Belonging Starts With Access: Creating the Conditions for Everyone to Thrive

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (00:00)
It’s about changing the tone without reducing the importance, right, of accessibility. And helps people to kind of better understand and connect to you know, that accessibility, not just

as an access point but to the bigger end goal of belonging, right? And because if you look at it as a purely business proposition, and we take, you know, the inclusion, the diversity, the emotion, and like all of it out of it, and we look at black and white numbers on a spreadsheet. What’s the bottom line? How is this

going to impact things? When customers feel like they belong, guess what? They buy more. They become

Esi (00:34)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (00:35)
advocates. Not only do they buy more, but they tell their friends to buy. They tell their family to buy. They recommend

they have to feel like they belong. So if you’re automatically excluding, you know, 25% of the population or more because we don’t have, you know, that doorway, that access point, that’s a huge percentage of the population

Esi (00:56)
Yeah.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (00:57)
that are no way gonna come and be able to access your your business, your product, your services, whatever it might be, your community.

Esi (01:19)
Hi, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Equality Edit. I’m so glad that you’re here. Today, I’m joined by a colleague of mine who I think we met about six months ago.

Jennifer and I’m gonna let Jennifer introduce herself in a moment. But just to remind you, we’re releasing these podcasts once every three weeks, these episodes, and it was on a Thursday, but I’m moving it to a Tuesday because I think that’s just a better time for everyone. So please do subscribe and let us know what you think as well in the comments. And if you have any topics that you would like to hear about, let me know.

But without any further ado, I’m going to kind of start the conversation with my guest today. So hello, Jennifer.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (02:04)
Hello.

Hello. Great to be here, Esby. Thanks very much for having me.

Esi (02:08)
Well, thank you so much for coming along. really glad that you when I asked you, you said yes. So thank you. Would you mind just by starting off by kind of introducing yourself, telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (02:21)
Sure. I’m a neurodivergent and disabled social impact entrepreneur. And I always like to say that I have collaboration in my DNA. And I really do believe that. I’m the founder of We Roar Magazine and Lady Rebel Club. and basically everything that we’re doing kind of in our space is about building belonging first. collaborative media, tech for good, spaces that recognize, connect, and create opportunities basically for marginalized business owners, creatives and leaders.

I’m very passionate sort of advocate for marginalized business owners, focusing mainly across intersections of neurodiversity, disability, gender, and culture. I’m also the founder of the No More Hiding and Make Accessibility Accessible Movements. I’m a speaker and I help other founders and change makers basically create better conditions for belonging, opportunity, and impact.

Esi (03:16)
Just listening to everything that you do makes me tired. I mean, in a

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (03:20)
Yeah.

Esi (03:20)
really exciting way, but it makes me tired. And it reminds me of a LinkedIn post that you posted just the other day, actually, that I was reading. And you posted an article and it was around kind of listening to your body and giving yourself space to breathe as well. Do you feel that

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (03:37)
Yeah.

Esi (03:38)
you live that? Or is that an aspiration?

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (03:40)
Mostly. Mo mostly.

That yeah, no, I’m far better. I am far better now. because I have burnt out and I think, you know, probably a lot of us in our community have have been through that. And I think a lot of founders and small business owners and and you know, have been through that in general as well because we push so hard. but for sure, yeah. And I’ve had to I’ve had to force myself really, right, to learn to embrace

that concept of rest is rebellion. And for me, a lot of times it’s not even the thing itself. It’s how it’s positioned in my thinking and in my brain, right? And a lot of the work, the kind of more advocacy type work that we do. And even when we talk about like creating our culture of rebel, it’s around flipping those internal paradigms as well as the external ones, right? So when I kind of flip that around and look at it as like rest is rebellion, to me that feels good.

Right. So I think a lot of times it’s not and that might not feel good to everybody, but it’s looking at well, how can you embrace rest or other other things, in a way that is things that are good for us that we know that we need to do, but reposition it maybe in our thinking in a way that, you know, feels good for us, rather than maybe just how everybody else says this is how you have to do it or how you have to think about it.

Esi (05:00)
Yeah, you’re right. Because I mean, the culture is designed for us to keep going and keep going. I mean, there’s even like memes and sayings around, isn’t it? Like we all have the claim 24 hours, which when I hear that, makes me so mad just hearing that. But you

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (05:08)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Esi (05:15)
know, we are kind of it’s ingrained in our DNA to keep going. And we’re not good. You know, we’re not doing it if we keep going, you know, and actually reading your article the other day really made me stop and think, I mean, I think I’m in an intersection in my life where I’ve got to

kind of the ripe old age of 44, nearly 45 But 44

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (05:35)
Yeah.

Esi (05:36)
still where actually my body is really telling me that I can’t keep going at the level that I’m going at. And I’m really beginning, I was talking to my friend the other day and saying that it’s not gonna be long before I can’t do five days a week anymore. And it does, I mean, it still feels like a pressure to keep going because whilst I think,

I need to do it for myself. I’m like, but how am I going to do it? You know, where, you know, where am

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (06:03)
Yes.

Esi (06:03)
I going to cut the time down?

