Transforming Corporate Culture Through Disability Employment

In this conversation, Brandy Schantz and Dr. Kirk Adams discuss the importance of disability inclusion in the workforce. They explore the untapped potential of individuals with disabilities, the transformative impact of inclusive hiring practices on corporate culture, and the success stories of companies that have embraced diversity. Dr. Adams shares insights on the challenges faced by disabled individuals in the job market, the historical context of disability rights, and the opportunities for self-employment and entrepreneurship. The discussion emphasizes the need for advocacy, community support, and the importance of self-disclosure in the workplace. 
https://www.innovativeimpact.consulting/

Transcript

Brandy (00:01.132)
Hi, welcome to Living Chronic. This is Brandy Schantz and today I'm here with Dr. Kirk Adams. He's currently the managing director of Innovative Impact LLC. He is here to talk disability and how he helps companies to really drive up their bottom line by hiring diversity. So welcome, Kirk.

Kirk Adams, PhD (00:25.3)
Thank you, Brandy. It's great to be here with you.

Brandy (00:28.554)
So I'm really excited to have you on because you and I have some very similar goals while often, you know, just kind of looking at it from different perspectives. And you also do consulting work where you work with companies to help them to better hire disability, put them in the correct roles, how to push up their bottom line by hiring disabled people. So tell me a little bit about that and how you do that.

Kirk Adams, PhD (00:55.338)
Sure. Well, it's working to meet dual needs. Employers say they are having challenges competing for talent in the workplace, finding the right people to fit the roles they need to move their organizations forward. And at the same time, only 35 % of us with significant disabilities are in the workforce.

And that's about half the percentage of the general population. So of working age adults in the United States, about 70 % roughly are working. And us with disabilities, only about 35%. So the conversation is really about this untapped pool of individuals who are very eager to have employment opportunities. And beyond that, the fact

that living with disabilities allows us to develop strengths in the areas that, in the areas employers are looking for. So if you read a book like the Talent Code about how human beings develop strengths, it's really by overcoming challenges. And sometimes people set those challenges or put themselves in systems to create challenges. If you're going to become a grand chess master, you're going to,

Brandy (02:00.248)
Mm-hmm.

Brandy (02:10.03)
Thank

Kirk Adams, PhD (02:21.724)
start out with the basic understanding of the game and face increasingly challenging competitors. If you're going to be a musician, you're going to start with scales. You're going to learn beginning pieces of music. You're going to tackle increasingly complex pieces of music, et cetera. So us with disabilities, through no choice of our own, are put in a situation where we're faced with lots of challenges.

And as we grow older, as we move into those life transitions, education, employment, you know, the challenges become more and more complex and they're daily. So we have the opportunity and we do develop really unique strengths in areas that employers want, like resilience and perseverance and self-motivation.

and creative problem solving, the ability to work with diverse teams, communication skills. So really I just have those conversations with employers who are wanting to create the best organizations they can create by attracting and retaining the most talented people they can. And then I help them understand that there are systems in our country that are designed and funded

to help them employ people with disabilities so I connect them with those resources.

Brandy (03:56.034)
You know, it's so amazing to me as somebody who became disabled later in life that, you know, there hasn't been more of this done previously. I always thought that I was, you know, very nimble and ready for change and resilient and all those things. And after I went through everything that's happened to me, I realized that I could never have had this kind of a superpower, I like to call it.

prior to becoming disabled because now I wake up each and every morning and I have no idea what the day is going to offer. None. There's no guarantees. I just have to be ready to move and shake and roll with whatever comes. And you know, you hear HR departments and the C-suite managers are always asking, where do we find people like this? And I like to say, they're right in front of you. Look to your disabled community. We're ready for change.

at any moment, any moment.

Kirk Adams, PhD (04:55.306)
That's right. And that's the world of work these days. You hear all the time, change is accelerating. Things are changing so fast, it's hard to keep up. people with disabilities are trained to keep up.

Brandy (05:08.59)
And there's nobody, know, people ask me, well, how do you know if you've become resilient? And I always say, well, look at me, I'm alive. I'm still here. I haven't given up. Every day I have that option to give up and just say no more. can't try anymore. And I still have committed there. you know, what a great group of potential employees to hire.

Kirk Adams, PhD (05:24.745)
Yeah.

Kirk Adams, PhD (05:34.152)
Yeah, and companies who've done it have amazing results. And it's beyond just having good people doing good jobs. It really can transform a corporate culture. And one prime example that I've had the privilege of visiting is in Anderson, South Carolina, Walgreens has one of their largest warehouse and distribution centers. And it was designed...

