, I couldn't see my bed. And so, like, I could see, but I couldn't see. And I knew something was happening. Like something was going on. So I went down to my laptop, emailed the neurologist and said, hey, listen, like I think I got to go in because I think something's happening. I think we got to act pretty quickly. And so he emailed me back right away and said, yep, I've got you on the list. Go, go now. Like go today. I said, okay, I just obviously had to get some stuff together. And I'm a single father of a son, so my son was with me at the time.

Sheldon Guy: He had to work that day and he didn't really know what was going on either. It was just a regular Saturday. He got up, I made him breakfast, we hung out and he was getting ready. He had to work that evening and I didn't want anything to happen until he actually left for work. So I waited the day called for a ride to to go to the hospital, but told them to keep it, you know, to themselves and under wraps and packed my bag the best way I could to go to the hospital. Didn't really know what I was packing, but just packed it just in case they were going to admit me and then ended up going downstairs. Just before Jayden was and my son's name, Jayden. And just before he left we were standing. I live in a townhouse, so I live, I have one flight, two flights, three flights, four flights of stairs. And I was on the main level at the stair, and he was at the top level of the stair going down. And he looked at me with this concerned look. He's like, is everything okay? And I said, everything will be fine, buddy. I'm just going to go to the hospital. And something's happening with my vision. And he started to joke, and we just joke back and forth, and he came back with with a rebuttal. He's like, I love you, and I hope everything's good. And I'm like, you know, buddy, I don't know if I'll ever be able to see you again.

Sheldon Guy: And one tear came down my eye when I said that, and he was the last thing I ever saw. Oh, I then went into the hospital, and they did. I was in there for nine days, and they did all sorts of tests. Like, I had a couple spinal taps. I had all sorts of MRIs all sorts of CT scans. They the, the province even paid for a $500,000 test for hereditary test to see if this is hereditary. They did a ton of tests. Test me for Ms.. Test me for glaucoma, macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy you name it, they went down the list and they couldn't find anything. And so I can't remember what exactly what day it was. But I went to see after all these tests, I went to see the neurologist and have a meeting with them. Yeah. And so I went in and had a meeting with him, and he was very he he didn't have. I remember this, like, as clear as mud. He had no bedside manners. He Which probably isn't surprising, but no bedside manners. And he basically said to me. He basically said you were destined for this. There was nothing we can do. This is going to be the way, the the way you're going to be for the rest of your life. Excuse me, Mr. Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. No.

Sheldon Guy: So? So that was. It was super hard to take.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Sheldon Guy: My life had just turned upside down within a matter of weeks. So I remember. Being in the hospital transfer bus back to Sir Memorial. And I walked into Sir Memorial and There were two doors, sliding doors. And the first one that opened, I walked through, or I was in a wheelchair that I didn't need to be in a wheelchair, but I walked, they wheeled me in and the first doors open, and I thought to myself, I'm back here. And the second doors opened.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Sheldon Guy: And I said to myself. I'm not leaving this place. This is it. I'm not leaving this hospital. So sorry.

Dr. Kirk Adams: No worries.

Sheldon Guy: Just emotional because it's my story and I'm still living it. And so I went. I went to my room. And I closed the door.

Sheldon Guy: I felt where my bed was, and it turned the bed toward toward the window.

Sheldon Guy: And I climbed into bed and then I went and had all these medications still on the side table. So I, I decided that this was it. This is my destiny and this is how it was going to go out. I'm sorry, Mr. Adams. So. I grabbed. All the bills that were on the left side, and I grabbed my phone and I left a couple messages. I prepared a couple messages on my phone. One was to Jaden. And the message was. That I loved him and that I hope that he grows up to be exactly what I want him to be. It was. It was my goodbye message.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Sheldon Guy: So I climbed into bed and I pulled the sheets up to my shoulders. And I had the pills in my left hand. And I had my hand on the button on the right hand. And I was just going to press send. Pop. And just wait to go home. Because I knew I couldn't live like this. Like. I just made that decision that I couldn't live like this anymore. Or at all. Moments. Moments before I was about to put the pills into my mouth, my phone went off. It vibrated. And? I listened to the message. Still had the pills in my left hand. And listen to the message. And it was Jaden. And his message was. I love you, dad. God's got this for you. You'll be okay. And. I listened to it again to make sure I heard what I heard. And then I didn't even look. I didn't even look to my left hand. I just dumped the pills on the floor.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Sheldon Guy: And then I said, I gotta figure this out.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Sheldon Guy: I can't do this. I gotta figure this out. And so. I made that decision in the hospital to continue to pivot and to persevere and to somewhat find purpose. It's been three years of pivoting.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Sheldon Guy: Persevering and finding purpose. I have after I came out of the hospital before I went into the hospital, I resigned as the head coach of the Langley Secondary Thunderbirds. I called the athletic director, and then I actually resigned as a basketball official with Fraser Valley Basketball Association as well.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Sheldon Guy: And resigned from both of those before I went to the hospital, literally as I was leaving my house. So they didn't really know what was going on, but they knew I resigned because I was losing my vision and I got out of the hospital. One of the things I said was after days being at home is I want to go coach. And people around me were like, what? What do you mean you want you just lost your vision.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right?

Sheldon Guy: I want to go, coach. I can't leave him. I can't leave the girls like this. I committed to them. I need to figure this out. I need to pivot. I need to figure this out. So I went to the school. I called the editor, Mark wise, and told him what my plans were, and he was super excited to have me back. And I walked into the school. I want to back up for a two messages. Actually came through on my phone. Jaden's was the first one.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Sheldon Guy: But the other one were from my basketball. Girls are sent me a message as well, and as a group. And they were just wishing that I was going to be okay and to feel better soon. Those two messages saved my life.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Sheldon Guy: So when I went in to when I walked into the gym two girls kind of fainted kind of fell to the gym floor, and everybody started crying. And I just had a talk with them and let them know that I'm here for them and that I'm committed to them. However, I have to. However, whatever I have to do. And so I had the talk. We had some tears, we shared hugs and then it was back to work. To the baseline. And I had some troubles. I had a friend there and he was helping me with practice, but really, not really. He was just on the sidelines and he was crying because once he put me in a position of where I, where I needed to be, I just, I felt like I had vision. I knew the gym. I knew where the girls were. I knew what the girls looked like.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Sheldon Guy: I knew my stuff. I just had.

Dr. Kirk Adams: To figure out.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You ran practice.

Sheldon Guy: I ran practice, and my friend Gabe Gibbs he's the founder of G2, and he was on the sidelines tearing up because he was so amazed at just the resilience I had to get back on the court and just to run, practice, run my drills, run the skills.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Sheldon Guy: Clearly I can see what I was doing or what they were doing right. And he would step in once in a while and correct. But I ran the hour and a half practice by myself.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Cool.

Sheldon Guy: From that time we were registered in a tournament. Howard summer tournament. And I had phoned Howard up with me getting out of the hospital, and just confirmed that our team was still going to be in, and then I told him what had happened to me. Well, he was shocked. He's a news column journalist up here in Canada. He's he's followed sports since I was in high school. Like he wrote an article on me when I was in high school. I'm not aging myself. Just you know just a few years ago. But he was astonished. And so he wrote a massive article. And you're more than welcome to go read it. It's in verse varsity letters, and you just search up Sheldon Guy. And he wrote a magnificent article on me. And then he came out and actually, like, witnessed me. Yeah, coaching a game. And so I had that tournament and I confirmed that I was in the tournament. So word spread very quickly because the basketball community is very small. Right? So we're we're word spread very quickly. And We had the, the a game. Jaden and I had a game. So Jaden then obviously found out what had happened to me. And he.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Was.

Sheldon Guy: Very concerned. He's my best friend. I love him to death. Yeah. But we we got to the gym, and Jaden obviously drove my truck. So backing up, when Jaden went to work, I allowed him to take my truck because he just got his driver's license. So I think he was shot. He was shocked there that I would just let him take the truck, because normally I would be in the truck driving him, right? Or he'd be driving, and then I would wait or go home and then come back, pick him up, and then he would drive home. But he was given the truck all by himself, so he kind of knew something was up. So anyway, we got to the gym and we're walking across the parking lot toward the gym, and I had the balls and my bag or my coaching bag, and Jayden whispered to me, he's like, dad, there's a bunch of guys with cameras and they're looking right at us. And I'm like, what are you talking about? And he said, dad, now they're coming at us. And I said, okay, we'll just go to the gym like, let's just go. I don't know what they're for. Let's just go to the gym. And then they actually ended up coming up. And I had cameras all around Jayden and I, and it was TSN, which is your ESPN.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Sheldon Guy: It was global. It was city TV. It was all sorts of news people that got wind that I was coaching and I just lost my vision. I don't know how, but they did. And so TSN and global were the ones, the forefronts that were kind of the bullies of the group. And they said, listen, we'd like to film you.

Sheldon Guy: Our executive producer heard about this and wants to push all our stories aside and follow you. And I was like, awesome. So I laid on the ground outside and I was crying because I just didn't know I was overwhelmed. I didn't know what was going on. So anyway, TSN ended up filming me for the whole tournament and then and and so they came to the house, they had drones following Jaden and I, they interviewed us and that's where my documentary got produced.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh. So tell us about tell.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Us about.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That.

Sheldon Guy: Yeah. So I have a documentary that was produced by TSN and W5. If you Google Sheldon, Guy, W5 and pivot, there's a 22 minute documentary done on me. And it basically talks about everything that that I did that I just talked to you about how I lost my vision, how I persevered found purpose and pivoted. And in that documentary, they don't show it. But TSN the executive director said, you said pivot 52 times. And so we're going to call this story pivot. That's where the story pivot came from.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So, okay.

Sheldon Guy: Tsn did a documentary and that went basically worldwide. They posted on all their channels and then W5 then contacted me, which is our 60 minutes. Your 60 minutes down there. Yeah, that's W5 up here. And then they did a documentary on me a little bit longer, a little bit meatier. And they did a documentary on me. And then obviously global did their interview and CTV as well. So yeah, the documentary basically highlights just the story that I just explained, but a little bit more in depth for you to be able to go and watch I don't know how many thousands of people have watched it. I get messages almost daily through my Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn. I have no idea how.

Dr. Kirk Adams: To.

Sheldon Guy: Access.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Access.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Information news.

Sheldon Guy: I have no idea how they got the story. No idea whatsoever. Because when you message me, my first question was like, where did he see this story?

Dr. Kirk Adams: Like, I have.

Sheldon Guy: No idea where where that came from.

Dr. Kirk Adams: But yeah

Dr. Kirk Adams: It's out there.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Now. It's in the world.

Sheldon Guy: It is. It's in the world. So so I did, so I did the documentary, I pivoted, and then I just continued to try and advocate and just be a voice for accessibility.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And how would you describe your purpose? You said in the hospital when you got the messages, one from your son and one from your, your basketball team? And you said you determined that you're going to pivot and persevere and, and discover your purpose. So three, three, three years, three and a half years into your journey as a blind person, how would you describe your purpose?

Sheldon Guy: Well, it's weird because I don't have I haven't found my purpose.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Sheldon Guy: I'm continuing to to persevere. And I'm continuing to find my purpose. I haven't found my purpose, I don't know. I'm a man of faith, so I don't know what he needs from me or what he wants. I have no idea what why I'm going through this journey. I'm still trying.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Still still seeking.

Sheldon Guy: Correct. But daily I try and be better each and every day. Yeah. So from an advocacy role I'm now a director with Equal Access Collective, and they're a group of like minded individuals with living experience. And I joined that group probably about a year ago. Volunteer. It's a volunteer position, but I joined that group in order to be able to push advocacy. And I have a saying myself. See something, say something. And so through my journeys, if I come across something that I need to prevail or persevere through, I make it worth my time to call. I'll give you a couple examples. Air Canada, for example. It was very difficult as as I'm a VP for my company and it's very difficult for me to book a flight. Yeah, because everything is. I'm, I'm, I'm three years into this. I can't go on the website. I don't know how to navigate on the web. I don't know the sounds, the gestures and how to book. And even with the telephone, you phone and you have to press all these numbers. Press one for this, press two. How am I supposed to find the one? We have smartphones. There's no raised buttons. How am I supposed to find it? So I got Ahold of Air Canada and I got Ahold of the VP of operations, and I talked to him. They flew me out to Montreal, and I brought my iPad with me, and I showed them how difficult it was for me to be able to find out to book a flight. Like, why is it so hard? Well, he said, we can't do this. So they immediately changed their telephone system to be voice activated. So I can.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Phone.

Sheldon Guy: At any point in time. So can you. So just so you know, and your listeners, you can phone Air Canada.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Sheldon Guy: You can voice describe where you want to go, the dates you want to go, the departure city and pay by credit card all by voice. And I was responsible for changing that. Up here in Vancouver, we have an organization, BC ferries. I called them as well, advocated for. Hey, this isn't accessible. They've made changes to their telephone system, and they're continuing to make changes for on board services as well. Bc hydro, which is our hydro company up here, heard me right away. And they changed their system to voice activated Best Buy Canada, which is Sam's Club in the US changed their system so I can actually get computer help all by voice. So I just have to say what I need. And, you know, we're in the world of AI, so it's very easy for these guys to simulate. But the biggest thing, Mr. Adams, is a see something, say something. It's not their fault. It's if you don't say something and help them, then there won't be. They don't know. They don't know. So when I'm out there and I'm struggling I let them know. But also when I'm out there and I get, you know, some really good help and I'm assisted, like, I was at Aritzia and Aritzia in Guildford was absolutely amazing. And La Senza, they were absolutely amazing to help me shop for my Christmas gifts, being patient with me.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And helping.

Sheldon Guy: Me to the register like I'm sending emails to their corporate office because they need to be highlighted that they're really reaching out. So the advocacy part, I don't know if that's my purpose to go out and fight for that and not even fight for it just to be an education tool for people that, you know, parking and you know, just certain things out there that, that just need a little bit more attention from, from from somebody that has a loud voice, like, not a small guy. I'm six feet, £220 because I lost £5. So and I'm athletic and I'm a black guy, so but that but that leads me into Mr. Adams. Some of the, the challenges that I go through and what I have to persevere.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, yeah.

Sheldon Guy: Some of the things that I have to persevere through are you know, on a monthly basis, you know, I'm called I'm, I'm a black guy, and I'm, I walk around my neighborhood and people call me the blind n word.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh, boy.

Sheldon Guy: Or I'm in white Rock and people say, hey, can you see this?

Dr. Kirk Adams: And they spit.

Sheldon Guy: In my face and I'm like, no, I can't see that. I'm onto my second white cane because I was walking on a sidewalk and a gentleman thought that I was taking up too much of sidewalk. He grabbed my stick and broke it and gave it back to me. I've been hit by a truck because they feel like I should be in a wheelchair. And there's nothing wrong with being in a wheelchair, but they feel that's where I should be. And then just recently I was beaten up in New West let up a side street and beaten up by three guys because they wanted my backpack. Because without my cane, I look intimidating. Yeah, I'm big, strong. I'm athletic. Black guy. As soon as I pull up my cane, I'm vulnerable. And so I'm scared to go out there by myself. I'm nervous to go out there by myself, but I still do it. I still try to do it. And that's my. That's the part of the perseverance. So you touched on the purpose. I'm still working on the purpose part. The perseverance is that I have to persevere through every challenge that I had. I was fired from my last company because I was blind, because I lost my vision. They didn't want to admit to it, but I was fired because I was blind and I had to pivot from that. I had to find I had to seek new employment. You know, I'm not going to rely on government handouts. I'm an able bodied man that can get out there, and I've still got the talents. Even some of my customers, they absolutely love my perseverance.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Sheldon Guy: I'm still jumping on planes, trains and automobiles.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I'm going to see them.

Sheldon Guy: You know, I'm doing what I need to do.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Do you.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Want to talk? Do you want to talk a little bit about the company you're you're working with now or.

Sheldon Guy: Well, no, I no, I'd rather not.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. That's fine.

Sheldon Guy: But it's I do jump on planes, trains and automobiles. I've got some really great customers that are. I'm in the fitness industry, so a manufacturer of fitness equipment, and I'm. I'm my customers are just absolutely tickled pink about me just getting out there and doing what I need to do. Humboldt College in, in Ontario did a whole series on me on Instagram, and they interviewed me. So it's so it's very it's rewarding from that standpoint. But then now I'm being asked to speak. I'm being asked to share my story. And if I may, the sharing of the story isn't a monetized thing. I volunteer my time and I go and share my story. But what happens is I share my story and one grade eight girl will be sitting in the stands, and she'll wait for everybody to come up and give me a hug and do all that sort of stuff, and she wants to talk to me. And so the athletic director will guide me over to where she is, and I'll sit there and I talk to her for almost an hour about how she's feeling and how my story resonates with her and how she feels like she needs help, but she doesn't know how to ask. So when I share my story and I get one person like that coming.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Sheldon Guy: Maybe that's my purpose.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Maybe my purpose.

Sheldon Guy: Is to get my story out there.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Sheldon Guy: So that listen, you right now, I know your viewers are listening. They're not seeing. But you've got a six foot, £220 black guy sitting on your podcast crying at the beginning of this thing. I'm showing vulnerability. And when you show people vulnerability I have this saying it's okay not to be okay. And I find that it's fine. I'm learning through this whole journey that it's okay not to be okay. And if the tears need to come, the tears need to come. But when other people see it, they start to resonate and say, you know what? My life isn't so bad. And so when you have kids that come up and they see me talking and I'm shaking and I'm sweating and I'm crying. They come up and they say, hey, I have anxiety issues as well. And you just helped me through that by getting showing how you've got through it. So maybe that's my purpose. I'm not sure. But sharing my story every school, every organization.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Sheldon Guy: That's asking me to come share my story. It's like, I don't know. It's it's impactful. They're saying it's inspiring. I'm just living. But they're finding my story inspiring and impactful to their community. And I just talked to high school. They literally shut down the afternoon, and I had 2000 people in the gym listening to my sob story. So maybe that's my purpose. I'm not sure.

Dr. Kirk Adams: But maybe that's.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Maybe you discovered your purpose right here on the podcast.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Maybe, maybe, maybe on.

Sheldon Guy: Doctor Kirk Adams podcast. I certainly have, but, you know, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So I was just going to say, so if people want to get in touch with you and talk to you about coming and speaking to their organization or their school, what's the best way for people to get in touch?

Sheldon Guy: Well, right now it would just be I don't know. Am I allowed to share my information?

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. Of course. Okay, so share.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Share what you want to share.

Sheldon Guy: Okay. So there's a there's a few avenues that you can follow me at. So on Instagram, you can follow me at improve her game. Remember the word. Yeah. Remember the word celebrations doctor Adams, because I.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Sheldon Guy: So they can follow me on improve her game on Instagram and on obviously on LinkedIn it's Sheldon Guy.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yep.

Sheldon Guy: And s h e l d o n space g u y.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yep.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's how I found you.

Sheldon Guy: That's it? Yeah. You can email me at my first name. Last name? So, Sheldon. Guy Hotmail.com. So no periods, no underscores. Just the straight first name. Last name at hotmail.com.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Sheldon Guy: Or you can phone me, which is pretty much the easiest way. Or telephone call at (604) 897-4607. And so yeah, I'm being asked, I think I got seven in January that I have to do. And 52 apparently 52 Catholic schools in Alberta want me to come out and share my story.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So wonderful.

Sheldon Guy: But I've done about 3035 shares right now.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's great.

Sheldon Guy: 35 schools and organizations and and yeah. So maybe that's my purpose, Mr. Adams, but I appreciate the platform that you're putting me on.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Absolutely. We'll share this widely. And if if you're listening and you are part of an organization or, or aware of an organization that could benefit from Sheldon's story, please do reach out to him. This is his purpose to share his story. We just determined that. Yes. And if you want to get in touch with me, I have a website, Dr. Kirk. Kirk Adams, comm. You can reach me there, sign up for the newsletter, or you can find me on LinkedIn. Kirk Adams and Sheldon, this time flew by. I'm looking forward to speaking to you again. So let's check in midway through 2026 and see how how your purpose is evolving, how you're continuing to pivot, how you're continuing to persevere. I'd love to love to visit with you again and call. Call upon me anytime if I if I can be helpful to you.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Absolutely. Well.

Sheldon Guy: I just forgot before we conclude.

Dr. Kirk Adams: The.

Sheldon Guy: Celebration.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Real quick. Yeah.

Sheldon Guy: So I am just a couple kind of key things I am. I don't know if your listeners know what a Spartan Race is, but a and I don't know if Spartan Race is.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay, I do not.

Sheldon Guy: So it's a it's A5K obstacle race up a mountain. So you gotta go through 25 different obstacles.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Sheldon Guy: And up a mountain. So I am one of the very first blind athletes to compete in not one, but two Spartan races in the last two years.

Dr. Kirk Adams: All right.

Sheldon Guy: Never done that. And then I actually just competed this year in my friends fitness facility. It's called Fitness World Canada. And they held a Deca strong competition and again, it's an obstacle race and I am the only blind person that competed in that in Canada. And then this winter I'm going to be learning how to ski. I know there's other blind people that know how to ski, but I'm fully blind and I'm going to be learning how to ski.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Good.

Sheldon Guy: And and then there's a couple other things I'm going to be learning. Professional golf, blind golf.

Dr. Kirk Adams: With.

Sheldon Guy: Doctor or. No Coach Nitro. He's teaching me how to golf, and he says he can turn me into pro. We'll see about that. So I'm continuing to have these celebration wins.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's great.

Sheldon Guy: Try not to hold it down. But I do have my tough days, and it's okay not to be okay. So for the listeners, my final thing for the listeners out there, it's okay not to be okay. And please, if you have a minute, just Google Sheldon, Guy, W5 and pivot. I will also email Doctor Adams a link for it as well, but please just Google W5. Pivot is a 22 minute documentary that you can watch and make sure you have some tissue.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, Sheldon, it's snowing in the mountains right now, so there's there'll be good skiing for you. And it was just a pleasure to talk to you on podcast with Doctor Kirk Adams. For those of you listening, I look forward to next time. Take good care. Thank you. Sheldon.

Sheldon Guy: Thank you.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. We hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Don't forget to subscribe, share or leave a review at WW. Together, we can amplify these voices and create positive change. Until next time, keep listening, keep learning and keep making an impact.

🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Alyssa Dver, Founding CEO, Speaker, Educator, Motivator, Spokesperson, ERG Leadership Alliance https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-12-04-2025/

In this insightful episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Dr. Adams sits down with Alyssa Dver, Founder and CEO of the ERG Leadership Alliance, to explore how employee resource groups (ERGs) can drive both inclusion and business performance. Alyssa breaks down what ERGs are, why they're different from social clubs, and how volunteer leaders navigate the paradox of doing "extra" work that still has to align with business goals. She and Dr. Adams discuss the current backlash against DEI, the recent U.S. executive order that both constrains and reinforces the importance of inclusive ERGs, and why organizations that were already committed to DEI are now doubling down on ERGs as engines of belonging, innovation, and retention. Throughout the conversation, they connect ERGs directly to disability inclusion, emphasizing that disability crosses all demographics and that every ERG can and should be disability-ready.

Alyssa also shares her personal journey, from a traditional marketing career to brain-science-based confidence research sparked by her son's neurological disability, and explains how belonging and psychological safety are literally "hardwired" performance factors in the brain. She and Dr. Adams connect this science to everyday workplace realities: when people feel safe and included, they think more clearly, collaborate better, and are more likely to raise tough issues or innovative ideas. Alyssa describes how the ERG Leadership Alliance supports organizations at every stage, starting, restarting, or optimizing ERGs, through research, training, tooling, and a global network of more than 100 million ERG participants. Dr. Adams closes by urging listeners, especially disability advocates and employers, to leverage ERGs as a powerful, practical mechanism to build truly inclusive workplaces and accelerate disability employment.

TRANSCRIPT:

Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Doctor Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everyone, to another episode of podcast by Doctor Kirk Adams. I am that Doctor Kirk Adams talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And I have with me today a remarkable person that I'm getting to know better and better who's doing great things in the world. Alyssa Dver. She's founder and CEO of the Leadership Alliance. Alyssa.

Alyssa Dver: Remarkable. That's one of my favorite words. I would use that to describe you too.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, there we go. Well, I I'll. In full disclosure, Alyssa and I had a conversation about employee resource. Resource groups and the Leadership Alliance several weeks back, and the recording disappeared. So we're doing it again. But I'm going to call it a blessing in disguise, because so much has happened in the last last six weeks as our our topsy turvy world continues to turn. And so I wanted to touch on a couple of recent insights and get your take on it. Alyssa. Yeah, yeah. Before we do that, just to let people know I am Doctor Kirk Adams. I am the immediate past president and CEO of the American Foundation for the blind. Prior to that, the same roles at the Lighthouse for the blind here in Seattle. I have a consulting practice called Innovative Impact. Focus on fun, innovative, high impact projects that will lead to greater inclusion of people with disabilities. I have a PhD in leadership and change. My doctoral work was an ethnographic study of blind adults employed in large American corporations and ergs. Employee resource groups came up quite often in my ethnographic interviews of blind people working in big companies. And in a in an appendix of my dissertation is called Journeys Through Rough Country, by the way, and you can find it by searching Journeys Through Rough Country by Kirk Adams. And in an appendix, I, I have a fictitious scenario when I'm talking, when I'm talking to parents of a young blind child who are very fearful about their child's future and very uncertain because like my parents, my my retinas detached when I was five.

Dr. Kirk Adams: They had never met a blind person before. They didn't have any experience in that area. And most parents of blind kids don't. And so I, I focus on employment. So I this fictitious scenario is talking about employment and the things they would need to do in order to prepare their child to be successful in the world of employment and be independent and to be able to thrive in the way that that they want wanted to thrive. And we talked about developmental stages and having kids. Do the blind kids do the same stuff other kids do? You know, for four year olds playing on the playground and playing in the sandbox, and the blind kid should be in there, you know, fighting over the toys with the sighted kids and, you know, the 12, 12, 13 year old kids going to meet their friends you know, at the mall or wherever. The kid needs to have the orientation, mobility, skills and the confidence to be able to go and independently join them. And you know, we talked about early work experience, and then we talked about the expanded core curriculum, which is the great news that blind kids get to hear in school, which says you have to learn all the things the sighted kid learn, sighted kids learn.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And these nine other things like orientation, mobility skills and use of assistive technology and self-advocacy skills and you know, work, workplace and career awareness and development. And then we talked about the workplace, and I talked about you know, some of the things to look for when you're when your child is going to be looking for work. Is disability inclusion formally stated at a leadership level by, by the company? Do they have a centralized accommodations process and budget? And do they do they have a employee resource group focused on disability inclusion? And that is one of the signs of a potentially good workplace for a person with a disability is to have that erg. So ergs. Ergs have been present in my mind as an important piece of the employment picture. And as most of you listening probably are aware, only 35% of us with significant disabilities are in the workforce. We're in a much narrower band of occupations. We tend to stick closer to the bottom of the org chart. A majority of us work for non-profits or government where awesome places to work, salaries and incomes are limited there. And so when I encountered Alyssa and had an opportunity to to talk about ERGs in a larger context and to talk about how intersectional intersectionality plays a part, that disability knows no demographic boundaries and covers all demographic characteristics.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And how can we make all employee resource groups inclusive of people with disabilities? Just really started to unpeel an onion here. And then in the last last week there was a study that came out about Gen Z people in the workforce and the very dim view they have of their future in the workplace. Compared to past generations, as far as their what their opportunities are going to look like. And then disability in came out with a study just this week that showed that using data drawn from LinkedIn that in order to advance in careers, people with disabilities need to change employers more often than people without disabilities in order to have upward mobility. So all kinds of factors and dynamics and I'll just say the the full frontal assault on diversity, equity, equity and inclusion. And I know when we spoke last, Alyssa, you said that in response to that, there seems to be more interest than ever and more engagement and more momentum and traction around ergs than ever before. So with, with with that blast of words from me, I'd like to just turn it over to you, Alyssa, to, to ask if you could tell us a little bit about your journey and how you became defined found the ERG leadership Alliance. And what you're doing, what you're seeing. Any reflections on on any of those things I've said and anything else you want to share?

Alyssa Dver: Oh, wow. Well, thank you for that. Well, let's first ERG for anyone who's listening that doesn't know what an ERG is. Employee resource group is what it represents, and there's at least 40 or 50 names. I've lost track that they go by that are not erg. It could be ERG nrg erg. We've seen associate resource group and inclusion resource group and you name it business resource group of course is very popular. But there's also employee networks, which is very popular in the UK as the moniker. So, you know, they are groups, associations as we say traditionally set up like any kind of an association where you have volunteer leaders. The difference between what these are is that they are within a bigger entity. And the entity could be a for profit, non-profit, academic government entity. They do get funding from that entity, some funding. They are governed. In other words, they have rules and directions and plans and things that they live by and operate by. And then they're also accountable to the entity in terms of, well, I gave you X number of dollars, what did I get in return? And that's the difference between an ERG or any kind of employee group versus a club. There's another type of group called affinity group that sometimes can be either a club or an erg. It's very confusing. And sometimes companies have a little bit of each, but an ERG by definition as an association comes with some interesting characteristics. I mentioned that the volunteer, the leaders are volunteers, so they have a job in that entity. Maybe they're an accountant or a marketer or you know, a know, delivery person, whatever it might be.

Alyssa Dver: And then they also have this role as a group leader or on the leadership team. And that leadership team role is, by and large, voluntary. They don't usually get paid very unusually get paid, in fact in paid could be a spot bonus or a gift card. So just, you know, having a volunteer set of leaders, if you've ever run a nonprofit, you know, it's a different beast, right? You have to motivate people that you don't really have any authority over, per se. But it's a very different set of leadership skills. It also is a little tricky to navigate. Even your boss, if you're, you know, a group leader, you report to somebody who has PNL in some way, you know, profit and loss responsibility. So you have to kind of negotiate with them. This is the amount of time that I'm going to be doing this ERG work. And this is why it's important to me as an individual and professional development, and this is how it's going to contribute to my regular job. So there's a lot of nuances in paradoxes in this space. And again, we're not going to go into all of them today. But ERG has been around since the 1960s. And for the large part of their history, people kind of just assumed they were social clubs, that they were there to support people who needed support. Typically people would say they're for underrepresented groups. Underrepresented could be, of course, disability individuals. It could be people who are black people or Hispanic women. But I always said that it may have started for those reasons, but even long back, some of the original groups had nothing to do with underserved populations.

Alyssa Dver: You see a lot of young professionals, groups, Gen X, for example, you see, and Gen Z for that matter. You see you know, religious groups, Bible study groups, Jewish groups, Muslim groups you see groups for hobbies, groups for and I say religious but interfaith. And, you know, I have a hard time saying that a young professionals, interfaith, even caregivers groups, those are not underrepresented by definition. They never have been. So the commonality is that there's an affinity. There's something that they all share, that they feel that they want to get liked minded people to discuss share their experiences, share their frustration, share their victories, even with and then advocate for the things that they need in the workplace. And of course, disabilities. Groups tend to advocate for tools and, and functionality in their business, you know, day to day business, whether it's furniture and ramps or translators captions, things like that. But it goes well beyond that. It goes into what do you need for benefits? You know, how can I better participate in meetings? Where you know, other individuals aren't making those kind of accommodations for me. You know, I need to have somebody basically make sure that those are in place. So advocacy. Big deal. As well as as supporting the business. You know, maybe the business does have a need to develop new products, whether they're accessibility products or not. You know, every single group, particularly the disabilities group, should have some way to say, hey, well, if it did this, I could use it better, right? So all many, many ways. And again I'm skimming the surface here. So the thing that attracted me.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So question. So you said early, early on that these are not a club, these groups, you're going to use ERG as the umbrella term to cover the 200 different terms. They're they exist to meet strategic business objectives, to help the business operate more effectively. Be be a better, stronger organization. So does that have to do with allowing people to bring their best selves to work? Is it around belonging? Is it around psychological safety? I imagine if you wanted to do metrics, you might think about turnover or absenteeism or innovation. So I'm just curious. I'm just curious about what what are some of the kind of proven I guess our ROI type outcomes that result from good, effective ERGs being in place?

Alyssa Dver: Well, you know, you started kind of the conversation by saying there's been a lot of change this year. And no kidding, right? And one of the things that, you know, with the directive in the US, the executive director on Dei. Everyone kind of panicked and said, well, you know, what do we what's going to happen to ERGs? Well, it turns out in the directive, it actually encourages people to have ERGs. But it's very clear about making sure that that ERG is that every year G is inclusive. So inclusivity isn't just allowing people to participate in programming. You know, I have a session on you know, presentation skills. Everybody should be allowed to come. Sure. But if I'm talking in a women's group on menopause pre directive, I could say this particular topic is for members only. Right. So I could basically exclude people. You can't do that anymore. You can't you can't have only leaders or even executive sponsors for that matter where you say only people of this type. You know, if I'm the black group, the leaders have to be black. No, you can't, because what the director basically said is you have to make it so that if this is something that helps people and the company is spending money on it, it has to be available to everybody. And leadership opportunity is considered something positive. So needless to say, the inclusivity of it was really what was called out and continues to be the the thing that we need to make sure all groups are open and available to everyone and everything that they do. With that said, the history of the groups again started with underserved populations, but very quickly became recognized for ways to people to connect and find friends and belong.

Alyssa Dver: And, you know, my background comes from that brain science circling around confidence. So that was what attracted me to these groups in the first place. I looked at them and I said, wow, this is where people can find a sense of belonging in the workplace. Place. But at the time when I was really kind of pondering this about 2017, 2018, there really wasn't any organization around them. So different companies had them. They were very random, and the way they were run, the random in the kinds of types that they were the there really wasn't anyone in the organization that was chartered to kind of keep an eye on them or kind of make them a little bit more consistent across groups. And there wasn't really an industry. So, you know, I started the ERG Leadership Alliance as a way to try and formalize things, but more importantly, get people talking to start setting up some sense of benchmarks, some sense of governance, and really professionalize it into an industry. And, you know, again, maybe fortunately, in some sad way when we got into Covid, people were remote. They needed that sense of belonging desperately. We had Black Lives matters. It became, okay, how do we make sure people's voices and their need to express themselves? In safe spaces. We had a series of other unfortunate situations that kind of, again, encouraged people in the workplace to say, we need to have people feeling safe, psychologically safe and belonging. So the ERGs got kind of a lift out of all of that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: All right.

Alyssa Dver: With the executive order, as you kind of said earlier, you know, I did say on our last recording that we got a lift out of it, right.

Alyssa Dver: What what I think is true. And we saw this back also in the same pattern when corporate social responsibility CSR was kind of the rage. Yeah. Is organizations that are committed to it to begin with. Like it's part of their DNA. The founder says we are going to do you know, this is who we are. You know, it could be, you know, organizations that whether or not their products or their services even aligned, it was just part of their who their identity. Csr and again with Dei. Those are the ones that have said we are doubling down because we know that this is really important to keep our employees motivated and productive. And the ROI numbers speak for themselves. We we know that employees that are more engaged have higher levels of productivity, and we know how much we know how much more profit they contribute. And they and these organizations have stuck by that. Unfortunately, the ones that never were committed got permission to basically let go of the wheel and be like, I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do Dei at all. And ERGs are part of Dei. So we're, you know, we're going to either downsize or we're going to get rid of them. And that's a shame because, you know, it's a shame for those employees. I feel sad for them. I also feel sad for the organization as a whole, because I think when the pendulum swings, which it always does, they're going to be caught with their pants down, as the saying goes, right? They're going to be scrambling to fix the situation. And ERGs aren't there just for the sake of underrepresented groups. As we've said over and over again, already there for the sake of having employees know that they matter.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right?

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right. So you you you said and it's true, I, I'm aware of your background, brain science and confidence, but the people listening are not. So I would love to take a step back and have you talk about that part of your life a bit.