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (06:06)
It

is, it’s difficult. And I think a a lot of it again, when I first started, you know, and as we talked about originally, this concept of like h hiding, right? And hiding from ourselves is really what kind of started this whole path. And

Esi (06:21)
Mm.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (06:22)
it was through that embracing myself and going, right, do you know what? I do have these different conditions, I have these different disabilities, you know, I h have these different neurodiversities.

How can I how can I rather than fighting them and you know and we’re wearing the label and being in the box that everyone, you know, likes to put us all in, how instead can I do things that suit me? And that’s been a long path. And I don’t think it’s a a never ending path. And again, I think as human beings, we’re always trying, you know, to have that to understand ourselves better and to know ourselves better and to understand how we can get the best out of ourselves. And for me, sometimes

It is pushing through. Do you know what I mean? And I am that kind of personality as well, where I’m like, let’s go do it. Let’s, you know, go I played a lot of sports. I’m very like da da da da da da. But at the same time, so for me the rest has been, for example, you know, more difficult to embrace, but still just as important, if not more important maybe at times, than other a attributes. So it’s been that journey of really trying to get to know me. And I think this is the thing that a lot of people,

don’t talk about, right? Whether it’s within the coaching space, the advocacy space, the influencer space, whatever it is, is that a lot of people don’t talk about that individualism, if you will, and how we can create a business that

Esi (07:49)
Mm.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (07:49)
really suits us, right? Because not all of us not only need to work in a different way, or all of our bodies are different, all of our minds are different, all of our lives are different, right? And also we all have different aspirations.

Not everyone

Esi (08:03)
Yeah.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (08:03)
wants to make, you know, eight hundred million pounds and, you know, run an empire. So if we look at well, what are the things that we want to achieve, how is it that they want to achieve it? What really matters to us? Because money money does don’t get me wrong, for sure it can help improve wealth. But wealth is not just money, right? Wealth is our health, it’s our relationships, it’s our creativity, it’s our happiness.

excuse me, it’s the joy that we have in our lives. So it’s looking at well, what really is it that I want to achieve?

Esi (08:38)
Mm.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (08:39)
And then just trying different things. And I mean, for me for instance, I’ve realized I’m both a marathoner and a sprinter when it comes to how I work in a business where I can really push through and work for like a week, really, really, you know, focused on something and a huge project and get it done.

and I tend to do that quite a lot, but then I build in rest afterwards. So

Esi (09:06)
Mmm.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (09:07)
and for me, rather than trying to spread something out over two or three weeks, that works better because I know that’s how my mind prefers to work, but then my body needs the time to recover, you know, sort of afterwards, having that pressure. But I’m also can do the marathon, you know, I can also spread things out and and chip away at things and do things sort of slowly.

So it just depends and when I’m looking at work that we have going on or projects, I’ll sit down and analyze it and go, right, you know, what’s gonna fit this container? How does my body feel when I’m looking at this project? Do I feel like I need to like take it in small chunks ’cause I’m not all that excited about it? Or do I need to like am I just really wanna jump in and make it work?

Esi (09:52)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (09:53)
and do it. So there’s a lot of testing. Like, I mean I spent probably the initial first three years

just kind of throwing some ideas out there and talking about some different things publicly that probably seemed a bit random at the time and then getting to know myself and also getting to understand more and about disability, right? And neurodiversity. Because just because maybe we are disabled or neurodivergent, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re, you know, given a manual like this is everything you need to know about being a disabled and neurodivergent human.

And all the things that you, you know it doesn’t work that way as you as you

Esi (10:31)
Mm.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (10:31)
know, I see. So it’s it’s the learning. It’s a learning process like it like it all, I suppose.

Esi (10:37)
I think this is really interesting stuff for listeners, also for me as well. kind of it’s, I think it’s, you know, as disabled and neurodivergent people, I think that you’re right, We don’t come with a book of this. It was like to be disabled, these are your rights, this is what you can cope with and this is what you can’t.

But we do develop that resilience and we do develop that knowledge of ourselves and that kind of emotional intelligence about ourselves that come from having to know more about ourselves than the average non-disabled person because we’re always working around the barriers and working

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (11:16)
Mm.

Esi (11:17)
around the way that people think that life should be. When I started Celebrating Disability, I was kind of, I want to make…

800 million in a year. And you know,

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (11:29)
Yeah.

Esi (11:31)
I go along to these kind of business networking events and the business coaching events where you know, the speaker was up there, the motivational speaker, I could do it so you can do it too. You just work hard. my

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (11:42)
Yes, yes.

Esi (11:43)
god, I’m never gonna be good enough. Never gonna be good enough. And then I realized that actually, as you just said, I don’t need to make the 800 million pounds, I need to make enough.

I need to decide what I want out of my business and then work towards that. So I’ve decided there’s lots of different kind of business models. And the one that works for me is kind of the lifestyle business. So enough for me to maintain the lifestyle I want in comfort. And for me, that means having the finances to do what I want to do when I want to do it, but also not working….

24 hours a day so that actually my finances don’t matter because I didn’t have time to use them anyway kind of thing and in taking on projects and doing things that Fulfill me and offer value to other people but also give me value as well So that you know, I hate it when I get to the end of the day and I’ve been unproductive You know, I get really really grumpy and I know the you know,

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (12:42)
Yeah. Yeah.