Brandy (05:38.05)
Good.

Brandy (05:47.277)
Mm-hmm.

Kirk Adams, PhD (06:01.64)
back in 2007 to be inclusive of people with disabilities. The head of Walgreens supply chain at that time, Randy Lewis has an autistic son and he was tasked with, was from the ground up, from raw land up building a warehouse and distribution center for that part of the country. And he got buy-in from Walgreens leadership to create it intentionally to be inclusive of people with disabilities.

So they got about 550 employees and 40 % are people with significant disabilities, primarily developmental disabilities. And they established the partnerships that I say, in order for us to do anything truly transformational, we have to align all the sectors, the government, the corporate, the nonprofit, and the community. And they did that from the beginning. They partnered with the state of South Carolina Vocational Rehabilitation Agency.

Brandy (06:48.878)
store.

Kirk Adams, PhD (06:57.834)
Every state has them. They're funded by the Department of Education. So they partnered with them and local nonprofits serving people with disabilities and they brought in families with kids, young people with developmental disabilities and brought them in. And they have their most productive distribution center out of their 20. The lowest...

turnover, the lowest absenteeism, the best employee satisfaction, the best productivity, the best safety record. And they also did a really smart thing. They partnered with a small university called Anderson University there from the beginning. And a friend now, Dr. Jeffrey Moore, through the last 17, 18 years through a progression succession of his PhD students.

They have collected the data on the outcomes of this disability inclusion. Several other companies have followed suit and adopted the model, Sephora, Bed Bath and Beyond. And they've been documenting all of this. So there's not a ton of data, but there's good data about the positive benefits to disability inclusion. And they found that the tipping point

Is about 20%. So if you have a department, a working group, a company, and 20 % or more of the individuals have self-identified as a person with disabilities and you're providing accommodations, then you get a lot of positive benefits as far as the corporate culture. Sitting with the top management.

of the Walgreens Distribution Center. People have been in warehousing and distribution for 30, 35 years just saying that the environment is incredible. Everyone in the organization is excited about what's happening there on an ongoing basis. A spirit of active mutual support, people looking out for one another, people...

Kirk Adams, PhD (09:14.652)
spontaneously supporting the safety processes and procedures because they know following procedures is important to keep everyone safe. Hence the best safety record in their system. DuPont did a really great, one of the few longitudinal studies starting in the 1950s of tracking data around their employees with disabilities and

Brandy (09:37.55)
Mmm.

Kirk Adams, PhD (09:43.807)
Again, not a lot of data, but good solid data that the productivity of the disabled employees was as good or better than the non-disabled. Again, no greater safety incidents, better retention, lower turnover, lower absenteeism, all those things.

Brandy (09:54.936)
you

Brandy (10:06.508)
Yeah, I believe it was Accenture, wasn't it, who did a study and they actually were able to show that there's a 30 % return on the bottom line for companies when they do hire disabled and have better diversity in the workplace.

Kirk Adams, PhD (10:20.392)
Yeah, Accenture and the American Association of People with Disabilities, AAPD, and Disability IN, which is an organization of companies with commitments to disability inclusion have published that study that correlates disability inclusion to a lot of great bottom line results.

Brandy (10:42.722)
Mm-hmm. You know, as a matter of fact, last week, was it last week, was our policy retreat here in Virginia for the State Rehabilitation Council. And I was speaking with one of our career social workers in Richmond, and he was talking about a great program. You know, we talked about it before, but it's really getting larger. It's doing great.

People with developmental disabilities being trained to do a very specific type of analysis for the military. And when they graduate from this training, they're sent out to work at various places throughout the Department of Defense. And it's so amazingly successful because they have a very unique ability to do this type of analysis. So just taking people's strengths and putting them in where they're going to

Kirk Adams, PhD (11:20.478)
Yeah.

Kirk Adams, PhD (11:32.35)
Yeah.

Brandy (11:37.93)
shine is really you know kind of the heart of all of this.

Kirk Adams, PhD (11:42.302)
Right, I'm a blind person. My retina is detached when I was in kindergarten. So I've been totally blind since childhood and started first grade as a blind kid and learned Braille and cane travel and all those things. So I've got very good blindness skills. one program I'm very proud of that I'm involved with is called the Apex program. And there is a webpage. It's just www.theapexprogram.com. And it's a

an initiative to prepare blind people for careers in cybersecurity. And it's just one of those things where everything kind of has come together to bring all the elements for great success into one place. Our country has a formal interest and commitment in cybersecurity. In July of

Brandy (12:14.284)
great.

