The Accessible Journey: Overcoming Systemic Blind Spots in Global Travel and Leadership with Sarah Richardson

In this episode of the podcast, host Bryan Hattingh and co-host Jonathan Shaw are joined by Sarah Richardson, founder of Streepi, to unpack the massive systemic gaps in global accessibility. Highlighting the staggering UN statistic that 1 in 6 people globally live with a severe disability, Richardson shares moving firsthand accounts of the harrowing challenges disabled travellers face—including an elite South African athlete humiliated on a recent international flight. The conversation expands beyond travel to critique the hollow buzzwords of corporate sustainability, the critical need for a collaborative leadership style that empowers the youth, and how true accountability is built only when the frustration curve is replaced with genuine inclusivity.

Recommended music with this podcast:

• Zager & Evans - In The Year 2525
• Bob Dylan - Forever Young
• Barry McGuire - Eve Of Destruction
• No Nukes - The Times They Are A Changin'

Find more at https://riskybusiness6.wordpress.com/ or https://www.cycan.co.za/

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

YouTube the risky business. I'm your host, Brian Hutting. It's the Good News Business Talk Show. The heart of business, the soul of rock and roll. What can I say? And of course, with me as always, John O'Shaw, co-host and sound engineer, John O and producer. How are you? Hello, Brian. I'm very good. And you? How's how's everything going? How's your week? It's been it's been a busy uh and eventful. It's my new terminology. People say, how's it been? I say it's been eventful. Eventful. Yes. Because then it leaves it open to interpretation. So it's been an eventful week with some good events. I'm happy to remember. Good events, yes. Yeah. And and this is a this is a great event because we've got a very special guest joining us from Amsterdam. In fact, if we get really accurate from Harlem, just outside of Amsterdam.

SPEAKER_03 0:50

I've been there.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

Yeah. Do you been there? There you go. I have two. Sure, maybe 15 years ago. Wonderful place to visit. Yeah, wonderful place to visit. And um, it's none other than Sarah Richardson, who is uh oh well, we'll we'll talk more about who all she is and what she's done. Let's first say hello, Sarah. Hi, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Hi, Brian. Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_02 1:14

It's an absolute pleasure, Sarah, and for the edification of the listeners. You studied a Bachelor of Arts and then went on to do a master's in education and a master's in business administration, MBA, with a focus on sustainability, which is such a big thing in the world. And you consult to organizations uh across the board on all sorts of issues of uh governance and compliance, and very importantly, um around creating a more inclusive world, and we'll talk about the specifics of that. And you've got a cool online business called streepy.com.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Tell us about Streepy, let's go in there. I think that just sounds very funky.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Oh, all the way, all the way there. Okay. Yeah, well, to begin with, just thinking about uh Streepy, my MBA was actually in leadership and sustainability. And when I got in there, I think a lot of people, when they think about sustainability, they think about the environment, um not actually about what it means to have a sustainable world. And something that got me through my MBA was the thought of disability and disability not really being represented or almost as if it is a taboo subject, um, and that sort of thing. Um and that's what led me to the idea of of Streepy is kind of opening up the channels to people with disabilities to talk about all kinds of industries and um what's happening in those industries and where the blind spots are, and and through that kind of lived experience of of these people figuring out what the gaps are in in different industries and and trying to raise awareness and and basically fill those gaps.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

When you think about it, as you as you state, one in six people globally are living with a disability. I mean, that is mind-blowing. I had no idea of that.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Yeah, and it's according to uh according to the UN, those are the figures of 2024, 1.3 billion people are living with a severe disability.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

Wow, I mean that's just it's staggering actually.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Yeah. I started out by asking questions when I started my thesis about this. I wasn't I wasn't going to do my thesis about uh disability. I actually wanted to do it about regenerative travel. And then when I started asking questions to business owners about regenerative travel, I was thinking about the word itself regenerative, because that seems to be the new buzzword that moves on from sustainability, that something's not just sustainability, it's sustainable anymore. It's it's regenerative. And I felt that there was that travel was evolving in the way that it was evolving for the planet, but it it wasn't necessarily in or evolving for for the people. So when I asked the question to various business owners, you know, you you're working with regenerative tourism, what does that mean for people with a disability? Can they participate? And the answer was always no, it's too expensive. And I wasn't happy with that answer.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