Esi (12:43)
if if I’ve had it unproductive day I’m gonna be a horrible person in the evening because I don’t think

I’ve achieved anything. I mean, I know unproductivity is when I am doing something that I don’t want to do anyway, or I’m doing something that pushes my impairment too far out of its not comfort zone, but out of its ability. So I’ve

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (13:05)
Yes.

Esi (13:06)
managed to work out what is within, you know, I can still challenge myself, but what is it within my ability, but still makes me feel that I’ve done something productive and worthwhile with my time.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (13:19)
Yes. Yeah, no, I get that. And that’s it. And then and and it’s like almost the it’s like the internal manual to build in your business, right? Because we have the external strategy, we have all of those things, but we need that internal strategy. That internal manual is to write and i like with all project planning, anything, you start at the end. What’s the end thing that I want to achieve with this? What really is gonna make me happy? What’s really gonna, you know, bring me the things and I I of course like money is gonna be part of that.

Well what else? You know, is it the time frame? Do you only want to work two days a week? You know, what is it that you want to achieve? and what are the boundaries? and that’s a whole nother subject, isn’t it? Boundaries that we need to put out. That we’re not always very good at either, but

Esi (14:01)
Part seven of Jennifer’s interview or

Jennifer’s podcast boundaries. Yeah.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (14:07)
Yeah.

Esi (14:09)
Yeah, that’s a whole other thing. People, people say these things and obviously they are really relevant. They’re so much easier said than done. But on that note of, of kind of boundaries and having things easier said than they’re done, let’s kind of

get back to why equality and the work that you do with We Raw and all the other magazines and publications is so important to you. So what kind of drew you to this kind of work in the first place?

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (14:40)
Well I think again, like with with all things in life, it’s it’s when something affects us or, you know, somebody that we love or someone someone within our, you know, our our space. or we just see something that really you know, or come across something that just really changes us and impacts us. and for me I was kind of happy, you know, drift not happy, that’s the wrong word to say, but I was, you drifting along, just doing my thing and it was at the end of … 2019

You know, I was I was aware that I was neurodivergent, I was aware, I knew I had different conditions. I didn’t really think of myself at that stage as like having disabilities or being disabled. and I didn’t really understand the context of that though, at the same time. and at the end of twenty nineteen, my husband had a stroke and then two months after that I got my additional blood cancer diagnosis and two months after that COVID hit.

So I like to call it the three ways ’cause it was just like, you know, boom, boom, boom.

Esi (15:43)
Yeah.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (15:44)
Yeah. and but strangely enough, that was when everything really changed in a positive way for me at the most kind of dire at the most kind of dire time of my life, right? Because yeah, there was a lot. And there was a lot going on within the family dynamic with all of that turmoil and my kids and you know, and everything else, of course, as you could probably imagine.

Esi (16:07)
Mm.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (16:08)
And it was when I first started cancer treatment and I had to go alone because of COVID. and my husband was still going down to Rabu, which is like the brain injury rehabilitation center, five days a week all day. I mean, he had a lot of re rehabilitation that he had to do. And so he he just wasn’t able to like sit and have a chat with me about things, you know, like we would have before. and he wasn’t obviously able to go and support me.

It was kind of during that time and I remember we hadn’t been on social media very long, or maybe about a year. and I remember just kind of scrolling through I think it was Facebook, you know, and I was looking at different groups and looking at this and going and I started then I think just to because my mind wasn’t focused on anything, right? I was just like aimlessly scrolling, sitting outside going, What what the heck are we gonna do? And I started to notice patterns of at that time women because that’s how I

identify at being in one, you know, group talking about their business but not their fibromyalgia, you know, or not their autism. And being in this other group and being allowed to talk about their autism but not their cancer or not their other things, right? And I was like, but we’re human. It’s all

Esi (17:24)
Yeah.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (17:25)
like one thing affects another, surely. And I started to do these patterns and I thought to myself, my goodness, like not without mal without malice of

course, but you know, these women are hiding. They’re not they don’t feel comfortable to talk about certain things in certain spaces. And then it was like, you know, it was almost like walking into this really bright, like tunnel with this loud alarm bells going off like, Hey Jennifer, guess what? You do the same thing I just remember going, my goodness. And then it was like this like flashback of thinking of all these different times. Like even with clients when I, you know

had to go and mate them and go through like torturous travel and and just all these different things that was horrendous. It’s like why? And just thinking and actually saying to my husband so many times, our clients, you know, can never know that I have fibromyalgia, they can never know that I’m having all these difficulties. They can’t know, you know, that I’m neurodivergent. They can’t know about my anxiety all of the stuff they can never know about.

Esi (18:26)
No.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (18:27)
You know? And I was pretty agoraphobic at that stage, like not totally, but I rarely left the house.

because yeah I just couldn’t really and even that, so it made things more difficult, but I hid it really well, right? By always having different excuses why I couldn’t go to different things. And we didn’t work locally as a rule. We always had clients from elsewhere. So I always found a way to work around it kind of.

Esi (18:52)
No.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (18:54)
but I hid it, you know, really well. And it was through that epiphany that everything kind of started my journey of self exploration, as I’ve mentioned.