Alyssa Dver: Well, you know, I, I followed a very standard, I would say standard, typical path in terms of, you know, college education, dabbled in a couple of things, found marketing interesting, went into marketing, became part of many corporate engines. I was the chief marketing officer, ultimately of a couple companies, both public and startups. And, you know, I can't say it was bad experience. I don't I, you know, but at the same time, I always knew that it was just a job. Right. And and like, you spend so much time at work and working that I. And I'm like one of these, you know, workaholic types. So I kept saying, there's got to be more than this. And you get to the top of the ladder and you're like, wait a minute. The view's not any better here. In fact, it's it's there's more pressure, right? So without getting into gory details, I kind of always had that itch for something that was more than just a job. And on top of it at a point in my life, my son, who was eight at the time, was diagnosed with a neurological condition. That causes his hand. I say neurological condition. It is a true disability. It's a physical disability. It's not always visible because it's in his arms. And his hands in the sense that you go to shake his hand, you will see tremors.

Alyssa Dver: You hand them a bottle of water, you're going to see tremors. But if he's just standing talking to you or teaching tennis, which he's learned to do as a tennis pro you aren't going to necessarily know he has a disability. So it's an interesting conversation about visible and not visible disabilities. We have a lot. Suffice to say, that triggered me to really dig into brain science because after several years of trying to get more information and answers and understanding from all these neurological experts, I realized that they didn't have the answers. They thought they had ideas, and they would look at me with confidence and say, do this, do that. And then when I would ask questions, the confidence would peel apart because I couldn't understand why they were slowing his brain down or shooting Botox, which is actually poison, right? Toxic into toxin into his arms to kill muscles. I was like, I don't understand, just explain. You know, the naive mom here, like I was a marketer. And mom, what did I know, right? And so it just triggered me to say, I got to figure this stuff out better and learned a lot about brain science at the pinnacle time, where functional MRI were finally now being used in research to explain specifically where and how in the brain things are happening, emotions and motor skills.

Alyssa Dver: And lo and behold, things like confidence and decision making. So it was serendipitous. Again, another one of these situations seems to be our theme for this. It's like, you know, bad reason, but great. Aside, I don't even want to call it a silver lining. I think it was just like a whole path that was carved there and followed that to understand how the brain works. And so, you know, belonging and this need to belong, which is dates back to Abraham Maslow in 1940s. Right. That's when he coined it. In terms of the brain science. And what I learned is everybody needs belonging. Everybody, including the CEO. And so when that is starved, when we don't have belonging aka psychological safety could be somewhat of a synonym. You know, we act like literally cave people because that's the part of our brain that gets activated. And so the, you know, the microaggressions, the fear, the all the defensiveness, the quietness, the the things that go into survival mode, that's not good. That's not good collaboration, teamwork, happy, authentic employees. And so I knew that. And that's why when I was presenting to so many of these ERGs, the science of confidence and I started learning about the ERGs, I was like, hey, we can create more belonging at work if we get these groups in better order.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So confidence and belonging interrelate I'm guessing.

Alyssa Dver: Absolutely. Because confidence at the core of confidence. You know, my book, my last book on confidence was confidence is a choice because it is. You make a decision if you're confident or not about something. And so confident or not that I can be my authentic self, confident or not, that I can say what I want to say in this meeting. I'm not going to get fired or berated, you know, confident enough or not to go and ask for that raise. Right? So if you're not, if you don't feel that you belong, if you don't feel psychologically safe, safe you it's really that decision is going to be like, I'm not I'm not going to ask. I'm not going to do it right. But if you have all that sense of belonging you actually are starting to operate now in your prefrontal cortex because you feel, you know what, I can do this. And how do I want to do it? What's the best way to do it? You get all that additional cognitive juice there to really make a better approach. Once you've made the decision that you're going to do it. But if you don't have that psychological safety, you're not even going to try.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right? So you're not always in fight or flight.

Alyssa Dver: Yeah, right. Well, fight or flight, you know, all that survival mechanism is in your brainstem. It's. You're not thinking, you're reacting. You know, you're responding to the fear in the way that is going to keep you safest. So when we operate in a place that we don't have belonging, where we don't have that sense of safety we're really not thinking. And I don't know about you, but I don't think I want to have a team of people who aren't thinking.

Dr. Kirk Adams: No.

Alyssa Dver: I mean, it doesn't matter what the job is, you know, let her, you know, air traffic control all the way down to, you know, just painting the walls like you want people thinking.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So I don't know if this relates. Well, I'm sure sure it does. And I don't know if you've thought thought a lot about it, but I was asked to just yesterday to identify some potential topics for seminars next year for an Organization I'm part of called the Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion, based here in Seattle. And I'm on the board and I talked about how do we operate effectively as organizations in an environment where some of our essential institutions are intentionally creating fear and uncertainty, which which is something that's happening. And I can imagine a well structured, effective ERG can be a mechanism that can allow a company, a nonprofit to operate. On a, on a more even keel in most turbulent times. Does that is that a fair thing to think about?

Alyssa Dver: Absolutely. I mean, this is not a political statement, but think about it. If you're deliberately putting people in a state of fear, it's because you don't want them to think. You want them to react, you want them to behave or follow whatever you're telling them to do because they're scared, right? And there's a bazillion different examples of doing that, not just the edicts of the government or or CEOs. Right. But cultures that are built like that. I said, you know, there's kind of like this organic culture that would say, look, we want you to come your full, authentic self to work. We want to support you. There are cultures out there that are like that, maybe not as many as you and I would like, but there are out there. There's many that are just the opposite, right? You have to do this. You have to dress this way. You have to say this. And we're not going to reward people who do that. Like. And that's part of their culture. Part of their culture may be, you know, when somebody senior walks in the room, you don't say anything, you know, and I think, you know, my comment before about paying my corporate dues, you know, I didn't have I wasn't aware maybe it's because I was a lot younger then of organizations that I was part of that did that. But needless to say, I always felt as a young woman I had to be careful, right? And I think that just, you know, if being careful takes 20% of my cognitive cycles, that's a waste.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So let's talk about the ERG Leadership Alliance a bit. And what what what is it if people are part of the alliance? What what does that mean to them? Either individuals or organizations. Anything you want to share about the alliance itself?

Alyssa Dver: Grateful. Thank you for asking. So 2019, as I mentioned, we started with kind of an invitation for people to come talk about ERGs. And here we are. Through all the chaos of the last several years we have over 25,000 organizations that participate. Anticipate. They are every kind of size and shape. And we're very global. We have members all over the world as well as our team now is all over the world. So it's very exciting and complicated at the same time.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So are the members, the ERGs themselves, the parent organization, both individuals who are involved in ERGs, who are the members?

Alyssa Dver: Yeah, a little bit of all the above, but we tend.

Alyssa Dver: To have three different types. They're all employees of whatever organization, but they might be group leaders. They might be the oversight managers. These are the people who get paid to actually oversee and manage the groups as a whole. And executive sponsors and executive sponsors tend to be director or higher up into the C-suite. Both they and the group leaders are typically on some kind of a term limit. That is, you know, maybe two years, which is what the average is. So you have a constant change of those kinds of leadership. Both those kinds of leadership roles. So those are those those are kind of the key people, allies, of course, anybody who just wants to be supportive of these types of people and groups we do, of course, have plenty of allies involved as well.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Wonderful.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And what is the experience of these members? What what what are they what is their engagement in interaction with the leadership alliance like?

Alyssa Dver: Well, it can really vary, right? So sometimes it just might be. They've come to one of our training sessions in ERG University, which is our public training offering, or they've hired us to come in and support one of their internal summits or an event, or it could be a lot of different ways in that we have also online resources and things like that. So sometimes people just, you know, self serve. But I would say the reason why people like being part of the alliance is twofold. One, we do a lot of Research and we give a lot of data and information for free. So just being on our mailing list, they get a lot of value in that because they get all those events and resources to them which can really help them with asking for budget and crafting the right kinds of programming and just doing their jobs as ERG leaders and managers and sponsors better. The other reason they do it, and I think we'll all kind of giggle a little bit, but it makes so much sense, is to commiserate, right? Because the work of any kind of you pick their favorite letter, the D, the E or the I, right? It's hard work. You're dealing with people and their biases. You're dealing with people and their fears in in all different ways. And it can be exhausting, frustrating. It certainly didn't get easier this year. And so the ability to know that you have other people dealing with that, you know, I say to people almost every time, like, guess how many people are in ERGs today around the world. Right. I do is like, just kind of an opener, an icebreaker. And, you know, we get answers. A million, 10,000. And I say, you know, there's over 100 million people in ergs today.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Wow.

Alyssa Dver: Over 100 million. And that's one of the most conservative numbers. When I break it down for people in my gut, I think it's probably 3 to 5 times higher than that. Right?

Dr. Kirk Adams: So that's all I was going to say 25.

Alyssa Dver: So 25 million.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Alyssa Dver: That's yeah I mean it's it's at least 100 million. We know that I can share those numbers. It just, you know, there's a lot of people doing the work dealing with the same issues we are around the world. And when you talk to, you know, we just did a webinar earlier today, I had, you know, about 300 people there. And you ask them a simple question like, you know, how many of you are I don't know. We asked like so many today, but like, how many of you feel like your senior leaders don't get it yet? At, you know, and everyone on there says yes or no or whatever. At least you know that you're not dealing with the same situation.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right, right, right.

Alyssa Dver: So that's the commiseration. I said, you know, we educate for sure, but we also do a lot of commiseration. So.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So in October, I had the privilege to spend the afternoon with a fairly newly formed, disability focused ERG at Russell Investments, which is based here in Seattle. Hats off to Russell Investments for starting the group. Yeah. And so if people are listening to this and they're with in an organization who think that ERG thing might really be helpful to me and the colleagues in this organization. Do you help people get started?

Alyssa Dver: Yeah. We do. In fact, we have a lot of all kinds of things that we can help you with. But, you know, one of the things that first and foremost is, you know, get on our website, it's the ERG Leadership alliance. Com. And we give away the book which is the G intelligence book, and it's a very small book, very quick read, but it'll tell you like what these groups are and what are the key phrases and stuff. But in the back of it is also a template to kind of start your governance work, because if you don't have ERGs, you're in a beautiful spot to really start them right. And it's actually a lot easier to start them and do them right than try and fix them later.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So it's easier to put the blueberries in the batter before you bake the muffins, right?

Alyssa Dver: For sure. But you know, that template can really start to you know, give you the questions and information that you need to get started with that. And of course, let us know. And we can provide all kinds of support. Otherwise to get ERGs going, we help a lot of organizations restart their ERGs as well. They have a program and it's just not working. So they have to restart it. And then there's also groups that are, you know, been running for a long time, and they're kind of like, yeah, we've been doing a good job, but we want to step it up. What can we do? So, you know, start, restart or optimize. We we have a wonderful staff. Everybody on the team has been an ERG leader or manager. They're very well trained. We have global people. We have we support multiple languages even. So, you know, whatever. You need just at least let us know. And we probably if we can't do it, we know somebody who can.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So every interaction I've had with Alyssa, her team ERG Leadership Alliance has been top tier. So I unreservedly urge you to reach out, go to the ERG Leadership Alliance website. Get in touch if you think they can be helpful to you in moving your mission forward. And, Alyssa, I just really appreciate you your graciousness and patience and our, our, our our second and successful attempt at recording this podcast. And if anyone wants to get in touch with me, I'm easily found on LinkedIn. Kirk Adams and my website is Doctor Adams. Com. And thank you so much for listening to this awesome episode of podcast by Doctor Kirk Adams, and we will see you next time. And thanks so much, Alyssa.

Alyssa Dver: My pleasure. Thank you.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. We hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Don't forget to subscribe, share or leave a review at WW. Academy.com. Together we can amplify these voices and create positive change. Until next time, keep listening, keep learning and keep making an impact.

🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Ssanyu Birigwa, M.S., Co-Founder, Narrative Bridge https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-11-05-2025/

In this illuminating episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Kirk shares how a stressful season leading the American Foundation for the Blind and pursuing his PhD led him to the healing work of guest Ssanyu Birigwa. He recalls powerful half-day sessions in New York that began with reflective writing and moved into energy practices like the hara seven-minute meditation, creating "energy bodies" with the hands, and chakra work. Those tools, which he still uses most mornings, helped him re-center, move from heaviness to lightness, and live with greater intention and body awareness.

Birigwa, co-founder of Narrative Bridge, weaves her lineage as an 80th-generation Ugandan bone healer with her roles in narrative medicine at Columbia University and research on clinician well-being. She explains her Pause Three method, gratitude, intention, forgiveness, which downshifts the nervous system in under three minutes, then shows how story, slow reflection, and deep listening build trust inside teams. The conversation connects personal healing to organizational change, reframing "wealth" as health, relationships, spirit, and material capacity leaders can actually hold. Listeners leave with a palpable invitation to pause, tell truer stories, and align values with daily practice at work.

TRANSCRIPT:

Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, doctor Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. I am that Doctor Kirk Adams talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And today I have the most special guest I've had so far, a very important person in my life named Sonya Gregoire. And Ssanyu is co-founder and CEO of Narrative Bridge. She is an architect of systemic transformation frameworks that enable organizations to operate with authentic alignment between their stated values and their daily practices. And the more organizations who can do that, the better for all of us. Ssanyu, if you just could say hi, then I'll talk a little bit about how awesome you are. I'll turn it back over to you.

Ssanyu Birigwa: Thank you. Kirk. Hello everyone. It is a deep pleasure to be here with you and your audience. Just having the opportunity to connect is really important, especially during times of such change that we are all feeling, you know, beyond what I think we can describe with words. Thank you for having me.

Ssanyu Birigwa: All right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So as many of you may know, I am a totally blind person. Have been since age five, when my retina is detached and had a lot of surgeries, unsuccessful, painful surgeries, a lot of hospitalization between age five and 12, which, of course, I didn't think of it as childhood trauma at the time. But now now I know I experience some significant childhood trauma. Went to a school for blind kids for second and third grade and then into public school where it was sink or swim. I was always the only blind student. And I had a family that really did some great things for me, including holding high expectations for me and treating me on an equal footing with my sighted siblings. Didn't didn't attend to a lot of psychosocial elements of having a significant disability and weren't equipped to do that, but made my way through school and got an academic scholarship and went to college. And then you know, had a lot of challenges around finding meaningful employment, as so many of us do, with only 35% of us in with significant disabilities in the workforce. But but made my way and with a lot of support from a lot of great people with a big investment by the lighthouse for the blind, Inc. here in Seattle and my professional development, I was was able to become the president and CEO of of that organization here in Seattle.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And then I was hired by the American Foundation for the Blind AFB, Helen Keller's organization, to take on those same roles for AFB and lead them through a financial turnaround and an organizational transformation which involves strategic planning and restructuring and doing lots of hard things like eliminating positions and closing programs and the hard things that needed to be done. So in the midst of all that, I, before I was hired by FBI, started a PhD program, a PhD in leadership and change through Antioch University. So I was in the middle of that dissertation process. My wife, Roz, and I moved from Seattle to New York City and lived in a tiny apartment in Park Slope in Brooklyn. I learned how to take the F train to the A train up Penn Station, up to the office at two Penn Plaza. And we lived there about a year and a half. Our strategic plan led us to relocate our headquarters to the Washington, D.C. area. So we moved again to Arlington, Virginia, and was working there. Culture shock for a person born and lived always in the Pacific Northwest and a weather shock, the hot, humid summers and Virginia in particular, and the very cold winters. We did not own enough clothes, but I was attending to implementing the strategic plan very assiduously.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I was working on my PhD work, and I would get up every morning and kind of prepare for the day. And I got in the habit of listening to podcasts when I when I was getting ready. I use a great app that's very accessible for people who are blind called eye catcher. And I would just put in a keyword in the search engine and kind of go down the list of what popped up and just tap on something that kind of resonated with me that that morning. And I honestly don't remember the podcast, but the guest was Ssanyu. Gregoire and the host had spent some time with you, Ssanyu, and had had had some experiences with the healing work that you do. And she said, after my session with you, I could just feel all. I was just cleared of all the mucky muck. I remember that phrase, and I said, that's what I need because I feel like I am in quicksand. So I emailed the host and said, I'd like to talk to you, Ssanyu. And she can she emailed you and said, this dude, this dude reached out and he wants to talk to you. So you kindly set up a phone appointment, and we talked for about half an hour, and we determined that it would would be a good fit for us to work together.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So I remember having an experience with you at the Four Points by Sheraton and Chelsea on 25th, and we spent about four hours together. And you started out by reading a poem to me and asking me to write a reflection. And I read you my reflection, and that led us into a deep conversation. And then, you know, you took it from there. And we had several of those kind of half day sessions in person. And so one of one of the greatest memories I have is you know, you didn't touch me with your hands, but you were you were moving stuff around. I can feel it in my body. I could feel things opening and loosening, and I could feel energy flowing like it hadn't in a long, long while. And then you and I had a regular virtual series of virtual sessions, and you taught me a number of things. I the horror meditation, the seven minute meditation. I did it this morning. Lit the palo santo, did the meditation. I probably do that five out of seven days a week. And you taught me how to create energy bodies with my hands and move that energy into my chakras, which I, I remember the first time you taught me how to do that. I said, that's trippy. Yes. I said something like, it's real.

Ssanyu Birigwa: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: We're not making this stuff up. Yeah. So, you know, you really had a huge impact on the way I live as far as thoughtfulness and intention and paying attention to energy and paying attention to my body and using some of the techniques that you taught me. And now a blessing to the world. You are taking this knowledge and wisdom. Your cultural heritage, what you've learned academically, what you've learned from experience and others. And you're taking it into what I would call the organizational development world. And I would just love to hand the microphone over to you. I'd love to hear, hear about your journey. I learned I learned some bits and pieces along our our time together, but we'd love to just have you recount to the people listening the journey that's brought you to the place you are now and how what what is the present like for you and and your vision of of the future? And what what's working well for you? And if there are any challenges. I would love to have you tell people how they can get in touch with you, so I will I will hand you the talking stick. I will reserve the right as a host to pop in with the question from from time to time. But please, please tell tell. Tell us the the legend of Sonja.

Ssanyu Birigwa: Kirk. Thank you. I have to say, you are a great storyteller. And listening to your reflections, listening to the ways in which. The offerings that were placed between us has continued to be truly of support. And I'd even say service to your own well-being, which I know has expanded out to the people that you love and care about, work with, connect with. And that's that, that's that's that. That is what I hope to be able to infuse in the world as my passion is to create healthier communities. And we can't do that until we've actually taken a good look at the eye, our personal self, and to listen to you in your journey. Just made me smile and made me laugh. It brought me back to those moments in person with you. And I loved how you said she wasn't touching me. That that is true. And not. There are a few moments where I would have to. I feel the energy, especially when we're able to be with the physical body. Needed the the place of holding and listening to a story a family member shared with me recently about meeting an older woman who was being helped in the car to put her seatbelt on, and she held the person's hand tightly before they let go of having put the seatbelt on her. And she said, hold on a while. I haven't touched a person in five years.

Ssanyu Birigwa: Wow.

Ssanyu Birigwa: And it makes me think about why we do also need touch, and also to how when we focus in on the connection between the self and other, the thought in itself is almost as powerful as touch. So thank you for sharing those moments of of reflection that we've had together. I am an 80th generation healer from Uganda. And what this lineage has taught me about Western medicine. Has taken me probably the last five years to really deepen my understanding of how the nervous system determines what we can hold. And what do I mean about what can we hold? Well, right now. I am doing a lot of research and. Understanding through being a lecturer and adjunct professor of narrative medicine at Columbia University and this lecture that I teach every spring at the medical school spirituality and health is around the self to have the ability to listen so we can be fully present with the other. And in this case, whilst I teach, it's it's, you know, the physician and patient. But what I've trained to understand that has taken me beyond narrative medicine and the clinical understanding and the research that I'm doing. With University of Michigan, to be specific, around the support we can give through narrative medicine practice to doctors who do telehealth visits. There's a lot that is happening with the AI telehealth connection and building healthier communities. That narrative medicine practice really helps to embolden and support the well-being of the physician. And so, as I've steeped my my experience in teaching and research and also experimenting and connecting what I understand about my lineage to help those. Connect, sometimes Extract, sometimes dissolve, sometimes just recognize the stories that live in our bones. And my clan of the bone healers now know the potency that which our body holds information.

Ssanyu Birigwa: And it's been almost a decade or so since I've created and built what I call narrative Bridge. And it began with my colleague and dear friend cohort from Columbia whilst we were in grad school. Us to really look at how to bring leadership into healthcare. But first, we needed an entryway and that entryway into leadership and support of the healthcare systems and individuals who are a part of the system Is the framework of narrative medicine, which is the paying attention to oneself so they can pay attention to the other, to. Then, once that connection is made of observation, one creates an understanding of who is before them. And that one I speak is the clinician or the leader or. The mother? The father. It's all of us. We are that one who, when we are able to deeply listen to ourselves, we are able to listen to the other. And somewhere in that process, trust is developed. And once we create that trust and that deep listening, that happens when we are present in the moment with the other. So much can happen. And in terms of the health care field healing, specifically healing, connection information being exchanged. Begins to support that container. And people will then begin to have positive stories to tell, whether it's within the health care space or technology or equity and diversity and inclusion, wherever that might be. We are building trust. And so where I understand we need a protocol. Allowed me to deepen into creating the pause three method, which Kirk, I know that we worked with quite a bit. It's usually how I like to set the tone, and the tone is deepening into a gratitude state to create an intention for ourselves, or maybe for our community.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So for those who haven't had the experience, can you describe the pause three method a bit?

Ssanyu Birigwa: Yes. So there are three parts and I call it the GIF. I was trying to be a little cheeky so GIF.

Ssanyu Birigwa: Yeah.

Ssanyu Birigwa: And it's based in gratitude intention making and forgiveness. And as this protocol is enacted within our nervous system, mindfully we downshift this nervous system in under three minutes. And we've practiced this. I've trained different clinicians and physicians in this. And my students, I. I offer this as a tool to learn how to evoke, literally within the body, what it feels like to be in gratitude, to then shift into a moment of presence within ourselves, to create an intention and to use our imagination to feel into what it would feel like to be in action of that very intention. And from that, there's the forgiveness. We all make mistakes. We are not perfect, and we can be very honest with ourselves and the other and take accountability. And part of that accountability is also then to forgive ourselves and then release, not to hold on to these bags of shame and, and discomfort that which actually creates literally disease within the body that then can manifest oftentimes into something very real that a clinician, a doctor, needs to pay attention to. We all have read different, you know I think, you know, many of us have read different articles and or if you're really into the science of mindfulness but also energy and also how oxygen, when brought into the body at certain rhythms, can literally change the molecules in our bodies and create healing. So the method is based on science and also the ability to tap into something that some might call woo woo. And I have a student who, who, who really stands in that space of saying, yes, I am woo woo. Well, what if we made the woo woo natural and normal? What would it look like for us to accept that we are energy that we can feel and address, some of which we may never have addressed before through the lens of story?

Ssanyu Birigwa: Right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And that that that resonates with me and my experience. And when you said narrative medicine and what I, what I thought about was the elements of our time together, where you would read me a piece, read me a poem, and ask me to write a reflection and read that back to you that led to it, led to a dialogue. And I think you just said something about a feeling. I don't know if you just said feeling things you haven't felt before or realizations you haven't realized before, but I, I certainly had that experience.

Ssanyu Birigwa: Yes.

Ssanyu Birigwa: And we say in narrative medicine practice that this is not therapy, but it does feel therapeutic. And I think that's what the intention is. When we tell stories. I've witnessed actually that is the intention that we are holding within when we are telling our own personal stories, whether it's comfortable or not, to share that story and what we're seeing. And when I say we my colleagues, those who I've worked with beyond the institution and teaching at Columbia but when facilitating trust building for executive teams or running wellbeing initiatives for hospital systems. Something keeps shifting, and I keep meeting leaders who've who've built not just material wealth, but really the wealth of of their wellbeing systems, family, you know, connection. And still there there's a piece of misalignment. Because in these four areas that I call this wealth frequency that I bring into leadership teams we, we sometimes feel depleted.

Ssanyu Birigwa: And what are the four?

Ssanyu Birigwa: So where I, I begin is understanding wealth frequency from the lens of how wealth in itself can also be an extractor if we're not understanding, you know, where we might be depleted. And it's not about bringing in more tools to find, you know, ways to connect to the to the body. But it's it's more about refining. And so the four areas or I'll start with the three right now is health is relational. So the health, you know, we have our physical health, you know, we work out maybe we we eat well, eat clean, as one might say. But sometimes our nervous system is in disharmony. We might feel often that we are oscillating between fight or flight maybe having a hard time resting. What I'm witnessing in leaders that I work with is this piece of health. Because the material wealth. And that's the fourth, the material wealth, actual money is there. However, perhaps there's a little more attention that needs to be placed on the health frequency, which I just spoke about. But then there's that relational, you know, our family is intact. You know, we we are in loving relationships. But maybe there's a shift that's needing to be had in, in our work. Perhaps you might be noticing and what I've witnessed and many people that I've worked with in the last, I would say 3 to 5 years that the relationships at work are, are a bit more extractive than they used to be.

Ssanyu Birigwa: There's more of this giving, giving, giving and less reciprocity. And I also believe it's the time in which we are in globally. There's there's a global shift happening. And then there's the spiritual. Sometimes we are disconnected to knowing ourselves. Not like knowing who we are. Who are we? You can see the signs sometimes through, often a link to the work that one does where you're feeling the need to shift and change. Maybe not necessarily leave the organization that you work for. Or if you're an entrepreneur, you know, you know, just, you know, bag your, you know, your endeavors and start something new. But a reiteration maybe we are seeing the signs, the individuals seeing and feeling the signs. But maybe there's a bit of distrust within ourselves. Whereby we don't actually act upon what one might call intuition and also real lived experiences. And so what I'm, I, I'm really focused in on and bridging into leadership and development is that most people think wealth is what you make. But wealth is actually what you can hold and what you described. Kirk, in the beginning of telling us stories that connect to how we met and what we did together, is you learned not only how to hold your wealth frequency, which is the material, the health, the relationship, the relationship, and also the spiritual wealth, but also to learn how to move energy, to feel better, to feel good. And so that's that's where I. Live.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And I think of it I think of it as feeling light, like after the time we had together. And I just felt light like a, a a lightness or the absence of heaviness, I guess. But, you know, the, you know, some of the things that you taught me to do I can bring, I can bring that that condition that that those dynamics back you know, to some degree, probably probably not as light as after four hours. You in person? Sure.

Ssanyu Birigwa: But I.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Can make.

Ssanyu Birigwa: That.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I can make myself. I can make myself lighter.

Ssanyu Birigwa: Yes, exactly. And what a privilege that we have to to spend four hours on ourselves. Yeah. You know that I'm very aware, too, that I'm in a space of privilege and I. And that is part of the work, too, is to bring it out of the gates of a university system and share it. Right. And you said you can take these tools and feel lighter. You know, that's that's the work that I'm helping. Institute. In order to build cultures where individuals, leaders, clinicians can actually breathe and move beyond the struggle, the the barriers, the self inflicted barriers often. And also to understand that the slowing down is to an activation where we have been in our organizations, in our lives and our families and our communities, and what we use to get to where we've been. Yeah, we can't use those same tools. They need to be refined in some way to get to some place else. And that's important to me to understand. That's important for me to to share.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So I'm very curious about two things. First, you said something astounding. I'm an 80th generation, which is an amazing thing to be able to say. So I would love to hear about that lineage and how that wisdom was transferred to you. But you know, I had we had we had a one on one experience which was very much focused on me. But, you know, now you're taking your wisdom and knowledge and skills. And, you know, as I read your introduction, an architect of systemic transformation frameworks that enable organizations to operate with authentic alignment between their stated values and daily practice practices. So, you know, I'm super, super curious about 79 generations that preceded you. Let's start there. But also also, how do you translate what you did with me as a particular specific interaction between two people? And how do you translate into that work, working at an organizational level? Thank you for asking.

Ssanyu Birigwa: Those two questions. Yes. So I have a father he's Ugandan we call him Tata. And Tata is a living. He is the living chief of the bone healers. And the story goes. I am from the Buganda tribe of Uganda. And our kingdom, the Buganda Kingdom has a king. And hundreds of years ago, many generations ago, the king would be in his palace. And as we probably have heard stories of, you know kingdoms, the king is not necessarily always kind to his his people. Right. So sometimes the king would beat individuals and would break their bones. When that would happen, his staff would call upon my clan, the bone healers, who are seen, as we could say, the indigenous doctors. Now, that is true. We have, to this day about 45 minutes outside of Kampala, the bone healing clinic that is run by my family and the bone healers. And oftentimes I'm I hope your viewers understand, you know, the the tuk tuk and the we call them boda bodas. The folks on motorcycles and, you know, ride around the countryside or not even the countryside. It's a form of transportation. It's like Uber. Okay, but on the bicycle. On a motorcycle. Well, if you can imagine very congested areas of transport. These boda bodas, they fall off the bike and they get hurt often. Well, we're known. Our clinic is known for the boda bodas to come to because when they go to a regular facility, a clinic they complain that they're just wrapped up, their bones are wrapped up, and they're given, you know, Tylenol, Vicodin, you know, whatever it might be, they're drugged up.

Ssanyu Birigwa: And that was very detailed within stories from individuals who I met at the clinic not wanting to be drugged up. And there are individuals who don't want that. So we have a way of using nature, using certain herbs, using certain leaves to help the body heal faster, quicker. And it is an ancient practice. So let's go back to the kingdom of Buganda. Individuals who started to get to know the bone healer. We're starting to speak about the bone healer having special abilities to connect to the stars and understanding that they were being. Channeled information that 1st May not have ever understood, and sharing it with the community. Individuals who who felt the need to be closer to, say, this healer, this indigenous healer would come to our house that we called the House of Chico. And that house is a special house where those who would stay there would have dreams. And the story is that these dreams would help them, you know, understand how to fix a problem or prophesize to them what they needed to do in their life to, you know deal with x, y, z that they were dealing with. That's, you know, just keeping the story simple. But to give an understanding that there was information being shared through our lineage and through this house of Chico. So not only was the healer fixing bones, but they were channeling information for people that. Needed and wanted that connection to spirit, as I will use so in these generations to be I understood later on in life that there was a connection that I too had to this lineage.

Ssanyu Birigwa: Have I fixed a broken bone? No, but I have helped my clients accelerate in their healing when they have had issues with their body, with their bones, with their nervous system, with their digestive system. There's a potency and an understanding that I, too, have healing hands. I do channel, I do receive information, and the ancestors speak through me. I have had a beautiful experience of myself, and I call it a beautiful experience because it led me to the person I am today where I woke up paralyzed from my shoulders to my fingers. And I was introduced to a prophet. And through the introduction, through the sitting with and being of connection to him and his community to also a seer all being consciously aware at this time that I was on a journey of connecting with indigenous wisdom and knowledge and healing, because my experience in the healthcare system, going to emergency rooms, going to different, different doctors who would not have a diagnosis for me, some of your listeners and maybe even yourself, you've experienced going to the doctor feeling ill, but yet coming home with no diagnosis, not knowing what it is. My God, it's scary. No, it's it's frustrating. Yes. So this was an experience of mine where it brought me to understand. I needed to understand. I needed to further connect, not even understand. Connect. The threads, the connections to indigenous healing practices. And this western. State of what we call the healthcare system.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right. So now here's the tricky part. How are you bringing indigenous knowledge, wisdom, and healing into organizations that

Ssanyu Birigwa: Well, here we go.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Pretty much rooted in Western ethos and how, how how do you do that through story.

Ssanyu Birigwa: And that's telling my own personal stories of the health, of the healing. But Often times it's through the lens of how do we trust our systems? How do we begin to trust our leaders? And to be honest, we can. We all have the ability to choose which stories to tell. So here today, I get to really dive deep into some vulnerable areas of my story and details of who I am. I do believe that the way to infuse what I've described is through what we call narrative bridge narratives of trust. And how do I do that? I build in our clinical practice of narrative medicine, which is to use story, literature, artwork to slow down, to, frankly, slow down. And you talked about I would read you a poem have you write to a writing prompt and oftentimes what was written, you were surprised as to what came out? Yes. Yes. Right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yes.

Ssanyu Birigwa: And that right there. Just writing for five minutes. When being guided in a way that allows the individual.

Dr. Kirk Adams: To.

Ssanyu Birigwa: Be inspired.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yes. I remember it was a lot of like, childhood stuff that I hadn't thought about in a long, long time, but obviously it was significant. So yes.

Ssanyu Birigwa: And that's that's where I begin. Do I want to bring leaders back to their childhood in a group setting? When we only have maybe, you know, a half a day or 90 minutes? No. But do I want to bring them to reflect on how they have been leading as individuals and as teams? Yes, I do. Do I believe it's important to touch upon some EQ stuff? I do. And is it important to be real honest and maybe even pull back some layers? Of oneself to maybe even expose themselves to their colleagues, to create a space of trust and maybe deeper belonging and camaraderie? Yes. Is it uncomfortable sometimes.

Ssanyu Birigwa: They have a saying that diamonds are made out of pressure. It's a knowing I would actually even say right. Yeah. So do we sometimes feel like we're in a pressure cooker when change needs to occur. I think so. And that's where I find myself standing in the center of. Us is guiding individuals, maybe out of the pressure cooker, maybe through it, maybe towards it because they haven't felt the pressure yet. Maybe, maybe they're in a space of innovation and needing to understand how to get across the threshold to a new place of operation. Well, there needs to be true understanding of who you work with, what their leadership styles are. Maybe it's the time where you move against the grain, as I say, to what you would expect an individual to do. Perhaps that conversation that's being guided reveals something about that individual that perhaps is a better fit for them. And I say, over yonder.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, yeah. So what? What are the dynamics that would motivate an organization to say, we need a bone healer up in here now? Right. What what what brings these organizations to a place where they're able to embrace really open. They need they need to open up and be somewhat vulnerable to do this work. And my experience is with large organizations, both for profit and nonprofit, is their openness and vulnerability is not that common. So I'm curious what motivates organizations to take that step.

Ssanyu Birigwa: You know, it it takes a lot of trust. It takes connection. I often am found through individuals who have either worked with me one on one and in that space of spirituality and narrative medicine and, and deep listening you know, rewiring our nervous system essentially is, is what we are doing in my private practice. So building literally a bridge from the private practice into corporate offerings has been challenging. But sure, I've been put on this earth to break barriers.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, I'm guessing it's somewhat like disability inclusion, which is what I focus on. And typically it's because someone has a passion around making a more inclusive world for people with disabilities. And very often it's because they have a have had a child who has a disability.

Ssanyu Birigwa: Yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And now all of a sudden their their paradigm has shifted and they understand that people with impairments are human beings and need to be treated with respect and dignity, and they get very motivated about that. So I, I'm guessing if someone who is in a leadership position within an organization has had that personal experience with you, I could see how they could be motivated to to bring that knowledge and healing into the into the organization.

Ssanyu Birigwa: And to part of being vulnerable myself. When individuals do hear my story, when I get an opportunity to share it it really informs the way that I facilitate, the way that I make connections. So to go back to your question, how do I do this? Well, it's been through word of mouth. And so we are doing a little reiteration of expanding the work beyond healthcare you know, beyond the framework of clinical spaces. It's really to your point of what you talked about, of inclusion and diversity is really that we have the power to fuel or to use inclusivity to fuel exceptional performance. And if an organization is not wanting to do that, then I'm, I'm I'm peeved. Most organizations do. And my whole point is, hey, we have to do things differently. You know, I'm guided by you know, let's I'm being academic here. Truly. A guided pedagogy. Okay. And so when I. What I understand this to be, you know, we all are a part of diverse journeys that have really shaped a, a unique experience and has influenced. Who we have become. But one thing that I have seen is that and witness in all different areas of leadership, like I said, whether it's healthcare or technology you know, disability frameworks around death and dying and AI, I worked with an organization that was really focused in on how to use their diversity, Equity and Inclusion board and their AI board.

Ssanyu Birigwa: How do they how do they come together to work together? Now that's that was interesting, right? What I saw and I'm seeing is that understanding others personal narratives is the key to developing trust is the key in fostering collaboration. It is the key that's driving innovation and quite frankly, the key to achieving results that exceeds everyone's expectations. Why? Because we're paying attention. We're deeply listening to individual's experiences. So what narrative bridge my company brings, which is an extension of who I am. We bring research based understanding, customization of this narrative medicine clinical training adaptable for organizations to help their leaders and their employees simply tell their stories and to relate to one another, person to person. Well, you think that's quite simple, but the by the lack of buy in with organizations that are actually stating that this is what they want for their employees is. I'm choosing my words very carefully right now. Has brought upon a challenge for individuals who do this work.

