Creating a Culture of Achievement Through Business: A Start Up Guide for People With Disabilities

By Wheeler Del Torro and Rayna Verbeck

Creating a culture of achievement - whether it is at the individual, family, community or national level is the first step to encouraging everyone to consider the benefits of entrepreneurship. This book provides a history of perceptions of people with disabilities in the United States, straightforward exercises to develop an entrepreneurial mindset and a step-by-step process to start a business.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781631927188

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Disability should not be a life sentence to poverty. –Anonymous

I was inspired to write this book after meeting an entrepreneur who has built businesses and traveled the world without the benefit of sight. As I worked with B. Keller, he showed me that the obstacles he faced as a young entrepreneur were largely the same for many people starting businesses without disabilities. He hired me as a consultant through Idylls Consulting to help his businesses become more profitable. The biggest obstacle he faced, and one that he continues to encounter, is society’s perception of people with disabilities. He lost his sight in an accident as a young adult and has seen the world both ways: as a person with a disability and without. It was through building up his self-esteem and self-confidence that Mr. Keller believed he could start a business. Now a serial entrepreneur, he is helping his daughter with her first business while continuing to operate his own.

This book covers how to start a business from the idea stage to hiring your first employee. The first section of the book, however, is about how to prepare your mentality and attitude to start a business. For many entrepreneurs, starting a business means creating your own path, whether or not society or even your family feels like that is the right choice for you. I worked with Rayna Verbeck, who holds an M.B.A. in Entrepreneurship and Marketing to provide technical insight into starting a business. Part I covers the perceptions of people with disabilities in society throughout history and today and how to overcome negative perceptions to build your self-confidence. Part II of the book covers building a strong team. In your personal and professional life, an effective, responsive team is essential to your success. Part III goes into detail about how to launch your first business.

How to Use this Book

Use the worksheets, notes and question sections to your advantage. This book is meant to be an interactive guide to help you with your first start-up. Take advantage of the ability to write on the pages to brainstorm or to respond to thought questions. We recommend reading the book through once and returning to sections to complete the exercises.

PART I

History and Perception

Americans with Disabilities: A Brief History

Disability is part of the spectrum of the human condition. In the United States, there are approximately 54 million people with disabilities, or about 20 percent of the national population. People with disabilities are unique among minority groups because anyone from any other group can be a member, or become a member. In fact, almost everyone will be temporarily or permanently impaired at some point in their life, with their chances for this experience increasing as they get older. In most families, there is someone with a disability. Despite the closeness that nearly everyone has to disability, political and moral attitudes have shifted through the centuries from revulsion and isolation to reverence; sometimes, all three existing at once. Americans with disabilities now are in the position many excluded groups find themselves in: fighting for the rights to exist in their everyday lives that were promised to them on paper. Never have people with disabilities been more included or perceived as part of their communities than today, and yet gaps remain in access to basic government institutions, education, health care, employment, entrepreneurship and protection from crimes. To understand the position people with disabilities are in today, it is important to see how society has shifted and changed to reach this point.

CHAPTER 1

Historical Perceptions of People with Disabilities

19th Century Attitudes and Major Events

Until the 19th century, people with disabilities were often cared for, or confined, by family members in private homes. With the growth of cities during the Industrial Revolution, the idea spread that people with disabilities, particularly people with mental health challenges, posed a threat to public safety. This perceived threat prompted the creation of asylums to confine patients outside of cities. A two-tiered system of asylums emerged: public hospitals with starkly poor conditions for lower income patients and private hospitals or doctor’s residences for wealthy patients. The out of sight, out of mind mentality that had existed for centuries continued in the asylums for both types of patients.¹

During this time, supporters of the theory now called Social Darwinism promoted the idea that those who were at the top of society in power or wealth owed nothing to anyone else in society. They also proclaimed that helping others who were less fortunate would make society as a whole weaker. Social Darwinists opposed any sort of aid or accommodations to people with disabilities.²

20th Century Attitudes and Major Events

The late 19th and early 20th centuries started to see a shift in perceptions of people with disabilities. The Civil War greatly increased the population of people with disabilities. Doctors began new research to help people with disabilities and societal attitudes toward veterans with disabilities were more positive than for people with disabilities as the result of birth, illness or accident.³ The disabled veteran was not seen in popular culture as a partial or limited person as most other people with disabilities were.⁴ World War I again increased the number of people with disabilities as wounded soldiers returned from Europe, including soldiers who had lost their sight as a result of chemical warfare. Pensions and federally-funded rehabilitation programs were established for disabled veterans from both of the Civil War and World War I.⁵

It wasn’t until the 1920s and 1930s that people with disabilities who were not veterans began to experience some of the programs created originally for veterans. During this era, state pension plans, industrial worker’s compensation laws, and local vocational rehabilitation programs were established.⁶ The New Deal in the 1930s brought some federal support to people with disabilities through Social Security.⁷

Later, inspired by the Civil Rights movement, the grassroots movement for rights of people with disabilities grew throughout the 20th century. Activists used nonviolent protest tactics including sit-ins in federal buildings, blocking inaccessible buses, and staging marches to protest. Activists also brought their movement to the courts and Congress.⁸