But then also going, well, hold on a minute. Why is this happening? And I’m a quite curious person and I like to ask lots of questions. and so I just started to like really investigate. And immediately the name Lady Rebel Club came to me because I’ve always kind of felt like a rebel and been called a rebel several times, not necessarily for myself, unfortunately, but for others, right? And

Esi (19:27)
Thank

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (19:29)
so I knew the name was really good because of my brand.

and strategy background. So I trademarked it right away. I didn’t know what

Esi (19:34)
Nice.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (19:35)
it was gonna be at that stage at all. and then the concept of neurohiding and it’s it’s refined and it’s changed a lot. Like if I look at back then when that first happened in 2020 to now, I mean it’s drastically, drastically different. Like I’m different throughout as I’ve learned so much more about disability, around neurodiversity, about myself.

our language has changed, you know, every so much has changed and as we’ve grown and flourished. and but yeah, that’s that was kind of where everything started. And we really wanted initially that movement and the whole point of it was not to say to people, you shouldn’t hide, you must not hide, you have to, you know, why are you not coming out and telling everybody all the jam, right, of what’s going on with you. It’s more about, hey, we should never feel like we have to hide.

And that’s the

Esi (20:29)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (20:29)
critical thing. So it’s not about the person, even though that’s how a lot some people take it, it’s about the environment. and ironically enough, through the evolution of the business and how we’ve changed and evolved, and even with the magazine over the past like three, it’ll be three years this October, since we first started the beta.

Esi (20:47)
What?

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (20:49)
and

Esi (20:49)
Happy anniversary.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (20:51)
thank you, thank you. but it’s been really interesting in how that evolution has come about and how

now we know that it’s more about the conditions, you know, it’s all of our work is around you know, our huge conviction is that people already have value. We don’t give

Esi (21:10)
Mm.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (21:10)
people value. People have value, right? and what our work is about creating the conditions to, you know, help that be better recognized, and connected and, you know, moved into opportunities, basically. But that’s where it all started, yeah.

Esi (21:28)
I love that actually. Creating the conditions to kind of recognise the value, it reminds me a lot of the social model. Creating the conditions for people to do what they want to do. We’re not giving people, we’re not enabling people to do it. We are getting out of our own way for everybody to have an equal value, an equal chance. I like that.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (21:53)
Yeah, yeah. And and I think it’s, you know, and it is important. when you talk about, you know, creating those conditions, yeah, and it’s often tricky, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying, you know, it’s an and it’s been an easy thing to do. And as we’ve developed, we’ve you know, there’s kind of four regions and we we like to say we have a map to how we’re building ’cause the parent company is called Our Rebel World. So we have

Esi (22:18)
Mm.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (22:18)
a map to building a better world, right? And within that map we have four regions.

So we have the region that you’re more familiar with, which is Roar. So that’s about recognition. So how do we help value become recognized? Because if value isn’t recognized, nothing you know, nothing else is gonna happen then, right? and then we have spaces whose spaces is like for our events, well, our one day rebellion event, and then but other smaller events or community events that other people are our ambassadors or you know, different people may want to run. And that’s all about connection. So how do we help that, you know, the people, the talent, the ideas,

you know, connect better with communities, et cetera. And then we have the tech side, which is our our rebel our rebel key, if you will. So that’s what we call it’s kind of a new category of tech that we’ve coined called belonging tech. So it’s how can technology make belonging easier to build? And then we have the advocacy region, which is all about better conditions as a whole. So how can we create, you know, those conditions for people to participate, contribute and thrive and, you know,

Esi (23:22)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (23:22)
A better way.

Esi (23:23)
Mm-hmm. And I love it, when you first got connected with me, because you connected with me to ask me to write an article in your magazine. I just thought I’d put that

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (23:31)
Mm.

Esi (23:32)
in there. Write an article in your magazine.

So that’s really interesting. And I want to go back to the No More Hiding movement, because I know that this is something that you have launched and are kind of, it’s in the early stages. So can you tell us a bit more about that? I know we’ve been talking around it a little bit, kind of what I understand about it is kind of being able to be yourself in all the spaces that we’re in.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (24:00)
Yeah,

I mean, like quite literally, it’s that we shouldn’t be made to feel that we have to hide parts of ourselves to be valued, right? And that’s the crux of all of it. And I think the beauty about that is that it can apply not just with our community, right? Like everyone, I think if you ask every individual excuse me, if you ask every individual, most would probably say, even if it’s just to themselves, that there’s something at some stage in their life

they haven’t they haven’t wanted to share with their family. It could be, well my parents, you know, aren’t gonna approve, or this is gonna happen, or that’s gonna happen, or maybe I don’t want to talk about this, you know, this part of me at work because I don’t think they’ll understand, you know, and and appreciate and appreciate that that part of my life or that part of my, you know, my being. so I think it’s bigger. I think this is kind of the beauty of it, right? That it’s not just it doesn’t it’s not just for our community, but of course that’s where it started.

and it is core to us because we are made so often to feel like if we don’t perform, if we’re not perfect, if we don’t tick all the boxes within this defined space within this defined description, you know, description of how success is, of how, you know, being a good speaker is, of how it is your stage present is meant to do, your

how you’re meant to behave on a podcast like not talking with your hands, right? Which I can I I know, which which