No, gosh, I mean uh and and when you start talking of those sort of percentiles of of 1.3 billion people, um, there must be a lot of people with challenges of different sorts and disabilities that travel. You know, it's not like people with disabilities don't travel, you know.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Yeah, and it's it's also false falsehoods around people with disability because I mean you're dealing with 1.3 billion people that are disabled, but you're also dealing with all the people that are traveling with them, which is quite a lot. And the biggest spending power in the world is the US, and next to that it's China. Um, but if you look at uh disability, people with a disability and all their family and friends around them, they have a spending power of 18 trillion per year, according to yeah. So it's not like uh there isn't money to spend and that they're not it's not a niche market.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

No, it's not at all. No, goodness me. Uh and but of course it ext extrapolates way beyond the issue of travel, albeit travel's a whole conversation and and uh major subject and topic on its own, and and and it one could make a whole program or more around the subject of of uh how what the challenges are and what the compromises are, because uh I and and but just before we leave it, uh my understanding of it is is that that many of the institutions and and and I'm speaking with regard to airports and and travel-related institutions are not that sympathetic and not that accommodating. It's just like, well, they've got to fit in, you know?

SPEAKER_01 6:27

Yeah, they're not uh they're not that accommodating. I I don't know if you saw the recent article in in The Guardian two days ago about the Olympian who was traveling from South Africa to through the Netherlands.

SPEAKER_02 6:40

No, I didn't see it. Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

She was uh told that if she wanted to use the bathroom on the aircraft, she had to either walk to it or go home. And this made world news. Um so this was featured in The Guardian and in other newspaper articles around the world. But I mean as if it was something shocking. I can hear you're shocked by it, but this is something that people in a in a wheelchair face every single day.

SPEAKER_03 7:14

I'd rather avoid it than take the risk of of or even the challenge of going somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Yeah, absolutely. And it's it's very normal for uh a lot of my clients talk about the fact that you know um uh if if if if they go flying on a long haul, they have to not eat and not drink because there's just not uh not the possibility to go to the bathroom. So that's something that you don't think about, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:43

No, you don't. And uh you don't want to have to think about it. I mean, it's just crazy. Uh it should be yeah, it should be something seriously tabled and addressed. But uh if we if we extend the conversation outside of that to the broader realms of of sustainability and regeneration, you know, if you think of all the factors that that are impacted or where sustainability is so important, you know, we go from there's the social factors and things that contribute to it, you know, the inequality in terms of well wealth disparities and health and wealth-being, you know, environmental environmental degradation affects public health and particularly in marginalized communities, you know, political factors, you know. Absolutely. Policy incoherence, you know, I mean conflicting policies at local and national level around um sustainability efforts. What does it mean? Governance and corruption. I mean, wow, we see that that corruption thing in our own country here prolifically and and and all around the world, where you know the this whole crazy thing is, you know, politicians are there as supposedly as servants of the people, but they're not, you know, they uh and um you know global cooperation is insufficient uh collaboration in in so many things. And you know, dancing into the economic factors of resource depletion um and sustainable consumption patterns, you know, just lead to the depletion of natural resources and all sorts of things. I mean, it's a it's such a vast subject and sort of where does one start, you know?

SPEAKER_01 9:28

Yeah, yeah. I think I think that you know, at the end of the day, people, uh, countries and companies uh want to make money. So it seems like going um sustainable is is not very attractive, and a lot gets lost in translation. And I think I think you know, at the top we have the policymakers or or the framework makers, right? Like the like the UN and um the EU, and and they make all these wonderful frameworks, and then the frameworks trickle down and they they work their way into policy, and then that comes down into lawmakers, and everything just kind of becomes more and more uh vague as the ideas come down to to companies. And from what I understand, that um when these laws are being passed, they're made to be made as vague as possible so that they can be interpreted um in in many different ways so that people can retain their business strategies and things like that. So so a lot unfortunately gets lost. There's a lot of goodwill at the top, but then it seems to trickle down to um money making uh being the end goal.