A historic shift came with the passage of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Section 504 banned discrimination on the basis of disability by recipients of federal funds.⁹ The Rehabilitation Act was the first federal recognition of the exclusion and segregation of people with disabilities as discrimination. The majority’s attitude previously assumed that the problems people with disabilities faced like unemployment and lack of education were inevitable consequences of their disabilities. With the Rehabilitation Act, Congress recognized that people with disabilities’ social and economic status was not due to their disability, but a result of societal and attitudinal barriers. Legislation was needed to address discriminatory policies and practices. Section 504 also classified people with disabilities as a recognized minority group. It broadly defined the category of people with disabilities, rather than specifying protections individually based on diagnosis, an important change for advocacy efforts.¹⁰

The disability rights community returned to protests to urge the federal government to put the regulations of the Rehabilitation Act into action. After protests and lawsuits, the regulations were issued. However, the protections in the Rehabilitation Act were threatened by the Reagan Administration’s zeal for deregulation.¹¹ Many of the regulations protecting people with disabilities from discrimination survived the deregulation task force. Court cases concerning rights for people with disabilities ensued through the 1980s. The American with Disabilities Act (ADA) was an attempt to restore and further define the protections intended by the Rehabilitation Act. The ADA was first introduced in 1988 and passed in 1990. The disability rights movement is a rejection of the traditional perception of people with disabilities through the impairment model – meaning that unless someone with a disability is cured, they cannot expect equality.¹²

The ADA was intended by Congress to prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities in employment, transportation, public accommodations, communications and governmental activities. Since 1990, the Supreme Court has steadily dismantled the protections in the ADA, particularly in employment. This has created a Catch 22 situation through multiple cases in which people with disabilities have to disclose the extent of their disability to get accommodations, but are not necessarily protected from being fired once they disclose. Political science professor Ruth O’Brien classifies the perception as Disabled people have been seen not only as a threat to the workplace hierarchy but also to the principle of business rationality underlying American capitalism. This helps to explain the opposition they faced from employers and federal courts. ¹³ Court decisions in the last 20 years have tended to make it harder for people with disabilities to join the workforce.

21st Century Attitudes and Major Events

Since 2009, several laws have been created that speak to the perception of people with disabilities and areas of remaining discrimination. Included in those laws is Rosa’s Law, which removed all mentions of the phrase mentally retarded from federal health, education and labor laws and instead, referred to Americans living with intellectual disabilities.¹⁴ President Obama in his remarks while signing the law, quoted the brother of Rosa Marcellino, the young woman for whom the law was named, as saying What you call people is how you treat them.¹⁵ Other acts include the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act which improved access to electronic media and technology for people who are deaf, blind or live with a visual impairment, and the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act to addressed challenges of people living with paralysis.¹⁶

Another piece of legislation is the Executive Order to increase the minimum wage for employees with contracts with the federal government, including workers with disabilities. It is estimated that this order will provide raises to 50,000 workers with disabilities. However, many other workers with disabilities continue to be legally paid less than minimum wage and have been since the curiously named Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which allows companies that employ workers with disabilities to pay them substantially less than minimum wage. While the Executive Order does not remedy the situation for all workers with disabilities, it is a step forward.

Slowly Shifting Perceptions

Despite progress with the ADA and other laws, the rights guaranteed to people with disabilities are by no means universally available and are still under judicial threat. There also remains a large, and at times violent, perception problem of people with disabilities. Perceptions run from objectification to leery of special treatment to an aggressive or even violent response to people with disabilities’ mere existence.

While there remain many challenges to employment and economic parity for people with disabilities, there have never been better times for people with disabilities to start businesses. Entrepreneurship overall has been on the rise since the midst of the recession in 2009.¹⁷ There is more support available for education and financing. Technology has dramatically dropped the price to launch many businesses from authors to online retailers to specialty product producers and more.¹⁸

This book seeks to challenge the impairment perception and encourage people with disabilities to chart a course bypassing lawmakers and employers. While politicians debate what benefits should be available to people with disabilities and what wages are fair, a third way is possible — the way of entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship offers several key benefits. Owning your own business can provide clear economic benefits, but also freedom to define your own schedule and work parameters. Most importantly, being a business owner builds confidence and self-esteem. Empowering a business owner also empowers a community to feel more confident and encourages them to expand what they perceive as possible for the future.

People with disabilities, as a community, constantly confront negatives perceptions and stereotypes from society. Whether that is through entrepreneurship or supporting businesses owned by people with disabilities, the image of people with disabilities can shift society’s perceptions.

Major United States Legislation Affecting People with Disabilities

Education

Education Consolidation and Improvement Act

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

Education of the Deaf Act of 1986

Library Services and Construction Act

Higher Education Act

Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act

Department of Education Organization Act of 1979

Defense Dependents’ Education Act of 1978

National Library Service for Persons who are Blind and Physically Disabled

Impact Aid to Federally Affected Areas

The Television Decoder Circuitry Act of 1990