Esi (25:33)
As long as they’re not near your mouth, that’s fine.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (25:37)
I cannot do. That must be the Italian of me, you know, my Italian coming up because yeah, I’m not I’m an unable to talk with my hands. But anyway, so that’s the c the core of it. And a huge, a huge premise of something that we’ve had from the very beginning is that

We always wanted everyone to know that you never have to be anything, do anything, buy anything, you know, join anything to be one of us. If you’re one of us, you’re one of us. And that’s a saying I’ve always had from the beginning. And I think that that goes hand in hand with the no more hiding. because you have to have the safety and the privilege to be able to not hide as well. You know, and as well as I might have, don’t get me wrong,

lots

of biases and different things because, you know, I’m a woman in business because of, you know, my disability and my neurodiversity, my age, probably different things, right? there’s definitely privileges that I have that others don’t have. And so I think you have to look at you have to look at that. You know, and I remember talking to s someone who I’ve become, you know, friends with, who I met during that kind of initial time.

She’s from Trinidad and she was telling me about her journey with her ADHD diagnosis and her sums and how that experience was for her with her family. And although I had trepidations about telling my family, especially my mom, it was it was very different to what her general like her real fear and things were. so I think it’s acknowledging that that.

like again, we’re all human, right? And all of our experiences and journeys are going to be different. So even within our community, we have to be so careful with the work that we do is that, you know, we can try our best to

put things out there for people, but everyone’s individual. So when we talk about the no more hiding that experience for everyone is gonna be different. So I I I always just like to clarify that it’s never about the individual being made feel, you know, being made to feel like they’re doing something wrong.

So we don’t necessarily make people talk about their disability. You know, tell us all about your disability, you know, or give them that label and that’s the only thing they’re allowed to talk about because they’re a disabled human. And often we’ve

Esi (28:03)
Dude.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (28:03)
we’ve found that, right? So, and then when we do talk about things and our journeys and our lived experiences, it was often that we were either sad puppies that just need to go in the corner and sit and give up on life.

Or

we’re superhuman. And again, we were like, no, there’s so much gray in between and when we’re allowed to not have that condition, right? Those conditions created where we feel more safe not to hide and talk about things. And maybe about our business and maybe about our disability. I mean it just depends, right? There’s no

Esi (28:34)
might just be completely different. Yeah.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (28:36)
Yeah. And we have people in the magazine platform who have never talked about

you know, any disability or

Esi (28:45)
Hmm.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (28:46)
neurodiversity. And they talk about other things because that’s what they want to talk about and that’s what their business is about, right? It doesn’t it’s not based on those elements. So that’s not what

Esi (28:55)
Mmm.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (28:55)
their expertise is in and from a business perspective. so they’re happy to talk about other, you know, those things.

Esi (29:02)
I was reading May’s publication of the magazine and a few articles on nothing to do with disability at all. I think there was a cover, there was an article that I was reading on kind of running a business, being from an indigenous community.

which I found really interesting because it’s something that I don’t know anything about. And, you know, just kind of to highlight really what you were saying that everything might be part of our identity, but if it’s not something that’s meaningful or important to us to share, then it doesn’t have to be out there. So I have part of my identities that I will never share publicly because I don’t think they’re anybody else’s business. And they also…

it doesn’t make up who I am as a person. I feel the other parts of who I am as a person make me up more. So it’s amazing that there’s a place where somebody can just be who they know they’re being rather than the place that people are pigeonholing them into kind of thing.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (30:06)
Yeah, definitely. And and again if we go back to the thinking that everyone has does you know, has that value, it’s looking at

with an advocacy angle, of course, the magazine has an advocacy angle, you know, it’s a positive change, platform. but it’s really looking at like how again, how we can bring all that together in a belonging first approach.

Esi (30:29)
Mmm.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (30:30)
Not perfect, but access I like it rather than saying like we’re completely accessible, I like to say we’re access conscious because we do the best that we can with the resources that we have, with the the current knowledge, right, that we have.

we’re continuing to grow and change as well and improve. but creating that environment for those conditions where that value can be recognized. and that really is the first step. You know, you somebody can’t buy from you if they don’t know that you exist, right? They can’t join your community. They they might not be able to you know follow you on social media as an advocate. You might be able to even you know help them have a new perspective.

you

know, on things through your storytelling, or an insight into a lived experience in a way that maybe they hadn’t really thought of before or or was able to understand because maybe it doesn’t there’s no one in their, you know, sort of close vicinity who has any kind of similar lived experience maybe around disability and neurodiversity or culture, you know, or gender even per se. So it’s yeah, I think that it’s you know, we’re really excited about it.

You know, I think that there are a lot of things that make it really different. and part of that also is our not just the focus that we have internally with that like engine, right, of of sharing the the genuine stories and and whatnot from our community and giving them that space. But also how we’re positive change and we’re not

We’re not like, yay, everything in the world needs is awesome and perfect and wonderful. But from our perspective, we could see that we thought this was the good way of doing it, right? Of having

Esi (32:15)
and

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (32:15)
’cause I’m a pa and I’m a positive person. It doesn’t mean every day I’m positive and everything’s, you know, roses all of the time, don’t get me wrong. But I think it is better for b for us, you know, we could say that there was a good there was a gap for that, where there was a lot of space that needed.

to I guess be filled in a way, right? With something that connected more, that connected more things and created