Ssanyu Birigwa: But you know, I stick to my mission. Our commitment is for inclusion as a strategic underpinning of what we believe to be true, that our personal narratives provides insights for us to develop better relationships. That then feeds right into the groundwork for trust. Deeper trust, not just surface trust. The trust that you need to to create and and cross over the threshold into innovation that unlocks what we've seen. Deeper productivity. What I just spoke about innovation which equals growth. Wow. Aren't these the employees that we want for the future? Aren't these the entrepreneurs that we want for the future? So we're really solving something that I, that I, that I put into, if you could imagine a circle or three circles within a larger circle. So we call it these three points of learning to pause you, you learn that with me in our one on one sessions to then practice that. Well, you told us some really wonderful stories and about learning and using that in your own practice. Well then that third one is continuing to learn about yourself by taking that pause and by practicing. That's growth. Well, once we then have reflection within that, that space there, that's around the pause, the learning and the practice. I have seen that create maximum impact and growth for everyone, individuals and the entire team, which to me is creating healthier communities.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So for you, this time has flown by.

Ssanyu Birigwa: I know how that happened.

Dr. Kirk Adams: But if people want to get in touch with you to talk about your private practice, where they can work with you individually, or if people want to talk to you about narrative bridge and how they can bring this knowledge, wisdom and healing into their organizations, how can people get in touch?

Ssanyu Birigwa: Well, they can always email me. I am at sunoo at Sunoo comm. You can really deepen into what I do individually. On my website, Soniya comm. And you know what I am focused in on, which we talked a bit about, is the understanding that we all want to grow. And I think some of us might be in positions of our lives, in our careers where we're taking a moment to pause and think about what's our next iteration of life.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yes.

Ssanyu Birigwa: And so if we're dysregulated, I come from the time where and also to having lived between East Africa and Newton, Massachusetts. So I'm often someone who is not of the majority.

Ssanyu Birigwa: When we hold on to all those traumas and coming from that time and space of you work hard, you know, be disciplined, you know, stay focused. You know, again work hard hard hustle hustle. What are you doing. You're wasting your time. You know, like we learned how to just work and work hard. And many of us have achieved such great things. Titles, accolades. And maybe did not spend enough time releasing from that fight or flight, that dysregulation from that hustle. Hustle. Work hard. Hard. Harder. Yeah. So what I'm building here doesn't require all of us to be on all the time. We have to learn to pause, to slow down, to reactivate.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yes.

Ssanyu Birigwa: Right. And so. The pause three method is really here to soften the nervous system. And the intention is to orient us towards what matters. And the forgiveness is to unhook us from what's draining us. So these three steps, under three minutes anywhere, is the foundation of everything that I do. And that leaders I don't care what system you come from, what organization you lead, what industry you're in, you have to take that moment to just pause. And I bet you if we did a series of leaders of large organizations, small organizations wouldn't matter. All of them say they probably. Well, I have to just take a moment to take a deep breath. Right. That's the pause.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Ssanyu Birigwa: Right. I run, I run every morning. I look at my shoes and I get in those shoes and I run, I. So we all have a way of doing things right. I'm just here to help individuals and organizations to refine it. And so Narrative Bridge comm is where you can also find information on how I work with leaders and organizations. I'm on LinkedIn and I have several ways to work. One on one. Just contact me and let's make it happen.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I'm here so I can give a personal testimony that I work with on you, and if you feel like you are mired in the mucky muck, you want to feel lighter. Learn how to pause and learn how to forgive yourself for your human foibles. Yep. Reach out. Reach out to Sonya. She she is the real deal. And if you want to get in touch with me again, I would love to talk to anyone about inclusion from the through a disability lens in particular. Kirk Adams at Dr. Kirk Adams comm, or Kirk Adams, PhD, on LinkedIn. And thank you so much for listening to the podcast by Kirk Adams. I'd be remiss if I didn't say whatever platform you you're using, like this podcast, please. And we'll we'll we'll be back with you next time. And, Sonya, I'd love to have you back sometime in 2026 to learn about how narrative bridge is progressing and all the good you're doing in the world.

Ssanyu Birigwa: Thank you Kirk. I would love to come back. This is this is wonderful.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Thank you. Awesome.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Thank you so much.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. We hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Don't forget to subscribe, share or leave a review at. Tmz.com. Together, we can amplify these voices and create positive change. Until next time, keep listening. Keep learning and keep making an impact.

🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Vanessa Abraham, Speech Language Pathologist https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-10-23-2025/

In this candid episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Dr. Adams sits down with speech-language pathologist, author, and ICU survivor Vanessa Abraham to trace her extraordinary arc from clinician to patient and back again. Abraham recounts the rare Guillain-Barré variant that left her paralyzed and voiceless, the disorientation and aftermath of Post-Intensive Care Syndrome, and the painstaking work of reclaiming speech, swallowing, mobility, and identity. She explains why she wrote Speechless, to humanize the critical-care experience, and makes a compelling case that communication access in the ICU is a basic right, not a luxury.

The conversation moves from story to strategy: how lived experience reshaped her practice, how she founded A Neu Healing Therapy to bring neuro-rehabilitation innovations to survivors, and what clinicians, hospital leaders, and families can do now, build trauma-informed teams, ensure reliable ways for non-speaking patients to be heard, and measure recovery by dignity as well as function. Throughout, Dr. Adams draws out practical takeaways and a wider systems lens, leaving listeners with both hope and a concrete roadmap for more humane, effective care.

TRANSCRIPT:

Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Doctor Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. And I am said Doctor Kirk Adams talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And I have a I say amazing guest today, Vanessa Abraham, who's a speech pathologist who's not only practiced speech pathology but has experienced the need for speech therapy herself, and I'll let her tell her story. I did want to acknowledge Mai Ling Chan, who is the source for me knowing Vanessa. Mai Ling is a an amazing disability advocate and she has created a platform called Exceptional Leaders Network ELN and it's a very small monthly subscription fee to be amongst some amazing people and get to spend some, some focused time with Mai Ling as well. So I, I met I met Vanessa through the ELN and she has brought her talent, skills and passions to the world to help support individuals who need support in their in their speech and articulation. And she's developed some amazing new technologies. And I was just speaking to the disability ERG at Russell Investments here in Seattle yesterday. And we talked about the fact that anyone can join us as disabled citizens at any time and people can become disabled and non-disabled, and it's very fluid.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And we talked about the difference between impairment and disability. For instance, I have a visual impairment. I'm blind, I can't see, but if I have my Jaws screen reading software, my Refreshable Braille display, and my computer with the tools I have, I'm not in a disabling situation. If you take those things away and I just have a regular computer with no screen reading technology and a monitor, I am in a disabling situation. So Vanessa, I just want to turn it over to you. I know you were working with students in public schools for quite some time, and then something, something really transformational happened in 2019. And if you could take, take us, take us through your journey. Where? Where have you been? And where are you at now? Where? Where do you hope to take things? Where are you planning to take things and what? What's what's working well for you? And are there any any challenges you'd like us to know about?

Vanessa Abraham: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me here today. And you're right. My journey began in 2019. So a little over six years ago as you mentioned, I am a school based speech pathologist. I work with school aged kids with communication challenges. So anyone from using things like text to speech or eye gaze, augmentative communication devices to students that may be working on stuttering and producing smooth speech or articulation. So that's kind of where my world has been for the past 15 or so years, just working as a school based speech pathologist until one day 2019, when I became the patient in the bed receiving speech therapy. And that's really when my world got turned upside down, where I realized what it was like to have a communication impairment not only a communication impairment, but a voice and swallowing impairment, too. And I required extensive speech therapy. How it all began. I talked extensively about this in my book, speechless, that I launched about ten months ago. Launched in January. It began just as a virus. And this virus slowly paralyzed my brainstem and spinal cord. As you said, it can happen overnight. It's very fluid. You just never know what tomorrow will bring. And for me, within a week's time, I was intubated and in my. Or on my way to ICU you at UCSD, San Diego where my life completely turned upside down. And as I said, I became the patient in the bed. Never imagined when I was in grad school that I would be the one sitting in the chair having a barium swallow study. And eventually I was to.

Dr. Kirk Adams: What is. What is that?

Vanessa Abraham: So the barium swallow study is a study that you do in the ICU or in the acute setting that looks at your swallowing muscles. How? And it tests your swallowing. Are you safe to swallow? Are you safe to be eating orally? For me, due to the nature of this virus that was paralyzing my brainstem, spinal cord, it paralyzed all the muscles in my neck that are used for voice and swallowing. So I was no longer able to swallow food safely. My vocal cords experienced significant atrophy, so they weren't working quite as well as they should be. My upper body was paralyzed. I was not able to move my right arm to right, to point, to do much of anything. And this all happened within days or a week. I was fine. I was out, like I said, I was. I talk about this in my book. I was out camping with my family, and then all of a sudden I woke up and I thought, I've got a cold. I need to go home. Well, that cold quickly progressed into this upper body. It's called what I have is the pharyngeal cervical brachial variant of Guillain-Barré. So most people with Guillain-Barre, their feet have extensive paralysis. My feet were fine. I was actually able to walk. I just couldn't move my upper body or swallow foods. So, again, I was the patient in the bed. I had to learn to talk again. I used I gaze, I used text to speech. I had to write my words down and eventually I used this thing called a passy-muir valve.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Vanessa, I'm I'm pretty immersed in the in the blindness world, and I, I've spent a lot of time with the deaf blind community, but the the speech and communication challenges are, are not as familiar to me. So you mentioned eye gaze. You mentioned text to speech. You mentioned, I think augmentative communication devices. Could you, could you just spend a few minutes talking about the various technologies?

Vanessa Abraham: Yeah, absolutely. So eye gaze. I was not able to communicate verbally. I was also not able to use my fingers to point to gesture. I was pretty locked in, so the only way I could communicate was by looking at a word on a piece of paper or looking at a letter like Y for yes, N for no, or the word yes and for no. And my family had to track my eyes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Vanessa Abraham: They would ask me a question like, are you in pain? And I had to look at the word yes. And they would track my eyes to see because I wasn't able to point to the word yes. And I progressed from using eye gaze to being able to point to letters on a piece of paper. When my fingers were able to move a little bit better, I was able to point to letters for like, yes, or you know, when I had a burning question what's happening to me? I could type in every letter for a sentence. It was a very slow process to communicate that way, and very frustrating. However, it was a modality of communication for me, which was very important. I progressed from using the the little letter board to writing on a whiteboard, and eventually I was able to use my phone. And being a speech pathologist, I knew that there was greater technology out there than just writing things on a piece of paper. So that was a point where I decided to ask for my phone. I asked my family and give me my phone. I want to download a text to speech app, which I did. I got a free app and I just was able to type very fast questions on my phone and ask questions, and after that I was they gave me the speech pathologist there, gave me a passy-muir valve to trial. That's a valve that goes on your tracheostomy that allows you to vocalize. So that was the point that I was able to communicate with the tracheostomy. And that was a very, very hard, scary period of my life, learning just to go up again and hear my voice again. That was something I'll never forget, honestly.

Dr. Kirk Adams: How long was that process from waking up intubated and paralyzed to being able to use the the valve?

Vanessa Abraham: Close to a month, three weeks or so.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Three weeks of hard work, I imagine.

Vanessa Abraham: Oh, extremely hard work. Extremely hard work. And eventually that was removed, and I was able to vocalize without any type of assistive technology. But that's when I also had to experience a lot of speech therapy for voice. So I did that, and I did a lot of swallowing therapy, probably for about, oh, let's see, three, four months of swallowing therapy before my peg tube was removed and I was able to swallow foods orally, safely. And from there on out it was just a lot of rehab, a lot of physical therapy, a lot of occupational therapy. Speech therapy lasted about 4 or 5 months. And then I was able to once I was able to eat food safely, then I was discharged from that therapy. But it was a experience that I'll never forget. I've really learned as a speech pathologist what medical trauma is, and the associated depression and anxiety that goes along with being critically ill. And an experience in the ICU when you really weren't planning on that. I talk about this thing. It's called pics Post-intensive Care syndrome. I talk about that pretty extensively in my book, and that's the psychological aspect of an ICU stay. And a lot of the depression, the suicidal ideation that we go through, a lot of the brain fog and forgetfulness that ICU survivors go through. And that's just something that I never learned about in grad school as a clinician.

Vanessa Abraham: I've never I never really realized that this existed until I got out of the ICU and I was experiencing all of this myself. And the doctor and the ICU met with me. And she goes, Vanessa, I think you have this thing called Pics Post-intensive Care Syndrome, and she sat down with me and explained it to me and I said, yes, I definitely am experiencing all of that. A lot of that suicidal ideation where my, you know, my life was completely flipped upside down within days. I was very healthy. I never experienced anything more than like a runny nose my whole life, maybe an occasional flu or cold or something, but definitely never experienced trying to rehabilitate back from a swallowing disorder, a communication disorder, paralysis. It was very, very hard journey to to say it lightly. And six years later, I am a lot better. I still advocate heavily for pics and pics. Survivors, ICU survivors. I do a lot of speaking about it now, just trying to educate the next group of graduates and schools and families as well. It's really important to me to, for family members to understand that their loved ones that are getting out of the ICU have experienced trauma, and what that trauma may look like for them.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Is that send them fairly newly identified. I, I've been in the disability spaces a long time. I've certainly heard about trauma informed design and trauma informed programming, but I've never heard the term before.

Vanessa Abraham: Yeah, I'm so glad you asked that because it is. Well, yes and no. Is it new? It's something that's not talked about heavily. However, it has been out there. Okay. I am working with a group of individuals that are working on getting an ICD code for picks right now, and we're really hoping that that will be out in 2026. Okay. And if that happens, then it will really it'll really put picks pics on the map. It'll get people to start talking about it and understanding it because as you know, people haven't heard about this. They don't understand. They think that you got out of ICU, you fought, you lived. You should be great and grateful and happy and and look what you accomplished. And that's right. Yes, I am grateful. My team was phenomenal. They saved my life. My family was wonderful. However, I'm not the same person. No one's the same after they've experienced trauma.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right? Right. And my trauma came early in my life. Just to let you know, my retina is detached. When I was five and I had a lot of surgeries and was hospitalized for lengthy periods of time between age six and 12. And I was speaking with a therapist some years ago dealing with some issues, and she said, have you done anything to address your childhood trauma? I he said. What? Childhood trauma? She said. You were six years old, operated on and in the hospital with your head in a clamp for ten days at a time. So it's it's interesting that pix has been identified, and I will be reading your book and learning much more about it.

Vanessa Abraham: That is what you just said to about childhood traumas and addressing those that is so important and so real. Because even if you're a child and you've gone through a medical, medical trauma or traumatic event that still sits with you as an adult, right? It truly does. Medical trauma. I've talked with significant people about this same topic, that medical trauma can be an adverse childhood experience, and that's something that really needs to be talked about. Kids when they're born babies and they're in the NICU, they're not able to be held by their mothers, their fathers. They're not getting that skin to skin that can be traumatic for kids. A two year old that's getting that, that is admitted to the ICU for a medical condition, a car accident, watching loved ones go through an ICU stay that is very traumatic and needs to be talked about because these traumas stay with that person until they're 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 years old.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right. And the ICD code, is that some sort of formal diagnosis? What is the ICD code?

Vanessa Abraham: Yeah. So the ICD code is what the insurance and medical professionals use for billing and medical research. So that's going to really help in the future because it's really going to it's going to put pics on the map and people are going to start understanding it and and addressing it appropriately. Here's a here's a classic example. When I got out of the ICU I went to try to find mental health services because of the significant depression, the suicidal ideation, and the first therapist that I went to. Mind you, I had lost significant weight because I was in the ICU. I had a lot of atrophy, and at this point in time I was tube fed still and, you know, very, very frail. And I walked into her office and sat on her couch and, you know, was very emotional. And she asked me how much I weighed. And I told her and she said, well, what did you weighed before? And I told her, and she starts doing these medical or these calculations on her calculator. And I thought, I wonder what she's doing. And then next thing you know, she starts speaking. And she wanted to put me in a support group for eating disorders, and I wanted to just cry because I have an eating disorder. I had a swallowing disorder where I couldn't safely eat food, and this is where people are just so uneducated, as you know, The world is uneducated on what the difference between a swallowing disorder and an eating disorder, right? I walked out of her. I walked out of her office crying.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. So misunderstood.

Vanessa Abraham: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And not. Not seen. Not heard.

Vanessa Abraham: Yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right. You mentioned working with a group of people to establish the ICD code. If people are listening, and this is a striking a chord with them or resonating with them, and they think that that might be me, or are there groups that people can connect with or resources that you would recommend? Of course. Please tell people how to find your book. Absolutely. Other resources in this? I have not seen the term, I think ICU survivor either, until I looked at your LinkedIn profile.

Vanessa Abraham: So yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Absolutely. Where can people connect with community?

Vanessa Abraham: Yeah. Great question. Because my community, honestly, is what kept me alive. Knowing that there were support groups out there for picks and people that understood me is what really got me through those very, very dark moments. They encouraged me to write the book and help me launch the book. And but in terms of support groups, I can always be reached through my website, WW. Dot com. I'm also on social media. Speechless SLP so please anybody reach out to me? That's one resource. But also the support groups that I have been through, there's one in Pittsburgh at Mercy, and there's another one in Vanderbilt. And they have weekly support group meetings that you're definitely encouraged to call and contact, and you can join their support groups. There is another girl that does a medical trauma support group. She does a weekly meeting as well. She's in And in Austin, Texas. Her name is Sarah. She can be reached at Medical trauma Support. Com. So there are a lot of resources out there.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's great.

Vanessa Abraham: The big problem is, is that this is just not talked about enough. People don't realize that. Yeah, you've lived, but there's there's the after effect of of rehabilitation and how traumatizing that is, how many flashbacks we have PTSD very significant PTSD of sights, sounds, smells just triggers that we see. For me, if I see an ambulance, that's a trigger for me because I wrote in three different ambulances. One of them was very traumatic, where I was hallucinating. Just on on heavy, heavy narcotics just for the pain that I was in. So it's just important to realize that you're not alone and that there is support out there. Also, something that's really important to realize as well is that family members can experience picks too. And that's called picks family. And it's normal for a family member to have some of this PTSD because they watch their loved ones fight for their lives. They may have seen a very scary medical procedure. I talk about one in my book with my husband and what he saw and what he experienced, and that's real. And it's okay to talk about it and join support groups, because those support groups and building that community, for me, it was everything that's.

Dr. Kirk Adams: It is very heartening to know that there are resources available for people. I did want to ask you about. You've developed some new therapies based on your experience. And I think a new healing. Can you talk to us about that?

Vanessa Abraham: Yeah. I've learned an entirely different way of treating voice and swallowing disorders just because of what I have been through. So, of course, me, the speech pathologist. I relied on the literature of what I learned in grad school to address voice and swallowing disorders. But I came across that direct current direct current e-stim device is called the newbie. And when during my rehabilitation and they were using it for me just to get that brain body connection going again, getting the the neuroplasticity, getting the brain to connect with the nervous system. And it was unbelievable for me in reducing a lot of the pain that I was experiencing and getting movement back into my body, just being able to lift my limbs again, being able to lift things again, getting my strength back. So the speech pathologist in me was thinking, okay, well, if it can do this, that and the other for other parts of my nervous system, why can't this address voice and swallowing?

Dr. Kirk Adams: Why can't in simple terms that I can understand.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Tell me how the device works.

Vanessa Abraham: Yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So it's like direct current.

Vanessa Abraham: Yeah. So have you used, like, a basic e-stim device where you put the little sticky pads? Have you ever seen one of those little sticky pads? So it's like that. It's much more powerful. Okay. It's a direct current device which your body works on. Is is basically a direct current device. So this device works very similarly to the way your nervous system already works.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Vanessa Abraham: It was an absolute.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So your upper body is paralyzed. Are they attaching this to your arm then to.

Vanessa Abraham: I would I would.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Stimulate.

Vanessa Abraham: Yeah I would just attach it to various muscles on my body that were not activating like so my right arm was paralyzed. It wasn't able to move that. And I was able to gain movement much faster than I was previously.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And so the new the new device applies the direct current to the inactive or not responding muscle. Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Makes it work.

Vanessa Abraham: Yeah. It wakes it up for a lack of.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay, okay, okay.

Vanessa Abraham: And so the speech therapist in me and thought, okay, well, if what I have Guillain-Barre is a neurological disorder, why can't this work on the nervous system of kids with, say, autism? So I just started thinking out of the box, and then I thought, okay, well, my swallowing muscles are impaired. Why can't this work for swallowing? It's if it's working on the muscles in my bicep, why can't it work for the voice? The muscles used for swallowing And all the muscles that are used for, you know voicing and communication. Everything in my neck was paralyzed.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Vanessa Abraham: So I just started thinking out of the box, and sure enough, I wasn't afraid of the device. I thought, well, if I did this to my arms and every other body part in my place, in my body, and it took away the pain, why shouldn't it work for other areas? So I started doing that, and sure enough, it was taking away a lot of the pain that I had associated with eating you know, and muscles underneath my chin like the hyoid muscles. I used to have a lot of significant pain there when I would eat, and I was able to eliminate that pain. So it really opened my eyes that, hey, there's other ways to treat some of these speech related disabilities. And if it worked on me, I know it works on other people. So it's been really eye opening for me.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So you're using that technology in your practice?

Vanessa Abraham: Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I.

Vanessa Abraham: I firmly believe in it. It gave me my life back. And it's doing the same for many people that I've worked with too. I've had kids with autism that had pretty significant autism where they're now able to sit and attend and they're calmer. Their nervous system is quieter. So it really works on like, things like the vagus nerve. And it's been it's been really good. A lot of people may think it's a little bit strange because it's not necessarily in the research, it's in the research for other areas, but not necessarily voice and swallowing. But I've experienced it. I've lived it. I've I've learned it.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And and our other speech pathologists are starting to adopt it as well. Are you spreading the word.

Dr. Kirk Adams: No, no, it's. Yeah, it's the pioneer.

Vanessa Abraham: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. Okay.

Vanessa Abraham: And it's it's phenomenal. I can't even begin to describe the changes that it's given me in the life that it's given to me again. I do a lot of the vagus nerve stimulation with the newbie as well, and it's helped me sleep better. It's helped me just get a little bit more grounded in my life. So. But I've, I just can say that because I've lived it and I've used it on myself, and I've. I'm no longer tube fed. I don't have that swallowing pain.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, tell us. Tell us a little bit about the book and where people can find the book. And then again to let people you mentioned it once before, but I want people to make sure and catch it of how they can get in touch with you.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Vanessa Abraham: The book launched in January. That I can honestly say took probably 4 or 5 years to write just because of the emotional load of it. It was very emotional to get it out on paper. It was one of those things that I would write a page or a paragraph or maybe a chapter here and there, and then I would close my laptop and close it, because it was just so traumatic reliving a lot of those experiences again for me. And it would bring up a lot of memories and a lot of that trauma again. And it was just too hard for me to go complete. And then I hired and you may know this name, Maddie Murray from the Exceptional Leaders.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, yeah.

Vanessa Abraham: So she's a speech pathologist, and she helped me filter through all of my medical notes, because a lot of the medical notes, not only were they traumatizing for me to read again, but a lot of it I didn't quite understand because I'm not a medical based speech pathologist. I work in the schools. So she sat with me, held my hand through it, held my hand right through all the tears and the the fears and the worries and the anxiety I had over the book. And we launched this book in January, this of this year, 2025. And I can honestly say that once it launched, I felt so good that my story was out there and that hopefully my story will help other people that are going through the depression, the anxiety that everything, medical trauma that I have lived through. So the book can be found on Amazon. You can just go to Amazon and you can type in speechless. How a speech therapist lost her ability to speak and are silent, struggle to reclaim her voice in life. You could probably also type in speechless. Vanessa. Abraham.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Vanessa Abraham: And then again, yes, I am on LinkedIn. Vanessa Abraham I'm on Instagram. Speechless. Underscore SLP Facebook speechless SLP. And those are different social platforms that I'm currently on.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So this is all pretty new to me. So I might not have asked all the questions I should have asked. This is, are there other aspects or dynamics that you want to make sure that people become aware of?

Vanessa Abraham: No picks is my big piece that I like to talk about. I like to educate people about it. I like to talk to nurses, respiratory therapists, OT, PT, pharmacists, social workers and just educate people that this is real. This is a conversation that we need to be talking about. Social workers, upon discharge, can have these conversations with their loved ones and saying, look.

Dr. Kirk Adams: There's this thing.

Vanessa Abraham: Yes, there is this thing. And when your loved one comes home, they may have confusion, they may.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Be.

Vanessa Abraham: Disoriented, they may be profoundly depressed. Get them therapy. It's okay. Go to therapy as a family, as a couple. Because people don't realize that you come home and you are you are really changed person.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And it's Post-intensive care syndrome, correct?

Vanessa Abraham: Yeah. Post-intensive care syndrome or Pic. You can go to ICU delirium. That's another good website.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Vanessa Abraham: A wealth of information on that website as well.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Icu delirium.com.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Dot com. Great. Well this has been super enlightening for me. Vanessa I really appreciate your time and your care and your intentionality about what you're doing with the experience you had to help other people, which is a beautiful thing. If people want to get in touch with me, I have a website which is just Dr. Kirk adams.com. So doctor Kirk adams.com, you can find me there. Sign up for the newsletter on LinkedIn. I am Kirk Adams, PhD and I trust you all learned a lot today on podcast by Doctor Kirk Adams. And we will see you next time.

Vanessa Abraham: Thank you.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Thanks, Vanessa.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. We hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Don't forget to subscribe, share or leave a review at WW. Together, we can amplify these voices and create positive change. Until next time, keep listening, keep learning and keep making an impact.

Here Dr. Kirk Adams frames disability inclusion as a hiring advantage powered by one national door and local execution. He spotlights CSAVR's National Employment Team (NET), led by Kathleen West-Evans, as a single gateway into every state and territorial public VR agency, with TAP (the Talent Acquisition Portal) and on-the-ground VR specialists turning postings into interviews, OJT, accommodations, and retention. The article walks leaders through why inclusion breaks at the national-to-local seam, how the NET's "one company" model fixes it, and where the ROI shows up—shorter time-to-fill, stronger 90/180-day retention, and reduced compliance risk. Case patterns from Hyatt (1,000+ trainees), Microsoft (dozens of hires), CVS Health (hundreds of hires), and Kwik Trip (300+ hires across 600+ stores) demonstrate repeatable designs: employer-built curricula, alternative assessments, role redesign, and national agreements executed locally.

He closes with a six-step playbook (name a national sponsor, execute a NET agreement, activate state POCs, instrument training/OJT, pre-plan retention, measure and scale), rebuts common objections ("we already have job boards," "accommodations are costly," "multi-state is messy"), and shows how to integrate the NET into ATS, accessibility roadmaps, workforce pipelines, and governance. Compliance is the floor; performance is the flywheel. The invitation: join the September 25 LinkedIn Live with West-Evans, bring one stubborn multi-state requisition and a draft KPI set, and leave with a 90-day plan to pilot the NET in two regions—because inclusion isn't charity; it's recruiting math at enterprise scale.

TRANSCRIPT

Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, doctor Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Hello, everybody. This is Doctor Kirk Adams talking to you from my home office in sunny Seattle, Washington. And this is my monthly live streamed webinar, which I call Supercharge Your Bottom Line through Disability Inclusion. And today we have an expert in the area of disability inclusion and employment, Kathy West-Evans, my dear, dear, long time friend and colleague. Say, say. Say. Hi, Kathy. I'll be back to you in a minute.

Kathy West-Evans: Okay. Hi, this is Kathy West-Evans, and I'm joining you from east of Seattle. A long time partner of Kirkson. Thank you for having the conversation today, Kirk. We both know that this we we supercharge the bottom line working as a team. So thank you.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's right. So I just wanted to reflect a little bit. So Kathy is involved in the vocational rehabilitation system which is a powerful engine for disability inclusion and employment. She'll be talking to us about how the vocational rehabilitation system works and how they work with employers and all of the resources they can bring to the table to assist people with disabilities and and their employers make successful employment outcomes. But I when I was at the American Foundation for the blind. So I am the immediate past president of AFB, and I was privileged to hold those roles in the same roles at the Lighthouse for the blind, Inc., here in Seattle, where we employed hundreds of blind and deaf blind people in various business activities, including aerospace manufacturing, which was a lot of fun making parts for all the Boeing aircraft. But when I was at AFB, when we did our strategic plan, you know, we wanted to support blind children in education. We wanted to support older people who are visually impaired. Most people who are legally blind have become so as part of the aging process, not not lived their lives as a blind person as I have. But we really decided we wanted to focus on employment because only 35% of us with significant disabilities are in the workforce, and that's that's compared to 70% of the general population.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So as far as working age people in our country, about 70% are working. And in the folks with significant disabilities, only about 35% of us. So half. And for the official unemployment rate, people seeking work. The Bureau of Labor Statistics if it's 4% for the general population, it will be 8% for us who are actively seeking work. So how you slice it, our outcomes and employment are half as good or twice as bad as the general population. But in preparation for designing our employment related strategies, we did a literature review. We hired a brilliant blind researcher named Doctor Ariel Silverman. She did her doctoral work here in Seattle at the University of Washington, and now she is a head of research at AFB. But we we asked Ariel to do a literature review on employment, Unemployment, and she synthesized probably 120 different peer reviewed research based articles on employment and one. One statistic that really stood out for me that among those employers who formerly say some sort of statement that they are inclusive of hiring people with disabilities or proactively seeking to hire more people with disabilities, less than 10% were connected with our vocational rehabilitation system. It was 9.2% of the employers that said they want to hire disabilities were actually connected to our greatest resource for employing people with disabilities, which is our vocational rehabilitation system.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So I really want to turn turn the microphone over to Kathy and really ask you, Kathy, to talk about three things. And I'll I'll pop in with questions as they as they arise, as they occur to me. But I'd love it if you could tell our listeners and viewers describe the vocational rehabilitation system, how how it works, how funding works, how how federal funds flow to the states. We'd like you to talk about all of the resources that vocational rehabilitation can bring to the table in working with individuals with disabilities, seeking employment, and working with employers who want to successfully employ people with disabilities. So paint paint is the general VR picture. And then we'd love for you to talk about the national employment team. Was was happily joined you all in your two day summit over on the Microsoft campus earlier this month. So the national employment team is very fresh and current in my mind. And then the the talent acquisition portal, which is another powerful tool that people can use. So I'm going to I'm going to turn it over to you, Kathy. I'll pop. I'll pop back in with a question or two from time to time.

Kathy West-Evans: Good. Keep me on track, Kirk, because, you know, I get excited about this, this work and the work that we've done together. Yeah. So the Rehabilitation Act, which funds public vocational rehab. The acronym is VR. And no, it's not virtual reality. It's vocational rehabilitation. Who was funded in initially in 1920 because people recognized that disability happens. You could be born with a disability. You can acquire a disability at any time during your life, but your goals are the same employment, independence, living in your communities. And so that act was built around the person thinking about the whole person. So as Kirk well knows, Kirk and I work together supporting the employment of people who are deaf blind here in our Seattle community. You know, you've got to think of things like, if someone doesn't drive, how do they get to and from work? It seems simple to us in the field, but not always. Not always simple transportation systems, navigating everything. We work hard to do that. So it's thinking about the whole person. What are their goals? What are their skill sets, what are their career aspirations? And then looking and working with business to understand their their needs for talent as well as their needs to retain talent.

Kathy West-Evans: So this system is a federal, state funded system, roughly 80% federal, 20% state. It's 2070 8.7 and 21.3 state. So I'm not going to get into those details, but the program is decided, the structure of the program is decided at the state level. Understanding the states know their resources and know how to best support the success of the individual and the business. So we have 78 agencies. We're in every state, the territories and District of Columbia. And in some states, like here in Washington, we have two states because the state has decided to have a general agency, but also an agency that specializes in serving people who are blind or have vision loss. And that may be, again, in independent living, it could be in that career track. And there's also a program for individuals who are older, blind. Like Kirk says, we have an aging workforce and an aging population. And vision and hearing are two of the sensory functions that tend to be impacted by aging. So really looking at two things.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So you mentioned in our state we have two vocational rehabilitation agencies, one that focuses specifically on people who are blind and the other that addresses people with, with other disabilities. Now, some states only have one agency. I think it's something like 30 states have two and 20 have one, something like that. Yes.

Kathy West-Evans: Something like that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Correct. Yeah.

Kathy West-Evans: Yeah. And again it's decided at the state level understanding how they're structured. So like for example in California we have a combined agency okay.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And then the other thing I don't know if it was if it was at your summit or somewhere else, but I just recently heard the statistic that the fastest growing age group entering employment, people over 75.

Kathy West-Evans: Yes. So it's not just entering employment, Kirk, but I think staying employed. Okay. Right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. Right.

Kathy West-Evans: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Good. So as a you know again we're we're researchers here. So to statistics. So some like 16% of people over 65 years old have some sort of visual impairment some sort of low vision situation primarily. And then something like 23% of people over 85 have a visual impairment. So many, many, many people enter our community. Yes. Of legal blindness later in life.

Kathy West-Evans: Yes, yes. We talk about disability being the one community that you can hinder enter at any point in your life. Right. So yeah, it's, you know, life changes in an instant, right, Kirk. Right. It's like, as you know my brother had an accident at the time. He had his accident. He owned his own business. Now he's a quadriplegic with a traumatic brain injury. He he fell working on a building. And guess what? He's back working Because that's what he wanted. And living independently and driving and, and you know, I, I like to have people think, what would you want for yourself? Yeah, I think all of us want to have control of our life. Right?

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. I didn't mean to to derail you, but I just wanted to to talk about the fact that some states have one agency, some states have two. So if you're if you're in a, if you're in a two state state with two agencies, you you have double. Double the fun, double the people to talk to if you're an employer. But I'll get back to you.

Kathy West-Evans: Okay. But it's, you know, it's working together. And even if there are two separate agencies, then we work together. And that's the key thing, particularly when we're working with business. And I'll talk about that a little bit when we talk about the net and what we learn from the national employment team in our conversation with business. So but the vocational rehab system serves a wide range of individuals. So I'm glad you brought up the aging population, Kirk, because we're working with individuals who are transitioning from high school into their first career. And I think a key thing there is helping them understand the careers that are available and connecting them with, you know, what a career looks like from the perspective of a business and what you would need to do to enter that career and grow within it. So what's the appropriate training? What you know what? What will get the person the skill sets they need to be productive and and have the career of their choice. And we all know career a career is a journey, right, Kirk? You never you never end up where you think you're when you start. So you know, preparing people for that and supporting them in being successful. And then, you know, we serve people throughout the age range again to the aging population. Yes. Vision, hearing you know, mobility.

Kathy West-Evans: Several things happen when you age. I'm wearing a lovely pair of glasses, but they're there for a reason, right? So, you know, it's it's thinking about how you continue to help keep people successful. And we work with a lot of businesses where people have acquired a disability. They may have had an accident or an illness or an injury or it's the aging process. And then how do we keep them working? Because these are often very, very talented and experienced people in a workplace. So the businesses want to keep them working. So we have that wide range of services. We also work with veterans. And I want to bring this one up, Kirk, because a lot of people don't know this, but we support veterans who have acquired their disability after service. The Veterans Administration supports veterans who have a service connected disability. But we work together. Okay. And as I said, my brother had an accident, but he's a veteran, so he receives medical support from our Seattle VA, which has been wonderful. But his voc rehab services come from our public vocational rehab program. So again, you know, it's how you help connect the systems to support the success of the person. And each state looks differently. Does that. Kirk, did you have something you wanted to add there? Thinking?

Dr. Kirk Adams: No.

Kathy West-Evans: Oh, okay. Okay. So there are a wide range of services for the individual that's sitting down and building a plan with the person and thinking about what they need. And so we look at you know, I think a key thing is not to get stuck in the medical diagnosis, right? Because you don't want to make assumptions about what a person can or can't do. That's the biggest barrier that people face in the workplace. And the one that we need to really talk about more. Kirk, so I appreciate you having this podcast because it allows us to open that dialogue. Yeah. But it's building around the person. And and again, you know, it could be training. It could be, you know, going to a university, it could be an apprenticeship and internship online classes you know, actual work experience and building from there. We could be looking at.