Kirk Adams, PhD (12:37.034)
23 there was the National Cybersecurity Infrastructure Workforce and Education Infrastructure Guidance was published and an Office of National Cyber Directorate was established. And there's 750,000 open cybersecurity jobs on any given day. And there's a great demand and a lack of qualified certified folks. So we've set up now in 20 states, including Virginia,

Brandy (12:56.91)
Mm-hmm.

Kirk Adams, PhD (13:06.922)
relationships with those state funded vocational rehabilitation agencies funded by Department of Education. So, you know, a person with a disability who's seeking employment, who is a client of their state PR agency can have this training paid for by vocational rehabilitation. It's 200 hours of training, 10 weeks. Then the person sits for a network plus and a security plus certification.

exams and then they have the entry level qualifications to do entry level cybersecurity analyst work and once a person's in that industry there are just so many career paths people can follow. I'm very excited about that. Among many other opportunities I'm seeing to create these win-win situations, there's a demand

Brandy (13:48.931)
yeah.

Kirk Adams, PhD (14:04.584)
And there's a supply. So there's a demand for great employees. There's a supply of great employees looking for employment opportunities. And what I've found is things are just quite siloed. If you look at the government, vocational rehabilitation system, agencies in every state, $4 billion annual budget.

Brandy (14:05.998)
Absolutely.

Kirk Adams, PhD (14:28.062)
committed to creating employment opportunities and getting disabled people off of government support and into employment from tax becoming taxpayers. And then you've got all these companies who say they can't find enough great people to hire. And many of them say they're committed to hiring people with disabilities. They can't find enough good people. And then you've got in any community of any size, you've got nonprofits that are focused on

employment of people with disabilities. Then you've got us disabled folks, ourselves, our families, the various associations and organized groups around various disabilities. And all of them share the common goal of wanting to see better employment outcomes for people with disabilities. None of them are achieving the outcomes they want. So my, say it's not rocket science, but I get the right people in the room.

Brandy (15:24.288)
No. You know.

Kirk Adams, PhD (15:26.09)
If I have an employer in the state of California who wants to hire people with disabilities, I say, well, do you realize there's 8,000 blind people in this state with open cases with your state vocational rehabilitation agency? And each one has an individual plan for employment and a resume and they're ready to work. And do know there's a nonprofit in your town that focuses on helping people with disabilities become employed?

Brandy (15:37.582)
Mm-hmm.

Kirk Adams, PhD (15:53.98)
And typically the answer is no. We weren't aware of that. So I just invite the right people around the table and we put together some win-win solutions.

Brandy (15:58.114)
Yes.

Brandy (16:03.158)
Yeah, you know, I'm really surprised that more people don't know about these state rehabilitation programs. For me, it's the most important thing I do in the day because, you know, and living in the DC area, town like this, to find something that's so bipartisan, helping disabled people become employed, making people taxidermy. I mean, please find me something negative about this. And I would, you know, to my mind,

Kirk Adams, PhD (16:12.327)
Yeah.

Kirk Adams, PhD (16:20.532)
Yeah.

Who can be against it?

Kirk Adams, PhD (16:31.146)
you

Brandy (16:32.918)
this up in every single state because usually when I tell people hey did you know that we have a state rehabilitation department and you can apply for vocational rehabilitation and get back in the workforce I rarely hear a no I don't want to I always hear my goodness I didn't know that existed I wanted to work again I hate not being able to work so that's the answer you know what great programs

Kirk Adams, PhD (16:49.95)
Yeah.

Kirk Adams, PhD (16:53.385)
Right.

Brandy (17:00.43)
I'm still learning something new every day, my goodness. I came into doing all of this after, you know, as I became disabled myself and I just learned a lot of things the hard way and now I am, you know, learning by way of, you know, the fire hose these days. Every day is a lot of new information. You've been doing this for years. You know, one of the questions I had when I first came in and people ask me the same question all the time, why are we funded by the Department of Education?

Kirk Adams, PhD (17:11.006)
Yeah.

Kirk Adams, PhD (17:32.21)
Yeah, well, the disability community fought for that. If we could go back in time, I think knowing what we know now, we would probably say we should be under the Department of Labor. It goes back, I think, to just quite frankly, ableism.

Brandy (17:37.998)
Yeah.

Brandy (17:46.584)
Woohoo.