Esi (32:41)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (32:42)
that collaborative network. and the magazine does that, you know, really well because we have partners all over the globe, you know, now that whether they write, whether we’ve interviewed, but also a lot of partners that maybe people don’t see, you know, immediately because they aren’t in the magazine per se, but that share the magazine in a network that and everything that we’ve developed. So

Yeah, there’s lot there’s a lot going on with it. and I’m just really excited by how far we’ve come how

Esi (33:11)
Yeah.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (33:12)
far we’ve come with it and the things coming, you know, and there’s a new platform coming with it. and the beta is launching with it here hopefully by the end of August. and yeah, I think that’ll be that’ll be good because then that helps us with that.

value of, you know, being more access conscious because flip books are not accessible as accessible as we would like them to be. and even though we do the Word documents and things like this, it’s, you know, it’ll just be better accessibility to have everything on web first. so that’s our new approach with it. So it’s we’re continuing to evolve and we always, you know, we welcome feedback and as we’ve said, collaboration is what fuels everything really. And

When

one of us wins, all of us wins in the community, right? When one of us shares, everyone’s shared. And I think having that collective that mindset of collaborative growth and collective impact is really is is really core again to a lot of our work.

Esi (34:18)
And I think, you know, that the way that this is done and the impact that this has, it influences others in the community. So one of the things that we talked about when you first reached out to to be in the magazine was there’s nothing else like it. Or does you know, I don’t mean to put words in your mouth, but this is me paraphrasing that there’s not a lot like it out there in media at the moment.

that people have to do what that media outlet is prescribing. And what I really like about the magazine, your magazine, is that it’s influencing how things can be done to make things easier for people. So just going back to what you’re saying about no more hiding, I think this is part of no more hiding.

And as you say, it’s not about you need to be on social media 24 seven, because I, you know, I’d be failing already. It’s about, know, you don’t have

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (35:14)
Yeah. Yeah.

Esi (35:16)
to be, you know, we don’t want you to be scared to hide away the bits that you don’t want to necessarily hide away. And that that’s the point of it. I think, I mean, you say it in a much better way than I do, but yeah. And I think the, the magazine is, is setting kind of the

almost the environment for people to think, yes, I agree with that. I believe that this is true here, but also that influences out to other, hopefully magazine outlets and other media outlets eventually as well. So you’re working with companies globally, that’s going to be influencing and impacting the way on probably they do things. Even if it’s one team that slowly penetrates out to rest of that organization. And I think that comes in the accessibility piece that you’re talking about as well.

You’re saying that we can’t be 100 % accessible. I agree with that. don’t think we can ever be 100 % accessible. There’s no such thing as full accessibility because everybody’s needs are different from an emotional and experienced perspective, but also an impairment and a conditioned perspective. We all need different things at different times. So any business that are saying, we’re truly accessible, we’re 100

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (36:27)
Yeah.

Esi (36:27)
% accessible. I’m like, no, you’re not. I know you’re not.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (36:29)
Yes, yes.

Esi (36:30)
You can’t

possibly be and I’m not blaming you for that, but you’re not going to be. But it’s about, as you say, leading the path to do the best and to kind of lead by example with that as well. I know 100 % that there’s things that Celebrating Disability will be doing in the future that we’re not doing now in an accessibility capacity because the business isn’t big enough and because we don’t have the resources.

but it’s about what we do to create the conditions for people to manage the way they need to if we don’t have those accessible resources the way we want them, which is what you do with the magazine as well with the word document and things like that at the moment.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (37:13)
Yeah, and and that’s been a lot of work creating those because I mean in the magazines eighty to a hundred pages on average. So it’s hefty, right?

Esi (37:21)
Hmm.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (37:22)
and so yeah, I mean there is there is time and effort and resources that you know that go into that. But it is important and I think that it isn’t about doing it, like you said, perfectly. It’s about learning and growing and being aware and doing the best that we can, but always aiming to take

addition

like it doesn’t have to be a huge step like building a new web platform, right? Like we’re doing now. But it could be smaller steps, you know. for instance, like when we started to do the Word documents, I don’t think we did like the whole issue. The first one or two, we started doing just parts ’cause it was a lot of work. We started just doing parts of it and we said, look, the rest will come and then we kind of added to it because it’s a Google Docs so that way we can add to it and adjust it if it needs if it needs it. and

Yeah, so that was kind of a good approach with it. And I th I I do just believe that there’s it is. It’s about having that again, flipping that paradigm and that internal thinking that we have like, my goodness, this is so much work. This is you know, why are we doing this? Because instead it’s going, hey, wouldn’t it, you know, wouldn’t it be great if we can reach more people? Wouldn’t it be great if more people can enjoy, you know, all of this fabulous content that

Esi (38:34)
and

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (38:34)
we have? And when we kind of flip that negative into a positive.

it changes not just our strategy, it’s changes, you know, everything, you know, that we want and and the approach that we take and the energy. And I think I mean you and I talked about this before. Rather than trying to make things perfect, I I’ve I do really strongly believe it’s more about the intent and the energy, you know, behind something. And with us there is, you know, there’s a lot of intent. There’s a lot of energy. You know, in fact like we have an open question

And it’s in all of our emails, it’s in all of the contents of the computer, it’s on the website, it’s on the map, it’s everywhere. If you need any support, just tell us. Tell us what it is