Dr. Kirk Adams: People, and young people with disabilities can start receiving vocational related services. Is at age 14. Is that correct?

Kathy West-Evans: It can. Yes. Again, the the definition of youth varies state to state in terms of how long they may be covered. If they're if they've been if they're born with a disability or acquire a disability at a young age. So.

Dr. Kirk Adams: But we'd like to thank the Washington Department of Services for the blind, which was called Commission for the blind at the time. I went to graduated from Snohomish High School and went off to Whitman College in Walla Walla. Thank you for providing me with the cutting edge technology of the day, which was the IBM Selectric typewriter with the erase ribbon. So I was I was well equipped to head off to college with my slate and stylus to take notes during class in my Perkins brailler to recopy my notes and then to type my papers and tests. I had the amazing IBM Selectric provided to me by the Department of Services for the blind.

Kathy West-Evans: Yes, we have a great we have a great Department of Services for the blind here. Yes. Yeah. So and again, that's an example of setting someone up for success. And, and Kirk, look where you've gone with your career. I mean I see so many people in their career journey who are now in, you know, they're they're leading initiatives and leading the work that we do with business and partnering and really supporting businesses in being successful. And I think, you know, that's one of the key things we want to focus on is how we support talent and retention of that talent. So on the business side, what we did was, as I said, you know, I started my career here in Washington State, but I always had a connection with business and, and worked with people who were deaf, hard of hearing, deaf, blind. So that's where I connected with Kirk early on. And the the goal of the program, though, was really listening to business. And that's the experience that I carried to my role in vocational rehabilitation. And from there, we built a program working with business and started to connect around the country. And when we started connecting around the country, because you've got to think of 78 different agencies, 15,000 staff, you know. But those of us who are working with businesses started thinking, you know, we're working with the same business. How do we do this better? How do we do it in a more coordinated fashion? So it's not as confusing for the business. And we're really understanding what they need. And it's not just putting someone in a job. First job, any job. Right. It's helping with that career strategy.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And I've heard the term dual customer approach. Dual customer. You're you're serving two customers. You're serving the person with a disability who wants to be employed and live live their lives as a employed person earning a salary. And you also serve the business who needs to identify, attract, hire and retain talent?

Kathy West-Evans: Absolutely, absolutely. And so that's where we started having that conversation. And some of us got together nationally and said you know, it's great that we have all these national employment conferences. Why don't we invite business to them so we can really hear from the business partners. So 20 years ago the we had a group of 35 businesses join us. And that included CEOs. It included, you know, HR, it included floor level managers, federal agencies. It included a wide range small, large businesses from different geographic areas. And we asked them, we're building careers. You know, what careers look like. You know the talent you need. What do we need to do differently to support you as a customer? And we heard a few really key points. Number one, build the trust. We want to have an open dialogue about what this all means and how we can best be successful. Build the partnership and build the strategy with the company. So really listen. Right. Don't assume that you know what a company needs, but really listen and make it easy to find you because every one of your agencies has a different name, right? And who do I call and how can it if I'm a state that if I'm a company that has a multi-state presence, I don't want to reinvent the wheel in every location. How do I build a strategy that I can move across the footprint of my business? Right. So that's where we started building what we now call the National Employment team or the net. You'll notice we use the net because business said VR virtual reality. What is it?

Dr. Kirk Adams: So national employment team makes it pretty clear what you're doing. You're a team of people who focus on employment. So. Right.

Kathy West-Evans: Right. And supporting business as a customer. Right. So and again we have.

Dr. Kirk Adams: A wide range.

Kathy West-Evans: Of services.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. I just wanted to mention another study. So this is a this is what you're addressing at the net. So there there was a study. It's probably about 20 years old. But they asked vocational rehabilitation counselors what is the greatest barrier to you successfully finding employment opportunities for the people you serve? And they asked employers, what is the greatest barrier to you working with the vocational rehabilitation system. So they basically asked the same question what is the greatest barrier? The vocational rehabilitation counselor said employer attitudes and the employer said lack of understanding of our operational needs. So that is what you're addressing by actually actually talking to businesses and asking them what their operational needs are.

Kathy West-Evans: Yes, yes. So it's that, as you said earlier, we call it the dual customer strategy understanding we can build a plan with an individual, but that plan has to reflect what's needed in the workplace and building a plan with the with a company, but also understanding how we grow that plan across their footprint.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Could you give us a could you give us a real world example case study of a business that has partnered successfully with the vocational rehabilitation system and the net, and what the strategy look like? I know there's many.

Kathy West-Evans: There's over yeah, there's over 400. But you saw well, you saw some you saw some of them at the net summit. So yeah. Let's see. Which one would you like to start with? I mean, there was Microsoft, CVS, Walgreens. I mean, where do we want to go? Clean logic? Mclean industries.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, let's let's talk about McLean.

Kathy West-Evans: Mclean. Okay.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That was that was new to me, and it's huge. And I wasn't familiar with them until the person from McLean was present for both days of the summit.

Kathy West-Evans: Yes, and Jennifer is an incredible person. So Jennifer is the inclusion and belonging manager at McLean. Mclean is based in Texas, and it's a you know, anytime you go to an am PM mini mart, a Taco Bell you name it, they are the company that gets the food supplies to these these businesses.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right.

Kathy West-Evans: To be able to do their jobs.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I think she said.

Dr. Kirk Adams: They have 80 warehouse and distribution centers or something.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yes.

Kathy West-Evans: Absolutely. Yeah. So they look at food distribution. So the warehouse truck drivers, forklift drivers, a number of opportunities and needs within that company to keep that supply chain moving.

Kathy West-Evans: So our Texas team has done a great job building the partnership locally, but we've picked up and we're expanding. In addition to our national employment team, the VR system also supports training centers. So we have eight physical training centers around the country. And then several of our agencies for the blind have training centers. So looking at what are the skill sets that this company needs, right. Whether it's hands on, working in a warehouse, driving a truck, forklift customer service, inventory control, you name it. What skill sets the need? And how do we work with the company to build them?

Dr. Kirk Adams: And we can design training specifically to train people to to do the jobs that McClain needs to fill.

Kathy West-Evans: Yes. Yes, absolutely. So right now, Jennifer is working with some of our training centers, and we're looking at the certificate and Warehouse. Work where the forklift. Because, you know, you can't train someone to. Operate a forklift on the floor in a warehouse. Sure, a little tricky. So how do we how do we train someone and then transition them into the workplace? And again, working with that company. Cvs is another great example. And you heard about the training center that we've developed with them in Virginia. Cvs, their CEO was at that meeting 20 years ago to help us build the net, and they've been a partner since. And you know, they hire anywhere between 800 and 1000 people from us a year. And they had a they had a need. They have warehouses, they have retail. They had a real need for pharmacy techs because anytime you, you know, it's not just distributing pharmaceuticals in a retail pharmacy, but it's also now that we have the increase in in mail order pharmaceuticals, you still have to be a technician. You have to be trained and and certified in that skill set. So we started working with them to build a program. They now have a registered a registered apprenticeship program, and we feed talent into all of those. We have people that work in retail and then decide they want to be a pharmacy tech and go into that field. And again, our growing careers within that company. So again, an example of another long term partnership.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So just to restate so for for both McLean and CVS and the other 400 companies you're partnering with, you've gone in and carefully analyzed what their jobs are, what the job functions are, what skills are needed, what training is needed. In case some of them require certifications and the vocational rehabilitation system in your eight training centers, you have designed training specifically to prepare people to be successful in jobs at these particular companies. And so that's on that's on the menu of choice for people with disabilities who want to seek employment. And they become I don't know what the word is now client, consumer customer of vocational rehabilitation. And one of their choices might be to become a pharmacy technician for CVS. And if that is the career path they want, then they can be trained and certified. And that training and certification is funded and provided by the vocational rehabilitation system. That that a good summary.

Kathy West-Evans: Yeah. And I'd like to say, you know, when we're working with a business customer, think about it as taxpayer dollars back at work in the business. Right?

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Kathy West-Evans: We want to work with you to build your talent pipeline and to keep people working. And, you know, we're working with a people who want to go to work and they end up becoming taxpayers in this country. So that's right. You know.

Kathy West-Evans: Let's, let's, let's talk.

Dr. Kirk Adams: About all that the vocational rehabilitation system can bring to the table in supporting employers to successfully employ people with disabilities. I, I've seen instances where a salary was paid during an on the job training period or an internship. I've seen vocational rehabilitation teams come in and analyze a workplace and make recommendations for accommodations. I know personally when I first went to work out of college, I was I was provided with a refreshable Braille display by vocational rehabilitation because I needed it for that specific job. So tell tell us about all that vocational rehabilitation can do for for our employer community.

Kathy West-Evans: Well, first it's sitting down and listening to the business. And we learned early on in our conversation with business. Look at it as a business and not just an employer, because in order to understand how someone has a career path within a company, look at the bigger picture. And so HR is always part of that discussion. But you know, when you're working with companies like Weyerhaeuser, you're also looking at warehouse, you know, staff and supports and facilities managers, etc.. So it's looking at the whole scope of people within a company and the whole range of people that would be engaging in that hiring process and supporting the success of companies. So really looking there, looking at the skill sets that accompany, you know, the recruitment and retention strategy that you're using, and how can we get people into an existing pipeline or help build a pipeline? Disability awareness, just that, that initial dialogue of what is disability? There's a lot of confusion about that term and just really opening the dialogue and answering questions, because that attitudinal barrier continues to be one of the biggest challenges, because we don't talk about it, people are uncomfortable asking the questions.

Kathy West-Evans: Kirk. So we'll bring our team in. We'll sit down and have a discussion, and we really want people to feel comfortable. And with one of our company partners, we built a series over a period of time where there were questions by staff, you know, understanding that one out of four people in this country has a disability, and it's the population that any one of us can join at any time. What does that mean? Right. You know. And what does it mean to say you're blind? And is everyone who's blind? Can they not see well? No. Some people have usable levels of vision, and there are accommodations and, you know, assistive technology that supports all of us. So helping people understand that, I think is really helpful so that you take away that apprehension where people aren't making assumptions about what someone can and can't do. And that series went on to include, well, you know, we talk a lot about you know, deafness or hearing loss. We talk about ADHD, neurodiversities you know, a big growing topic. What does that mean?

Kathy West-Evans: So this was a, you know, just.

Dr. Kirk Adams: For the employer.

Kathy West-Evans: Yeah. And and yeah.

Kathy West-Evans: The staff at the company and they asked and they said, please bring in, you know, bring in people to talk with us about what this means. And so we worked collaboratively. Dsb and the Division of VOC Rehab here set up even set up opportunities for people to see what the assistive technology looks like.

Kathy West-Evans: You know, some people wanted to understand what does Braille mean, what does, you know, and then you demonstrate large print and how to change your font. And everyone uses it. Right? That's a accommodation that goes mainstream. It's good for everyone.

Kathy West-Evans: That's right.

Kathy West-Evans: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So you know, the when I work with clients, companies who want to employ people with disabilities, I do a discovery process and I basically do ethnographic research. I interview their key leaders and, you know, understand what their objectives are. And, and they usually have a really good intent and they usually think too narrowly. They for instance, one large manufacturer thought Facture thought, you know, I can have a corner of this warehouse and I can have some, you know, blind people doing some packaging.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Putting some stuff in boxes and putting labels on. And then we started talking about you could have a deaf person in it. You could have a wheelchair user in HR. Just think think that any, any job of these 2000 jobs that you have, a person with a person with a disability can do all of these jobs. So just to really broaden their thinking and taking people on field trips, I took that team to the Walgreens distribution center in Anderson, South Carolina.

Dr. Kirk Adams: About 40% of the employees are people with disabilities. And Doctor Jeffrey Moore and his team at Anderson University have tracked the data since they opened that center in 2007. So by any metric, it's it's their it's their best warehouse and distribution center in the Walgreens system as far as productivity and turnover and absenteeism and safety. Best safety record, best employee satisfaction, best customer perception, all those things. So to. To take people there to really broaden their thinking is one thing I do. And then the next thing I do is I call. Kathy West-Evans.

Kathy West-Evans: I say.

Dr. Kirk Adams: For instance, in a case like you mentioned clean logic earlier. So Isaac Shapiro.

Dr. Kirk Adams: One of the, the two co-founders of Clean Logic, his mother is blind, his business partner has a daughter who's autistic. And they sincerely wanted to hire people with disabilities. And they were doing so on their own. And they'd hired a number of blind people in their warehouse and distribution center near Philadelphia. And now they're onshoring their manufacturing into the same area, and they think they can hire up to 90 more people with disabilities there. And I called you and told you a little bit about Isaac and what they wanted to do there in Pennsylvania. And you connected them with the right resources in the vocational rehabilitation system. And now now they are full speed ahead on employing people with disabilities there at their company.

Kathy West-Evans: Absolutely, absolutely. Yes. And Audubon Pennsylvania had a chance to be there for the ribbon cutting. And it's it is quite amazing. And there's a wide range of people with and without disabilities working together and collaborating in their production. And, you know, he's their products are amazing. And the fact that they have Braille on every one of their products is you know, is it awesome? It sends a great message. But Isaac and Michael and their families are just really committed to helping people understand the skill sets.

Kathy West-Evans: Right?

Dr. Kirk Adams: So for employers out there, if you want to even explore the Or the possibility of being more inclusive of people with disabilities in your workforce. Get in touch with me, and I will put you in touch with Kathy. She will put you in touch with the resources in the state or states in which you operate. And I do I do want to mention that when I have these conversations with employers and we talk about the capabilities of people with disabilities, they're oftentimes employers have not really worked with people with apparent disabilities or don't really realize they're actually working with people with disabilities in, in their company already, because, yes, not 70% of disabilities are not apparent. And and not everyone discloses their, their disability. But we talk about the strengths, you know, living every day with a disability gives us ample opportunity to meet and overcome challenges. And that's the way we develop strengths and that's the way we learn. So we need to be creative problem solvers all the time. So we develop really unique skills there. We need to be creative. We need to be persistent. We need to be resilient. We need to be good communicators. We need to know how to work in teams. So people with disabilities have a oftentimes a very unique set of strengths that can really add to a workplace. So I do always want to emphasize that.

Kathy West-Evans: Well, Kirk, you talked about this.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Is not an act of charity. This is a strategic business lever that you can use to again, supercharge your bottom line.

Kathy West-Evans: Yeah.

Kathy West-Evans: And you talked about Walgreens and Randy Lewis, and we worked with them early on in Anderson. And you're absolutely right. More than 40% of that workforce are individuals with disabilities. Highest producing, lowest error rate, lowest turnover, highest safety rate. I mean, you could go on and on. And, you know, I think the key thing is it contributed to production. There was Randy, Joe Wendover, Deb Russell. You know, I could there's a whole host of great partners that have been connected with Walgreens, but their market share also went up, because if you think about in this country, one out of four people with a disability think about the individuals, but think about the families.

Kathy West-Evans: Yes.

Kathy West-Evans: And where do you want to do business? And you know that that business case particularly when you're you're serving and supporting family members, people are going to do business there. We choose in our family to do business with companies that support, you know, our population and our family member, whether we're traveling, grocery shopping, gas, whatever, we choose to support those companies.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So you have members of the national employment team in every state. So any employer in these great United States who wants to explore being more inclusive of people with disabilities can connect with the right resources in their state or states if they're if they're multiple. And you mentioned earlier, rather than reaching out to ten vocational rehabilitation agencies and ten states, a multi-state company can have one, one point of contact can, to help educate and build, build the strategy. And then the other thing I wanted to ask you about, which again needs to stop being a best kept secret is the talent acquisition portal of great resource. If you could talk to us about that.

Kathy West-Evans: Yes, yes. And I want to hit on some of the other services we provide as well.

Kathy West-Evans: Yes, yes.

Kathy West-Evans: But the the talent acquisition portal or tap, you see it's an easier acronym. Again, tap into talent, right? Yeah. When we started working with companies, the one question they had for us is where do we find the talent pool? Because we know in companies that there are a lot of people with disabilities already working there, but they haven't disclosed because they're afraid of how they would be seen by managers, coworkers, etc.. So you know, when we started seeing laws like the Ada in the Rehab Act, there's title five, which is section 503 for federal contractors. It was really about educating business. How do you help create a culture? How do you help create a pipeline where, you know, people with disabilities are coming into your workplace and create a culture within your workplace that supports them? So it was simple things like, you know, there was a lot of confusion with the Americans with Disabilities Act. What does this all mean? Well, one of the things that wasn't required, but that just made sense was just post notification, right? If you're a person with a disability and you're interviewing or working here and you have a need. Who do you ask? Right? Open up that dialogue and and help that person be successful to meet your needs. Well, you're supporting their needs. So the talent acquisition portal, what we found was we were looking at recruitment software and none of it was accessible.

Kathy West-Evans: So if we've got candidates who use Braille or, you know, large print or some other form of accessing information, you know, how do we, how do we build a portal that does that. And we ended up connecting with a disability managed nonprofit out of San Diego, disabled persons abled in capital letters. And they said, sure, let's build something together. So we brought in candidates, individuals with disabilities, we brought in business partners, we brought in a number of people and said, what do we need to do? And that's really how we grew the talent acquisition portal or Tap. And what we did was we put in a resume builder and businesses told us things like, well, you know, a lot of times people speak a second language, which could be a benefit, or they have a security clearance, which could be a benefit. Let us know. So we started building those pieces in. People can indicate their geographic preference. So if a business is looking for a candidate in a specific area they can search on that. Where is your availability? Where can you go to work? Maybe it's not even the state you're currently living in, but you're looking to relocate or would be open to relocate. So building in features like that and enabling the people who are coming onto the portal are invited by either a vocational rehab agency. We've partnered with the VA. So Veterans Readiness and Employment, their program. We've partnered with Social Security. So we have several employment networks. We've got 7500 staff that are referring candidates, and we have over 40,000 candidates on the portal.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So last number I heard was 28,000.

Kathy West-Evans: So yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You're growing by leaps and bounds.

Kathy West-Evans: It's growing by leaps and bounds.

Kathy West-Evans: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And 40,000 detailed resumes of people with disabilities who are eager to work and have the backing of the vocational rehabilitation system to help work, work with employers to make successful employment outcomes for those individuals.

Kathy West-Evans: Yes.

Kathy West-Evans: And the platform continues to grow. So as remote work started to become becoming more prevalent, we're able to, you know, put the features in where people can search for remote opportunities. And you know, so there's.

Kathy West-Evans: A lot of features.

Dr. Kirk Adams: It's yeah, if I'm if I'm an employer listening to this, how do I, how do I get access to those 40,000 customers.

Kathy West-Evans: Well, you can contact Kirk or I or you could go on to w.w.w. Org.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And do I become a member, do I register, do I pay a fee?

Kathy West-Evans: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Employers access the resumes.

Kathy West-Evans: So for on the employer side, what you're going to be able to do is you'll, you'll be able to count the number of people who are applying for jobs. You'll you can use the platform to search. We host virtual events on the platform. Everyone coming in has voluntarily self disclosed that they're an individual with a disability. So if you're a federal contractor, you know that. But for a business reach out and connect with our partner at disabled persons. So either a micro Chris Corso, I'm going to call him out here and they will help you get set up. We looked at you know, the what we would need just to break even. We're both nonprofit organizations, so you can have an annual unlimited posting and a virtual career for for $7,500.

Kathy West-Evans: Wow.

Kathy West-Evans: So it's the least expensive tool on the market. Yeah. And and great talent. We've seen people have great opportunities and make great connections. And for individuals, they may not have ever known about those opportunities with a company. And for companies, you know, finding easy access to that talent pool and knowing that if they have supports, just ask. You know, I wanted to talk about, you know, when we're working with companies and and this brings us to mind you know, if a company has a question, we've gone out and done worksite assessments with companies. We'll look at, you know, how do you make a worksite more accessible? When we started working here in this state with T-Mobile. Kirk. That's a while ago. But when John Stanton was the CEO of T-Mobile, now he owns the Mariners. Go, Mariners.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Fellow Whitman College alumni.

Kathy West-Evans: There you go. There you go. So it's a small world, but, you know, one of the things that they looked at was you know, making phone packages more accessible. And how do we make our technology accessible so it doesn't leave people behind? So they were the first phone company that offered individuals who were deaf to have a, a text only package. You didn't have to buy voice. And, you know, it seemed logical because texting was an accommodation built for deaf people that's gone mainstream. So, you know, it's working with companies to look at those solutions for a workplace and finding that when you have find a solution for a workplace, it benefits everyone. Like if Randy probably shared with you the story at Walgreens, when they when you pick and pack in a warehouse, it's a quick process, right?

Kathy West-Evans: Right.

Kathy West-Evans: And they had little print up there for the name of the products. And one of the recommendations someone made was put a picture.

Kathy West-Evans: Yeah.

Kathy West-Evans: And guess what? It increased everyone's productivity. Right. It was easier to make that quick connection. So again it's it's how can we bring that expertise, whether it's assistive technology, a rehabilitation engineer, an OT or a PT, which we have on staff. How do we bring that that support to a company to really look at the accessibility and productivity of a workplace and how we can support that?

Kathy West-Evans: Right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So I think every good employer wants to provide their employees with the tools and the techniques and the training they need to be successful and productive in their job. And depending on a person's impairment, whether it be visual, hearing, mobility, cognitive there are tools, special special tools, techniques and technologies specifically designed to help us be as productive and successful as we can be in the workplace. So that's what vocational rehabilitation rehabilitation to do is come in, look at your jobs, look at the worksite, make recommendations of tools, technologies, techniques, training that you can put in place so that your employees with disabilities can thrive and be successful, productive employees.

Kathy West-Evans: Right. And you talked about, in addition to the consultation and support, the ability to really get people into the right training, supporting internships. Maybe on the job training. We've done that. We've worked with companies and have done internships and help support people that have, you know, they're just hired directly out of those internships into companies. And again, it's it's looking at the match.

Kathy West-Evans: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, Kathy, this time has flown by, as it always does when I get to visit with you. But want to let people know how to get in touch with you and the national employment team. So what's the best way for people to get in touch with you?

Kathy West-Evans: Well, we can give them our the email address. They can reach out to you. You know how to reach out to me, but Yeah, my email address is K West like north southeast.

Kathy West-Evans: Hyphen.

Kathy West-Evans: Evans Evans at CSR.

Kathy West-Evans: Org yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And I am Kirk Adams at Doctor Kirk Adams com. I'm also on LinkedIn. Every day Kirk Adams PhD on LinkedIn. And so please reach out to either Kathy or myself if you have any level of interest in understanding how you can supercharge your bottom line by being inclusive of people with disabilities in your workforce.

Kathy West-Evans: Yeah, we've got talent. Right, Kirk?

Kathy West-Evans: Absolutely.

Kathy West-Evans: And I'm on LinkedIn along with you.

Kathy West-Evans: So, you know.

Kathy West-Evans: If that's the easiest way. Let's get the talent.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Wonderful, wonderful. Thank you so much, Kathy. Looking forward to talking to you again very soon. And you enjoy the beautiful fall day here in sunny Seattle, Washington today.

Kathy West-Evans: Yeah.

Kathy West-Evans: Kirk, don't tell people it's sunny in Seattle.

Kathy West-Evans: Okay. It's raining. It's raining. Okay. All right. Take good care.

Kathy West-Evans: Thank you so much, Kirk. It's always great working with you. I appreciate your partnership.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Thanks. And we'll see you next month on my monthly live stream webinar, which is the last Thursday of every month at 11 a.m. Pacific time. Supercharge your bottom line disability inclusion.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. We hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Don't forget to subscribe, share or leave a review at WW. Com. Together we can amplify these voices and create positive change. Until next time, keep listening, keep learning and keep making an impact.

In this engaging episode, Dr. Kirk Adams sits down with Elizabeth Whitaker and Rachel Buchanan of Vispero to explore how AI and JAWS' 30-year legacy are converging to expand employment and independence for people who are blind or low vision. After Kirk shares a personal JAWS origin story from 1995, Liz and Rachel trace their own paths through VR and training, then introduce Freedom Scientific's new "Learn AI" series: live, first-Thursday-at-noon ET webinars that begin with fundamentals (terminology, prompting, hands-on practice) and progress to specific tools, ChatGPT in October, then Gemini and Copilot in November. Each session is archived with step-by-step exercises and resources, and early interest is strong with 900+ registrants for the kickoff.

They also preview FS Companion AI, built into JAWS/ZoomText 2025, which delivers up-to-date, task-level answers for JAWS, ZoomText, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and web navigation. The trio candidly addresses AI's fallibility and bias, underscoring the need for accurate, representative training data, while swapping pragmatic tips (e.g., using an iPhone's Action button for instant Voice Mode) and hinting at forthcoming features to streamline interaction with web pages and apps. The conversation closes with a shared commitment to evolve the series and tools so blind users can turn AI into a practical, competitive advantage at work.

TRANSCRIPT:

Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Doctor Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. I am Doctor Kirk Adams, talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And I don't use the doctor title too often, but I use it sometimes. And it's because I have a PhD in leadership and change from Antioch University and my dissertation is called Journeys Through Rough Country, an ethnographic study of blind adults successfully employed in large American corporations. So I talked to lots of cool blind people working at lots of companies that we all know and found out what their elements of success, were. First I asked them, why do you how do you identify success? What what what do you use as your criteria to say I am successful, employed, and everybody said money in one form or another, to have enough income to have economic independence and freedom and to be able to make decisions about how to spend the money they earned. Looking at the success factors, everyone talked about family and friends support. Many of them, talked about working on a team like a sports team or a choir when they were younger. Many of them talked about having a strong internal locus of control, a real sense that they could overcome obstacles, solve problems.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And many of them attributed that to some experiences when they were young, usually in the teen years, and often to do with outdoor experiences like horseback riding and rock climbing and downhill skiing and things like that. And before I get to the next success factor, I will say that they all expressed disappointment that things were so difficult still, that they were perhaps the only blind person who'd reached their level in their company, that they didn't see role models in the C-suite or on the board who were blind that they continually had to battle for accessibility and accommodations, and many cited instances in which their employers would make changes to systems without considering accessibility, rendering them unable to do their jobs. And another factor everybody talked about was accessibility, the need to master assistive technology and to be able to access systems. Which leads us to today's guests. And we have Rachel Buchanan and Elizabeth Whittaker with us today from Vispero. And say you say hi, Rachel and Elizabeth. Hi.

Elizabeth Whitaker: Hello. And thank you for having us.

Rachel Buchanan: Yeah, we're so happy to be here.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So for those who don't connect Vispero with JAWS. Vispero provides us with Job Access With Speech, JAWS, screen reading software. This is year 30. I am a proud, proud to say that I use JAWS version one.

Rachel Buchanan: Oh, wow.

Elizabeth Whitaker: Right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And what would that be? 1995. And.

Rachel Buchanan: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Working for the Seattle Public Library Foundation. And I had a refreshable braille display and JAWS. And I was able to do my job access systems, and and it's been it's been my constant daily companion ever since then. I have a daughter named Rachel who's 35, and she grew up she was born in 1990. So she's she's her, her, her JAWS as she grew up. And she told a story of she moved to the Bay area and she walked in to to connect with a friend of mine who was executive director of the World Institute on Disability. Nita. Aaron. And when she walked into the office, she heard JAWS. She said she went running in and said, I feel like I'm at home. I hear JAWS.

Elizabeth Whitaker: So she knew what that was. She recognized it right off.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's how important it is to our our family.

Rachel Buchanan: But yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I'm really, really excited today to hear about your AI learning training series. So I'm going to hand the microphone over to the two of you. I will reserve the right as podcast host to pop in with a question or two if you if you what you're most likely to do, say something that's over my head. Technically, I may have to ask for some clarification, but yeah.

Elizabeth Whitaker: As many questions as you want. Yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: In any case, the floor is yours.

Elizabeth Whitaker: All right, well, thank you for having us here. And I just wanted to mention something that you said that was really important, talking about success and how people view success. And I think that, you know, what we're able to do in our training department because that's, you know, we we create a lot of training events and training content. And what we're able to do in our training department is provide people with the skills and the tools that they need to be successful. And so it's great to be a part of that.

Rachel Buchanan: It definitely is. And this initiative kind of to look into AI and add to our training webinar series is because we already do our regular monthly training webinar was born because we just wanted to look at the way AI is going to impact the employment space for people who are blind and low vision, negatively or positively. Just because, you know, we all hear like, oh, it's going to take jobs. And in some cases it is, but also in other cases it's just going to change them. Right. So we want to dive into what that means. We've looked at a bunch of research from AFB. Thank goodness. They've they've already, you know, gotten into that space somewhat and turned over a few stones and done some research, but we've looked at a lot of that and landed on. You know, learning skills and embracing AI as a tool as part of that solution.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Before we dive into that, let's let's hear a little bit about the two of you. And how did you come to be involved in accessibility and disability inclusion and doing the work you do?

Elizabeth Whitaker: Sure. Okay. So I wasn't sure who was going to go first. So I'm Liz and I actually after graduating from college, I was looking for ways to learn more about technology because I knew, I mean, I'd been using it for quite some time, but I knew it was going to be very important in my career, whatever I did. And I also knew that it was really important to keep up with technology. So I started out by working in vocational rehabilitation in Arkansas, and after number a number of years working there as the Director of technology, I was able to come to Vispero, where I was able to create training on a more global level. So it was very exciting in that aspect.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And are you are you a at user yourself?

Elizabeth Whitaker: Yes, I sure am. I use JAWS, I use Braille and all different types of technology because, you know, it's all about using the tools that we have available to us, and there are many tools out there. So I am definitely a longtime Jaws user and Braille user.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Cool. Me too.

Rachel Buchanan: And me as well. And I'm older than you are. Rachel by a handful of years and have been using JAWS for a good long time, but got into the blindness rehabilitation space and just love technology. So that was kind of where I fit best and just love to see people kind of rehabilitate after the vision loss process and get back to work. And so that I worked in that space for 15 years, almost before I came to Vispero. And now I'm here. I've been here since 2018.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Great. So we're all JAWS users?

Multiple Speakers: Yes, yes. Good.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Back to you. I just need to know a little bit about you, too.

Rachel Buchanan: Well, that was good. It was good. I kind of forgot that piece. So I said a little bit about background about the series. Liz, do you want to tell a little bit about what it is?

Elizabeth Whitaker: Absolutely. So one of the things that we talked about when creating this AI series, we do a lot of webinars. We do one a month. Well actually now two including this. But you know, since AI is constantly evolving, we wanted to create a series that we were going to be able to evolve with, and it was going to be something that was ongoing. And so when putting together the, you know, thinking about the webinars and the different topics we were going to cover, we thought, well, this is more than just webinars. This is going to be creating tools, creating resources, or showing people where to go get those resources. Because there are many different AI tools out there. There are many ways to use it. So we thought, well, why not build a website and have all of these different resources together in one place? And that's what we did. So if you go to Freedom Scientific Commons AI, there you will find several sections. It's all sectioned off into different headings. So there's a section there for upcoming webinars. And we currently have those listed through December. We're going to be adding more very soon. And so we started out by doing a couple of webinars. We started in August actually doing a couple of webinars to introduce people to AI and introduce them to the different concepts like prompting and the terminology that you need to know. Like, you know, what is a large language model? What are these different things that you hear about all the time in regards to AI. And then starting in October, we're actually moving on to specific AI tools. So in October, our webinar is going to be on ChatGPT.

Elizabeth Whitaker: Then we're going to move on in November to Gemini and Copilot and so forth. And so we hold these webinars the first Thursday of every month at noon eastern. So on that learned AI page, you'll find a heading there for our upcoming webinars. And then once we hold a webinar, we archive it there under a heading called lessons. So this is where you can go to listen to the webinars that we've already done. And in addition to that, we've also added the exercises that contain the tasks that we do in each webinar. So it goes right along with what we're talking about, all the different topics. It's all right there. You can go, you can read about it, you can practice and you can listen to those once again. And we do this because what we really want to do is create learning paths so that people if somebody comes to the site and they think, where, where do I start? I don't even know where to begin. It's going to show them the learning path to, you know, here's the introduction, here are the different tools. And then you have all your jumping off points that you can go to if you just want specific information. So you'll all find also find their resources, for example links to different AI tools, links to terminology. So you know, there's just a lot of different resources there. And we're going to keep building this page out so that it will contain more and more information and just give everyone a path to learn how to use AI.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I'm a hands on learner. I say. Reading. Reading a book about how to ride a bike is a lot different than actually trying to ride a bike. So I like to learn by doing so I'm intrigued. You mentioned there's hands on practical applications and those can't remember the exact term used, but but those hands on tactical doing steps that are outlined there in their archive there. So a person can sit with that and work with these various AI tools, with the guidance that you provide.

Rachel Buchanan: Yes. Because you're not.

Multiple Speakers: Going to.

Rachel Buchanan: Get the feel for it until you do it. And they all kind of react a little differently depending on depending on your input. And so we just want people to understand that these are a tool that you can have in your toolkit and learn to use. It doesn't have to be anything that you're intimidated by. And yeah, the practice exercises make it really handy. We're trying to make it very hands on so people don't feel that intimidation.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. So Liz and Rachel, do you two lead the webinars? Do you have a certain various people who lead various sections? What's what's the What's the vision there?

Elizabeth Whitaker: So we lead the webinars, but we are also going to be partnering with some people here in the very near future. More information to come on that very soon. And we what we what we do is we introduce the topics and then we talk about different terminology, different terms that people need to know for that particular webinar. And then we delve right into tasks. And these are the things these tasks are what we also create those exercises from. So if somebody listens to a webinar or we also transcribe them. So if somebody reads that transcription, whatever their preference is, and then they want to go back and practice those tasks, they have that those exercises to use. And it's taken right from that webinar.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And do people register in advance. How do people get connected? And for the first Thursday of every month at noon eastern.

Multiple Speakers: Yeah.

Elizabeth Whitaker: So they do they register. In fact, we had over 900 registrants for the first webinar, which was really exciting.

Multiple Speakers: That's awesome.

Elizabeth Whitaker: So it tells us, you know, people are really interested. They're engaged. Yeah. You just go register. In fact, on that page, there is a registration link for each upcoming webinar.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's freedom. I wrote it down. Freelance freedom, scientific comm slash learning.

Elizabeth Whitaker: I learn AI.

Multiple Speakers: Yes, learn. Okay, I'll take AI. I'll.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I just deleted the ING contraction. So. Got it.

Rachel Buchanan: There you go.

Multiple Speakers: Yeah.

Elizabeth Whitaker: So we're very excited. And we get a lot of comments in the chat about things that people during the webinars about things that people want to learn. You know, we've gotten a lot of feedback about where people are in their AI journey. And so this is our opportunity to help someone, no matter where they are in that journey.

Multiple Speakers: And where.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Are you at in your AI journey personally.

Multiple Speakers: Or professionally? I think we.

Elizabeth Whitaker: Both use it every day, right? But there's always a lot to learn. I feel like, you know.

Rachel Buchanan: Yeah, we.

Multiple Speakers: Use it a lot.

Rachel Buchanan: But we also I mean, it's definitely fallible, right? But we. Sure, we we use it a lot for, for different things. Maybe just brainstorming. What do you use it for most?

Elizabeth Whitaker: Liz I would say brainstorming, summarizing, analyzing writing prompts if I need help getting started with something. Yeah, but, you know, we also have other coworkers who taught us some really interesting ways to use it. You know, like getting AI to create prompts for you. If you're not, you know, sure how to create a prompt or things like that. So everyone always has something to bring to the table. I feel like.

Multiple Speakers: Yeah.

Rachel Buchanan: And analyzing data, it's just it's it's unmatched in that area when it comes to just looking at I look at our training page, our web page data on that topic, and it's very helpful to go through all of that. Those strings of numbers?

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, I use it. I'd say the most I use it for is to kind of complete do the last organizing and polishing of writing. So I'll open a word document if I, if I need to or want to write something about something, I'll just kind of do a stream of consciousness, write down what I want included not necessarily worry about the order or the flow and then, you know, put put it in a, a tool and say, please, please, please organize this. And then I'll take what they have and go through it again and edit it again. But it really helps with kind of organizing and putting things in logical sequence. If that's the type of writing, the type of academic writing that needs to be done, not not asking it to compose anything necessarily. So that works great. And then you know, putting I'll say Chit chat ChatGPT app on the phone and starting to learn voice mode. That's that's been a wonderful thing.