Kirk Adams, PhD (17:57.258)
and the concepts of the ability for people with significant disabilities to actually work at the same level as a person without a disability. you know, back in the 1930s in the New Deal when the Social Security Administration was set up and Social Security Disability Insurance was set up, the assumption was if you have a disability, you can't work. So,

You would apply, would prove you have a disability, you'd get a monthly check. So that still lives on today. And the fact that people can, with a disability can apply for and receive some level of support. But there's a, there's a sustainable gainful limit. So you're only allowed to make a certain amount of money and then you lose, you lose your check. So.

Brandy (18:27.726)
Mm-hmm.

Kirk Adams, PhD (18:53.13)
For us blind people, we're organized first and got to the table first. So our check is bigger. It's $2,550. People with other disabilities, it's about $1,000 less. But if you earn one more dollar than your limit, then you lose your whole check. And you lose your Medicare and Medicaid benefits. So there's these built-in structural barriers to successful employment.

Brandy (18:59.544)
Yeah.

Kirk Adams, PhD (19:22.406)
And they really, like I say, go back to the concept of the 1930s where the people who are making policy just thought, hey, if you have a disability, you can't work. And so we're going to set up this safety net. And then when folks like Helen Keller, who was the brand ambassador for the American Foundation for the Blind, where I had the honor of previously being

Brandy (19:37.762)
Right.

Kirk Adams, PhD (19:49.938)
president and CEO, she went state by state to the legislatures and worked with them to set up what were called commissions for the blind. And this was in the late 30s and the 40s. And again, the assumptions were very limiting as far as the type of work that people envisioned people with disabilities could do. So

it fell under training. Let's train people to do a little something. somehow it was thought by the disability community that that training aspect fit better with the Department of Education at that time. So of course now the Department of Labor does lots of training, lots of apprenticeship programs, all kinds of things. And it would probably make more sense for voc rehab to be there. But it's not.

Brandy (20:35.406)
right.

Kirk Adams, PhD (20:49.29)
Probably won't be, so we live with the systems that we have.

Brandy (20:52.974)
We do just try to improve them one little bit at a time as we go. I had a conversation.

Kirk Adams, PhD (20:57.546)
Yeah. So I will say when I was a blind kid, 1967, started first grade at the Oregon State School for the Blind. And at that school, they taught us how to weave baskets, which is a very stereotypical thing. So I have a beautiful basket that will be out on the table next week for Thanksgiving, holding our dinner rolls that I made as a seven-year-old. And they taught.

Brandy (21:13.452)
Thank

Brandy (21:21.102)
Yeah.

Kirk Adams, PhD (21:26.408)
how to cane chairs. taught the older kids how to tune pianos. And that was basically the extent of the vocational thinking for us at that point in time, which was not that long ago.

Brandy (21:32.975)
wow.

Brandy (21:42.402)
Wow, yeah, no, you're right. You know, it's just amazing to think about how much has changed so quickly over the last, you know, 50 years. I've been speaking a lot with various people around the world who, you know, are very much in a similar situation, talk to myself, they became disabled much later in life. And one thing that's very glaring to me is,

Kirk Adams, PhD (22:04.02)
Yeah.

Brandy (22:08.78)
You know, our systems are very similar no matter where you go. think often people think, it must be better somewhere else. What are they doing? But we all largely follow the same format. And, you know, we always wonder why is social security disability not something there for temporary to, know, if you become disabled to give you something to fall into and then bounce out of when you're doing better, but have it there for when you're, you know, you're just in need of it instead of it being this permanent thing that you have to

Kirk Adams, PhD (22:30.836)
Right.

Brandy (22:37.966)
or an attorney to get and you have to stay in poverty for the rest of your life if that's what's going to happen. And I just think, you know, we probably have grand ideas that would take at least 30, 40 years to fully change. you know, it is interesting looking at it from a different perspective. But, you know, also 50 years ago, a woman like myself would probably not be in the workforce at all, much less.

Kirk Adams, PhD (22:40.266)
Yep.

Kirk Adams, PhD (22:51.208)
Right.

Brandy (23:02.892)
have people talking about how do we keep her in the workforce and retain this talent instead of allowing that talent to go once.

Kirk Adams, PhD (23:08.97)
Yeah, I, know, 100 years ago, 110 years ago, blind people were in asylums for the blind and living in work homes. And, you know, some, some people were working in what were called sheltered workshops where they were paid pennies to make things that were sold. And it was charity. Just in the sixties, the higher, higher the handicap campaign.