Esi (39:18)
Yeah.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (39:18)
that you need. If you need anything, you know, whether it’s a different something in a different format, if s a way that we’re trying to do the interview with you isn’t working, just you know, let us know. We’ll find a different way that works. We might not know what the answer is, and we might not be able to do it like a hundred percent in a fancy way, but we’ll do s you know, we’ll work with you to make it.

make it better or to make it support you in whatever way you need support. And for us that’s been a I think a great way of handling it because we don’t know everything. You know, we’re not we’re not

Esi (39:49)
Thank

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (39:52)
experts on and would never poise like myself as an expert in accessibility. I’ve learned a lot through the process of building the business and doing the work that we’re doing. but for sure, yeah, there’s and there’s so much like you said to know. How could we ever

Really know at all, right?

Esi (40:09)
And the only way you learn is by asking people to share what they need.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (40:14)
Mm.

Esi (40:15)
I didn’t realize that, but now I know that now kind of thing.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (40:17)
Mm-hmm.

Esi (40:18)
you mind explaining a bit more? I’ve talked on an episode before about an experience that I had where we Celebrating Disability were chosen to deliver or chosen as the preferred provider to deliver to.

an organisation and our client, the person that kind of chose us, reached out to the disability network and said, I’m so excited, Celebrating Disability are going to be delivering these sessions for us, here is their website. And the response came through from somebody and he was, I think he was the…

accessibility lead in the organization. And it was quite escaping comment on how the website was inaccessible. And he was essentially like airing how mad he was that they’d hired a provider when they can’t even be bothered to get their website right. And I was so embarrassed. I was like, my God, I’m so sorry. And I reached out to him and I said, you know, I’ve read your email and I’m

I’m really embarrassed. said, I’m not going to pretend, you know, to be really professional here. I’m just going to tell you how I feel. I’m really embarrassed that that’s the case. Can we talk about this? And so we met and I said, and this is before I’ve got my current website. So as a result of what he fed back to me, I realized that the website wasn’t accessible and then did something about it. but I said, I’m just going to be really honest with you. I hired a web developer. told them.

what the values of the business was. I told them what I needed and they said it definitely was. And now you are telling me that it’s not. And all I can do is say thank you very much and ask you for your advice as to what I should do starting. And he gave me some really good advice as to what I can do as quick wins, small steps before I could invest on a new website. But that wouldn’t have come if I wasn’t, I’m not patting myself on the back.

But if I wasn’t open enough to listen and take on his feedback, I could have just said, well, screw him. He’s the only person that said that. Nobody else has complained.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (42:24)
Yeah.

Esi (42:25)
But I want to, as you’re saying, I want to strive for Celebrating Disability to be better and for us to really kind of influence how people see accessibility and inclusion in the space. So yeah, I think kind of.

being open and responsive to that feedback, but also realistic to yourself and the people that you’re feeding back to about, we do agree that this is really important. These are the small steps we can make to get there slowly. It’s so important.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (42:56)
Yeah. Yeah.

Definitely. And I think it’s it was it’s been interesting and again everything you know, of course I had like a massive roadmap of different ideas and different things that I thought how that could work and blah blah blah blah blah. But you have to live the business and all businesses grow and change and some things fall on the wayside, and some things emerge that you weren’t expecting and

Funnily enough, like the the media was one of Like I had I was kind of going, Well, we could do something around here, but it wasn’t until we were really in, you know, I tested the how like that media environment kind of works and got was a bit more saturated into it. And that was all how much work we could do within that space. and the making the make accessibility accessible sort of movement, which is something new, right? That’s just gonna start coming out soon.

is again

It’s not just a campaign, it’s a movement. It has its own full content pathway through the whole platform. I mean, there’s so much that’s gonna be going on around it. And it’s come from my really poor accessibility, you know, that we offered at the start, knowing nothing about accessibility and being more connected with

Esi (44:16)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (44:17)
different disabled people and people who, you know, other people who have different disabilities.

being connected to them all over the world and going, wow, this is like a whole world. Look at all the different people and all the different like you don’t have a clue, right? Unless you’re in that space. And so it was like the no like the no more hiding epiphany all over. And I was like, my goodness. But the at the same time, my own personal journey, and I know a lot of people have shared having a very similar feeling.

During their experiences with building their business, is that starting off as like a small business owner or as a you know a founder or creative, accessibility is really difficult. It’s

Esi (45:02)
you

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (45:02)
really difficult because you have to have knowledge and you have to then, on top of that, have to have the resources of time, you know, money and energy. And ironically, those of us, not all of us, of course, but those of us who

are not experts especially right within or have like the skill set like you said to build your own website because they’re very expensive you know if you go

Esi (45:27)
Yeah.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (45:27)
and you get any website built let alone one that has is you know built with accessibility at its core. and approaching that a lot of times we can even make our our own, you know, others in our community and we feel it ourselves a lot of shame if we’re not doing everything perfectly. And

Not just within our community, but all business owners, right? We can feel that sometimes, but what do we do? We want to w that’s not a comfortable feeling. So what do we do? We just don’t talk about it. We don’t want to know about it. And like you said, a lot of people won’t complain, you know, they’ll just not tell people the issues or the experience that they’ve had.