SPEAKER_02 10:45

Yeah, yeah. Policy and my opinion. Yeah, policy and practice are sadly too often mutually exclusive rather than inclusive. I I remember, and this is this going back for Yonx, I before I got into IT uh in those years back, I was in research and design of solar heating systems, okay, in a time where solar heating was not even uh you know thought of. And um we designed uh systems that we put into all sorts of places, including uh in Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, and we put uh we put them into hospitals, we put them into schools and homes and what have you. Just uh just the the the heat the hot water systems heating them via solar, you know, not not uh uh electrical generation. And um so you know, we'd spend all this time, we'd get the we'd get the architectural drawings and we would draw up in in fine exactness, you know, where the pipes would run, and we would measure and we would do a QS on it and all the rest of it. And then one day I was out on, I went out on site to where the the guys were installing the the system. And lo and behold, there were our beautifully drawn up drawings that I'd put so much time and pride into, and they had their fish and chips on it, you know, and they were eating their fish and chips, and I said, guys, um, you know, excuse me, but uh, you know, what about the drawings? And they laughed at me and they said, Brian, they said, Don't you know that those are the drawings? When you get out on site, you discover that the building was built differently and it doesn't line up with the drawings. So we just take them as a as a sort of okay, we've got the idea, and we get on and put the system in as it has to go, you know, and you just think, okay. So just reflecting back on that, you know, the lessons of, yeah, we can we can plan all we want, but if the if the if the difficulty index or or or um sort of uh frustration curve is too high to to implement it, it's just gonna get put by the wayside.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Yeah, I think that's um the I like that idea, the the frustration curve. That's that sounds very interesting. Um yeah, I and I mean um and often in in big corporations you have, I guess, a lot a lot to do with this frustration curve because you have all kinds of people that have to come together as well to make decisions, plus the constraints of how things are right now and and uh how how do you make the transition, right?

SPEAKER_02 13:26

Of course. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

How do you transition to green? How do you make the transition to a more sustainable future? But and a lot of that also lies in in the leadership and a new kind of leadership. You know, we see leadership being so needing to evolve since the 80s. You see this kind of leadership with quite a lot of ego and um the leadership model of the 1980s, where it's all about um this is this is what uh this is what I say, and this is what is going to happen.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

Yes, it's uh to command and control your authoritarian leadership style, dictatorial uh, you know, my way or the highway.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Yeah, and with the future that that that we need, we we really need a a more co-creation kind of leadership where where everybody gets involved to actually make make a change. And I think that's a problem that we're facing at the moment.

SPEAKER_03 14:25

Wasn't a big part of this the sustainability conversation is about accountability. So, how do you account, you know, and and and where where do we actually see the changes are occurring and who's responsible and who's gonna take the fall for this at the end of the day? I mean, they we always talk about the future generations are going to bear the consequence of our current actions. There's always these uh grand designs that um, you know, in some ways it's like, well, I'll I'll let future me worry about that. And so, how do we drive accountability here?