Brandy (23:18.38)
Yeah.

Kirk Adams, PhD (23:39.246)
it was hire a person cause it's a charitable act. It's a good thing to do. now it is, hire a person with a disability because you want a really talented, unique person who can help drive your bottom line results. So it's a, it's a different conversation we're having now, which is great. still a long, long, long way to go, you know, until the number, until the outcomes are the same, you know, until 70%.

Brandy (23:54.83)
Yeah.

Brandy (23:59.811)
Yes.

Brandy (24:05.317)
no.

Kirk Adams, PhD (24:09.232)
of people with disabilities are in the workforce equivalent to everyone else. We still have work to do. But it's better than it was. I will say it's interesting in that I think kind of disability inclusion, accessibility, of course we have the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was our Civil Rights Act passed in 1990.

Brandy (24:13.336)
Absolutely. That's the truth.

Brandy (24:32.354)
them.

Kirk Adams, PhD (24:36.67)
The curb cuts that everyone uses the ramp that blends the sidewalk into the street You know those really didn't exist until the early 70s When you know the disabled community primarily wheelchair users took some civil action you know they occupied the housing education welfare offices in San Francisco for a month they you know went to the DC and

Brandy (24:46.318)
All

Brandy (24:54.977)
Yeah.

Kirk Adams, PhD (25:03.838)
got out of their wheelchairs and dragged themselves up the steps of the Capitol until HEW Secretary Califano signed the guidance that curb cuts should be enforced. And now, less than one half of 1 % of those curb cuts you see in every city are used by people in wheelchairs. It's cyclists and skateboarders and parents with strollers and people with roller bags and grocery carts.

Brandy (25:14.584)
Mm-hmm.

Brandy (25:28.271)
Yes.

Kirk Adams, PhD (25:33.738)
Those kind of cultural shifts do happen. They take a long time. I was...

Brandy (25:40.374)
I always say we've made so much progress over the last 50 years. It's almost, you know, we have a lot to live up to each and every day because so much has been done over the last 50 years. have so much work to

Kirk Adams, PhD (25:46.313)
Right.

Kirk Adams, PhD (25:55.432)
Yeah, I was at a conference in San Francisco some years ago and we're in a big conference room and we were talking about societal change. And some, some, the, the presenter just said something that just struck me so, so strongly. He said, you know, 40 years ago, we have been sitting here. There would have been an ashtray on every table and this room would be filled with smoke and you get in your car and not put on a seatbelt and drive home.

Brandy (26:19.095)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Kirk Adams, PhD (26:24.394)
You know things things do change, but we we we Know our opportunity brandy you and I and others is to help accelerate this change By being aligned and working together

Brandy (26:26.862)
Thank you.

Brandy (26:34.2)
Absolutely.

And you know, and I think, and one thing I've noticed that happens frequently, especially in the United States, it's maybe a problem everywhere, but I do think it's a bit more pronounced here, having lived and worked in many different countries. We tend to let a pendulum swing from one far side to another, and we just can't find a way to stop and have a conversation right there before that pendulum keeps swinging. And

I'm a little worried about the work from home efforts. And I'd love to hear your opinion. I know now everybody's talking about return to office, return to office. And I do, you know, I am going to be the first person to say there is a lot lost when you're never face to face and working as a team. There's a lot that can happen there, but there's also a lot that can be done from home. And one of the greatest victories, if you will, of the pandemic was disabled people becoming more.

Kirk Adams, PhD (27:11.082)
Yeah.

Brandy (27:33.363)
because of that ability to work from home. And I'm a little worried that we may just set that pendulum and it'll swing to the other side and the progress we've made with hiring disability might suffer. What do you think?

Kirk Adams, PhD (27:34.847)
Right.

Kirk Adams, PhD (27:47.114)
Well, I think you're probably right. And I think a lot of companies that own a lot of real estate and a lot of office buildings that are empty have decided, hey, we got to make people come back. I think there's been a disruption. A silver lining to the pandemic was that disruption to how work processes happen.

Brandy (27:56.128)
Yes.

Brandy (28:03.384)
Mm-hmm.

Kirk Adams, PhD (28:13.79)
the need for flexibility, think has injected the ingredients for better flexibility into the world of work, which is good for people with disabilities. You know, it's all about the fit between the person and the work. And the more adaptable you are as a person and the more adaptable the workplace is, the more chance you have for a better fit between the person and the workplace.

Brandy (28:28.546)
Yes.