Multiple Speakers: Oh yeah.

Rachel Buchanan: Yes. My number one tip on that is that if you have one of the newer iPhones with the action button.

Rachel Buchanan: You can set that action button. Default goes straight to voice mode. And I just think that's so cool.

Multiple Speakers: Yeah.

Elizabeth Whitaker: Push a button and talk to it. Right.

Multiple Speakers: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I need to figure out I will figure out how to do that.

Rachel Buchanan: Yeah, it's very neat.

Multiple Speakers: And you know.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And then I do things like my wife needed to buy a new pair of shoes so fast. She wants to go to an outlet mall. What are what what's within an hour drive where she can get a good deal on some shoes.

Multiple Speakers: That's great for that deal.

Elizabeth Whitaker: They'll tell.

Multiple Speakers: You. It'll tell.

Elizabeth Whitaker: You. When you said something kind of that was really important that we talked about in our last webinar, which is you know, revising that you go back through and you look at what it did for, for writing, as far as, you know, you run it through, you tell it to ask it to organize, and then you go back through and revise. And we just did a complete webinar on creating prompts and then going back and reviewing and revising. So I like that you hit on that there.

Multiple Speakers: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well I have seen it say some outrageous things that I would never say.

Multiple Speakers: Yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Give some examples that are that I don't know that they actually really happened. So we'll, we'll make stuff up if it needs to fill in blanks.

Multiple Speakers: It can, but it's a.

Dr. Kirk Adams: It's an amazing tool as far as work goes. And for people who are blind and visually impaired, in particular, I think you mentioned there's kind of this fear that AI is going to take people's jobs away. I, I read something recently along the lines of it's, it's going to create jobs and enhance jobs for people who know how to use AI as a tool. So I know that's a large part of what you're doing.

Multiple Speakers: Right. Right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: But as far as accessibility I just want your thought on this so I know we're either of you at CSUN.

Multiple Speakers: Yes. You're both. Okay.

Rachel Buchanan: Both.

Multiple Speakers: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Me, too. Didn't next year, we'll

Multiple Speakers: Definitely Let's do it.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So it was all about images, right? Image description. Smart glasses. Everyone was very, very excited about having things just described to them. Visual, visual information. And you know, I was talking to some people who know a lot more about it than I do, and they basically said, well, it's that that that's very, very exciting. It's very, very cool. But next year it'll all be about AI and how to use AI to actually accomplish work functions as as an agent. So have you experienced admitted with that, or are you going to be talking about that in your learning series?

Elizabeth Whitaker: Yeah, I don't I don't know that we've experimented with that yet, but that is something that is coming and we will definitely be talking about that as as things evolve and we all know how fast AI has evolved just in the last year, year and a half. And it's going to keep evolving.

Multiple Speakers: So right. And so will.

Rachel Buchanan: Be training series. We're going to kind of evolve it based on we kind of have a roadmap for it, but it's going to change a little bit based on what comes out. And then we also have some features in like Jaws, fusion, Zoomtext coming out that are pretty cool, that are related to AI too, that you just made me think of.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So anything you can share or is it still secret?

Multiple Speakers: Well.

Rachel Buchanan: Were you at either of the summer shows?

Dr. Kirk Adams: I was not.

Rachel Buchanan: I think we can.

Multiple Speakers: Share share what.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You.

Multiple Speakers: Shared there.

Elizabeth Whitaker: Let's just say that it's going to enhance how you interact with web pages and.

Multiple Speakers: Apps.

Elizabeth Whitaker: In a way that is really, really interesting and helpful.

Rachel Buchanan: Right?

Dr. Kirk Adams: Fabulous.

Multiple Speakers: Yeah.

Rachel Buchanan: I think you'll.

Multiple Speakers: Really enjoy it.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. The other thing that came to mind and just your thoughts on it is, you know, they bias that can be built into large language models because the AI is based on data and the data is gathered through people using technology, people who are blind and people who have disabilities use technology less than people who don't have parents. So our data that represents our lived experience is underrepresented. And, you know, there were some early, early red flags around things like resumes being eliminated from employment processes because of gaps in employment, for instance. Or there was a, an instance where early autonomous vehicles autonomous vehicle did not recognize a woman in a wheelchair as a person. And there was a, you know, there was a death. So those are some pretty stark examples. But have you have you thought about that? Have you had dialogue about that? I'm really interested in perhaps understanding how we, as a community of people with disabilities could ameliorate that by making sure our data is represented proportionately, but any any thoughts?

Elizabeth Whitaker: I would say in terms of data, it's a matter of making sure that AI is trained on the correct data, making sure that all the information out there in whatever, whatever the topics are, that we want to make sure people are getting the right info about are correct. And just continuing to train AI on those topics and making sure that the information is kept up to date, I think is one of the biggest keys, you know, that we talk about. So and this is kind of along the same lines, but, you know, we have our FS companion, which is our AI learning tool for learning Jaws and Zoomtext and other applications. And so we are constantly ingesting the latest, most up to date information into it regarding not only our products, but for example, Microsoft or Google Workspace or other third party products as well, to make sure that when people look up the information, or maybe they want to know how to perform a certain task. They have that most up to date information and it's correct.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Can you tell me more about that learning tool?

Elizabeth Whitaker: Absolutely. So this was a tool that was built into Jaws and Zoomtext 2025. So it's built right into the software. So you can run it from Jaws. You can run it from Zoomtext or fusion, or you can go to Fssw companions II. And there you can just ask it questions. So if you want to ask, you know, what is the keyboard command to read a window title and JAWS? Or how do I magnify my screen in Zoomtext you can ask those questions. You can ask it questions about other applications like navigating web pages or using you know, for example, outlook. How do I create a signature and outlook, things like that. So you just go ask the questions, you can chat with it. It will give you those step by step instructions. And you can save those, you know, copy and paste them And get your information right there.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Just took another note FFS. Companion AI.

Multiple Speakers: Yes, so I.

Rachel Buchanan: Didn't realize this was set from 4 to 430. I have to jump. I have our new CEO calling me and I need to.

Multiple Speakers: Tell you better. You better.

Rachel Buchanan: I know.

Multiple Speakers: Okay, I'll stay on the jump to continue. Rachel. Goodbye, Rachel.

Rachel Buchanan: Yeah. Thank you so much.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I know we got a little bit of a late start, and we'd love to have you.

Multiple Speakers: Back as.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Things unfold with the learning series.

Rachel Buchanan: Yeah. Thank you so much. And, Liz, I know you can rock this. So thank you so much. Thanks to you guys. Later.

Multiple Speakers: Bye. Okay, thanks.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, Liz I've learned a lot. I'm very excited about the learning series. I'm happy to share information about it, which we'll do through this podcast. And and we'll do a blog post about it. Great. But if you could just give a give a closing summary of the learning series and how again re repeat how people can connect and register.

Multiple Speakers: Sure.

Elizabeth Whitaker: So you can get everything you need by going to Freedom Scientific AI. And there you'll find everything that is included in this series, which is based around our monthly webinars, which take place the first Thursday of every month at noon eastern. You can register for those webinars. We archive them there. So those will every time we have a webinar, those will be archived right there on that page. You can go back and listen to them. We include practice exercises taken straight from the tasks that we demonstrate in the webinars. So you'll be able to go back and practice everything that we talked about. And we also provide some helpful resources there for your AI journey. So everything you need to know can be found at Freedom Scientific AI. And if you have any questions or you need help registering. Send an email to training at dot com and Vespera is Victor India Sierra Papa echo Romeo Oscar. It's training at Vispero.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Com terrific. Well thank you. Our guest today have been Liz Whitaker and Rachel Buchanan from Vispero, the makers of JAWS 30th year anniversary. There was a big huge inflatable shark at CSUN in.

Multiple Speakers: Celebration of.

Dr. Kirk Adams: The 30 years.

Multiple Speakers: Yes, which.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Was a lot of fun. Yeah, I've been a 30 year JAWS user. I love what you all are doing and how you work hard to keep up with the times and the evolving technologies. So people such as you and I, Liz and Rachel, who are blind or visually impaired can fully participate in all aspects of society. And I'm just really pleased to have you and want to have you back again?

Elizabeth Whitaker: Thank you. We'd love to come back. And thank you for everything that you do.

Multiple Speakers: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And I'm Doctor Kirk Adams. If you want to get in touch with me, email Kirk Adams at Kirk adams.com. Find me on LinkedIn. Kirk Adams, PhD. Thanks for tuning in to podcast with Doctor Kirk Adams and see you next time.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. We hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Don't forget to subscribe, share or leave a review at WW. Com. Together we can amplify these voices and create positive change. Until next time, keep listening, keep learning and keep making an impact.

In this engaging episode, Dr. Kirk Adams sits down with Paolo Gaudiano, Founder & Chief Scientist at Aleria to unpack how measuring day-to-day workplace experiences, rather than headcounts or vague culture scores, translates inclusion into business outcomes. Gaudiano traces his path from computational neuroscience and complexity modeling to a 2015 "lightbulb moment" that led him to build simulations and tools showing how inclusion lifts productivity and retention, and how focusing on diversity alone can spark backlash. He outlines the premise of his 2024 book Measuring Inclusion: Higher Profits and Happier People, Without Guesswork or Backlash, and makes the practical case for aligning inclusion with financial performance rather than sentiment.

Together they dig into method and evidence: an anonymous platform that captures specific incidents interfering with success, tagged by experience categories (e.g., respect, advancement, compensation) and sources (policy, leadership, managers, peers, clients), then linked to satisfaction, productivity, and attrition, quantified with an "impact calculator." They explore turnover and productivity costs (from months of salary at entry level to years at senior ranks), human-factor risks in cybersecurity, and simple fixes (structured reviews, better meetings) that benefit everyone, often disproportionately helping disabled employees and women. Adams adds historical data points (DuPont; Walgreens) and closes with ways to engage Gaudiano's work (Aleria, LinkedIn, TED talk), a limited-time $0.99 Kindle promotion for the book, and a promise to reconvene for a part two on building true meritocracies.

TRANSCRIPT:

Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, doctor Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to Supercharge Your Bottom Line through Disability Inclusion, which is my live streamed webinar that I joyfully host every month. I am Doctor Kirk Adams, talking to you from my home office in Seattle. And really, the premise of this monthly session is how can organizations become better, stronger, more aligned with their missions and their values and their objectives by being intentionally inclusive of people with disabilities in their workforce, which falls under the umbrella of inclusion writ large. And today I am thrilled. I'll use that word thrilled to have Paolo Gaudiano with us. He's the chief scientist for Illyria. I became aware of Illyria when I was in my role as president and CEO at the American Foundation for the blind, and a blind friend and colleague, Sara Minkara, invited me to attend a virtual event that Illyria was hosting. And I signed up for the newsletter. And I've read faithfully ever since. And what what Paolo focuses on is measuring inclusion and creating true meritocracy. And I've been thinking a lot about meritocracy this year. Really catalyzed early in the year with the terrible mid-air collision between the military helicopter and a domestic airline flight over the Potomac. And some statements by President Trump in the immediate aftermath, really linking the accident to the fact that the Federal Aviation Administration was intentionally inclusive of people with disabilities in their applicant pool and making a pretty, pretty jarring connection between disability and incompetence. And the conversations I often have with employers center around how people develop strengths. And we develop strengths as human beings by overcoming challenges and living every day with a with an impairment or impairments which places a disabling situations allows us a blind person such as myself, a person with a significant disability to develop some really unique strengths in areas that are are great assets and a wonderful characteristics that people with disabilities can bring to an organization through being employed.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So when I read the Aleria newsletter and I read about creating true meritocracies and how to measure the impacts of inclusion there's a lot of resonance with me. And I had a chance to get on a call with Powell earlier in the year and, and talk to him about some of his, his prescient thinking several years ago about the, current backlash attack on Di, which which he saw coming, and the way that Paolo and Aleria are approaching, creating inclusive environments for the betterment of all, for the betterment of society. So I'm just I'm thrilled to have you with us, Paolo. I'd really like to hand you the talking stick, and you can take this conversation wherever, wherever it may lead you. And I happily chime in with a question or two as they arise to me, and then we'll give folks who are have joined us live an opportunity to ask questions, and then we'll, we'll let those who are viewing the recording know how best to get in touch with both of us toward the end. So, Paolo, I'm so glad you're with us here today. I've been anxiously awaiting this opportunity to learn from you.

Paolo Gaudiano: Thank you. Kirk. It's first of all, it's a real pleasure and honor to be here on the show with you. I I wish that I could say that I'd known you for all these years. I only found out about your work recently and found it to be quite amazing and inspiring. I am grateful to Sarah. Sarah is an amazing person. I attended one event that she did. That really the way that she talks about disability, the way that she essentially lives out what it means to be a person with a disability and yet to be able to be contributing to society in amazing ways was was quite an inspiration. So I'm particularly grateful that you made that connection through her. And I just want to start out by again, thank you, first of all, for an amazing introduction. It was it was quite, you know, quite heartwarming to hear all these wonderful, very positive comments from you. And I hope that I live up to that expectation now. I kind of feel like maybe I should just stop here and say goodbye and, you know, let your you know, your introduction work as a kind of the core of the show. But I do like to start out. I always like to acknowledge for those of you that are only listening, or for those of you that are not able to see me, I am a white man. I'm in my 60s. I like to joke that I look like I'm in my 30s, but I'm, you know, white hair. Well, let's call it gray hair and.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I call mine silver.

Paolo Gaudiano: But there you go. Mine. Mine is maybe slightly less silver than yours, but very cool. Thank you. And the I always like to point that out because I often when I, when I give presentations, I start by jokingly referring to myself as the white elephant in the room. And I have not only my white and male, but I happen to be cisgender heterosexual. I do not have any permanent disabilities. And I, you know, people wonder, what am I doing in diversity, equity and inclusion? And I'd like to briefly tell about the history of how I came into this space, which is a space that I've now been working in for ten years or so. Since 2015. I had actually been interested in Dei on the personal level, and I first became aware of some of the what I thought were very strange things in the United States when I first came here as a teenager, and I was from Italy, my native Italy, and I was exposed to some situations that made me realize that there was some very odd ways that people in this country behaved when it came to racial if you will, tensions. And so I was always interested in that. I was intrigued by the fact that there were people that were being mistreated because of their gender, their race, their sexual orientation, their disabilities.

Paolo Gaudiano: I always felt that that was wrong. And I felt that, you know, intuitively, it seemed wrong to me. But I always felt like, you know, what can I do? I'm not an activist. I'm just a white dude. And I would go to conference sessions on, you know, how do you get more people with disabilities into leadership roles or how do you, you know, create greater employment opportunities? Or how do you get more women into into more, you know, higher managerial roles? And I was always kind of struck by the difference between the individual experiences that people shared of things that happened to them because of their personal characteristics, and when it came to solutions They were talking about very vague, general things that we talk about things like, you know, how do we dismantle systemic racism? You know, how do we change the hearts and minds of corporate America? And one day in 2015, as I was sitting there literally thinking, you know, how can somebody close that gap between the individual level experiences and what happens at the organizational level? I had a light bulb moment where I realized that the work that I had been doing for virtually my entire career had been focused on exactly that, on quantifying the link between individual elements in a system and what happens to the system as a whole.

Paolo Gaudiano: And that actually began as an undergraduate, and then later in my in my master's degree and my PhD, I studied the brain. I studied computational neuroscience, among other things, which was really about building computer simulations that would help us understand how circuits in the brain can somehow collectively combine the power of individual neurons, which by themselves are not particularly powerful devices. And yet when you combine them, you can do amazing things like speaking and hearing and learning and moving. And so I learned how to connect the individual to the collective in a quantitative way. And then later I was a professor for almost ten years. Then I became an entrepreneur where I applied those same ideas to understand at the next level up, how do you get a lot of people in an organization to contribute to the success of the organization, or people in a city, or whether it's maybe it's a team or sports teams or, or highway, you know, drivers, you know, how do they contribute to traffic jams? And so when I started to get into Dei, it was because I thought that there may be an opportunity to quantify the benefit that companies would get by treating all their employees better. And I saw that as an opportunity. I got very excited. As I said, this was in 2015. I literally dropped everything else that I was doing and started to build some of these computer simulations and proved to myself very quickly that I was onto something exciting.

Paolo Gaudiano: And in particular, what excited me was that I always felt that even though I firmly believe in fairness and justice and I don't like I don't like inequalities. I don't like disparities that are to me, senseless. I also realize that for most corporate leaders, they are ultimately judged on how much money they make and whether or not you like it. I think they're trying to convince people that they should do the right thing is a dangerous thing to do, because even if they agree with you, the moment that there is a change in in the political headwinds or in the case, like in the last few months or several months, it's more like a tornado in the opposite direction. The fact is that people will kind of give up on any notions of doing the right thing if it's not aligned with their financial needs. And so I saw an opportunity to help individual organizations figure out how can you make more money by making your people happier. And so the first book that I wrote in 2024, which was the result of having worked for several years and developed this unique way of measuring inclusion, specifically has the title.

Paolo Gaudiano: So the title is Measuring inclusion and the subtitle is Higher Profits and Happier People. And then it says also without guesswork or backlash. And and I will say, since you talked about by being a bit prescient, I want to talk about the the reason why I specifically talked about not just higher profits and happier people, but also the guesswork and the backlash. So so the guesswork. And I was very adamant about including that in the subtitle, was to acknowledge the fact that this was not about, oh, let's try to do something. Let's sprinkle some magic dust and let's see what wonderful things will happen. It's really about building, essentially tools and collecting data that helps you to make very, very careful and very wise decisions that will actually help you without having to do a lot of guesswork. The backlash was because as you as you mentioned in passing during the introduction as early as 2018. So after a few years of working in this space, I had come to the conclusion that the single minded focus on diversity as the primary, if not the only yardstick to measure progress and to and to determine how companies were doing. I saw that as a as a really big mistake because I, I saw I had the realization that diversity is really kind of a state of being.

Paolo Gaudiano: It's the outcome of everything that happens in the company. And trying to fix diversity directly is a mistake. It's a little bit like walking in a cold house in the winter and deciding that you want to make the house warmer. You look at the thermostat, it says 50 degrees, so you light a match under the thermostat. Well, in the meantime, you know, the windows are drafty and the front door is wide open, the roof is leaking, and you might burn the house down. And unfortunately, that's exactly what happened. You know, I wrote an article in 2018, you know, in April of 2018, it was more than two years before before the murder of George Floyd. And we just said specifically, if companies continue to focus on diversity alone, it will cause backlash from white men complaining about reverse discrimination. And it may spread to other parts of society like affirmative action. And it's the only time in my life that I've actually made a prediction that came out to be correct. And unfortunately, unfortunately, it was a grim prediction. And and it was quite correct. So. So let me stop there. I know I threw a lot of material at you, but but I'd love to hear your thoughts and maybe any questions or comments that you have or things that you want me to touch up on?

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. So there's a little bit of data around disability inclusion. There's not there's not a lot as far as bottom line results go. So DuPont did a longitudinal study for several decades tracking the performance of their employees, self-identified as disabled. So things like you know, lower absenteeism, lower turnover and better safety records and things like that. And then Anderson University in Anderson, South Carolina, doctor Jeffrey Moore and his PhD students for the past 17, 18 years have been tracking data from the Walgreens warehouse and distribution center there, which employs about 40% of their workforce. 40% of their the 550 employees are people with disabilities, primarily developmental disabilities, and they've tracked the positive business results. Again lower absenteeism, lower turnover, better safety record, better employee satisfaction, better customer perception. Better productivity. Those those things. But there's there's not a lot data to to support my, my ongoing conversations that people can improve their business results if they're more inclusive of people with the unique skills and strengths developed through living with disability. So you talk about measuring inclusion and you talked about the motivations around you put it very clearly making money. So could you talk a little bit about how we do that? How do we measure the impacts of of being inclusive in And organizations.

Paolo Gaudiano: Yeah. And actually, you I want to sort of build on something that you said, you know, when you were talking about the studies and you pointed out that there are not a lot of studies specifically that look at the financial benefits or the or the benefits of disabilities in particular. But the reality is that there is there is an interesting phenomenon, which is that I would argue that there are many aspects of work in general where often you see companies that are doing the right thing and they see positive results, and yet other people don't do it. And you kind of wonder why. And I think the reality is that when you see that something is happening in another company, you don't really know how that's going to translate into your own space. Right? Every company is like a unique ecosystem. And there's this fear that, well, just because it worked for this particular company, just because it worked for Walgreens, while my environment is different and my equipment is different and my culture is different, and I've seen that in other spaces, I've been working on a project that has to do with creating better working conditions for frontline workers. And there are some phenomenal examples of of work that shows real world case studies that show that if you treat your frontline workers better, they will actually not only outperform, but they create a superior financial return for your company. And yet people don't do it. And so I think that there is a there's a first observation, which is that it's maybe related to identity and whether, you know, does it have to do with disability.

Paolo Gaudiano: Does it have to do with race and ethnicity or gender or sexual orientation? But I think there's just a universal problem. And that was really sort of the key of what I, what I found when I was doing my research is that I found a way to go to a specific company and do two things. You know, one of them helped them to understand not just the fact that there are some people that are less satisfied or feel less included than others, but to help them understand exactly what is happening, what are the experiences, the very specific day to day experiences that happen in the workplace that cause them to be less satisfied, that cause them to be less included or feel less included, cause them to have less of a sense of belonging. And then I also was able to argue in a way very similar to what you said. I can basically show how if you have groups of people in your organization that are less satisfied than other groups. And we can show through our data that what we measure as inclusion. And I can come back and explain how we do that. But what we measure as inclusion is very, very highly correlated to self-reported satisfaction. So it's all of the factors that ultimately make you feel in the morning, like either you just don't want to get out of bed and you would rather, you know, stay home or conversely, make you skip out of bed because you're so excited about going to work.

Paolo Gaudiano: But so anyway, so what I, what I was able to do is to show how those factors of the level of satisfaction impacts the bottom line of a company through primarily through two pathways, if you will. You know, and you kind of hinted at them already. One of them is through productivity. If you have and and and productivity in its many facets, it could be absenteeism, but it could also be quality of work. It could be how many widgets you're creating at an hour, how many clients you're supporting in your sales department and things of that sort. But really, any level of productivity and those impact your top line. If you have people in your organization that are producing less than they could be, simply because they're not being treated the same way as another group, you're losing money. And then on top of that, if these people are less satisfied, we know that they will also depart. They're more likely to leave the company. Right. And and in fact, it's universally known that companies that have low levels of diversity take take any identity group. And you will find that if their level of diversity is low, that's always accompanied by lower levels of retention. And so you can actually put numbers on that. And we built a little calculator that's on our website where a company can enter the size of their workforce, they can enter their top line revenues, they can enter a couple of other very simple aspects of their business. And we can do a ballpark estimation of how much money they're losing today invisibly, simply because of the fact that they're treating some or they're allowing the experiences of some people in their organization to be less than the experience of other people.

Paolo Gaudiano: And I want to just ask people to reflect about this for a moment. I think that one of the profound problems that I've had with the way that Dei has been pitched, and I think that one of the reasons for the backlash is that you get these somewhat vague promises of improvements, if only you become more diverse, and then you find that becoming diverse is incredibly difficult, and you don't see any, any financial direct financial impacts, and you get people that get pissed off about it. And now all of a sudden, you have more people in your company that are dissatisfied, and that unfortunately creates a lot of problems. Whereas the way that we look at it is to say, you are losing money right now, you're being inefficient and you're doing it by not applying the same practices, policies and processes to all of your employees. And so we're not asking you to sprinkle again this magic diversity dust and things will get better. We're saying we're going to help you spot where you're losing money. It's like we're going to help you find those drafty windows and that open front door and maybe that furnace that is not burning very efficiently. And we will help you to save money doing something that you already know how to do. And that is much, much.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Let me ask. So is is the most obvious financial driver of not being inclusive? Is is it turnover? Is it the cost of recruiting, recruiting, retraining, bringing on I would say inefficiencies of that.

Paolo Gaudiano: Yeah. There's so in our calculations we see that depending on the type of company and on the type of of workers, etc., the loss of productivity and the loss of, of retention are fairly even. You know, if you're losing a, you know, according to Gallup and other sources, if you're losing a entry level worker, it may cost you anywhere between 3 to 6 months of their salary to rehire them and retrain them. If you lose a senior executive, it could be a year and a half or two worth of the salary. So. So there is a bit of a it's not an even formula. But you know, on the other hand, in terms of productivity and productivity too, because in some organizations the level of productivity of an employee and again, it depends on the type of organization, the type of employee, etc. in some cases it's very directly tied to revenue. So if you're talking about a company that has large sales force, for example, well, if you have 20% of your sales force that is producing 20% less, that would be 4% lower revenue. If my math is right, 22.2 times two you're losing 4% of your revenues, right? So so in some cases it's one, in some cases it's the other. And there's actually other factors too. We did a project for a an organization in cybersecurity. They're a called the Women in Cybersecurity or ISIS.

Paolo Gaudiano: And we did a study in which we basically hypothesized or not hypothesized, but we know, for example, that cybersecurity incidents very often depend on human error. So we built another version of the calculator where we kind of estimate the increased probability of a cybersecurity breach as a result of the fact that some of your people are less satisfied. And we did it by looking at research that shows that, yes, in fact, a lot of problems arise from, you know, you got caught by a phishing scam because you were tired, or maybe you're a member of the cybersecurity team and somebody sent you an alert that there was a breach, but you were kind of cranky or tired, or you got home early and all of a sudden what could have been stopped very quickly becomes a major security breach that cost millions of dollars. And so virtually everything that an organization that an employee does in an organization can have an impact on the productivity of the organization. And satisfaction plays into almost everything that we do at work. Now, we think that productivity kind of as an umbrella term and retention are the two biggest ones, and we can put numbers on them that are very easy to verify. And the other ones, it kind of depends on the organization.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So that makes me think of quiet quitting and some experiences I had when I when I was placed in a leadership position in an organization that had gone through a long period of chaos financial stresses and strains and kind of the, the, the, the lethargy, I would say, of people who had been battered about within the organization doing, doing, doing the least, doing the minimum. So you know, that clear clearly a lot of dissatisfaction. Absolutely. With, with with the workplace, which resulted in you know, yeah, the opposite of spirited, active mutual support. Yeah.

Paolo Gaudiano: And and, you know, this is also another thing that, I mean, there are so many complexities that I think that people tend to sweep under the rug or overlook, you know, satisfaction. Satisfaction is is a Complex result of the combination of things that happen in the workplace, but also personal things. So if we're having problems with your marriage or your relationship, or you have a bad commute to get to work, you know all of those things might impact you. And then, of course, once you get to the workplace, if your manager is a jerk or if your reports are jerk to their manager or or if you don't have the resources that you need because you know their software does not have accessibility or, you know, whatever the case may be, all of those things contribute to your satisfaction. And, you know, people talk about, oh, you know, I'm less satisfied because I don't feel like I belong or I'm satisfied. I'm less satisfied because my company does not do meaningful work. But but what I try to tell people is that those are like elements of satisfaction. And what I really try to emphasize to people is that at the end of the day, why do you. I don't it's not very useful to do what companies do, which is to ask people about their level of satisfaction or their level of inclusion or the level of belonging, because you're again, you're you're asking about the thermostat.

Paolo Gaudiano: You want to know why do you not feel included. What are the very specific things that happen to you at work that make you feel excluded? What are the specific things that happen to you at work that interfere with your ability to do your work, to get promoted, to get compensated? And so one of the keys that we sort of the moments that we had is that inclusion itself is kind of invisible, right? I mean, we don't we don't experience inclusion. We tend to experience we tend to notice exclusion. It's a little bit like health. We tend we're less likely to notice that we are healthy, but we're more likely to notice that we are unhealthy. And so when we realize that, we thought, well, look, how do doctors treat people? Imagine you went to a doctor and they just said, on a scale of 1 to 10, how healthy do you feel? Right? Well, when we ask people on a scale of 1 to 10, how satisfied do you feel? That's that's exactly what we're doing. Or even better, one of my favorite ones, you know, a companies that ask about, you know, how would you rate the level of inclusivity of our culture? That's like going to a doctor that says, how would you rate the way that our that our hospital treats your patients, our patient or patients and then try to heal you based on that.

Paolo Gaudiano: It's like it doesn't work that way. Instead, you know what a doctor will do is they they want to understand, first of all, what kind of disease do you have? They want to understand sort of the symptoms, you know, is it something is it a vascular problem? Is it a muscular problem? Is it is it a whatever, you know, a psychological problem, whatever the case might be. And then they want to ask about so they want to know kind of the clusters of symptoms that you have. And then they want to know what are the causes. So if you go in and you say my arm hurts, they might say, well, did you bump it? Did you happen to it? You know, if your stomach hurts, did you eat something weird? Right. So what we recognize is that when, you know, when we think about the way that people live their day to day, we want to find out two things. We want to find out what are.

Paolo Gaudiano: So we ask them for specific experiences. And we have a platform where this is done in a completely psychologically safe environment. We don't know who they are. They're going on an online platform that is completely anonymous. We ask them if they want to optionally to share some basic demographic and work related information, but they can skip that. And then we say, tell us stories of specific things that happen to you in the workplace that interfered with your ability to succeed. And we're very careful. We don't want to load it by saying things that made you feel excluded, because different people may feel excluded by something that somebody else may not feel excluded by. So it's more things like, you know, you know, my manager has now postponed our next performance review by three months. Well, if you do that and you hear that a lot of people complain about that, and then you find that it's it happens to 60% of all women, but only 20% of the men, or it happens to 80% of people with disabilities, but it only happens to 10% of the people who do not identify as having disabilities, disabilities. Then you know that there is a lack of inclusion on the part of the organization. So I think of it as.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So, so exclusion being the opposite of inclusion. So you're you're asking for people to give stories examples, instances of why they have, why they personally have felt excluded. And that's qualitative research. So is is the feeling or the experiences of exclusion. Is that the key dynamic that you're exploring?

Paolo Gaudiano: Actually no. No. And I didn't explain myself very well. So we're very careful. We do not ask about the feeling of exclusion. And in fact, we don't ask to measure feelings or inclusion at all. We we're using to explain the idea. But what we talk about is the following. We say the inclusion that we care about is the inclusion from the point of view of the organization in the following sense. If you are allowing things to happen to people, they influence their workplace experiences differently because of their identity traits that have nothing to do with how they work. Then we're saying the organization is not inclusive, okay, the level of individuals, we just want to know. Tell us about things that interfered with your work. Right. So the qualitative aspect And as I said, if you if something is like I took my laptop to the IT department and it took them four weeks to fix it, that's not exclusion. But if you find that this company is systematically taking longer to fix the laptops of black people than white people, then it is a form of.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yes.

Paolo Gaudiano: You're the company, right? And so so the qualitative is that is the is the description. But then what we do is to go back to the medical analogy. We ask them for two bits of data. Actually three technically, but two primary ones. One of them is we say we have a list of what we call eight categories of experiences. And there are things like work life balance, compensation and benefits, career advancement recognition for your work. And so we asked them to identify which category most closely fits their experience. And then we also ask for the sources. And the sources in a typical company would be a policy or your leadership, your management, your peers, your reports, maybe your clients and other external entities. And then we also asked him about whether, hey, was this a one off incident or is this something that happens on a recurring basis? And the first two bits are the most important ones, because what we do is that as we collect data from several people in a company, we find the data immediately tells us, okay, this company has a big problem with respect, or this company has a big problem with compensation and benefits. And then we can look at.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Can you can you please restate the two, the two bits, the two most important bits.

Paolo Gaudiano: So let's say for example, we see in many companies a kind of experience that seems to be cited very often, especially by people who are not members of the majority, is what we call respect. And we're very specific about saying respect is literally either when somebody insults you or attacks you, or says negative things about you or makes an insensitive remark. Let's say somebody that makes a joke about people with disabilities, like, you know, a president of the United States accusing the, you know, the pilots or the air traffic controllers at DCA to have a disability, right? I mean, that would be an example of a of a clear lack of respect. And we find that unfortunately that's a category that in many, many, many companies especially we find in technology companies tends to be a problematic area. And then another area in some organizations, we find that compensation and benefits could be problematic. But in other compensation, in other places, we find that maybe career advancement could be a problem or recognition for your efforts could be a problem. And so the data tells you where to look. Like, where are you losing the most money? If I find that 40% of the people in my company complain about lack of respect and that has an impact on their satisfaction, then I want to then read. We read the comments. We don't provide the raw data to the clients because we want to preserve psychological safety. But we'll read the qualitative data, the descriptions, and kind of look and say, well, what is the biggest problem? And we find, oh, look, you know, there is a It's apparent that a lot of people, they go into meetings and they start talking about sports, and then they make bad jokes about people, and they never let some of the people grab the microphone and speak up.

Paolo Gaudiano: And if that's if that's the case, you can say, okay, well, here's what you can do. You can instate some policies that are going to essentially watch what happens in meetings and ensure that that better behaviors are are followed. You know, so and so the combination of the quantitative which tells you where to look, and then the qualitative which tells you what exactly are the problems that people are experiencing, give you much, much better data. And it gives you and it gives you an opportunity to focus on problems instead of focusing on identity buckets, which is a key key to the backlash. You know, we can drill down by identity, but we don't need to. And what we've always found is that the biggest problems will always impact people who come from, quote unquote, diverse backgrounds or non-majority backgrounds more than they impact the majority. So if you find a problem with the way the meetings are organized and run and you fix it, you're going to benefit a lot of people in the company. But you will particularly benefit women, people with disabilities, LGBT members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and so on and so forth. And so we kind of flipped that on its head and say, let's bucket the problems. Let's use the data to figure out what the problems are. Let's use the qualitative data to tell you what you need to fix. And then when you're doing that, you're not saying, oh, I'm going to do this for people with disabilities or for black people or for Hispanics or Latinos. I am fixing a big problem with a fair degree of confidence that it will have a disproportionate impact on the people that I was inadvertently excluding the most.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So let me let me talk about that. Inadvertently excluded for a second. So when you when you hear terms like dismantle institutional racism. Yes. Or eliminate institutional institutional barriers to disability inclusion. So these institutions were created and built and evolved and formed by people, and historically, certain groups had more power and influence in our society than others, disproportionately. And they're they're the groups of people that design these institutions, built these institutions, evolve these institutions. So I guess there's a difference between unconscious and conscious bias. But does that figure into your thinking? How how were these companies formed? What what's their history? Who who made these decisions that brought us to the point where we have these policies and practices and these, these, these behaviors that are either either reinforced or discouraged in an organization. Yeah, by the culture.

Paolo Gaudiano: Yeah. So so I want to be and this is, you know, my thinking about the individual level versus the kind of system level. And I notice in what you said, you do something that everybody does, which is that we mix and match in level things and company level things. And I think that that's one of the biggest problems that we have. Right? So

Dr. Kirk Adams: When say, say, say that I'm here to learn from you.

Paolo Gaudiano: So no, no, no, I appreciate it. So so.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So the mixing and matching.

Paolo Gaudiano: So the mixing.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And matching.

Paolo Gaudiano: So when we talk about, you know, you were talking about company, you know you started off by talking about people with power that create company, you know, in their thing. And then you talk about systemic, you know, company wide systemic discrimination. And then you talk about unconscious biases, which typically refer to individual behaviors or individual.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Paolo Gaudiano: And here's the thing. There are sometimes and by the way, I'm not at all an apologist. There are many situations in which the biases are not at all unconscious. In fact, I think those are the more dangerous ones. But there is a very big difference between what happens to an organization versus how an individual behaves. And very often in an organization, the things that happen are not necessarily because somebody decides to do something mean so. And what I tell people is the following. If I build a house for myself and let's say I have an opportunity to create a new home for me, I'm going to build a home that is going to be comfortable for me. Now, I'm not going to sit there and think about, like, every possible visitor that I might have in the next 20 years. And what about the people that might buy the house? After I pass away? I'm going to build a house that is comfortable for me. That doesn't mean that I'm being exclusive about it, but I may do some things where someone who is blind, or someone who has a mobility issue, or whatever the case might be, they may have a very difficult time in my house. Now, the problem that a lot of people don't realize and this is, you know, I talked about this idea of inclusion being invisible. I, I extend that analogy a little bit, and I hope you'll see where I'm going with this.