SPEAKER_02 15:00

Well, in fact, in in in 1992, Tom Peters, uh a renowned uh leadership guru, uh global leadership guru, um, introduced in in his book Liberation Management, you know, a radical shift in management practices, you know, emphasizing and fostering a culture of innovation and flexibility. And uh it was such good, it was such good stuff. But and it really spoke to sort of neutralizing that that obstructive layer of middle management where communications don't go from upwards downwards or from downwards upwards, you know. And uh sadly, and and really about including more voices in the room, and it took a long time. It it really was uh a principle that sort of got played with and you know adopted by certain companies, but didn't really break through. And uh what what we're seeing now today in what's a very changed world, because in the 90s we still lived in a complicated world. Now in the in the 21st century, the world's no longer complicated, the world's complex. And complexity and and and complication are two very different things. They often interchange and they can't be interchanged. So you can have complex things that are complicated, um, and vice versa. But the reality is that in a in a complicated world, you can map and plan and model solutions and ways forward. In a complex world, you've got to be dealing with things in a real-time way. So, whilst you've got some form of strategy, you've got to realize that there's a dynamic of flux that's huge. And there's so much paradox and uncertainty that's that's taking place that you're needing to continually check out where are we in relation to where we're going and where we were, and how do we move from there? And very importantly, um, including all the voices in the room, because we're needing to hear from the youth, you know, the youth that you're talking of in creating a new world for them, it's it's their world. They're the ones who are going to have to lead it. And in fact, you know, they they have a lot to say and they have very real views, you know, and some of them don't have any views. So let's let's exclude those. But there's those who who do, and and what's important for them is to make an impact and make a difference and to change the model, you know, and and it's not about this hubris-infused and narcissistically infused leadership of win at all costs and uh you know one-upmanship. We've got to move into a much more collaborative uh spate of space of being, albeit the world that we're in is terribly dysfunctional, terribly discordant. We're living in a state of of leadership anarchy, um, unfortunately. But you know, we've got to look through and past and beyond that to what how do we how do we fight our way through that and make this a world uh that's going to be uh uh the a place where our grandchildren will thrive.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

Yeah, I think the key is going back to what you said there, Jono, about um accountability. Um the thing is that um humans are of course very complex, I think rather complex than complicated, right? Um and um it's a it's a human it's a human problem and you need everybody to feel accountable because if if not everybody is accountable, there's not going to be one person that's ever accountable, right? So I think everyone um needs to feel this accountability, and that only comes when um everybody is part of, you can't have everybody part of the decision making, but like you said, Brian, there needs to be more people in the decision-making process. And when people feel part of the decision-making process, that's when accountability happens. That's the theory behind it, anyway.

SPEAKER_02 19:03

Absolutely. You two do risky business. I'm your host, Brian Hutting, with me, Jonathan Shaw, and our esteemed guest from Harlem outside of Amsterdam, Sarah Richardson. And we're talking about the world of sustainability and all sorts of factors incorporating the challenges that people with disabilities have in traveling and in broader spheres. But importantly, we're talking about accountability. And Sarah, one of the things that came to mind as you were saying that is part of that comes down to us as parents, because so many parents are abdicating, and you of us see this from your time in the world of teaching and education, that um, you know, parents just hand it over to the school, you know. And in fact, let's not even get into that other side of the discussion with some of the things that have gone on in the world with what kids have been taught and encouraged to believe. But, you know, let's assume well-intending teachers. It's I don't think it's fair for parents to abdicate and to leave it to the teachers. What are your thoughts on that? Definitely not.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

Definitely not. No, there's been a huge change there as well, um, in education. So much responsibility falling on the um falling on the teachers, and and yet the school system hasn't really um even changed. So, you know, the the things that that we're learning in school, um, that that's that's moving very slowly, and um and and then at the same time, teachers are becoming not only educated, but educators, but um external parents. Um and in and and and also in in some way uh educators to the parents as well on certain issues.

SPEAKER_02 20:52

And and I think part of that is around creating awareness without people having to always experience the pain of their mistakes, uh becoming aware of consequences. You know, what are the consequences to what your choices are, to what you're doing, or your lack of choice? You know, what are the impacts of what you're doing? And and and bring it back to what's the intentionality? Why are you doing what you're doing? Why are you on the journey that you're on? And getting children, particularly as as early as possible, to be reflecting in a positive awakening way around what life is and what it has in store for them and what they want to see in and through that. Because, you know, there's so many other factors coming at us now, the information overload, the bombardment of media from everywhere, AI, all of these things that are that are influencing and affecting our decision processes. And it's so important uh from a uh right from a neuroscience point of view of maintaining a robust um neurological well-being and and and personal well-being is in how we think and what we say and how we articulate our our movie, you know, and what movie are we creating for ourselves, and what role are we playing in that? And realizing that there's no free lunch, that that everything comes at a price. You know, no matter how you dice or slice it, you know, somewhere down the line, you're gonna, the pipe is going to be paid. And you can defer certain learnings by jumping the queue, by cutting corners, um, in the pursuit of the instant gratification and the have it now sort of pursuit. But the challenge that comes with that is that like a loan, when you take out a loan, you accrue interest on it and the interest compounds. And one day you call to service that loan. In the same way with life, when you when you cut the corner, when you you you shortcut the learning, you leave out the important learning experience and experiential gain, and you go down track, at some point you're going to find yourself needing to deploy the learning you didn't get and didn't have. And because you didn't, you've come up short and life is calling in its debt when you don't even remember that you took out the loan. And the consequences at that point in time are way greater and way more painful than putting your head down and enduring the learning and pressing through the tough stuff to get there.