Kirk Adams, PhD (28:43.818)
You know, working from home, hybrid schedules, kind of breaking loose from the nine to five. You know, people with certain disabling conditions, you know, an accommodation can be a flexible work schedule. Like, hey, I can work three hours in the morning and then I need two hours and I can do four in the afternoon. Or I, you know, for Monday through Thursday,

Brandy (29:06.7)
Yeah.

Kirk Adams, PhD (29:12.412)
is better for me than Monday through Friday or work from home two days a week, come in two days. So, know, the punch in at nine, punch out at five, in your office is pretty disrupted. So that can only be good for us, people with disabilities.

Brandy (29:19.726)
Thank

Brandy (29:34.314)
Yeah. And I think, you know, and what I try to point out to as many leaders as I possibly can, I think what we did was we proved how certain work can be done even better at home, because many people were more productive at home than they were in office. I mean, I love a good hybrid model. I actually I'm one of those people who loves teamwork. I love getting a bunch of people in a room and us just, you know, diving into something.

But there's also a lot to be said for just sitting at home, focusing in without interruption on your work and what needs to be done and, you know, kicking away that commute on either side of the day and just focusing in on the fine details. And I think that's what we really need to drive home that, hey, yeah, we need to do all that great collaboration, but let's not forget how much increase in productivity we saw from certain tasks being done at home.

Kirk Adams, PhD (30:30.344)
Yeah, and do want to, this leads me to think about self-employment and entrepreneurship too, which I wanted to touch upon. So again, back to the fit between the person and the workplace and a person with a disability, the creativity and how we create that fit with the workplace may look different, but everyone needs that fit between themselves and the workplace.

Brandy (30:37.282)
How young?

Brandy (30:53.399)
Mm-hmm.

Kirk Adams, PhD (31:00.618)
That's why we have family leave and...

PTO and all the kind of standard things we have. But if you are self-employed as I am now, and you are now, you have the opportunity to create a fit between yourself and your work that really, really works for you. like I said, only 35 % of us are working. Only 6 % of us are self-employed.

Brandy (31:08.59)
Thank

Brandy (31:22.83)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Kirk Adams, PhD (31:34.762)
and the majority of us work for nonprofits or government. Of the general population, the 70 % of people in the workforce, about 12 % of people are self-employed. So only about half the percentage of us are self-employed. But there's some really great research around disability and entrepreneurship and kind of what we were talking about before about strengths. In particular, living with disability allows people

Brandy (31:34.83)
Smile.

you

Brandy (31:55.192)
Mm-hmm.

Kirk Adams, PhD (32:02.676)
to develop the strengths that lead to success as entrepreneurs. And it's those same things, the perseverance, the grit, the creativity, the flexibility, the adaptability. All the things entrepreneurs need in order to succeed are things that people with disabilities have opportunities to develop. So I'll put a plug in for entrepreneurship for people with disabilities.

Brandy (32:06.572)
I do. Yes.

Brandy (32:19.896)
Now you're actually right.

Brandy (32:27.694)
You know what? I'm really glad you did. And as a matter of fact, now that I'm thinking about it, are there many programs to help disabled persons to become entrepreneurs? I know I've seen quite a few courses at the SBA, but I do almost everything through the lens of being a disabled veteran. So.

Kirk Adams, PhD (32:41.226)
Yeah, not as many as I would hope. Now, self-employment is a legitimate employment outcome for a client of vocational rehabilitation. So you can become a client of your state VR agency and say your goal is to start a business or to become an entrepreneur. And that's a totally legit subject for individual plan for employment, your IPE.

I don't know that VR is particularly well equipped to support that. The Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind has a program called the Fourth Scythe, F-O-R-S-Y-T-H Institute. And it's in particular to prepare blind people to be entrepreneurs. And after you finish their coursework, you've earned credit toward an academic.

Brandy (33:20.142)
you

Kirk Adams, PhD (33:39.142)
certificate in entrepreneurship through Miami of Ohio University. So that's one I'm aware of.

Brandy (33:44.57)
great. Yeah.

Kirk Adams, PhD (33:52.88)
My short answer is that I'm not aware of many.

Brandy (33:56.578)
Yeah, you know, the only ones that I know of are, you know, things I've done, again, through the lens of being a disabled veteran rather than just a disabled American. I think that would be, that'd be a great thing to really look into. Small business administration, where are you? Yeah, because we, you know, we are very well equipped to be entrepreneurs. I immediately became successful, but it was because of my ability to be so resilient and reactive and change and.