Paolo Gaudiano: Yeah. If you are a very healthy individual, you tend not to know anything about diseases. If you don't have a disability. Like one of the things that makes disability so difficult for so many people to wrap their heads around is that for those of us who do not have a permanent disability, it's incredibly difficult to understand what they are. We don't know the symptoms. We don't know what the disease. Sometimes I don't even know the names of some of the some of the health issues. And so what does that tell you? Well, it tells you that people who are healthy tend to not know what the disease is all about. They may not know how severe the symptoms are, and they surely are not qualified to heal people. Now inclusion works the same way. Okay. The people that are most included are the ones that are least aware of what exclusion means. They do not understand the severity of the symptoms, and they sure as hell are not qualified to fix the problems. But but whereas health can impact anyone in an organization who are the most included people, well, it's the typically white, often white male, cisgender, heterosexual men, you know, people with no disabilities who therefore are the ones that are the least able to see exclusion. They're the least able to understand the severity of it, and they're the least qualified to fix it. And the problem is that those people are making the decisions for everybody.

Paolo Gaudiano: And I can tell you that I've spoken to a lot of leaders who look like me, who are white, male, cisgender, etc. who would love to do the right thing, but they just don't know how. They don't have the data that tells them, you know, they hear complaints from people. But just because you hear complaints from people, it's very, very difficult to sort of think, oh, well, this must be a really serious problem. Maybe it's not a serious problem. Maybe it's just the person that is being whiny about it, right? Maybe it's the squeaky wheel problem. And so part of the mission of what I am trying to do is to give all leaders the visibility that they need so that they can actually make the right choices so they can say, hey, you know what? I've I've built a house that was designed for me. But as a result of being blind to the problems that I'm creating, it's costing me money. I'm making my house unwelcome, unwelcoming to a bunch of people, and I'm going to give them the data to understand who are the people that are being impacted and what can they do about it. And to me, this is, you know, when I hear people saying, oh, you know, the backlash is because white supremacy is trying to hold on to its power. We create these artificial concepts. But honestly, there are some people that I would describe as white supremacists who are clearly doing evil things.

Paolo Gaudiano: I happen to think that they're a tiny minority, but they're very good at manipulating the masses. But the large majority of the people that I know, and I deal with a lot of people who look like me, as I said, you know, they're not trying to be they're not trying to grab on to power. They're not trying to do anything evil. They're not trying to do anything differently than anybody else is doing. But it's just that by virtue of their their blindness, the lack of data and not being aware of the impact of what they're doing, they're just they don't know what to do. So so it's a very, very again, you know, I'm trying to avoid that confrontational like, you know, people talk about systemic racism or systemic biases. Here's a problem that I have with that. You hear a lot of times it's a circular definition okay. I was impacted because of systemic systemic disparities. Well, what was systemic disparity? Well, look at the number of people like me. There was fewer of them. Therefore there are systemic disparities. That proves that there is something, you know, you we create these definitions of these macroscopic, these emergent behaviors, and treat them as if they were something tangible that is actually, you know, like what is systemic racism? Is it like a bird that's sitting on a perch waiting for a person of color to go by? So what I try to do is I try to build kind of the causal links that go from, okay, this person is at work today, and she was insulted by her manager in a way that was completely inappropriate.

Paolo Gaudiano: Problem one. Problem two the company did not have a policy, did not have a process for the woman to report that problem. Or maybe they did not have a policy to manage it effectively. Problem three she was frustrated, didn't go to work for a couple of days, and when it was time for promotion, the manager gave her low marks because of the fact that she was not at work that one day. Right. So I need to understand what are all the pieces. And, you know, it might have been that maybe the manager was not a jerk. Maybe he was just in a bad mood himself that day because something happened at home, right? But whatever the case may be, it's the combination of the little day to day activities coupled with the lack of proper processes, policies and systems in the organization that eventually get amplified. And they lead to these massive disparities that we see. And so that's what I'm trying to and trying to kind of deconstruct that and understand the root causes, the root elements rather than trying to, you know, pointing fingers and talking about high level things like systemic biases.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right. So earlier you said something, a couple things either die or inclusion is hard or difficult. I believe the comment you made and then the other is it's hard for company A to envision how they can implement what company B has done because of different circumstances. So it sounds like your approach is to look at each organization, a company. What whatever organization you're looking at as an individual, unique set of dynamics. And to really look at experience at people's at real people's real experiences.

Paolo Gaudiano: Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And in some cases, we've worked with industry sectors. I mentioned cybersecurity earlier. We did essentially what we call a state of inclusion benchmark for the field of cybersecurity, where we had altogether about 1000 people that participated and shared data. And we were able to kind of do a mapping of kind of the state of inclusion of that particular field. But but the most valuable and that has some value. But but what's particularly valuable was the fact that then each company has its own data and can figure out what they are doing. And by the way, I think, Jeremy, I don't know if you were trying to ask a question or not. I I saw you come off mute for a second there, but.

Jeremy Grandstaff: Okay. Lots to unpack here. And obviously we don't have the time to get into it, so clearly I've already sent you a thing on LinkedIn. But I'm intrigued by your approach. There is a guy, and I will make the connection for you, if you wish. That publishes something called zip code Stories. And I really think he did such a great job of kind of taking it away from systematic racism. But talking about where do you come from and what does that impact? So I'm going to use myself as an example here. So I come from a very small town in Ohio, and when I was growing up, I had to depend on people to get places as a blind person and had all these, you know, challenges that were probably not things I would have faced had I lived in a city. Right. I could have grown up a little bit more independently, but my parents also told me that in order to get the life that I wanted and to be as independent as I wanted, I was going to have to be a smart guy. So when I applied to colleges, I was accepted at Cornell and I was accepted at Case Western, and I was also accepted at Bowling Green State University.

Jeremy Grandstaff: And I have to tell you, hello. Up until about four weeks ago, I always thought I'd chose Bowling Green because that's where I really wanted to be. But as I look back on it and have done a lot of work on me and choices that I've made throughout my life, I also discovered that the reason I chose Bowling Green was because I was afraid that the people at Case Western and the people at Cornell We're going to have way more money than I ever had, and I wasn't going to survive there. And I was more concerned about not being able to survive around people who had money than I should have been. Right. And so one of the things that I want to and again, I want to talk more about this, this is not me telling you you're wrong. Right. Because I'm not saying that I love your model and I want to learn more about it. But one of the things that I want to be very careful about is that we have to acknowledge that there are systematic challenges in the way things happen that do drive performance, experience and expectation. And I'll carry that just with another example.

Jeremy Grandstaff: I have been in a role where I was told that the expectation of me was that I was going to have to learn how to work for no money or the expectation of me was as a blind person. I would never ever be to do able to do the same job as a sighted person. And that was told to me by business owners who felt that there was no way I'd ever push back on them. And I have to be on with you that in some cases I didn't push back on them because I'm so poor and I grew up that way, that I was afraid that pushing back against these people who had money would put me in a worse position. That's a systematic thing. And so I just want to and obviously we can talk more about this. Right. But I just what what made me want to weigh in is systematic racism does exist. We don't have to call it systematic racism, but we do need to talk about systematic challenges that we have. That drive people to maybe not go after things like somebody who came up in the world with millions of dollars in their trust fund account.

Paolo Gaudiano: Yeah, no. And look, you're I completely agree with you and I, and I always, always remind myself, and I, and I like to usually talk about the fact that my privilege prevents me from seeing things that others would see. You know, I do not have I do not know what it's like to be, you know, a lifelong blind person. I do not know what it's like to be black in America. I do not know a lot of things that that, you know, the kind of experiences people have. So I always try to be humble about that. But I also use that as a power in the following sense. It gives me the flexibility to try to look at things from a somewhat detached standpoint, and to try to think about it in a way that is not influenced by my personal experiences, either in a positive or a negative way, and that allows me sometimes to think in a what may seem like a cold and calculated way, and it is a cold and calculated way about what can I do? What can I contribute that will have the greatest impact for the greatest number of people? And one thing that I that's similar to what I said before about fixing focusing on the problems first rather than focusing on identity first. The idea of creating an environment where every single person feels welcome, or where every single person has the ability to contribute to their to their best, scares the living daylights out of leaders because of two reasons.

Paolo Gaudiano: One of them is because it's just a monumental amount of work, and you never know when somebody is going to be dissatisfied about something. And the second thing is because is because ultimately you you run the risk of upsetting, you know, you do something for one group of people. You might end up upsetting a different group of people. What I try to do is I try to say, look, I can show you as a leader the fact that there are a lot of things that you could be doing better, but there are some of them that are particularly negatively impacting your company in a financial way. And what I believe is that if I can convince those people to make the right choices and fix at least some of the bigger problems, a they will have a positive impact on a lot of people, which is already a heck of a lot better than things are today. But b it's going to engender a different way to think about the workplace that will encourage more companies to become more welcoming to more people, and that will create kind of more suction through the economy, and it will create even more interest in expanding the kinds of problems that they're fixing so that they can cover more and more and more members of the population. But so it's kind of backwards, right? So instead of focusing on the symptom, which is look at all these people that are having problems, let's try to find out one by one what problems that we can fix it.

Paolo Gaudiano: I am flipping that upside down and saying, let's find out what are the best practices that we can adopt. What are the things that we can do that will start to take big chunks out of this problem? And then let's work on the more and more and more chunks so that we start with the biggest possible positive impact, you know, and it may be that it's not there's going to be some segment of the population that will not be positively impacted at all. And that may happen. But ultimately, as a leader, if you're demanding that I have to absolutely fix everything for everyone, it's a non-starter. You're basically making it such a daunting problem for people that it scares them. And I think a lot of people have been scared, you know? And I have to say, I read a lot of books on Dei, and I get so frustrated, so frustrated when I open the book. And the first paragraph is like, imagine you're standing in front of a dark forest and it looks like it's it's going to be really daunting and scary. But on the other side of the forest, there's a green patch and like, really, you know, Oh, you know, die is not a sprint.

Paolo Gaudiano: It's a marathon. And by the way, after you've killed yourself trying to improve, die in this one little aspect of your company, now you got to repeat it for every identity group. And you have to do intersectionality, and you have to do it for every department. It's like, if you're a CEO, you're like, what the hell? You give up, right? It's a marketing problem. You know, I go to people and say, look, there's this one big thing. You're wasting your energy. Your your utility bills are 30% higher than they should be. And I can fix them just by changing one subscription or one utility company that you have. Yes or no. It's like, oh, okay. So you see the point, you know? Yeah, I have the luxury. I have the incredible privilege of being able to think about things from that perspective because of the fact that it does not impact me. It does not it's not something that that, you know, I don't come at home feeling frustrated every single day of my life because of my skin color or because of my disability or because of my sexual orientation and things like that. So it's an incredible privilege, and I try to take full advantage of it by figuring out what is it that really matters to people like me, and how can I put it in a way that is aligning their interests with my interests?

Dr. Kirk Adams: So a couple of things just popped to mind. And we're coming to time. This time is flying by. But I of 27, 28 years ago, when I was earning a master's in not for profit leadership, I for my, my capstone project, I, I wrote a book called Beyond Race and Gender, and it was about it was about kind of the early stages of Dei and doing kind of root cause analysis and things. And there was one story about a dysfunctional engineering department, and the author had gone in and worked with the group, and it turned out that it was located in Alabama, and all the engineers had gone to University of Alabama, and they hired someone who'd gone to Auburn. So there was all these. They were all white males, but there was all this tension because of this alma mater. They were becoming dysfunctional and less than productive. So when you say you look at the big chunks, that that seems like a small chunk. I don't think we need to have a probably a big focus on alma mater and sports loyalties in companies. But when you look at the companies and industry clusters you've worked with, kind of what are there, are there common big chunks that you identify? Is it around gender? Is it around age? Is it around race? What are the big chunks?

Paolo Gaudiano: So so at the at the highest level, there was an interesting something that we found was very interesting when we as I said, we collect data that voluntarily people can share. And we actually get very high response rates. And companies inevitably want to like, you know, what's the problem? What are having this problem with women or with Hispanics or with disabilities. And so we sometimes find that, okay, well, we don't have enough data to tell you about 20 different races and ethnicities. But what if we just compare the overall level of inclusion or exclusion as we measure it for white people versus everybody else, for people with no disabilities versus anyone that has a visible or invisible disability for people who identify as male. So in other words, we say, what if you're not a member of the majority against a particular identity trait, and that is some benefits of doing it that way? Well, it turns out that what we found is that the the ratio between the majority and non member of the majority is always most pronounced for two traits. And those are gender and disability okay. So and we thought initially so race what we found is some organizations race is an indicator. In other ones it's not. Also there is a confounding factor that in the last several years a lot of white people are complaining about Dei. And so that shows up in our data. And so we see in fact, in a couple of companies recently, we've seen a reversal where the level of exclusion for white men is higher than it is, for which I'm going to refrain from making snide comments about that. But but let's just say that the complaints.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I admire your restraint.

Paolo Gaudiano: Let's just say that some of the complaints that we read, I would just like to find out who they are. Just go and kind of like, set them straight. But leaving that aside. Gotcha. So, so a universal finding disability and gender are always, always, always, always in every company that we've measured they're always there's always a big. And when I'm talking a big difference like an overall exclusion score that might be 1.5 x 2.1 x, meaning that when we when we calculate the scores, the exclusion score for people with disabilities is two times higher than it is for people without disabilities. And then when you look at and then when you look at specific categories like, you know, work life balance, etc., some of them are enormous differences. Like we see women with recognition and respect always, always an enormous problem. And so I would say that's the biggest thing that we found. And then beyond that, I'll tell you the other thing that we found that is almost a universal finding. A lot of the things that create problems in companies are stupid things that would be really easy to fix. You know, you don't need to hire McKinsey and spend millions of dollars to do a, you know, pulse surveys and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Paolo Gaudiano: And then nothing happens. You know, these are things like a lot of managers are doing very, very casual performance reviews, and that's allowing biases to creep in. Or the way that we do interviews for recruiting processes is creating biases in stupid ways, or people are forgetting to invite other people to meetings, and that's causing big problems. Stuff like that. You look at it that it's happening 20 times. You say, okay, fix it. It's very easy. Tell all the managers they have to have a spreadsheet of everybody that should be in a meeting, and you're going to actually measure the performance based on that. And so that's really that was another finding that really kind of blew my mind was that yeah. You know there are a lot of really simple things that we're doing that are impacting a lot of different people, including members of the majority, because, you know, maybe it's also the the introverted white guy who in other in every other way, is a perfect member of the majority, fully privileged. And yet they may benefit from a better process, from running meetings and organizing meetings. And so those, I think are the two macro like at the high level, those are the things that really, really kind of caught our attention.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Super interesting. So how can people work with you? I will, I will say anyone who's listening to this sign up for the Aleria newsletter. Thank you. Fabulous. I like the silver linings and golden nuggets when we can find them. I like that section a lot.

Paolo Gaudiano: And by the way, I have to thank you because you very kindly and politely pointed out to us that we had broken the system that was doing the captioning, the alt text on the images inside the newsletter. And I'm very grateful that you pointed that out. And now we fix that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And I see I saw that you fixed that. Thank you for acknowledging me.

Paolo Gaudiano: Yeah. No, I appreciated that, I appreciated that. So so I would say in general if people come to our website aléria. So, you know, it's a I'm sure there will be links. I know and I know you always. Yeah. But aléria tech, tech. That's a great way to get Ahold of us. I'm on LinkedIn. Luckily, there are not a lot of Paolo Galliano's in the world. And so if you look me up on LinkedIn, I'm very easy to find. I see, I see, Jeremy, I saw you shaking your hand as if. Yeah, you just found me. You found me on LinkedIn already? Yeah. And I mean, other than that, also, I encourage people. I give a talk. It was a TEDx talk in November of 2023, in Harlem. And and the TEDx organization liked it enough that they called me up and said, hey, can we rebrand it as a full TEDx talk and put it on our website? And of course, I was like, yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yes, please. Yeah.

Paolo Gaudiano: So if you go to actually to TED.com and you look up my name, you'll find there's, there's a talk that I gave that sort of touches on, you know, it's, it's a 12 minute talk. So it gives some of the key ideas of the measure inclusion. And And the last thing I'm going to say is that you're going to need to invite me back, because we didn't talk about meritocracy at all. And that's my next.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh. That's true.

Paolo Gaudiano: You'll have to invite me back some other time, and we'll talk about meritocracy.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Let's let's do that. I would love to do that. Let's let's get that on the calendar. Wonderful. You have a book.

Paolo Gaudiano: I have a.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Book.

Paolo Gaudiano: Titled Measuring Inclusion, Higher Profits, and Happier People without Guesswork or Backlash. And for those that happen to listen to this episode before mid September of 2025 we have a promotion right now. My book is now one. Recently won a third award. And to celebrate that, my publisher knocked the price of the Kindle version down to $0.99. And one thing that I always tell people is on Amazon, you can buy, let's say, 100 copies on Kindle, and there's a button that says buy for others, and you will get 100 individual redemption codes that never expire. So what I tell people is go out and buy a bunch of copies and give them away as holiday gifts, or to people that think they might be interested in this. It's a phenomenal opportunity to get a book for only $0.99, and then make you look smart when you give them to your friends and they read it and hopefully they'll like it too.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Perfect. And for me, you can find [email protected]. I'm also on LinkedIn Kirk Adams and join me sometime before this year ends for Paulo Gaudiano part two how to Create True Meritocracies. And thanks for being here everybody. Have a wonderful day.

Paolo Gaudiano: Thank you.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. We hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Don't forget to subscribe, share or leave a review at WW Academy.com. Together we can amplify these voices and create positive change. Until next time, keep listening, keep learning and keep making an impact.

In this engaging episode, Dr. Kirk Adams sits down with Rich and Brittany Palmer — Managing Partners of Adaptation Ventures — to trace the personal and entrepreneurial paths that led them to launch an angel, member-based fund focused on disability innovation. Brittany, a bilateral below-elbow amputee, shares how early prosthetics, supportive parents, and careers spanning environmental law and global consulting shaped her founder lens; when she built Beyonder, a live virtual-tour startup for people with limited mobility, she ran into investors who mislabeled the opportunity as "niche," a pattern she later saw across disability-tech. Rich recounts a winding route from RPI to Wall Street to startups, a life-threatening brain aneurysm at 28, and a reset at Babson that culminated in building and exiting an AI-for-philanthropy company — followed by leading one of the nation's largest angel groups and testifying to Congress about early-stage capital. Together they explain how Adaptation Ventures aims to be "first money in" at pre-seed and seed, typically leading ~$250K checks and targeting four investments per quarter, with a low barrier to member participation and optional fee-free, carry-free co-invest alongside the fund. Rejecting concessionary mindsets, they argue that disability markets deliver venture-scale returns — citing outsized economic multipliers for both angel dollars and assistive technology — and emphasize bottoms-up validation, universal design's "curb-cut effect," and aging demographics as powerful demand signals. They preview their first member meeting in mid-October/early November 2025 and invite founders and prospective members to connect via adaptation.vc, while Adams underscores how inclusive products expand total addressable markets and how entrepreneurship can be a natural fit for disabled innovators. TRANSCRIPT:

Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Doctor Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. I am Doctor Kirk Adams, and I am doctor by way of my PhD in Leadership and change through Antioch University, I did an ethnographic study of blind adults employed in large American corporations. So I interviewed a lot of cool people working for a lot of cool companies. And I'm a blind person myself. My retinas detached when I was five years old in kindergarten. I became totally blind very quickly, and I went to a school for blind kids, Oregon State School for second third grade. Learn my blindness skills and my confidence and how to love myself as a blind kid. And then a long and winding road. Fourth grade on. I was the only blind student in any school I attended through my several graduate schools and the doctorate. So have had the experience of being a frustrated job seeker with a disability and a successful blind employee in corporate America and leader of a couple non-profits. I'm the immediate past president of the American Foundation for the blind. So I've had the privilege of employing it and and helping create career paths for for hundreds of blind and deaf blind people. I set up a consulting practice about three years ago, and I'm talking to you from my office in Seattle. I work with companies to help them accelerate inclusion of people with disabilities in their workforce.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I work with several nonprofits to help them scale past the founder stage. And kind of unexpectedly, I have been contacted by a pretty big handful of startups in the disability tech space. Innovative people who are striving to use technology to make the world a more inclusive place for people with disabilities, and to create more opportunities for us to thrive whatever way we choose. And in doing so, I've been learning a lot about startups and incubators and angel investors and venture capital. My my fundraising history is is long and and positive, but it's primarily been in philanthropy. So raising money for non non-profit causes. So I, I'm privileged to have met Rich Palmer. We had one conversation and I'm just meeting Brittany Palmer today for the first time. Rich and Rich and Brittany are co-founders of Adaptation Ventures. And I have invited them to join us today to talk about their their journey. Hopefully you'll go way, way back. And I would love to hear I want to hear the the love story, too, of of how you met and what brought you to create adaptation ventures and and what, what your strategically what what your initiative is focused on now. So so Brittany and Rich, I'm handing you the talking stick.

Brittany Palmer: Thank you so much, Doctor Kirk. We appreciate it. And we will give. Well, we will go way, way back. And we'll also talk a little bit about how we met to. So thank you first for inviting us on the podcast. We are so appreciative to be here and talking about our story and adaptation ventures. I I'll start at the, at the beginning of sort of my story. So I am a from birth, a bilateral below elbow amputee. So I'm missing both arms from a little bit below the elbow down. And so I at the time, a long time ago I was one of the youngest children to ever be fitted with my bioelectric prosthetics. And so those are prosthetics that actually move. A hand open and closed. And they've gotten a lot better today. But I wore prosthetics a little bit when I was younger, but mostly adapted to the world around me. Without them, and eventually stopped wearing them altogether. I had really amazing parents who pushed me to be as independent as my potential to be was, which is pretty much completely independent. And I'm super grateful for that. So things that people still ask me today, how do you write? How do you type? How do you drive? I do all of that without assistance. And And so again, like, it's just been a world of adapting and making things work for me.

Brittany Palmer: And I know a lot of other people with disabilities, you know, the world is not necessarily built for them, and we're always adapting to our situations. And so I grew up you know, doing sports, and I had an interest in science and went to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. For my undergrad in biology and management and and then went to law school. I really loved environmental law. And I got my J.D. and certificate from Pace Law School. And I started my career doing a clerkship at the Mine Safety and Health Review Commission in D.C. and and worked at the EPA as well. And then did international consulting as a principal and in-house counsel at a, at a firm in Boston. And and I really developed a love for, for travel there. I got to meet and work with tons of people all over the world and really enjoyed it. But really wanted to develop something and work in sort of the disability space. And Rich will sort of share his story in connecting and connecting those dots. But Rich and I met at the at the end of my law school time and and you know, and he moved down to Washington, D.C.. When I had my clerkship there. And excuse me.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I said he followed you.

Brittany Palmer: He did.

Brittany Palmer: He work was really It was tough to come.

Brittany Palmer: By when I.

Brittany Palmer: Graduated.

Brittany Palmer: And I was very lucky to have that job.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. Good.

Brittany Palmer: And so I I started a company called Beyonder. That was live and interactive virtual tours by guides around the world.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh, wow.

Brittany Palmer: For, you know, people that had limited mobility or other conditions that prevented or inhibited them from travel. And, you know, at the time, there was a lot of companies focused around wheelchair accessibility and travel and which is great. It's definitely super needed. But I really wanted to create something that everyone could enjoy. To, to the maximum extent possible with, with the virtual tours. And so when I was raising money for that, I thought, this market is huge. I'm, you know, hopefully this is something that a lot of people will want to invest in. And when I started talking to venture capitalists, I got responses like, oh, this is a niche market or this market's not big enough, or we don't believe this market is big enough. Even though I provided them with all the statistics and everything like that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right.

Brittany Palmer: And gave examples and it was angel investors who really you know, understood my, my company and what I wanted to do. I understood that seniors were a part of that, and a lot of them have limited mobility as well. And, and so when I continued on my journey and advising companies and talking to founders, I heard the same thing from them. Venture capitalists, like, they don't understand the space. They think it's niche. They you know, they just really don't understand the opportunity. They don't know how to evaluate my company. And and they really needed first money in. And there's some other VCs in this space, which is wonderful. But they focus on, like, particular areas in the disability community or our later stage investors. Yeah, right. So we really wanted to to put something together that could be that first money and, and and sort of jumpstart these companies that were doing amazing things. And so before I talk more about adaptation, I'll let Rich kind of tell his story.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. And I'd like to just emphasize a couple things before. Before. Yeah. Go back to Rich. So you touched on the fact that living with a disability gives us ample opportunity to face challenges and overcome challenges and be creative and be problem solvers and be innovative. Yeah. So I'm really finding that with disabled entrepreneurs that entrepreneurship can be a great fit. A great, great occasion for a person to thrive economically is to be an entrepreneur, be self-employed, be a business owner. Because we can we can create the fit between ourselves and the workplace in ways that are somewhat more challenging. If you're if you're trying to create that good, good fit in the, you know, for instance, in a large corporate environment and a lot of innovation, a lot of creativity in the disabled entrepreneurs I've been getting to know. So I wanted to note that I also wanted to note the size of the market. And you mentioned seniors. So one of the enlightening conversations I have with people is the fact that I'm blind. So I tend to look at look at things through the blindness inclusion lens. But you know, if you, if you graph the percentage of people who are legally totally blind against the age, as age increases, that percentage increases. Pretty dramatic actually. So, you know, over 60% of people who are legally blind are over 60 years old. And if you look at 16% of people over 65 are visually impaired. 23% of people over 80 are visually impaired. And we're aging more and more. There's going to be millions and millions of people reaching those later stages in life who will acquire their disabilities, and they are consumers who have grown up being used to getting what they want, how they want, when they want. And you know, those companies that provide products and services that can make that frictionless for people with disabilities are going to be in a great position. So I just wanted to emphasize that. And Rich. Yes.

Rich Palmer: Thank you. Doctor Adams, thank you for everybody listening. And I'm going to steal one of your phrases. And, you know, Brittany is my better 7/8. So you're not getting the just the better half here. But we are. We are married. Same last name. And I'll start my journey. Sort of picking up where Brit left off or where Brit started. Excuse me. So we both went to RPI, and I was there about two years older than her, and so we should have met much earlier than we did. But I was in a fraternity, and it was the the nice fraternities and nice, nice folks. Nice guys. So, yeah, nobody, you know, we we didn't have the craziest parties or anything like that. So Brit and I should have met earlier, but I think we met at the appropriate time. We'll say that, I think. And so I went from there to to Wall Street. So basically I was a computer science and economics major. First career down doing portfolio analytics for a fintech company. It was a kind of a startup within S&P. Like the S&P 500. And then within that they were owned by McGraw-Hill.

Rich Palmer: So the reason I bring that up is knowing sort of that entrepreneurial ethos and what it's like when you are, you know, properly capitalized was really important for that company to succeed. And I got to learn that at a really, really early age. But if you can't tell from the intonation here, I am not your typical Wall Street kind of guy. Very much on the the other side of things. So I spent about four years there before I decided I wanted to do a startup. And, you know, one of the things we talk about when we talk about startup creation is like, you know, work on things, you know, with with a strong network around you and all the resources that you could possibly possibly need. So instead of starting a company in New York City, maybe in finance with people I knew, I moved to Berkeley, California to start an online homemade food company. Okay. And that, you know, I started with a computer science friend of mine. So two technical co-founders trying to make effectively Etsy for food.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Were you doing Brittany together at this point?

Rich Palmer: Brittany and I were not together yet. Okay, so this is she.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So she did her startup beyond renewed years.

Rich Palmer: Yeah. So Brenda did her startup after I did mine, which I'll. I'll share this other one. She she thought I was crazy for being a founder and then, you know, drank the Kool-Aid a little. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, we bootstrapped this company, and it wasn't, you know, the right use case or the right founders, and it was bootstrapped. So ultimately I went, you know, it didn't succeed, and happily so, because I learned a lot about how, you know, to put the right resources together to solve the right problems, to talk, to talk to clients and, and users and without, you know, ran out of money, spent a couple of months in Denver, Colorado, trying to find myself and then came back to New York City to the founder of the company I worked for was starting a new company, and the primary goal of that company was to take on LinkedIn. So they raised about $120 million to take tons of public data sources and say, you know, Doctor Adams, if you're, you know, trying to meet Brittany and you know me, how could you navigate that pathway using real data? You know, on LinkedIn you can say whatever you want, right? And so how do you trust the data source to to go through that. What happened with that company is that it is a use case. You know, it's not a narrow use case. It's kind of very, very open ended.

Rich Palmer: And they ultimately ended up selling the company years and years later for $7 million. So from 120 million raised to a $7 million exit. So the reason I bring that up is if you have, you know, too much capital, but not the right use case or focus, it also kind of, you know, was a lesson learned for me personally. And that's where Britt and my stories collide. So I was running product for this company. It was based in New York City. Brittany and I had just met in March of 2012. Brett I think so, yeah. And she gets this job in a terrible job market for environmental attorneys and had to make this decision of whether you know, this isn't going to work out. I stay in New York or do, like you said, you have Florida, D.C., and I am so happy. We made this decision. The story will get a little intense for a second, and then I promise you, I promise to bring it back. So, about a year into being a pioneer and working remote down in DC. Yeah. I was on a stationary bike in my apartment complex, and, you know, trying to stay in shape and all that kind of stuff and had, of all things, a brain aneurysm, hemorrhage. And I was 28 at the time. So all this life lived before, you know, that and a lot of exposure to a bunch of different business models and entrepreneurship and everything.

Rich Palmer: Came screaming to a, you know, needing emergency open brain surgery. Having to learn how to walk and talk, read and write, think all over again. Wow. And you can imagine, you know, I've met a lot of people in that situation since. And a lot of them. Take a minute to you know, reflect on the second chance of life and really appreciate and slow down a little. Maybe things are too stressful. Before I had an existential need to start a company from this. Okay. And started studying for the, you know, the GMAT with births help. Like one tenth my normal speed. Like ended up, you know, applying to schools and mostly focused on entrepreneurship because I wanted a new network, I wanted a fresh start and ended up applying to and interviewing at Babson College, which has been number one in entrepreneurship for about 27 years maybe 28. Now we're in a new year and I roll up in. Britt's driving. I can't drive at this point. Tons of medication, but we have to narrow it, find the window to, like, you know, of being focused. And I come up with a cane and a shaved head and and somehow they were like, all right, cool. This guy's got something to offer. And ended up giving me a full ride to the school, which is awesome.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's great. Well, where is that? Where is Babson?

Rich Palmer: Babson is up in the northeast in Wellesley, Massachusetts. So 20 minutes or so outside of Boston. Okay. And that's their focus. So every single year, accounting class, your marketing class, your HR, everything is focused on entrepreneurship. It's it's an incredible, incredible organization.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Sounds great.

Rich Palmer: And, you know, basically, I'll speed up the story from here. From there. I met a met a fundraiser at Babson. So somebody in charge of getting philanthropic dollars in. So you and I should have a conversation. Conversation about that. And it's really hard to do, as you know, and you have small teams with a massive goals in mind and be massive groups of people that they need to reach out to and figure out, you know, who do I. Who do I talk to? What do I say? Especially if I'm trying to fundraise. It could be a new engagement or a, you know, someone who's going to give their, you know, their a bequest or any of this kind of stuff. It's some of them are heavy duty conversations. And I was not yet applied to this industry. So how do you leverage technology and prediction to do things at scale? And that's what we ended up doing. So I ended up creating the first AI company focused on philanthropy, on social good. And we grew like hotcakes because this was, you know, a a really pressing need for every nonprofit and sold to a private equity firm in November of 2019. So if you know your your recent history, something crazy happened a few months later and ended up running that, you know, for another 18 months or so before stepping down to become a full time angel investor. And then I led the third largest angel investor group in the US and joined the association that basically represents all angel investors. So it's the Angel Capital Association doing public policy work primarily.

Rich Palmer: So the you know, I tell the story about AI and social good, you know, a young guy with an aneurysm that really resonates on both sides of the aisle. And to talk to congresspeople and policymakers about how to get more capital to sort of overlooked founders was it sort of piqued when I got to do that in front of To Congress doing testimony on on providing early stage capital to to founders. So long story short, the the whole sort of, you know, parallel paths that Britt and I had. You'd think with the technical, non-technical co-founder combination with Brits resilience and law background that VCs and traditional capital would would be, you know, knocking down our doors. Yeah, I had to raise from 43 individual angel investors because nobody had ever made raise money in the non-profit tech space before. And I can't remember if Brit mentioned, but I think she had 80 people on her cap table. Oh, and this is not, you know, until a couple months ago when we launched Adaptation Ventures. This this was one of like the hardest things for us to do is talk to founders focused on the disability market and realize that, oh, wow, they're in the same spot we were in a decade ago, and nobody kind of filled in that gap of the first capital and focused on an awesome market with critical needs. So that's why we exist. And I know we've been holding the mic for forever, so I'm passing. That was great. Right back to you.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So Adaptation ventures, I assume, emerged from these various strands you just talked about and the realization that founders and disability tech were in expecting the same set of dynamics that you had both experienced in your startup lives. So did it. Did it, did it crystallize pretty quickly that you should start a angel fund? Focus on disability tech? Did you analyze different structures and different approaches, or did you? Did you settle on the adaptation ventures as is fairly quickly or not.

Brittany Palmer: We. We had an idea.

Brittany Palmer: Of what we wanted to create, and we knew the general direction. But it took about, you know, I'd say 6 to 9 months of talking to a lot of people. To define our end game with adaptation. And we really found that people in this space that understood the space, wanted to be involved, that you know, high, high fun, like, traditional funds require sometimes $100,000 or more to, to join, which makes it inaccessible for a lot of people. And that people felt strongly about this space and wanted to be involved. And given our experience with angels. Rich and I felt that the best path for adaptation was to be an angel member based fund. And when you look at this space, also talking of just impact and we're we feel very strongly about, you know, venture level returns being provided in this space and and that we don't need to be concessionary in, in order to invest in this space and be successful.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Can I, I heard the word concessionary, but I don't know. I don't know what you mean by that. So if you could explain, that would be helpful.

Brittany Palmer: So most people look at that as, like, their they think that in order to do good in the disability and accessible spaces, that you have to be a non-profit and accept donations and that like money can't be made in this, in this area and therefore that it's not ripe for venture capital. And we very much we vehemently disagree with that. And there's a lot of there's a lot of people out there that that feel the same way. And it is, you know, companies currently in the market are are proving it. And so we felt like it was important to create this, this group of members who some have experience investing, some don't. The the bar for entry is, is much lower being an angel group. And And so we've just met some really incredible people. And and our goal, of course, based on, you know, our past experiences is to lead, precede rounds of funding and, and also invest in seed rounds. So the earliest stages of of these companies is, is what we're looking to invest in.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. So I've been for the last three years accumulating a list of investors, investment vehicles, funds that have some interest in the disability tech space. It's not a very long list. Most of them are a couple that are very disability disability focus. But their their later stage investors. There are some funds that I guess kind of look at social impact writ large and would include disability considerations and what, they look for, but again later stage. I've looked at a number of crowdfunding platforms and been involved in a couple of crowdfunding campaigns that were not not successful to very modestly successful. I've encountered a small handful of angel investors who are interested in the disability space, primarily because they were already investing, and then they had a child with a disability. Now they've become very interested. But I haven't encountered anyone who's doing what you're doing. Which is super exciting to me when I, when I read about adaptation ventures and reached out to you both on LinkedIn, and Rich was kind enough to get on a call and, and talk to me about what you're doing, but eager to learn more. The what? My my Understanding. And Please, please correct me if I'm wrong is you're you're you're you're fairly close to the beginning of building the initiative. You're looking for people who want to pool funds with others, to invest in technologies that would accelerate inclusion of people with disabilities in various aspects of society. You have a a manageable minimum for many people. So you have a barrier to entry into the fund is just relatively low to other things I've seen. And you're you're starting to look at companies. I think I read that you're going to look at funding for companies a quarter initially. I have that right at I think I wrote down 250,000 levels target. So if you if you could correct any of that, that's wrong. And perhaps just talk a little bit about the, structure and how how you strategically strategically what are the what are the 2 or 3 things that you're really focused on in the short mid-term term in order to grow your venture?