SPEAKER_03 23:28

I think uh if I if I can jump in there, uh just some thoughts. You know, the world has changed so much like you said from complicated to now complex uh we've dealing with things like globalization. And of course that leads to this idea of of of diversity. And I think that brings us to the disabled conversation again about how I think we've just been um uh uh exposed to a lot more or different paradigms that they they didn't seemingly used to be you know if I think of media for example you had you had such a small amount of sliver of things that you used to get exposed to whereas nowadays you can traverse the the halls of social media and you can hear pretty much every opinion there is out there and boy they will they will make sure that they you know what that opinion is um so yeah that's just my thoughts on on on how things have changed yeah I think that there's um uh no room as a a a parent or an or an adult or uh an an educator to be complacent anymore you know I think I think doing um that there's a huge risk in in doing nothing um and um it's certainly um well I I tell this to my to my students as well and and and to my own children that there's there's there's always um to to make a a a better future huge changes have to be made and you have to be invested not only in yourself in your future but the futures of others it's it's no longer about yourself anymore.

SPEAKER_02 25:15

Yeah and and and I think what's so interesting is that that in life we do things for one or two reasons to either to avoid a loss or to make a gain. In the absence of a bigger picture we're gonna take things on face value and we're gonna pick the one that looks the nicest or looks the easiest. And that often is exactly the wrong choice. It's the very thing you shouldn't be doing. And so the hence the the really important thing for people to have some form of of vision and set of goals and set of purposes and plans. Meaning and purpose is critical at the heart of all of this. And so in you know in the absence of that people are going to make bad decisions. And and in fact when you discover the in in and through the whole journey of of becoming focused and crystallized around where you're going, what you want what you want to become what you want to do what you want to achieve what you want to have whatever it might be whatever camp that falls into or some total of that. And you become clear around it and you understand the benefits and the value and you understand the obstacles and roadblocks of what you have to do to get there. You discover on the way that the steps that you have to take to achieve it are steps of not just doing they're steps of becoming because you have to overcome your overcome self-limiting beliefs you have to confront your fears you have to work through your blind spots and the tough stuff. And that takes courage and it takes effort and it takes commitment and sometimes sacrifice. Things that people won't do in isolation because it's not pleasant. It's uncomfortable they want to do the easy thing. But when you can get people to find real meaning and purpose and value in the pursuits then they take on those things and as they take them on they discover a new view and perspective of themselves and of the world and it encourages them to enter into a whole new journey of transitionary life and you know sustained change and change embracement. And it removes this global fear and I'm not talking global as in the world I'm taking this global sort of overarching fear that people have of change and the uncertain and getting to a place of getting comfortable with it and learning that the biggest risk in life is not to take a risk. And it's around you know what step out of your comfort zone just uh get in there and and do that. And if you if the intentionality is right and the passion's strong enough for what it is you're wanting to pursue you'll go through those steps and you'll come out of it a more enriched more engaged more characterized person. And that's what we can give our children.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Yeah don't forget um you know I I think it takes a very strong person to to come out and and and and independently take action on on their own um most people are waiting for somebody else to to lead them where to go and tell them what to do. That's why leadership is so important right um most people um I I think sit around and think everything's everybody else's responsibility and I I I do tell I I was listening to what you were saying and I I I tell my children myself independently from choose like choose one thing to believe in to choose one thing to do good in this world and and and do that and and do that well and believe in it. And if you do that one thing um hopefully people around you will start doing something as well. But um I think you do need that and and and people find that very difficult um I think especially young people trying to make that difference when nobody else around them is doing it.