Kirk Adams, PhD (34:04.434)
Mm-hmm.

Kirk Adams, PhD (34:13.832)
Yeah.

Brandy (34:26.294)
you know, do what it takes to make something happen.

Kirk Adams, PhD (34:31.947)
I also want to talk about visible and invisible disabilities. So I have a visible disability when I walk in with my long white cane and my braille note taker is pretty obvious I'm a blind person. 70 % of us with significant disabilities, they're non-apparent. So that's a whole kind of different ball game in some ways. And it requires a

Brandy (34:48.973)
Right?

Kirk Adams, PhD (34:59.208)
degree of self-advocacy, I think that's above and beyond what it requires for someone like myself. So when I got out of college with Phi Beta Kappa and cum laude and wanted to go to work and was applying for jobs, I had an econ degree. And I'd send out my cover letter and resume and get a phone interview and then get called in for the in-person.

Brandy (35:06.541)
Yes.

Kirk Adams, PhD (35:24.754)
And walk in, like I said, with my cane and at that time my braille, slate and stylus and some paper so I could take notes in braille. know, the person interviewing me had probably never encountered a blind professional before. I had no way to conceptualize how I would do the job I was applying for. So then I started putting it in my cover letter. Just saying, you know, I've been totally blind since I was five years old. This is how I've.

done what I've done, this is how I'll do the job. And then I wasn't even getting phone interviews. So that there's, you know, there's a point in time if you have a visible disability, where do you choose to disclose your disability? Now, if your visibility is not apparent, you may never have to disclose, but I am a big advocate for sharing that information with the employer. There's a lot of fear around that. Will there be negative consequences?

Brandy (35:59.587)
Yeah.

Brandy (36:22.622)
is but I do agree with you.

Kirk Adams, PhD (36:25.322)
I will say that if you work, if you have it, well first of all demographics would show that in any workplace of any size about 15 % of people have a disability. So there could be some wheelchair people, some deaf people, some blind people, but there's probably a lot of people with anxiety, depression, ADHD, PTSD, all the things. So when companies report out,

Brandy (36:47.555)
Yes.

Kirk Adams, PhD (36:55.818)
you know, kind of the percentages of people with disabilities they have in their workforce. They usually report like one and a half to four percent, but we know there's probably 15%. There's a lot of people who could be a better employee, a happier person, more productive, a better contributor if they were receiving the support and accommodations they're entitled to as a person with disability. So I say, you know, if you work with a company

Brandy (37:04.046)
Mm-hmm.

Kirk Adams, PhD (37:25.834)
that's large enough to have a disability related employee resource group, know, join that, attend those meetings. You don't have to disclose you have a disability necessarily at that point. you have a, whom you consider a competent HR professional who can maintain confidentiality, you may want to talk with them. But it's not only good for you because you can say,

You know, I have anxiety, I am treating with medication and talk therapy. I need an hour every afternoon to tend to my personal mental health needs. So I need a flexible schedule. Even if you're low vision and you could use larger monitor, hey, could, you know, I could, I could be a better employee if I had a larger monitor. It can be very simple.

Brandy (38:24.29)
Yes.

Kirk Adams, PhD (38:25.754)
You know I could standing I have a condition where I can't really sit I need a standing desk so Sharing I self-disclosure is kind of a scary sounding term So I'm trying to think I'm trying to come up with a better one Brandy so for now I'll use sharing if you share her if you share your your Situation it's not good for you because you can have a

Brandy (38:42.227)
of you. Yeah.

Kirk Adams, PhD (38:53.332)
fit between yourself and your workplace, but it's better for everyone else with a disability because you're setting an example. You're teaching your organization how to be flexible and how to provide accommodations.

Brandy (38:58.958)
the point.

Brandy (39:02.862)
When you're being a leader, I like to call it being a disability leader because, and I strongly support talking about it, telling your HR, letting your team know. You know, I know that there's a lot of fear around it and yes, you can't, mean, you can't legally be discriminated against, but it does still happen in the workforce all the time. But what I never got the chance to see when I was first diagnosed with Crohn's disease is I never saw somebody else like me in the workforce.

and just did not know what it was going to look like. All I knew was I could not leave my house in the mornings. I knew that I was having tons of doctor's appointments and hospitalizations and all sorts of terrible stuff. And there was no example for me on what to do. I didn't even know what to ask.

Kirk Adams, PhD (39:42.111)
Yeah.

