Advice for Others Like Me

In addition to writing for the Southwest ADA Center, public speaking, and video editing, I also guest lecture at Western New Mexico University (where I once taught special ed). One of my students there asked me what advice I had for other people with disabilities. I don’t think she was expecting me to give her a three page answer.

Don’t expect me to give you the same three page answer. I will tell you though, it looks amazingly like my article “How to Show Your Ganas”, which I wrote in March. Much of it has to do with organization. It is about putting your life in some sort of logical order. As I reread what I wrote for class, I thought this would be a good time to bring it to the fore on this venue as well. You’ll see how this applies to disabilities, work and education.

Whether you are working or not, you probably have the same desire as the rest of us. You probably want happiness, contentment, a meaningful relationship, and a satisfying job, among other things. The question is: How does one find all this satisfaction? One could go through life randomly looking for satisfaction but I have a better idea. I wanted to get paid for playing and traveling so I made it a goal. Since I get paid for public speaking about playing and traveling and since I’ve sold DVD’s I made about playing and traveling, you may say I made my dream come true. I can now show you how to make your dream come true as well.

Dream It

Did you ever hear the expression, “If you can dream it, you can achieve it” ? Well, nothing could be farther from the truth. I dreamed I married Angelina Jolie but we both know there will be an honest man in congress before that ever happens. The fact is, if you want to make a dream come true, it will require a lot of work and a lot of sacrifice. Even then, there are no guarantees. If you like expressions, here’s another one for you – if you are not succeeding, it could be because you are not failing enough. Take a minute and read that again. I assure you it is written correctly. It alludes to the fact that sometimes we need to try many, many things before finding the right formula. That means failing many times before finding the answer we seek. The key here is trying again and again. We would do well to remember the words of Calvin Coolidge. “Press on: nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

Passion

Do you really know what you are seeking? Do you really know what makes you happy? I’m talking about something you think about often, something you would make great sacrifices to do even if you didn’t get paid for it, something you may even pay to do. You can make a list of things that make you happy and see if there is a commonality in those items. You can even take an interest survey with the help of your vocational rehabilitation counselor. These surveys are designed to ask you the same questions in multiple forms to really nail down your interests. For those of you who have already identified your passion, you are ready to set goals. In the words of Henry David Thoreau, "If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours." I can tell you from experience that this is true.

Goals

If you have a dream, turn it into a goal with objectives and steps to achieve that goal. Sure, some of you are saying doesn’t relate to your goal. I assure you it does. Let’s suppose your dream is to find the right mate. Make that a goal. Include objectives with time components. Your first objective may be to decide on the profile of your ideal mate. Although I have heard many stories about couples who are nothing like what they pictured as ideal mates. It helps to know though the interests you would like to share with another. Once you know that you can proceed to another objective. If your ideal mate should have an interest in auto racing, for example, you may list “meeting people interested in auto racing” as an objective and list attending races, read racing newsgroups, and go to car shows to see how many people you can meet that are interested in auto racing. Do you se what I’m getting at? No matter how esoteric your goal, you can formulate objectives and steps to reach those objectives.

Concrete Goals

For many of us, goals are more concrete. A vocational goal might be find a job that pays $40,000 a year. I suggest making it more specific such as, find a job in the human services field in Houston, that pays $40, 000 by January 2008. But first things first. Do you have a degree in human services? Do you even know what jobs are available in human services? You may consider moving out of Houston if you are a recent college graduate. Since your ultimate goal is find work in Houston, try that first but if that doesn’t work well, consider being flexible and take a job outside of Houston. As you become more experienced, it will be easier to find a job in Houston as most jobs require some experience. You may have to break your objectives down into steps - list a series of related goals and how you will achieve them. For example, you may list getting a job that pays $30,000, then a job that pays $35,000 before your ultimate goal of getting a job that pays $40,000. You remember our friend Henry David Thoreau? He also said, "In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high."

Risks

There are risks to everything we attempt. We risk either failure or success. We all fear failure but failure is rarely final. None of us succeed at everything. Some of us may be more successful only because we have more experience failing and finally figured out what it takes to succeed. Some of us actually fear success, in part, because we may have to step out of our comfort zone. Perhaps a new job may require supervising people or traveling or making budgets and all that may be new or just scary. That’s all part of growing professionally. I can hear a lot of people saying, “Yeah, but what if….?” As in, “What if something goes wrong?” I never ask ‘if’, I ask ‘when’. Because I’m pretty sure something is definitely going to go wrong and I want to be prepared when it does. That’s all part of taking risks, you learn to limit your downside. When you gamble at Las Vegas the odds are in favor of the House. When you gamble, or take risks, on the job, you want to be sure the odds are in your favor. You can do that by learning as much as possible about ways to improve your work, perhaps even taking a related class outside of work.

Rewards

Risks have been easy for me to take because I was always able to visualize the rewards to be reaped as a result of taking certain risks. The bigger the risk, the bigger the reward. As an example, I decided to move to New Mexico from Cleveland, Ohio to find work. The risk was loosing my circle of support – family and friends – to try something new in a location I thought better suited to me. I visualized the warmer climate and para-transit transportation system. That was so appealing to me I never needed to weigh the risk. By now you know how found I am of quotes. Remember what Teddy Roosevelt said: "It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcomings, who knows the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the high achievement of triumph and who at worst, if he fails while daring greatly, knows his place shall never be with those timid and cold souls who know neither victory nor defeat." Here’s another, 'Life Shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.' by Anais Nin. It isn’t always easy taking risks, but the bigger your risk, the bigger your reward. If you’re not ready for big risks, take small ones until you’re comfortable doing it. I guarantee you though, nobody ever got ahead without taking risks.

About the author

Gene Rodgers Photo Gene Rodgers has been a quadriplegic since age 17. Since then he has earned several college degrees, worked in several states, earned a Switzer Fellowship, and now works as a private contractor.

Do you have a question about employment and disability? Send your question to grodgers@austin.rr.com and put “DLRP JOBS” in the subject line.