SPEAKER_03 29:06

Role models came came as a big thing for me for example and mentorship and you know uh I I I find today that uh there's a lot of conversations around the sort of high functioning autism and I believe I'm on that spectrum to some degree and I think very differently and you know had it been recognized far earlier and and back when I was a kid it wasn't a thing you know and you were just had a different personality whereas nowadays there's there is a consideration for it um so to speak they might have locked you up John if they found out then I I think they did they sent me for extra lessons and uh writings and all of this and I was terrible at the at uh relationships and making friends but you know it's I've learned to I understand myself in that way and I and and coming back to the role model thing I think I s I saw how other people overcame uh difficulty and that yes that then led me to to to push through you know yeah I think the sorry Sarah go on well I was just going to say that um that idea of of having role models is just um I don't know if it that's so incredibly um uh underrated but it's just so incredibly important that that people are that that there are role models um modeling the correct behavior um and not not just in in society but um at at at large but also just in the community because not everybody has it in their family yeah for sure and that's a lot of the things that we see as as as an educator I I see that a lot as well and I think as a teacher you have that responsibility to to model behavior but also I'm trying to do that in my organization yes so what yeah fantastic and what I I'm just thinking of is imagine imagine a world and we can we can we can frame these things where we we brought fun back into teaching and into learning.

SPEAKER_02 31:19

So if we brought fun into learning and then you might have your your critics who would say art can't just be about fun. Well let's let's then evolve the fun into something called fulfillment let's make it fulfilling of which fun is a subset because if it's fun you bring joy into the room and if you bring joy into the room you bring energy you bring life you bring confidence you bring celebration you bring curiosity and you bring ownership and accountability because people want to be part of that they want to be part of that. It's not this oh my lord I've got to go to school again and I've got to get this you know this this this painful ritual of of learning and you know it's just bring the fun back in let's change this let's let's live lives well lived let's not get into this thing of work work work and one day we'll retire and you might have a bit of fun and then you'll die. You know it's like let's have the fun at the start of it and have fun all our lives and then it's just a seamless journey of of joy you know why not?

SPEAKER_03 32:21

And uh what about uh curiosity I mean what's your your take on curiosity because for me that was one of the biggest things that drove me is that I was curious as to why this was happening this way and I'd I'd be you know driven to find out.

SPEAKER_02 32:35

You're curious about the things that you enjoy right yeah exactly yeah yeah so I think anyway the one common denominator in uh effective learning is having fun so you're right there and um what I've got a question for you Brian what do you think what do you think the future of education should look like I've got my own ideas but I think the the the future of education should look like um something that infuses creativity into as much as what you can um self-discovery into as much as what you can and very importantly practicality and lived experience so the more experiential that education can become where you're living in the experience where you're creating you're creating things and you're making them happen and whether that's a business plan and developing a a a pseudo business or whatever it might be or uh if it's a in in a a community upliftment program it's less about the textbook and it's not that there isn't a need for for for for the for the information but as we know information doesn't change behaviors you know so what we're wanting to do is create this excitement about as early as possible being a contributor. So the more you learn at an early age to contribute to the world the more fulfilled you will be and the more fulfilled the world would be so I don't quite know how that how that would look but that would be the theme underlying theme of what I would want to see education being sounds like my Phoebe that sounds like a breeding ground for innovation. I would hope so you know and bringing alive that that that right brain for people that creative side of them that that in the normal world of schooling doesn't happen because it's all left brain stuff you know and yeah we need the STEM we need the maps the science the you know those things we need all of that but let's let's make sure that there's a balance yeah and um also this idea about um well at the moment we have all these um different subjects someone you're going in you're studying geography you're studying biology um and English but I think the magic really lies in the cross section between where all of those things meet.