Rich Palmer: For sure. Doctor Adams, the let me I'll start broad and then we'll go a little bit narrow. So there's, there's two there's two stats that like probably at the core of why we're doing this and the core of why, I'll tell you who the types of people involved and then how it works for sure. Yeah. One is on the angel investment side. So I've mentioned this sort of congressional testimony. And one of the stats that I, I thought it was crazy until there was an economic impact study that did this. And I was we met the people who put it together. And it's that for every dollar invested by an angel investor, there's a 21 x economic return. And what that means is, you know, yes, investors and the founders and the early employees, you know, make make money on an exit and all that kind of stuff. But the, you know, the management team, people start buying houses. They are able to be out in the community, they're able to raise families, they pay more in taxes. It's this crazy, crazy leverage that's just on, you know, the it's like revenue side of of society, right. And then the other statistic that intersects with it is for every dollar, a user, someone human spends on assistive technology, it's A9X economic return.

Rich Palmer: So the opportunity for that person to, if it was acquired disability to get back to some semblance of what they want to do, you get out. You can be mobile, you can get back into the workforce, you can raise children, you can do whatever you want. And it's these two ridiculous levers that sort of make up the fulcrum points of what what we're doing. And to your point, yeah, you there's people scattered all around, and actually, 1 in 5 US households reaches accreditation levels. Where you can be an accredited investor over a certain threshold. So it's it's crazy that these numbers are that large. And we're finding the folks that usually come to us hadn't thought of themselves as investors before. It's you know, executives who have raised a child with a disability is people with disabilities themselves. It's Paralympic athletes. It's book authors. It's folks who like, you have a big, you know, sort of the community trust you, you have an influence and sort of that megaphone to share new ideas and new ways to improve things as well as, you know, my background is in Angel and. Traditional angel investors, family offices, traditional capital, and everybody's kind of coming under because they've never had this opportunity before. Yeah. There's some elements of age tech in what we do.

Rich Palmer: There's some elements of deep tech in what we see. There's some elements of underrepresented founders in what we see, but there's never been a carve out for literally the world's largest market, which you can join at any time. And you will join at some time, if you like. Live long enough. Right. And so you have this, this huge pool of stuff. And so the way we sort of structure it with, with all these folks, it's new, new people and, you know, experienced investors coming together is as a fund. There's yeah, we are able to basically pool capital to tell startups when they come to pitch us. So startups apply. We do diligence on sort of a certain number of, of the top ones that apply. And for are going to come in every quarter. So 16 potential opportunities per year, likely more. But as those those companies come in, this group of people are listening to the pitches, they are able to sort of provide feedback to the startups, vote together on whether we move forward with diligence or not. They're able to join diligence teams. So let's say you have a specific background in marketing or sales or tech or an affinity with, you know, lived experience with the disability. So you can represent the user. Any element usually everybody who gets involved in this has some awesome superpower.

Rich Palmer: So we really welcome that, that sort of element to it. And then we deploy. And I like that you said the 250 K because that matters, right? In some angel groups it's individual members making the decision on whether to invest or not. So you end up back where Brett and I were with 43 individual people, or C individual people or, you know, or you mentioned crowdfunding and I'm not knocking on different models, but with crowdfunding, there could be so many people that no one person's like sort of completely bought in. And so you don't have this big coalition of people who put their capital behind you. You as a founder know how much you're getting in at a minimum. And I keep saying it that way because I want to add one more thing to that. And here's the raw reality, right? Most startups, if you're going to have a 10 to 20 x exit, take 7 to 9 years to achieve that exit. So it's really not about the capital only. It's about how do you help these companies through that time, through a pivot, through hiring and firing and competition and all that kind of stuff, the human mentor championing them, being a shoulder for them to lean on.

Rich Palmer: And what's really unique about our model, which we love, is, you know, I mentioned all these different kind of personas of people that are joining us. Yeah. It's not lost on us that you usually, you know, the fund provides a diversified view of the disability market as a whole. One of the things we're very intentional about and people people call us crazy for this, but I don't know, we very much like it is let's say there's a company that comes in and you're really focused on mobility startups, for example. That's that's the like that's your that's your jam. And there's a awesome mobility company comes in to 250 K goes into the company, and there's a concept called co-investment where the fund invests and you kind of co invest and you put more money in. Which in our case co-investment has no fees and no carry. We take no cut. We want that money to go straight into the things that our members care about and straight to the hands of the of the founders, which is which is quite unique. In our world, usually the fund likes to hold all the capital in one spot, but we wanted people to both have a diversified view as well as be able to double down on the things they really liked.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So, just so unclear if if a person is a member of Adaptation Ventures and Adaptation Ventures chooses to invest in a startup, that individual could also invest as themselves, as an individual. Is that what you're saying?

Rich Palmer: Yeah. Okay, cool. Our hope is that in general that for anybody who knows the details of this, if the larger the check, the more likely they'll just go on to the cap table of the company. And then there's the concept of of spvs, where if a bunch of people want to roll in small amounts just to kind of make it easier to manage would likely go through an SPV, but still there's, you know, no, no fees, no care on our side.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. And SPV is what.

Rich Palmer: A special purpose vehicle. It's a way to roll up smaller checks. Just honestly make it easier to manage okay. For both the founder and whoever's managing it.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. I'm learning. I'm taking notes.

Rich Palmer: No, you're doing great. You're doing great.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So you're at the stage where you have some members. You're obviously wanting more as members. The right term.

Brittany Palmer: Yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. So you're wanting more members. You're looking for companies to evaluate. Evaluate. So so strategic objectives. The most important things you, Rich and Brittany need to accomplish here over the next six, nine months. Would that be members and companies? Are there other things that you're.

Brittany Palmer: Yeah, those are the two big companies. Yeah, the.

Brittany Palmer: Two big things. We're hoping to have our first meeting. Planning for mid-October, early November this year, which we're super excited about. And Rich and I will also be at a couple of conferences this fall. And you know, people can, but we have a LinkedIn page where we talk about what we're doing adaptation ventures, and then we of course, our website provides a lot more information on group, which is adaptation.vc.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. And what is the commitment that members need to make?

Brittany Palmer: So we can't discuss that openly. But it is the size of a smaller angel check for For a certain period of time.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay, but people can reach out to you and talk. Talk to you?

Brittany Palmer: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. And the best way is through the adaptation. Avc. Is that the best way for people to get it?

Brittany Palmer: Yeah. If you go to our approach.

Brittany Palmer: To learn more on the website, there's a member interest form that you can fill out. And it provides a form that provides some more information and gives us some more information about you when you submit your, your form. And people can also send emails to members at adaptation via email [email protected].

Dr. Kirk Adams: So, you know, again, I'm, I'm on a steep part of my learning curve. But as I talk to founders of disability tech companies that have reached out to me most mostly questions about the market size and how to connect across the government, corporate, non-profit and community sectors. I find a couple of things. I founders, I don't think oftentimes think big enough. We already talked about the aging population and the relation to disability and how big that market is. And then the other thing is the curb cut effect. You know, when when things are made to designed universally and made accessible for people with disabilities, that it benefits everybody. And, you know, we talk about the first example that always comes to mind is the talking book because I, you know, I led American Foundation for the blind. And they in the 1930s, Helen Keller and Eleanor Roosevelt, you know, pioneered the talking book and got Library of Congress to fund talking books. And, you know, the the 33 and a third rpm long playing record album was created specifically to record books for people who are blind. And there was a nice New York Times article in 1947 interviewing the president, Robert Irwin, the president of AFP, who said, you know, there's the the the market for the talking books is very limited because there's no reason a person who could read print would ever want to listen to a book.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So we, we, we know what's happened there. And then, of course, the curb cut cuts in our, you know, our, our friends with mobility impairments who occupied the federal building in San Francisco and protested at the Capitol and got got curb cut legislation implemented, and now something less than a half a percent of people using curb cuts are wheelchair users. It's cyclists and skateboarders and parents with strollers and people with grocery carts and etc. and then, you know, closed captioning. The legislation was passed in 2010, requiring a certain amount of television program to have closed captioning, and now more than half of the people who use closed captioning do not have a hearing impairment. That was created, spearheaded by the deaf community. So, you know, I don't know you know, really how to quantify that for people. But it is an interesting conversation that I've had multiple times, and I, I know you, you you were all fully aware of all of this, but I'm, I'm just kind of kind of coming to realize.

Brittany Palmer: Yeah.

Brittany Palmer: No, I think the more people that are aware of how inclusive design and like, human centered design really benefits everyone, not just people with disabilities, I think the better off we all are, because the more people keep that in mind as they design things, whether it's for a large company or a small company or their own company. It's it's a super important aspect of design. And it truly goes to show that if you do that the impacts can be really great and far reaching.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, absolutely. And we see. Yeah.

Rich Palmer: So yeah. Doctor Adams, if you don't mind, is probably about 80% of what we've seen so far. And what we would likely see would be founders directly targeting the disability market. As it stands, solving a use case like you were mentioning that our goal is to help them scale past the founders stage and think way bigger, but they do some thinking bigger. The the market numbers are staggering and they're growing. You know, like you said on the aging population, 10,000 people a day are turning 65 or older. The number of pick a element of the disability world. That's tens of millions of people both in the US and abroad. And what we're kind of seeing. So that's on one side. And founders, you know, this is a call to action for founders. Those numbers are great and they look nice on a pitch deck. But it's the bottoms up numbers that make investors years perk up. Like, how do you know that your product solves the problem for the people you've actually come in direct contact with? So rather than just a top down, which we know, what we don't know from you is like, how did you prove that your technology is like going to be helpful for somebody? And that intersects with the other 20% of companies we're seeing. And I think we'll continue to see. Right. Brett is like they're startups not focused on this market. But if they did if they just took a five seconds, and usually it's not even a product change. It could be just like a marketing change. It opens up a massive eager. Deep pocketed, if I can say it that way.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Rich Palmer: Like, they're just like community and caregivers represent. I don't know the numbers. Now is like $18 trillion. It's like, what? Or I don't know what. It almost shocks us that we exist, to be honest. Like we're not doing adaptation because these numbers just makes so much sense to us. But yeah, probably 80% will be directly focused on the disability market. And then the other 20 will be the curb cut effect. Like in reverse. Like Like the number of companies we've talked to that we say, hey, have you thought about this for, you know, the deaf blind community, the deaf community, the blind community, the mobility, prosthetics, amputation and the the companies like, no, would they like that? And we're like.

Rich Palmer: Oh my gosh, why? Why do we have to tell you that?

Rich Palmer: But it feels really good to see companies like that deliver, so we'll be doing that as well.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's awesome. So I look forward to meeting you both next month and Washington DC at the Disability Innovation Forum. That'll be a great day and I really appreciate your time, and I look forward to having a conversation with you on the podcast in the future to check in on, check in on progress so people can reach you through your website adaptation BC or members at adaptation VC. If people want to reach me, my website is just Dr. Kirk Adams. So Doctor Kirk adams.com I'm on LinkedIn every day and it's Kirk Adams PhD on LinkedIn. So thank you Rich. Thank you Brittany, I learned a lot today and I am going to learn a lot more from both of you as time goes on, I'm sure, and just really appreciate your insights, your passion, Dedication and the disruptive dynamics of adaptation ventures. So it's a it's a need that has not been met yet, but you're doing it. Thank you so much.

Rich Palmer: Awesome. Thank you for having us.

Rich Palmer: Appreciate it. You bet.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And we'll see you next time on the podcast by Doctor Kirk Adams. Thanks so much.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. We hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Don't forget to subscribe, share or leave a review at. Adams.com. Together we can amplify these voices and create positive change. Until next time, keep listening, keep learning and keep making an impact.

In this engaging episode, Dr. Kirk Adams sits down with Meghan Connolly Haupt, founder of the New York - based nonprofit consultancy Inclusive Saratoga. Reuniting after their days in the Lighthouse for the Blind network, the pair trace Meghan's winding road from Carnegie Hall intern and Jesuit Volunteer Corps case manager on L.A.'s Skid Row to corporate-social-responsibility pioneer (she launched the CSRwire news service 23 years ago), craft-beer marketer, and now disability-inclusion entrepreneur. Launched in February 2025, Inclusive Saratoga helps hospitality venues, music halls, breweries, and museums turn accessibility into a competitive edge, offering everything from staff training and sensory kits to service-animal protocols — while an in-house line of "inclusive" apparel underwrites the mission.

Meghan credits her sense of "relentless forward progress" to two powerful forces: parents who modeled community service and a second daughter, Tatum, who survived a 24-week birth and now navigates multiple disabilities. Those experiences, she tells Adams, taught her that togetherness is the core of healthy societies and that businesses prosper when they welcome everyone through the door. The conversation brims with optimism—citing data that disability-inclusive companies outpace peers by 30 percent on the bottom line—and closes with a call for partners who want to warm up their workplaces for both customers and future employees with disabilities. TRANSCRIPT:

Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, doctor Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Hello, everybody, and welcome to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. And I am that Doctor Kirk Adams. I'm talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And I have a special guest here today. Meghan Connolly helped. And Meghan and I met several decades ago when she was involved in resource development fundraising at the San Francisco Lighthouse for the blind. I was working for the Seattle Lighthouse for the blind. I started working there because I was hired as the first development director. So we have that resource development background in common. Hi, Meghan.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: Hi. How are you?

Dr. Kirk Adams: I'm great and so cool to reconnect. I'm so glad you reached out. And Meghan is the founder of Inclusive Saratoga at Saratoga in New York State. And I think Saratoga Springs, Saratoga, Saratoga Springs there, there's horse racing there. And I think potato chips were invented there. That's what.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: I. Yes, yes that's true.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Springs.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: So if you go on jeopardy, if you go on jeopardy, that's going to be that's going to be your million dollar answer right there. Saratoga Springs and the home of the birthplace of of potato chips.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. I'll hope they ask that question. Well, here we are. For those who don't know me, I am the managing director of my consulting practice, which is called Innovative Impact, LLC, and I am the immediate past president and CEO of the American Foundation for the blind AFI, which was Helen Keller's organization. And prior to that, I held that those same roles, leadership roles at the Lighthouse for the blind here in Seattle, which is a nonprofit social enterprise employing blind and deaf blind people in a variety of businesses, most notably aerospace manufacturing, making parts for all the Boeing Wing aircraft, which is a really cool thing to see 120 blind and deaf blind machinists making parts with very sophisticated computer numerically controlled equipment, but equipped with jaws and zoom text and braille display and all the assistive technologies we use. I am a blind person myself. I retinas detached when I was in kindergarten, and I went to school for blind children for first, second and third grade. Got got my blindness skills down rock solid and then sink, sink or swim into public school after that and was always the only blind student in my schooling from fourth grade through my through my doctoral program and after graduating from college, had the experiences that so many of us have with challenges to finding employment wound up in the securities industry, selling tax free municipal bonds over the phone for ten years, and then pivoted to the nonprofit sector.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And through a twisting, winding road became a resource development person and a certified fundraising executive and was hired by the lighthouse here and then Those Things unfurled was invited to join the board of the American Foundation for the blind and then given the opportunity to lead that organization, and in 2016 moved to New York City and then DC and back home during the pandemic, led AFB remotely for some time and then just decided rather than move back to the DC area wanted to stay in Seattle for family reasons, 2 to 2 of which our little grandchildren live about a mile away. So that that's our great joy. My wife Roz and I met in college. We'll be married 40 years next month.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: So congratulations.

Dr. Kirk Adams: A bit about me. Yeah, but I really want to talk about. Talk to you, Meghan, because I read your LinkedIn profile again this morning, and and and. Wow. Special events. Craft brewery. Craft brewing, which I'm very interested in personally. And fundraising, inclusion, disability advocacy. Just a very unique folio of experiences you have.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: Yes, that's a kind way to say it.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, but I love to hear about your. Yeah, I'd love to hear about your journey and how all of these various things came together and how you're getting them together.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: Right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right. That's just fascinating to me because I, I don't often see I don't often see individuals or organizations that focus on marketing and, and campaigns and social media and festivals and associations with disability inclusion woven throughout. So I'd love to hear about it.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: Yeah. Thank you so much for inviting me to have this conversation with you today. There's not enough positive stories about inclusion, and that is really our focus at Inclusive Saratoga. You open the paper, you open social media, and there's plenty of stories that that really kind of make your heart sink about individuals with any, any number of disabilities who are excluded from participating in society. And our whole mission is sharing the positive stories of what is possible. We are founded on the belief that people are good, and the belief that togetherness is a core, core element of our humanity and and is truly the biggest indicator of a healthy society. And that's not just our core belief at inclusive Saratoga that is backed up by Unicef research. And so, yeah, I have a I have a unique A career path, but there is a common thread that runs through. From my very first, I'll say professional role at Carnegie Hall. Actually, as an intern at Fordham University all the way through to today. As the as the founder of a nonprofit that brings people together. And that thread is community. And I think that I think community is so. At the core of my being because of who my parents are. So my mother is a nonprofit executive director. She was my entire life.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: Growing up where she was with Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, and then she was with the Epilepsy Association, and then she was with the Albany Medical College Alumni Association. My father is a business teacher and and a coach, a track coach. And I think I kind of got the best of both worlds through their career choices. And, you know, I didn't know this. I wasn't cognizant of this at at a young age of 21 where I set out on my career path. But but kind of looking back, I think that I had both of my parents as key influences for me. I knew at a young age that I had business acumen. I was the kid who didn't just have a lemonade stand. I had a lemonade franchise where I had the kids in the neighborhood working for me at doing their own lemonade stands, and we'd pool the the funds and I would pay them right. I was the entrepreneur and Girl Scout selling 311 boxes of Girl Scout cookies door to door at the time. Right. This is before social media, where kids put the videos on before the parents were selling in the offices. This was, you know, feet on the ground selling these boxes of cookies so I could get two free weeks of summer camp as an aid.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I always buy two boxes of Thin Mints. Ever given the opportunity?

Meghan Connolly Haupt: Well, I will pass that along to to to the girls who do that now. That is far in my rearview mirror, but. So I always had this acumen, this business acumen. And and so at one point in my life, I was a case manager and a social worker, and it was amazing. It was rewarding, but I felt like there were there was a whole set of skills that I possessed that were dormant.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Can you can you can I I'm really I don't know why, but I feel really centered when I know where people are. So you're you're at Fordham, which is in New York. Yeah. When you ended up in San Francisco. So that's when we met. Now you're now you're in Saratoga Springs. So when you're doing your you're a case management. Where were you?

Meghan Connolly Haupt: I was in Los Angeles. Because. Yes, because out of Fordham, I participated in a program similar to a one year domestic peace corps. It's called the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, still in existence. And I was stationed in Los Angeles, and I worked with homeless drug addicted, mentally ill adults in Skid Row. And that was an incredibly pivotal experience for me. I felt very, again, very proud of the work that I was doing, helping individuals. But I also felt a disconnect. And so I left that role and went to the admin side in my first development role with Proyecto Pastoral, which is a large nonprofit in East Los Angeles working with the Latino population. They're kind of known for their gang prevention programs under Father Greg Boyle, who became kind of a national celebrity in the at risk youth space. He's an incredible human being. So I worked in development there. When I left Los Angeles, honestly, at the age of 25, being totally burnt out, just feeling like I had seen the worst that our country had to offer and feeling a little little like I couldn't be very effective in creating change and really wanted to take a step back to figure out how I could participate to the greatest extent, how I can really help people. I knew that kind of on an individual level, wasn't it? The admin level was getting there, but I still felt like I hadn't figured it out and I and I was burned, I was bitter, I was callous, so I checked out and I went and surfed in Costa Rica for almost a year.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: Which was which was a wonderful break. And I'm very privileged to have had that opportunity to to take that kind of pause. And what it did for me is it realized how badly I did want to get back and work. I wasn't so great at being idle and laying on the beach. So I came back and I actually went to Santa Cruz, California, and I worked for the United Way of Santa Cruz County, and I was a track coach in Santa Cruz as well. And there I met a woman athlete. I was a track athlete growing up. Yeah, I'm a highly competitive person, which serves me when I'm playing sports. But sometimes in life it's not appropriate to be as competitive as I am. But but that competitiveness, I think, kind of helps helps me stay focused on the social impact work that I do because I believe it's possible. And I believe if we work hard enough, we are going to reach our goal. But now, as a wiser, older, more mature professional, I'm much more committed to partnerships and collaboration. So that wasn't the case in my early 20s, but it is now.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Fortunately, I hear you.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: So at the.

Dr. Kirk Adams: United Way. The United Way resource development.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: I was yeah, yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And for those who don't know, that's that's a kind way to say fundraising.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: Yeah. And I met some really great people doing that work and really contribute to the community again still searching for my role. And, and I met a woman who told me about a graduate program in southern Vermont at a, at in Brattleboro, Vermont, very small town, very small school, 100 100 students in their graduate program. But upon hearing about I went home that night and I did my application, I applied, and a few months later I was driving cross-country to go to graduate school at the World Learning Institute, which is the original institution that trained Peace Corps volunteers to go abroad. And and there I. I study I was studying corporate social responsibility and sustainability because at the time there were no green MBA programs. Sustainability wasn't really in the lexicon. Again, really trying to marry my business acumen with my social values and and searching for a way. So, you know, I met with Ben and Jerry's and my thesis was on how do you define corporate ethics? And I looked at I had, you know, part of it was I had two lip balms and I said, this one is a traditional petroleum based lip balm, but 100% of the proceeds fund cleft palate surgeries in Africa. And this one is made with all natural, local, organic ingredients. But there is no philanthropic component. And which one is more socially responsible? And, you know, that was that was the core of what I was studying. And felt like I was starting to figure it out. And when I say it really myself is what I'm referring to. I founded a newswire service called CSR wire which is the first of its kind. Are you familiar with it?

Dr. Kirk Adams: I sure.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Am.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: Yeah. So I founded that 23 years ago. Right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I was shocked to say that.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: Yeah. So so the point of that newswire is to share positive stories is to help businesses push out their positive practices. Because, again, the, the the typical traditional media is a lot about negativity. And at the time, businesses didn't have many avenues to share what what good things were happening. And I truly believe that on the continuum of, you know, good and bad, there's no there's no company that's good and there's no company that's bad. I feel like 99.9% of companies are clumped somewhere in the middle with shades of grey. Every company is doing something that is noteworthy. That's good for the community, that's good for employees or what have you. And every company has its challenges. But so I did that for three years and and, and it was awesome. But Vermont was feeling a little claustrophobic for me, being an hour and a half from the closest airport and my love of travel. So I moved to San Francisco, and that is at the time at which the story picks up with you involved at the Lighthouse for the blind. And that was my first opportunity to work in the disabled community. And as part of our training, probably not part of your training. But part of my training was that we go through a full day blindfolded, and that is through the office, navigating community services, navigating a restaurant experience, and ordering lunch. And I know, I know, that can be somewhat controversial that that that tool. But it was very effective for me.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Personally to.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Talk about that was for.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh, please.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So disability simulations are sometimes used in order to intentionally give people without an impairment the experience of navigating the built social and digital environments with a simulated impairment in case of visual impairment. Now Doctor Ariel Silverman, who is now the director of research at American Foundation for the blind, she did her doctoral work at the University of Washington looking at those disability simulation experiences and her conclusion to to cut, you know, cut to the end of her dissertation is that they can be very counterproductive if they're not done correctly, because they can't can give a person without an impairment the impression that living, for instance, without sight can be a terrifying, frustrating, angering chaotic experience. But you said it was part of your training. But if used as part of a more comprehensive disability awareness training, it can be very useful. So I just want to highlight that, yeah, experiences like dining in the dark where you take people who haven't had any background or training and you throw a blindfold on them and tell them to eat dinner, they can walk away from that thinking, you know, being being blind could be the worst thing ever, right? So we don't want that, right?

Meghan Connolly Haupt: We don't want to paint such a negative impression. And also my understanding of the, you know, the simulation tool is that it really doesn't touch upon the culture. Right, to, to to have a blindfold on at a restaurant. The waitstaff is going to treat me exactly the same as they would with when I take that blindfold off. But that's that's a very, very different cultural experience than somebody who actually does live with it with an impairment. And so like you said, it was part of the training. And I think the way they did, it was very effective. And it also depends on the person. Right? For me personally, it was very helpful. Especially at the age that I was at at the time.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Did you.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Find the job and then moved to San Francisco or moved to San Francisco and then find a job?

Meghan Connolly Haupt: I moved to San Francisco just because I needed a change. And friends and family and said, I think you'd you do really well in San Francisco. I think it's the right culture for you. And so I moved out there really on a whim. And unfortunately, I lived two blocks away from lighthouse for the blind. So it was a very easy commute.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: And And served me very, very well. I met my husband out in the Bay area. He was at Stanford. And he's he's an alumni of Stanford. And we decided to get married and and have children. And that is what was the impetus for us moving back to upstate New York, where I'm from. And, you know, to be closer to family again, that whole of community. Right? I didn't find a lot of community in general in my years out West. But the culture of upstate New York is one that that I find very, very comforting. And my family had lived here forever. My dad has has never lived anywhere but this area. And as a teacher, as a coach, had a very, very broad reach of and community. And one of my favorite things about living here. And I'll say it happens probably once, maybe twice a week, is I meet somebody who knew my dad. Oh, my gosh, you're Jim Connolly's daughter. Oh, he was my coach. Oh, he was my teacher. Oh, he was my neighbor. And that that sense of grounding and connectedness is so incredibly powerful for me personally. And, and my siblings don't have that. It doesn't happen to them. My my brothers in Seattle. But my sister is here locally and it never happens to her. And I have read that when these kind of coincidences happen, it's an indicator that the person is more present in life and really kind of seeking out those connections spiritually. That's what I've read. And maybe that's why it happens to me and not my sister. Maybe I just talk a lot more.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: My dad was a high school basketball coach for 40 years. So the town where I graduated from high school north of Seattle. If I. Whenever I go there, I run into players. And.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: And it.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Feels great.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Players and coaches and refs. Yeah, I knew him so I understand.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So so you you you have your first experience working around disability in the sense of wildness. Yeah. White House. Yeah. And from then on, it seems like it was baked into everything that you've done since then.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: Yeah, I did social impact marketing.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So how does that how does that happen? Because not everybody who has, you know, an initial experience with disability becomes a fierce advocate and ally. Such as yourself?

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: I, like I said, I maybe just goes back to who my parents are. Were. And I knew at a young age that people were important. Are important. I knew at a young age I knew I needed to do something connecting people. I had originally gone to business born because I thought I was going to go into advertising. But my sophomore year of college, I was competitively selected to work with habitat for Humanity in Guatemala. And, you know, if you if you map your life, there are probably a handful of events that have happened that have completely earned the trajectory for you. And and working in Guatemala as an 18 year old was one of those key moments. Key events in my life. And so when I came back to campus after that trip, I went and met with my advisor and I said, okay, new plan. I don't want to go into advertising as I understood it to be at the time. I said, I have to I have to figure out how to use again business marketing. But in a more positive way. And so I added sociology as a double major, which was awesome. I absolutely I absolutely loved it. But this has been a journey. This has been decades in the making to get me where I'm at today. And one of the first posts that I wrote when I launched Inclusive Saratoga, which was just in February, was that I felt like it was all these different avenues or streams of my life, kind of converging into one raging river. Everything I had learned Learn from different careers and different people and different experiences. Kind of kind of coming into into focus at this at this moment in my life.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: And part we didn't talk about yet is when we did start having a family. I one daughter who just completely shocked me, shocked me unbelievably. I had no idea how much I would love being a parent and her parent in particular. I really I'm not that maternal kind of person. But I loved it so much and I said, I want her to have a sibling now. It had taken us five years and tens of thousands of dollars to conceive my older daughter, whose name is Porter. And it was it was a brutal five years. I called them the Lost Years because we really couldn't do anything. We couldn't move our lives forward at all until we knew if we were going to be parents. And and we were, and it was amazing. And I said to my husband. One day I said, I want to try one more time and he didn't think I was crazy. Which maybe means that he's crazy. Because it was. It was just like after what we had been through. He said, if you're willing to do it, so am I. So we tried one more time and conceived my second daughter, who's Tatum, and she was born at 24 weeks, so she was born 108 days prematurely. Yeah. That's how many days she spent in NICU. And so for the past 11 years, she's now just over 11. I have been in the disability space by virtue of being her parent. And she has physical as well as cognitive as well as speech disabilities. So she has she experiences a fairly large spectrum of challenges and navigating that with.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Her.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: Has really, really. It's been it's been powerful for me. You know, again, it feels like everything I've done kind of has led up to where we're at. And and it was a year ago this week, actually, that I decided to focus on, you know, combining all my skills and energy and passions into really advocating for individuals with disabilities of any kind. And it took me about six months to flesh out what I, what I wanted that to look like. Did I want to be an LLC or a nonprofit? And what was going to be the focus? What was the real gap that I was trying to fill? And and it took a lot of searching and a lot of conversations. I connected with disability advocates all over the world who were kind enough and generous enough with their time to have frank conversations with me. And so the model of Inclusive Saratoga was based on a lot of my personal experience, but also a lot of research and and conversations with other people who face challenges in our society.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So what did you decide?

Meghan Connolly Haupt: So inclusive Saratoga is a nonprofit and and, and a lot of people were really surprised because this is February. Mine in February of 2025. And you can reflect back on what was happening politically at that time. A lot of people thought I perhaps was making a poor career choice by going into this, this field. But I, I remain very optimistic about 2025. And the reason I do is because my experience has shown me that when federal funds and federal programs are pulled back. Businesses and individuals step up. I've seen it time and time again, and I truly believe that on a very personal level, people want to make the right choices and people want to support each other, and that is what we are tapping into. And so inclusive. Saratoga, our model, is basically a consultancy where we work with businesses of all kinds. Hospitality businesses are really kind of a key vertical. But any business to help that business tap into the ROI of embracing disability inclusivity, that looks totally different for various types of businesses. And one organization, we worked with them on their parking. They were very unclear on the the laws and how to where to put handicap accessible parking and that kind of thing. Another we we do service animal training. Another we're looking at adding sensory station and sensory kits and another we're looking at staff training. So that the staff can be more prepared to better serve all their customers who have disabilities. We have worked in the brewery space, the craft beer space. You mentioned that early in our call. And my work in that industry was really rooted in the fact that breweries tend to be gathering places. They tend to be social hubs, and they tend to be very generous from a philanthropic standpoint of, you know, donating to community groups and yeah, and inviting nonprofits to have meetings there for free and that kind of thing. So that's why I had worked in that industry for, for a decade. And that industry is so, so perfectly.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: Positioned to benefit from the work that we do at inclusive Saratoga to really welcome everybody into into the brewery, the brewery space. Yeah. So that's that's in a nutshell what what we do and because we are an, a traditional nonprofit, meaning we don't do direct service work. A lot of foundations are struggling with funding us because it's outside of their models. So so we have to be very innovative. We have to be creative. And one of the things we've done is launch a, an earned income stream of inclusive apparel. And so it's tees, tanks, hoodies that promote only positive messages and raise awareness. And 100% of the profits go to funding our consultancy.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right. So I have to ask. Because my, my my passion, what I've devoted my professional and academic careers and energies to as employment with people with disabilities, and the fact that only 35% of us with significant disabilities are in the workforce, which leads to a lot of poverty and all the all the bad things that happen, poverty. So I have are you able to have conversations with any of the people you're serving as a consultant around inclusion of people with disabilities in their workforce?

Meghan Connolly Haupt: Yeah, that's a great question. And we do not do that work ourselves. And the reason the reason we don't is because there are organisations who are already doing that. And and I just met with one here locally the other day called Wildwood. Wildwood happens to be the fiscal intermediary intermediary for my daughter's Medicaid, so I was already familiar with them. Okay, but she's only 11, so I wasn't really familiar with their their job readiness or job placement program. But we had a meeting, and I was so pleasantly surprised at her reaction to what we're doing, because the way she viewed it was, she's like, you're warming. You're warming up these businesses. We're going to we're going to follow you in. You're going to talk about inclusivity on a larger scale. You're going to help them because we really focus on the customer service side of things. Yeah. And and she said, but but by virtue of doing that, they are automatically in better positions to employ individuals with disabilities. You're knocking down these barriers. You're warming up these businesses to the idea. So then we come in and we can hopefully, you know, form partnerships with them. So it looks like yeah, it looks like a really great relationship. And you know, and again, like what we're doing nobody was doing before. And I have two business degrees. I had never. Nobody had ever talked about disability or inclusivity or accessibility in any of my business classes. So when I knock on these businesses doors and I and I literally cold call or just show up they say this is the first time anyone has ever invited us to have this conversation. So the first time anyone has ever offered these services. And so, yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Focus is to help these businesses create welcome pleasant frictionless, barrier free customer experiences for their customers with disabilities. Is that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yes.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: And and the reason that's our focus is because everybody should be together. Yeah. So I mentioned I have two daughters. They both ski. They ski at separate ski mountains. And that is that makes for a very long Saturday for me to go to different ski mountains because they have different programs. And though in my in my opinion, that should not be the case, my daughter should be able to ski together. They want to ski together, but one has the adaptive program and one doesn't. And so I believe that when individuals are together disability or not, everyone grows and learns. And then when I talk to businesses, though, there is a real business case for it. Accenture did a study that showed that businesses that embrace disability inclusivity see 30% higher net revenue. So while I'd like to. Yes. So I'd like to think that people, you know, do it because they, they believe in it. But if they're doing it because of the economics, that's fine too. So that's that's really what I'm tapping into, is working with music venues and museums and restaurants and and breweries so that so that everybody can, can go and participate fully and have maybe a different but a shared experience.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. Well, you I think one of the first things out of your mouth was community was a unifying theme for, for you in your life. So it seems that all these various experiences have indeed, I think you said, combined to form a raging river. So it seems like your your head heading down, heading down the river. So creating a nonprofit, have you founded a nonprofit?

Meghan Connolly Haupt: I hadn't founded one myself. But when I was doing the development work, I. I got into training other development professionals and helping them navigate the world of fundraising. So I at least had had that background. And to be completely honest, I didn't want to be a nonprofit. Yeah, I, I feel like I feel like in general, nonprofits tend to, you know, become beholden to the funders and not innovate enough and not not be assertive enough in addressing their key goals and objectives. And so I didn't want to be a nonprofit, but I ultimately made that decision because at least initially, I feel like it opens us up to more conversations, which is part of the goal.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You know, I've been in the nonprofit space a long, long time. So, you know, the the the board is so important. And I want to talk to you a little bit about that, but I, I disclaimer I love the nonprofit sector. I love non-profit organizations. I love people who volunteer to serve on boards of directors and boards of trustees for nonprofits. But the structure is inherently really difficult to move quickly. It's very hard to be nimble. Unless you really designed it to, to have that capacity. And that usually starts with how you design a board and who you have on your board. Because our process is people that people need buy in and they need to understand and they're volunteers. And you have structures and processes and subcommittees and recommendations by subcommittees to committees and quarterly board meetings. It's really hard. It's hard to move quickly unless you build that capacity in structurally. And I. I'm sure you're fully aware of that. I'm sure you're doing that.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: I'm trying to. I was very deliberate about our founding board members. We are actively trying to recruit more board members, honestly, because there's so much opportunity. For what? What we're doing. I anyone who's willing to support us, I'm willing to, to kind of figure out a role for them. But but yeah, I am trying to be very, very deliberate and intentional about how we spend our time, how we spend our resources. What what we are working on. Again, there's there is so much need and opportunity that when something isn't clicking, I'm trying to move on. I'm trying to say, okay, you know what? There's that's not clicking at this time. So rather than keep pursuing it, and this is where I have to kind of suppress my competitive nature a little bit go after the things that are starting to percolate.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So every morning when I get ready for the day, I Right. Kind of a little vision statement for the day. And I write my mantra for today. For the day. This morning it was don't, don't. Chase was pretty much for today. So there's a there's enough opportunity out there that you don't need to chase. And you can Think about being magnetic and attracting opportunity to you. Right. Which I think you talked about a little bit. Talked about connecting with people who. You know, have a relationship with your father.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: And I will say to that point about the. Don't chase the number of people that I have met who have fed me positive energy. In the last six months is is probably more than the last six years prior to these six months. The people who are coming forward and who we're meeting and we've connected with or who volunteered some time or have donated, or who have even just stopped by to say hi at our booth at one of our local events. It's really so powerful and I am really grateful for it. It's something I didn't really think about going into as a byproduct of what we're doing. But but when we have events, you know, we're there to sell our merch again as a fundraiser and raise awareness. But people are coming to our booth, oftentimes kind of teary eyed, saying things to us like, you know, how can you be so positive right now? And, and it's amazing what you're trying to accomplish. And and I literally invite them into the booth. Come on in, come in the shade, come sit down, chat with us. And we've met incredible people. And I mean, even reconnecting with you. Kirk. This was a great opportunity for for us to to re-engage after two decades. And so that is my that is honestly my favorite part of my job is is the people that I've had the pleasure of either reconnecting with or connecting with for the first time in the last six months.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: Just this morning, I was invited to to visit Camp Abilities, which is a camp. Yeah, you're familiar with it. For our listeners, Lauren Lieberman, for our listeners that don't know what it is. It here in Saratoga Springs, there's a college called Skidmore College, and that is where this camp takes place, is a camp for youth who are visually impaired or blind. And it's produced by the Lions Club of Saratoga Springs. They fund it, they organize it, and and I have a really nice relationship with the Lions Club as of the last handful of months. And they invited me to the camp today and went and met some of the campers and had some really great conversations. And you know, sometimes I say, I can't believe this is my job. I can't believe this is what I get to do, right? Because I feel so privileged to hear their stories and and to be able to share our own story. Which is you know, not all positive, right? We've been through a lot of trauma as a family. But it's so cathartic to to to share that and to connect with people.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I lived in Brooklyn and worked in Manhattan and took a train to Albany. That's my experience of New York. So

Meghan Connolly Haupt: You were close. You're about 40 minutes away in Albany.