Brandy (39:50.734)
So now I better understand that it's important because doctors, they're not the best at, you know, helping you do vocational rehab. As a matter of fact, almost every doctor I've ever had has said, why don't you just apply for disability? And that's never been what I wanted. I don't want disability, I want to work. So I needed that somebody to be the example. So now I'm a very big proponent of being the example, talking to HR, talking to your team members.

Kirk Adams, PhD (39:58.9)
No.

Kirk Adams, PhD (40:07.178)
All

Brandy (40:18.946)
I want people to know I have Crohn's disease. I'm not, you know, a big fan of the Crohn's disease, but you know, I think people need to know what you're going through because a good friend of mine who is an executive at Exxon, she said to me one day, she said, you know what, everybody has something, everybody. For you, you have Crohn's disease in a neurologic disorder.

Kirk Adams, PhD (40:25.246)
Sure.

Kirk Adams, PhD (40:38.879)
Yeah.

Brandy (40:42.67)
For other people, know, they might go through cancer, somebody else has a kid with an illness or a disability, somebody else is dealing with, you know, anxiety or recently in a car accident is trying to learn how to walk with maybe prosthetic leg or. Yeah. Exactly. Like we're not alone. We're not just like, I can't tell anybody because I'm the worst. You know, they'll never think, you know, no, we all have something.

Kirk Adams, PhD (40:54.954)
All

Hey, some people are shorter than average. Some people are taller than average.

Brandy (41:11.596)
We all have to go to the boss at one point and say, you know what? I'm going to need some help here because I have, and then state your problem. So I just think it's very important to be that leader and be that disability leader and stand up and say, have a disability and I need accommodations and let people see what it looks like. Because we do, and disproportionately we do lose women, but we do lose a lot of people out of the workforce because they just don't know what it looks like to continue working with.

Kirk Adams, PhD (41:33.45)
Mm-hmm.

Brandy (41:38.67)
Crohn's, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, you name it.

Kirk Adams, PhD (41:42.452)
Yeah, I think there's a great opportunity with technology to find community around those things and find other people. If you're listening to this, if you're a joiner, I mean, there's an association for everything. On the blind side, there's National Federation of the Blind American Council of the Blind. have state and local chapters. There's an association for anything.

Brandy (41:50.382)
Thank

Kirk Adams, PhD (42:10.162)
and everything, and I think you could find other people who've traveled the path before you who will be happy to share their experiences and their wisdom with you, whether that's formally joining an organization or just finding a social media group, finding someone who's in your community who has some similar situations to you. So I think there's a great opportunity to form community.

Brandy (42:40.321)
Mm-hmm.

Kirk Adams, PhD (42:40.787)
that we haven't had until very recent years with technology.

Brandy (42:45.4)
Yes, it's going to keep getting better. think people like you out there and so many great organizations working so hard to be more inclusive of disabled persons. And the more we talk about it, the more we work hard, the better it's going to become.

Brandy (43:06.798)
Well, thank you so, so much for coming on. I'd love to have you back on again. know it's DC, everybody's talking about what will the new administration bring. So we'll have to keep our eyes and ears open and I'll double the eyes if you can double on the ears for me and see what's coming down the pike for new policy and legislation related to disabled Americans and see how we can't make that a better world.

Kirk Adams, PhD (43:19.688)
Yeah.

Kirk Adams, PhD (43:23.849)
Yeah.

Kirk Adams, PhD (43:35.186)
I'd love to love to do it. I am launching a podcast as well. Would love to have you be my guest and here I can ask you questions about your experience. That'll be a wonderful thing to do.

Brandy (43:39.681)
Hey, tell me about it.

Brandy (43:45.174)
Yeah, no, that sounds great. And what's the name of your new podcast?

Kirk Adams, PhD (43:50.058)
It is simply called podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams.

Brandy (43:53.902)
I like get to the point. I like something that gets to the point.

Kirk Adams, PhD (43:57.158)
I had a fancy clever name and the person I'm working with said they'll never find you just call it your name. I said okay.

Brandy (44:04.718)
Okay, how's your day? Yep, no better way to brand than, mean, you've been Dr. Kirk Adams for a very long time, so why change now? Well, thank you.

Kirk Adams, PhD (44:12.478)
That's right. And that's my website too, which I just launched drkirkadams.com if anyone wants to find me. DRkirkadams.com. Thank you. Great speaking with you. Have a wonderful week. All right.

Brandy (44:20.229)
I'll make sure to have that in the notes as well. All right, thank you so much. You too. Bye.