SPEAKER_01 35:09

Yeah absolutely and and and teaching people it's not about learning it's about learning to think yeah that's learning to think the hardest thing for me to get my head around was critical thinking yeah and that's the danger with AI right because all the answers are in AI they've got all the answers but then the critical thinking comes from having the knowledge you cannot think critically unless you own the knowledge yourself. Yeah for sure and um AI doesn't have those answers.

SPEAKER_02 35:40

And Sarah in that you are you are a protagonist and proponent of positive change in leadership and you are consulting to organizations and institutions and people individually around that very thing and um I'm I'm just so expectant of great things and hearing good reports. And um how's it going and and and um how do people responding to your awakening them?

SPEAKER_01 36:09

My awakening them um yeah it's it's it's interesting because um there's a a I have a very big push from the side of the disability community uh to be heard um but on the other side I I think um you know government departments are uh are very receptive here in the Netherlands um but I think organise organizations we we have a I I think I have my work cut out for me a little bit um yeah there's um we're not we're I guess we're not as far um as I would like to be here in the Netherlands in terms of um uh disability awareness um so I hope that I can really I mean it's part of the reason why I started this I hope that I can really uh make a difference in actually making um accessibility part of everyday life and not not as an add-on i like I like what you're saying indeed and in a way it's the the challenge is that you you sort of um it's most certainly a a an existing and longstanding uh world if you want to call it that or or uh part of you it's you you're creating a market you're not really servicing a market in a way you you you're the pioneer you know you're a pioneer out there to do this and it always takes a little longer you know that that entry point to the J curve is much longer than in other instances you know when you're going into a mature market whilst there's other competitive players if you come in with a a a a great differentiation and and and and offering it can get taken up quite quickly because people know know what they're looking for whereas here they're not sure. Yeah but I think the thing is that um I I don't companies need to see and organizations need to see also what what's in it for them. I think that um the idea about disability and inclusion um as I say it uh there's this fallacy that people think it's a niche market and it's not um there's a fallacy that people think people with disability don't have money it's also not true um so I'm having to convince um convince organizations that uh it is a market.

SPEAKER_02 38:47

So it's the path is not um uh laid out for me in red carpet so to speak so I've got a lot of convincing to do um it's a shame that it's like that but it but it is like that so I suppose in and through that then one has to look at your target your that that very broad target market and narrow it down to where the low-hanging fruit is you know who are going to be the early adopters who are going to be the guys who are going to take it on so that you can create a beachhead of referenceability because you what I love about this world that we're in is that big corporates and the bigger the corporates the better suffer from FOMO big time. You know if somebody else if one of their competitors has got this new thing they've got to have it you know they can't not be without it you know so what you want is to get a couple of anchor anchor clients who who who showcase this and and then it's just like well hey Jack these guys have got it why don't you you know and you'll be surprised how quickly they come to the party yep no absolutely you only need one and I and and I see that that that there's there's with if I send 10 emails out um I might not get nine responses but one will be very enthusiastic.

SPEAKER_01 40:05

And that's really nice that's really nice to see. So change change is happening and I'm really happy to work with those those partners who are very enthusiastic.

SPEAKER_02 40:14

So please give the listeners out there and uh your contact details with Streepy and yourself in terms of how you want to be connected with whether it's on mail or whichever yep well sure um email is perfect because I think the the times are um well I guess the times are the same aren't they from South yes they are the same they are the same yeah but email is the best and you can always find me at uh www.streepy.com which is s-t-r-e-e-p-i and um at info at streepy dot com. Okay that's great wonderful so let's do that and um can I just say wish you every success and uh may you go from strength to strength and uh thank you so much Brian and may your children have wealthy parents and all those good things and uh and just thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show. It's been an absolute pleasure we'll have you back again to tell your your success stories and um oh it'll be wonderful. Yeah thank you and uh take care and uh remember listeners that if you're not with the ones you love, love the ones you're with and take time to show and tell the ones you love just how much you do. Take some time to love yourselves and give yourself a big hug.

SPEAKER_03 41:38

Jonna take care have a great week thank you Brian thank you Sarah so great to have you on the show.

SPEAKER_02 41:44

All the very best