Dr. Kirk Adams: How far away is Saratoga Springs from Stony Brook?

Meghan Connolly Haupt: I don't know how far it is from Stony. Maybe two and a half. Maybe.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I'm not sure. Woman. Doctor Lauren Lieberman is a professor there, and she's like the leading expert on physical education for kids.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: Okay.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. Capabilities there. I see. So tell I we're coming. We'll need to do a part two to get the one year report on.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: Oh, that'd be great. But if you can get my time, then I may be too busy.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. Okay. That's right. All full schedule. Can you tell tell me just a little bit about the community. You mentioned hospitality, and you mentioned breweries and festivals and restaurants. So it. Is that a hospitality industry hub? Saratoga, Saratoga Springs, are there other industries? How many people? Just a little snapshot.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: Yeah. So Saratoga Springs. I think the community of residents is about 28,000. It's a small city. It's a city. It's not a suburb. So it's so it is its own entity. But I think it's about 28,000 residents. However, we have the oldest sporting venue in the country here. Our other big claim to fame, beyond being the birthplace of the potato chip is the Saratoga racetrack.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: So we have, you know, it's a it's a booming, booming tourist town for several months out of the year. And in addition to that, we have Saratoga Performing Arts Center, which is in Saratoga Springs Spa State Park. And that music venue is 60 years old. And it's not a huge venue, I want to say 20, 25,000 attendees capacity, but get some really amazing acts and New York City Ballet, the orchestra, as well as partnership with Live Nation where they have, you know, modern rock pop stuff. But that, is here as well. So you've got the track. You've got stack. It is and, you know, especially during the summer with, with a lot of tourism and I'm on lots of different social media groups about tourism in the city. And I'm seeing more and more people coming to visit asking questions like, hey, I have mobility challenges. Can you give me a recommendation of a restaurant? Or, hey, we're going to go to Spac. Can somebody explain to me what we might expect when we get there? We're traveling with our disabled child or what have you, and I'm happy to pipe in and and then kind of gather that information and go to these entities and say, hey, we can we can do more. We have opportunity to better serve the community. And guess what? In doing so, you're going to see a higher net Net revenue. So I have a personal passion for the arts, and and it just, you know, it's just a logical.

Dr. Kirk Adams: My my my mind is racing now, Meghan, that I know what you're doing, so I, I have some resources I want to connect you with on some networks that are kindred spirits. Awesome. You're doing so.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: Awesome. That's fantastic. I, I would love any introductions. Because you can keep going, right? I keep following the trail of breadcrumbs if.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You want people. If people want to get in touch with you and Yeah. Have conversation. Find out more about.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: Absolutely. I would love to hear from any of your listeners.

Dr. Kirk Adams: How do they do that?

Meghan Connolly Haupt: Yeah. Inclusive saratoga.com. And my email address is Hello at Inclusive Saratoga. Com there's also a form field on on the website. And and we have Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn. You can find us on any one of those four platforms. Even something like a like or a follow really helps validate what we're doing and helps bring that conversation together. Kirk, I don't I don't know your opinion on this yet.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I'm hoping I will be going to your socials today.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: Awesome. Well, we'll we'll share the socials to really connect this conversation, but I don't know your thoughts and would love to hear them on kind of the movement in general. You know, it's disability is such a huge term, right? There's so much that falls under that. But what I often feel like we do ourselves a disservice in, in the advocacy or in the movement of of infighting. Right. Like, no, we can't say disabled person. We have to say a person with a disability. And and I feel like that there's, there's a lot of need and again, opportunity to, to pull the conversation together and move forward as more of a united front. I know not everyone's going to have the same opinion. And you know I am not a disabled person I'm the parent of. So I have a different vantage point than you do than other people do. But I just feel like any way that we can help pull all these different groups and conversations together to be tighter, the better it will serve all of us.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I think that's right. I am very, very hopeful for the future. I've seen a lot of progress in the last 25 years. In the last ten years, things are accelerating as far as just normalizing conversations about disability and accommodations. And, you know, honestly, the Black Lives movement and the national dialogue about institutional barriers to oppressed groups really opened up and disrupted a lot of a lot of spaces around being able to talk about this kind of stuff. Of course there's there there's always pendulum, so there's pushback on that. It'll push back again. Things evolve. Of the or the arc of history been slowly, but it bends toward towards justice, to paraphrase Doctor King, but just the younger generation. I have nieces and nephews who are eight, ten, 12, 14 years old. They're just so inclusive. And they're thinking and they're talking. They have networks of people digitally they have kids with disabilities in their classrooms. They don't they don't bat an eye. You know, when I come in with my cane and my braille and you know, they have friends who are wheelchair users and friends use augmentative communication devices. And, I just think you know, 20, 20 years from now it's it's going to be. Yeah. Amazing. As far as the levels of inclusion and understanding and awareness and empathy, I feel really good about that.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: I agree with you. I had this moment recently where I. I was at the park. I had gone for a run and got in the car, put my seatbelt down and started driving home, and I realized that I couldn't remember putting my seatbelt on. It has become so habitual for for my generation. Whereas, you know, I grew up in the 70s, I grew up with a vinyl seat. I fell out of a moving car going 40 miles an hour when I was five years old. Right. Seatbelt. My generation had to learn that you wear a seatbelt. Right. Yeah, well, first they had to install them in the vehicles. But but here, you know, at my age, it's it's so habitual. I didn't even think about it. Right. So I'm halfway home. And I said, I don't even remember putting my seatbelt on, and I use that. It's not a perfect analogy, but I use it to think about. So that was, you know, 47 years ago, I fell out of a moving car because no one wore seatbelts. 47 years from now, what is inclusivity going to look like? I'm hopeful that the things that are a challenge that we're just putting into place now, 47 years from now, no one even thinks about, and they look back at this time and go, I can't believe you lived like that, I can't believe. You know, you didn't have these things, right? The way we look back on the 70s say, I can't believe you sat in the front seat with no seatbelt.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Or climbed back and forth between the seats at the station, like, oh, yeah.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: Facing backwards.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I was at a conference in San Francisco and the presenter started out talking about societal change. This is how societies change. And he said 50 years ago there would have been an ashtray on each of these conference tables. Yeah, this room would have been filled with smoke.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So just think about that for a second. But I the time flew by. Meghan, I am so much looking forward to an update later on to see what progress you've made. How far you've gotten down the raging river? Yes. If people want to get in touch with me, my email is Kirk Adams, Kirk Adams, Kirk ams, Dr. Kirk Adams. Com and I'm on LinkedIn a lot. I'm Kirk Adams on LinkedIn. And thank you for listening to my really wonderful visit with Meghan. Catching up.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: Thank you. Oh, thank you so much. It was it was really a wonderful hour spent with you. And and I look forward to sharing all of our progress on our next call, maybe a year from now or so. Every single day. Relentless forward progress.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's it. I love that. And I'm going to inclusive saratoga.com right now. And liking you on the social.

Meghan Connolly Haupt: Thanks so much Kirk I really appreciate you and all your work. You be well.

Dr. Kirk Adams: All right. You too. Thanks, everybody. We'll see you next time.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. We hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Don't forget to subscribe, share or leave a review at. Kirk Adams. Together, we can amplify these voices and create positive change. Until next time, keep listening. Keep learning and keep making an impact.

In this engaging episode, Dr. Kirk Adams sits down with disability advocate, outdoor enthusiast, and "The Blind Chick" podcast host Penn Street. Penn recounts the dramatic origins of her blindness—two rattlesnake bites at age nine triggered Stevens-Johnson syndrome, leaving her with severe burns, lasting eye damage, and years of surgeries. Growing up as the ninth of ten siblings, she credits a rugged childhood, supportive teachers, and the Lion s Clubs with building her resilience. A move to Colorado opened doors to better medical care and the mountains she loves; later, climber Erik Weihenmayer's example convinced her she could still scale rock walls, raft the Grand Canyon, and teach adaptive outdoor skills to other blind adventurers. The conversation pivots to Penn's current role as Development and Outreach Director for After Sight, the Colorado nonprofit that delivers daily audio editions of state newspapers and produces a family of blind-led podcasts — including her own lively show rebranded from "Community Conversations." She and Dr. Adams explore the mental-health dimensions of vision loss, Penn's embrace of full-contact self-defense after a violent assault, and the power of therapy, nature, and community to heal trauma. Penn invites listeners to join her annual Maya's Gulch hike this September and to reach out — whether for a trail guide, a podcast idea, or simply a reminder that blindness need not define anyone's limits. TRANSCRIPT:

Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, doctor Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Hello, everybody, and welcome to Podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. I am Doctor Kirk Adams, talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And I have an amazing guest with me today. Her name is Penn Street, and I met her through Dave Epstein or Sedona Dave. Who developed the all terrain cane. In 2019, when I was at the American Foundation for the blind. I had the privilege of going to Sedona and being in a group of 8 or 9 blind people and hiking trails around Sedona, Arizona, and I was able to do that independently, really, for the first time, I my retinas detached when I was five years old. I became totally blind. I went to a school for blind kids in Oregon, and they were very experiential school. They took us backpacking in the three Soul Three Sisters Wilderness area every summer, and I can remember hiking those trails with my backpack on and using a using sighted guide. Having my hand on the sleeping bag rolled up at the bottom of the backpack in front of me. And then when I was 19 years old, I had the opportunity to climb Mount Rainier. Which was a great event multi disabled climbing team. And again, a lot, a lot of sighted guide. So to use the all terrain cane and to walk swiftly and confidently across a rugged mountain trail, it's pretty cool. And then fast forward a bit and Dave said there's a really cool person you need to meet. Her name was Penn. So? So here she is.

Podcast Commentator: So

Dr. Kirk Adams: And then if you want to talk a little bit about you.

Penn Street: Sure. Hi, Kirk. It's good to good to be here. And thanks to Sedona. Dave. I'm actually trying to remember how I got connected with Dave. I think he actually reached out to me because of the the cane, and he knew that I knew Eric Waimea and And that. Yeah, it's a lot of us people think all blind people know each other and. Right, right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I've had I've had that experience. I was in Ketchikan, Alaska. My wife. Salmon fishing. Oh, we're getting in the boat. And someone walked down the down the dock with a cane. And, yeah, they assumed you probably know them. Said, no, I probably don't know them.

Penn Street: Yeah, my husband does that to me when we travel. Is there's a person with a blind person, you know, you know, who's blind, who has a cane or a guide dog. You need to go meet them. And I was like maybe, maybe not. Right. But yeah, but yeah. So yeah, it's when people say, so tell me a little bit about yourself. It's like, well, where do you, where do you.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I'd like to know about the blindness. I like to know about the blindness journey.

Penn Street: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Every every story is different as far as that goes.

Penn Street: Oh, isn't that the truth? Yeah. I've always wanted to, like, write a book or something about all the ways you can go blind because they it's it's just numerous. When I was nine, I was bit by a rattlesnake a western diamondback rattlesnake, actually and it made me twice and all the anti-venom and all the fun stuff they give you, especially as a kid to, you know, save your life from being bitten by a venomous snake. Triggered a syndrome called Stevens-Johnson syndrome. And it's it's a pretty nasty syndrome, especially the onset. They treat you in a burn unit. It's just like you've been in a fire. So, yeah, 75% of my body was covered in second and third degree burns. They did not believe I'd ever be able to breathe on my own or you know. You know, eat without, you know, assistance through a feeding tube. They definitely thought I was going to be blind and deaf. Because if you think when you're in a fire, you're nothing but soft tissue. Right. So. Right. So even after the scars, you know, heal it's those that scar tissue creates a lot of issues inside the body and out. But I. You know, I'm a tomboy. I'm the ninth of ten kids, so I have seven older brothers. So I sort of had to come out.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You'd been you'd been pretty toughened up.

Penn Street: I did, and really. And the doctors told my parents that. They said it was really great that she came from such a strong baseline, not just physically, but mentally that it set her up to not only to survive, but to strive afterwards. And so it was definitely touch and go for a long, long time, and I guess probably still is. But but yeah, so I it, I think it was harder on my parents and, and family and even friends than it was on me because I went from this incredibly vibrant, healthy kid to basically overnight not knowing if I was going to survive. And if I did, what was that life going to be like? And we were in rural Arkansas when this happened. So not a ton of blind resources and services and stuff. But the the first people that really stepped up were the Lions Clubs. Yeah. Yeah. They basically showed up at my parent's door when I was, you know, it was months and months before I was allowed to go home. And they said, what? What is your. You know, we heard your daughter's blind cause, you know, made the news. This was so rare. And Yeah. And so they they're the ones.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That are totally pin.

Penn Street: No. In my right eye, I I actually have a prosthetic eye. My left eye. I still have a little peripheral out of my left, but it's it's pretty fuzzy. It's. Gotcha. I try not to rely on it. It usually gets me into trouble if I do.

Dr. Kirk Adams: The lion's clubs are good for that. I mean, I, I lived in little teeny town Silverton, Oregon. We moved down there so I could go to the school for the blind for first, second and third grade. And the lions built our fun house at the school.

Penn Street: Exactly right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: When I was 14, they sent me to. There was an organization called Blind Outdoor Leisure Development. And they paid my way to go to Aspen, Colorado, to go down a bunch of other blind people. So. Yeah. Thank you. Lions.

Penn Street: Yes, Lions. Big, big shout out to you. So but yeah, I. And then like a lot of us, we really paid attention to, like our teachers and our mentors growing up. And I don't know about you, but there weren't a lot of well, actually, I was the only blind kid in the school all through high school. Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Fourth grade, through my doctorate. Yeah, after third grade.

Penn Street: And it's crazy. Where are we? There's a lot of us. Where are we? And but I, I really knew and appreciated how much my teachers helped. Not not just, you know. Oh, we'll pass you in English because we know you can't see the book, but they really went above and beyond to find accessibility where they could. And back then I'm 57. So back then there wasn't all the digital stuff that's now. Right, right. Things like that. And so even getting me access to Braille Rail was, you know, this crazy, crazy amount of energy had to go into that. But my parents did end up deciding to move to Colorado, which. Thank you. And part of that was there was, you know, the Children's Hospital in Denver, Colorado, was actually internationally known. And and I needed a lot of medical help to keep going forward. And, and also just accessibility. You know, like teachers that actually knew how to teach blankets and stuff. So. So we moved out to Colorado and fell in love with the mountains and being outside and yeah. And I and I grew up at school came easy to me. I, I have no clue why. It's not that I'm super smart or anything. I am a puzzle solver. So I felt like school was a puzzle. And so if you kept the pieces together and you did them in a timely fashion, you got good grades and they moved you on. So it was it was really easy. And but I knew I wanted to become a teacher of some sort. Or a journalist like to write about people with disabilities. Like, this was especially after I got to Colorado. And even though there were no blind children in my school my teacher, she was one teacher, and she. I don't know how many schools she covered, but there was a lot of them. Well, like once a month, she would get us all together to go bowling or horseback riding or something.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So she was an itinerant teacher, going. Yes, to various schools where there were blind kids?

Penn Street: Yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And she and she would call together all the various schools. That was cool.

Penn Street: Yes. Yeah. And and she really did go above and beyond. And even as a kid, I knew she was going above and beyond. You know, she, she even on weekends, she had a cabin up in the up in the mountains and her and some other adults would take us all up there and we'd have camp outs and stuff. So but so I just loved these teachers that that were able to help me succeed. And so I knew I wanted to have do that when I grew up. And so, you know, I that's what I went to school for. And I've worked with all kinds of levels of everything from teaching daily living skills, teaching braille you know, all different things. And then.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I studied.

Penn Street: Actually at in Denver.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. But you studied education as a foreign.

Penn Street: Yes, yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Field of study.

Penn Street: Okay.

Penn Street: Yes, exactly. And I and I specifically went into early childhood development because I felt like if you could teach kids the tools as early as possible the stronger their, you know, academic career would be and the easier it would be for them. And then. But I ended up actually spending a lot of my life working with older people like seniors and people who had, you know, it was either like their second career, you know, they were older. But I did miss the kids, but it was just happenstance. I met Eric Weimer right after he had summited Everest. And and he was doing the Seven Summits at that time, and and I just he his whole attitude, his whole being and really changed my life. I had just lost a huge chunk of my residual vision, and, and I, and I had the skill set right. But I did need to go back and get some refresher on computer skills and things like that. But Eric really was a role model for me that I could still rock climb and hike and I could still have this Impact in the world, even outside of teaching. And so just by happenstance, his he got me involved in volunteering at his nonprofit, No Barriers. And I really loved it. Like, I fell in love with actually teaching hiking skills and rock climbing skills. And I ended up working even for a rock climbing gym where we taught blind kids how to rock climb and love that. And he was the one, even though I'd been into, you know, camping in the outdoor world, he was the one that really sort of ignited that into a different level.

Penn Street: And I loved it. Loved it. And then they brought me on staff full time, and that was when really adventure took off, actually. Nine years ago this last weekend we is when I pulled out of the Grand Canyon. We, you know, nobody has paid me, which I've. Done it for free. But I'm glad they didn't know that at the time. But I got to raft the entire Grand Canyon with a group of high schoolers that were blind and low vision. So awesome. It was just incredible. And, you know, Covid hit, right? So that you know, that caused such a mess in my life. But, you know, they they had to lay everybody off and then eventually let people go because it was just their their entire being was in-person experience gathering. Yeah. And so they just and they're still trying to hang in there. But it's I really hope they get to come back. But I don't know at the level they will. When I was there but I, I got this job that I have now. And actually a blind friend of mine, I didn't even know it was out on the market. And it's a nonprofit called After Sight, and we cover all of Colorado and an incredible organization. They've been around for 35 years. And it was founded by a blind person, David Dawson. And he when he moved to Colorado from D.C., he realized that there was no accessible way to access, you know, access newspapers and magazines in Colorado like he did when he was in Washington, D.C.. And so he started this, like, audio reading service.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. So he access the D.C.. Had access to a radio reading service?

Penn Street: Yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Audio reading service.

Penn Street: Okay.

Penn Street: Yeah. And so he started after sight. And now we we have over 100 volunteers that read most of Colorado's newspapers daily, 365 days a year. And we put those out in audio editions, and it's absolutely free. And we've grown. We've grown a lot. I came on, you know, almost going on five years now, and I'm their development and outreach director. And we moved everything onto all of the platform. Yeah. Platforms for podcasts. And so you don't need to have, like a digital receiver or any special equipment to access those audio editions. And then the probably the bizarre thing to me about this whole thing is when I came on, they had a podcast. It was called Community Conversations, but it really was waning. You know, the person who was doing it, you know, didn't really want to do it anymore. And so they asked me if I would take it over. And I have I have a ton of connections in the blind world. And so I was like, yeah, sure, I don't. I mean, I listen to podcasts, but I have no idea how to be a host. And so it really was, you know, kind of learning, learning as I went. And I didn't really like the title community conversations. It really didn't share the vision that I wanted to do with the podcast. And so so we came up with with the Blind Chick because on social media, that's what everybody calls me. And that's my handle is the blind chick. Not everybody loves it, but it fits me. I am the blind. And and so yeah, we rebranded it and we hired a podcast producer and it just exploded, like and I don't.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I didn't realize that you are the blind chick.

Penn Street: I am.

Penn Street: The blind.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Because I see posts by blind chick, and now I know it's you.

Penn Street: So, I mean, maybe there's others out there, I don't know.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So very coincidentally 32 years ago, I had graduated from college, had a lot of trouble finding work, and took took a job selling tax free municipal bonds over the phone, which I did for ten years and earned enough to get married and buy a house and have kids. Yeah, those things, but didn't didn't like it. Yeah, very much. But I, you know, decided to pivot into the nonprofit sector and started looking for resource development jobs and not getting them because I didn't have experience. But I got a newsletter from the Washington, Washington Talking Book and Braille Library and said, we have to raise $200,000 or close down the Evergreen Radio Reading service. So I called the librarian and said I would volunteer to help her raise that money, and that would give me experience in resource development, something for my resume. Yeah. So I did that and wrote a couple letters of inquiry, got invited to submit some full grant proposals and had beginner's luck. Got some nice checks and they said, how about we create a job for you here?

Penn Street: So.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So my first nonprofit Prophet job was to was as a development officer for the Seattle Public Library Foundation, that is, raising money for the talking book and Braille library.

Penn Street: That is awesome.

Dr. Kirk Adams: There. There you go. We have that in common.

Penn Street: Yeah. And I didn't I you know, I've done development work for a long, long time and I, I'm, I'm good at it, I guess because I keep getting hired as it. But I, it was never like a career. It was never really on my radar to grow up and be a development director. But it's I like doing it. The one thing though, I can only sell something I'm passionate about.

Penn Street: Well that's right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's that's why there's so much turnover among resource development professionals because they, they, they go to an organization, they're very, very excited about it. Then they over the next couple of years, they kind of were that's maybe not all they wanted it to be.

Penn Street: But it's it's also a lot of responsibility, right? Like it's knowing that your coworkers, you know. Livelihood is in your in your hands or on your shoulder.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So is after primarily focused on delivering news and periodicals to blind people or have you, as the organization developed additional programs over the years?

Penn Street: Oh, yeah. Definitely. So the podcast, the original podcast the Blind Chick is their flagship one, but they also have one called Blind Level Tech, which is also doing amazing. And it's about blind tech and it's low tech and it's also, you know, what's the latest, greatest, you know, meta glasses that have come out. And and then we have one called Blind Sight, and that one is mental health, you know, and and because, you know, mental health is it's the same yet different if you're blind and low vision. And so in most of our original podcasts are hosted by people who are blind or low vision. You know, we have one called Navigating Life with Vision Loss, and that has seasons. And so they'll have a certain amount of episodes on a very specific topic, like the the one that's coming up is about safety. And so and again, it's how it's from the perspective of how is safety different? Or maybe added levels that you need to think about when you're blind or low vision. So yeah. And then we're adding one this this fall called Code Orange, which Marty Sorbo out of California is going to host that for us.

Penn Street: He's a he was a firefighter before he lost his vision. And okay, it's that one is very, very specific about disaster being prepared for disasters or even natural disasters because he lived through the wildfires that just happened in LA. And, you know, with his firefighting background and then with his lived experience recently he's he's going to come on and we'll, we'll. And I'm excited for that because I know here in Colorado we it's scary. You know, here in my little town in called Loveland, Colorado, we have had wildfires come really close to town. Luckily they didn't get into town, but we were, you know, we were on pre evacuation. And we've also in 2013, right after we moved here, there was a huge flood. And the only thing that saved our house is we're up on a bluff. But we were kind of on this island because the water got, you know, so high and so intense for so long. So, you know, whether you believe in climate change or not it's still an issue. And you know, there are.

Penn Street: Things that Mother nature.

Penn Street: Yeah. You just don't think about, you know, like, like evacuation is a little different. If you've got a white cane and, you know, they're telling you to get in your car and.

Penn Street: Right, right, right, right, right.

Penn Street: Or if you have a guide dog. Right. You know that. How different does that look and stuff. So.

Penn Street: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Are you are you a guide dog user or.

Penn Street: I am, I am. I because of my health issues, I have to have a hypoallergenic dog. So I've, I've only had standard poodles and my, my fourth dog, but he is about to turn 12, so his name's Beethoven, and he's a big. Well, he I guess he used to be black and now he's quite silver. But yeah, big standard.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Happens to the best of us. Beethoven.

Penn Street: Exactly what? What about you? Are you a.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I learned how to use a cane when I was six. And I've just always been very, very comfortable with, with cane travel. So. Yeah, I stick with that. But I, I'd like to venture into some territory. I don't know how comfortable you'll be, but I'm going to go.

Penn Street: I'm an. I'm an open.

Penn Street: Book.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So you mean you mentioned blindsight? Dealing with mental health and blindness, right?

Penn Street: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So I was not in the hospital for months and months at a stretch like you, but I did have probably ten unsuccessful eye surgeries between age six and 12. And I would be in the hospital for a couple of weeks at a time. After surgery with my with my head in a clamp so I couldn't move my head and, you know, jar the, you know, the surgical work I drink eating through a straw. Yeah. Because I couldn't. Wasn't supposed to do because the jaw jaw movement could be disruptive. Right. So you know, I, I've had some I've had some issues with, with the depression and frustration and things. Yeah. No, I did did go to some talk therapy. I actually had a wonderful experience meeting a woman who teaches narrative medicine at Columbia University. When we lived on the East Coast and she she taught me some meditation and some energy healing, some some pretty, some pretty woo woo stuff that.

Penn Street: Really I love. I love the woo woo stuff.

Penn Street: So.

Dr. Kirk Adams: But you know, one of the talk therapists said to me, you know, have you done anything about dealing with your childhood trauma? I said, childhood trauma. She's like, yes, you were six years old in the hospital by yourself?

Penn Street: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Or two weeks with your head in a clamp?

Penn Street: Yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Childhood trauma, my friend. And then, you know, there's things like I lived in these little towns. We lived out of town, you know. No, no. Public transportation. And then you know, I was in a regular high school and Then when kids turned 16, everyone got a driver's license, so everyone drove. It was car, you know, car culture. Let's meet here. Let's meet there. Everyone was driving. I wasn't always included. So, yeah, I had a lot of anger and grief and, you know, the whole grief, grief cycle just around that. I'm just wondering, any thoughts, general or particular, about blindness and mental health?

Penn Street: Absolutely. When growing up, I mean, I saw, just like, the regular counselor at school, but again, I was the only, you know, blind person there. I think she did it because probably somebody told her, oh, you need to meet with the blind student, you know? But we didn't really talk about anything. We didn't talk about, you know, it was most like, oh, I see you. You're doing really good in English. You know, kind of stuff. Like, it wasn't it was just an excuse to get out of class once a week. But when I decided to move away from home to go to school. And I was I didn't go very far. I just went to Denver. But I wanted to live in Denver. I didn't want to live at home and and go to school in my hometown. I wanted to get out on my own. And it was not too long after that, I. I was assaulted. And it was crazy long, horrific story. But what was interesting is I, you know, they, you know, even just dealing with the police and the doctors and stuff at that point because I couldn't describe them. I didn't know what they was. I knew there were three, but I didn't know. I didn't know, you know. And but then but then I was I described the experience with my other senses. And, you know, I said, well, you know, I smelt this and blah, blah, blah. And so that was really important to the case. And there was even some witnesses and stuff like that out of that, what came out of that and, you know, and the police said, you know, oh, you actually gave a better description than most victims give. And and that was what really triggered me to go to therapy. The, the, I was, I was 19. You know, I was young. And the one thing the reason I wanted to go to therapy is because I was maybe told by the I don't know who said it, but it was some comment like, oh, once you're victimized, you're more likely to be a victim. And that scared me to death.

Penn Street: Yeah.

Penn Street: Like it scared me. Like, because I didn't think of myself as a victim because I couldn't see like, I didn't. My mom was always afraid. But that my low vision would, you know, people would take advantage of me. But I don't think she I think she thought like, oh, when I go buy a Coke at the local store.

Penn Street: Yeah.

Penn Street: They're not going to give me back the like. I think.

Penn Street: That's what she.

Penn Street: Thought. I don't think she thought that I would physically be damaged because of I was blind, and I don't know if I was targeted because I was blind. But but it could have been, but anyway, I was so scared to be victimized again that I really went overboard with that. Every, every therapy you can imagine, you know, couch art talk singing, drumming. And it was in also in Boulder, Colorado, which is at that time was the hippy dippy, you know, new agey. Any kind of therapy would go. But I also one of the things that really changed my life is I got into self-defense and.

Penn Street: Okay.

Penn Street: And I, my therapist actually turned me on. It was full contact self-defense. And they're still around. And actually it came out of California. It's called model mugging. Model mugging.

Penn Street: Mugging.

Penn Street: Okay, yeah. And the guy dresses up in this, he looks kind of like an alien. He's all padded head to toe. He kind of looks like an alien, and he's very scary, and and they're they're you know, black belt martial arts, you know, people, men who who help with this program. And I got very involved with that. And I took everything from the basic course to multiple assailant course to weapons course. And what they do is they attack you and just like, you know, you're walking down the street you know, they had all these scenarios if you were laying down in bed and all this kind of stuff, and they teach you them. I was the first blind person. That was, of course, maybe that was definitely the first, I hope Hopefully it wasn't the last, but so. But I was a better fighter than the sighted people. And part of it was, is I had to use my other senses. Yeah. Because when you're in a kind of that, you know, flee or fight or whatever it's called, they you really don't use your vision. You have to use your, your, your entire body. And so and I even ended up getting certified and was one of the assistant trainers for years and years and years and.

Penn Street: Oh, cool.

Penn Street: That was that was really important. And, and then throughout the years I've gone back for, you know, like you know, like when I lost that big chunk of vision over my I went back because I really was, even though I'd been low vision, extremely low vision, but losing another big chunk really kind of sent me in a pretty bad spiral because part of it was I really thought that I wouldn't be able to climb and ski and do the outdoor things, because I didn't really have a role model in my life that did that. Eric.

Penn Street: And then but yeah, and even recently Kirk like because with the Stevens-Johnson syndrome, everything breaks down faster. So like, even in my 20s, I started getting arthritis, and you know, I don't have a great heart. I don't have great lungs. Even though I live extremely healthy. You know, I, I eat right, I exercise, I, you know, I don't smoke, I don't do any of the fun stuff everybody else gets to do. But like, lately, these last couple of years have kind of been a really rough roller coaster for my health and some pretty scary moments over the last couple of years with my health. And it's it's definitely put me in a place, and I was even just over the weekend talking to my husband like, you know what? Maybe I should think about seeing somebody because this is not me and I don't. I usually bounce back faster than this. And and I'm not bouncing back very fast anymore. And I'm not just talking physically. I'm talking mentally. And so but I, I think you had a really good point of your somebody saying, have you ever thought about about your childhood trauma? I think a lot of kids that are blind and low vision, they just and maybe kids in general, they just take it for granted. Oh, well, this is just what I'm going through. Like, you don't really grasp that it's trauma until you're older and right. You know, you look back and you're like, wait a minute, that was kind of crummy. And that I had to go through that alone, or nobody was explaining to me what, Oh, yeah. Happening.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Like I remember all the medical.

Penn Street: Oh, the medical stuff is a nightmare. I don't care what age you are, but when you're a little kid and you're going through it a lot, like, I remember my first eye surgery that I had. And I like you. I've had so many, I can't even count. But for some reason, they. I mean, I was a pretty chill kid, like, I wasn't, you know, I was pretty chill. But they gave me some kind of, like, super light sedative to get me from my hospital room into the operating room so that maybe I don't know what they were thinking, but when I came to, I was in the operating room and I was alone. I was like, oh, wow. Literally alone. And And I knew my parents were in the hospital. Like, I knew that. And so I started yelling for my dad, like, you know, da da da da. And Then all of a sudden, you know, these nurses, doctors come in. Oh, well. And the more they came, like, I, they're, like, trying to pin me down, which just scared me way worse. Well, my dad comes through the door, and I'm sure he, like, sees these nurses.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Like, holding her down.

Penn Street: And then he freaks out, which makes me freak out more. And, yeah, I mean, obviously everything ended up okay, and I'm sure they just knocked me out, right? Skip the screaming kid. Calm down. But it's like, I. I've never forgotten that, you know? And my dad didn't either. My dad, it was. He was traumatized by that adult trauma. Exactly. And so you think of those things. And I think as kids, we kind of just shove them like I'm just something I went through. You know.

Dr. Kirk Adams: My my stuff was done at the University of Oregon Medical School Hospital in Portland. Okay. Dawn Becker was 10th floor. That was the children's floor. But it was a teaching hospital. My my doctor Swan was kind of a renowned retinal specialist. Yeah. So I was looked at by lots and lots of students. So there'd be a room with, like, 20 students in it. And, you know, me with my eyes dilated in the bright lights and, you know, exactly 20 people taking their turn and discussing me, like, you know, like what? Like what I was to them.

Penn Street: Yes, exactly.

Dr. Kirk Adams: A lesson.

Penn Street: Hopefully they passed.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. Exactly right.

Penn Street: That's. Absolutely.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. So Therapy. Good. Yeah. Say that.

Penn Street: Absolutely. Fine.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You're gonna find a therapist who is blind or visually impaired or has another disability. That's a.

Penn Street: Good. Yeah. That's a bonus.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's a bonus. But don't don't don't Feel it is any sign of weakness to ask for help and support from professionals who are trained to do that?

Penn Street: Absolutely. And I also am a big believer that just being outside can be therapeutic. Yeah, absolutely. Regardless of it's, you know, sitting in your backyard, whatever. You're yeah, you know, happy places, you know.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Go gotta go get your bare feet on the grass.

Penn Street: Exactly.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. So Pan, this time has flown by.

Penn Street: I know.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Anything you want people to know. You want to tell people again how they could find your podcast?

Penn Street: Yeah. So you can. I'm on all the platforms. All. All the platforms. The blind check. And. Yeah, check it out. We I interview people from all over the world. I'm going to be in you know, Doctor Kirk Adams here is going to be on. And people come on and they they share their stories. I've, you know, interviewed artists and musicians and authors and doctors and, I mean, you name it, but also just everyday people like me. I'm not any of those things either. So but it's been really, really fun. And if you have a question or if you're in Colorado and you want to go for a hike you can reach out to me by email and that's pen pen at after site.org. Or if you are in Colorado or want to come to Colorado, we're having a really amazing hike. September 13th, we're going to be hiking Maya's Gulch Trail, and there'll be a lot of amazing blind and low vision people there and a lot of great sighted guides. And yeah, it's we do it once a year and it's just a really fun outdoor event. If you've never hiked before, that's okay. You know, we'll have people there to help you navigate that. Or even if you're a, you know, a trail runner, we'll have people there that can or bring your own guide if you want. Levels all levels. So it's just a beautiful, beautiful day. And yeah, I just, you know, I really have tried not to let my vision loss define who I am. I have so much more about me than my vision loss. And so it's. And I'm in Sedona. Dave, thanks for introducing the two of us.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah I think thanks, Sedona. Dave, I know you're listening.

Penn Street: Yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So Wonderful, man. Great. Looking forward to being in dialogue with you over the coming years now that we know each other.

Penn Street: Absolutely.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So people want to get in touch with me. My email is Kirk Adams Adams. Doctor. Kirk Adams. Com. Kirk Adams at Kirk Adams. Com. I'm on LinkedIn a lot. I'm Kirk Adams on LinkedIn. And thank you all for listening. And we'll see you next time.

Penn Street: Thanks.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. We hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Don't forget to subscribe, share or leave a review at. Adams. Together, we can amplify these voices and create positive change. Until next time, keep listening, keep learning and keep making an impact.