Esi (46:10)
they can’t complain.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (46:12)
yes, or they can’t complain and there isn’t a way to contact the organization or whatever. Sometimes that’s by design, as we know.

And sometimes

Esi (46:19)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (46:19)
that’s accidental, right? but if we can flip that. So again, we were going, well, how can we flip this? Because our experience, I and I know with doing the magazine, for instance, I have carried so much shame and going, this isn’t as accessible as it needs to be. Why can’t I just make all this stuff work? Why can’t you know, why do I not have the skill set? And when I’ve tried, for instance, and I’ve laughed about this with so many people, and

a very large design tool we’ll say that is known for converting PDFs, you know, and making them accessible. It’s not accessible. I’m just telling you.

Esi (46:57)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (47:00)
It doesn’t work. It’s not accessible for so many people. I have tried to use that tool for years and have not been able. I get to like, you know, three days in and I’m going

Wha what I don’t even know what page I’m on now because there’s so many links of things and it’s linked to here and it’s linked to here and it’s linked to here. And I said I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore. I just need a coffee because I’ve I’ve lost I’ve completely lost it by now.

and I was really frustrated. so we haven’t this is one of the main reasons why we never had an accessible PDF, because I struggled really hard to figure out how

To create one and we didn’t at the time have the resources to pay somebody to create it. And so we’ve learned other things, right, that we could do, like with the work documents and different stuff like that, that still takes time and energy. but we didn’t have to have the level of expertise, right, that we had you had to have to create originally, right? The PDFs. so it’s been that whole journey of of that, and again, having lots of others tell me a similar experience and

and I think again if we can flip that, and it’s not about this toxic positivity where yay, you know, let’s all but how can we actually make it fun and exciting and celebratory rather than you know like bad business order? Because nobody’s like nobody. Like we don’t like that either, you know, most of the time. Like if if we feel uncomfortable about something, why do we want to participate in it, right? As

Esi (48:33)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (48:34)
human beings. So

We can kind of flip that around and get people to understand that it’s not just technical or expensive or intimidating, but where can they start? Because there also is so much information out there, right? That it’s a little overwhelming. Sometimes the information, you know, can conflict, but it’s more that there’s such an abundance of stuff and you don’t know where to go and

Esi (48:56)
Yeah, and you know,

And even kind of the WCAG, the W-C-A-G standards, they’re really inaccessible. Unless you’re a technical person in the first place, they’re going to be really hard to digest and to understand.

It’s about the structure of how almost like the landscape is built for people to make things accessible in the first place.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (49:28)
Yeah, and

I think even within our own communities, isn’t it though too, we can have because we’re and I get it, I totally get it, right? Because we often have struggles so so much sometimes, you know, accessing different things and again you don’t feel like you belong or wanted or what you know, there’s so much to unpack around that. That we want want people to do better, we want to do better, and all of that feeling has to go somewhere, right?

So I think that it it like it’s a struggle, it has been a struggle. but what what if we can flip it?

Esi (50:02)
Yeah, it’s,

completely agree. I’m just, you know, when you were talking just then, I was thinking about kind of, when I set up Celebrating Disability, so I won’t go back to the Celebrating Disability origin story, but essentially, I made a decision, I did it within two weeks, and then I thought, you know, I’ll fix it and make it better as it goes. And because I wanted to get it out really quickly,

All of the information provided to me on the internet and I’m not saying any of it was bad information, but you know, there was, you know, I could set up my website via Wix or GoDaddy or something like that or Squarespace relatively cheaply and on my own. So I didn’t need expertise. And that’s what I did. I set up my website on Wix and had it in two weeks, but there was nothing in there.

for somebody who was setting up a business for the first time with everything else that we have to think about when we’re setting up a business to then also think about how to make that business accessible. So I know that

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (51:11)
Yeah, yeah.

Esi (51:12)
for me as a disabled person with access needs, accessibility when I set up my first business was not on top of my priority list, sorry to say. But also you can understand why,

It’s right down there on people’s priority list when they’re setting up a business because there’s nothing in there influencing them to think about these things.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (51:36)
Yeah,

exactly. And because I think so many of us either there isn’t we don’t know it exists really, right? We don’t really understand it. outside of maybe very limited things, you know, that are maybe more tangible or physical, you know, in the in the world around us. and so I think it’s a combination of that and a combination of, yeah, that that

Almost like that shame, like I don’t want to even talk about it, right? Because I don’t I don’t understand this. I don’t know how to do it and I just feel awful about it and most of us don’t want that discomfort, which

I understand.

Esi (52:11)
And in business

people don’t want to admit that they don’t know the answer so they just avoid talking about it together.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (52:17)
Yeah, we’re often yeah,

we’re off yeah, rather than so again it how can we flip that to have curiosity and so kind of with our approach with the with the movement, you’re right, and what we want to do with it, it’s about It’s about changing the tone without reducing the importance, right, of accessibility. And helps people to kind of better understand and connect to you know, that accessibility, not just as an

as an access point but to the bigger end goal of belonging, right? And because if you look at it as a business, a purely business proposition, and we take, you know, the inclusion, the diversity, the emotion, and like all of it out of it, and we look at black and white numbers on a spreadsheet. What’s the bottom line? How is this going to impact things? When customers feel like they belong, guess what? They buy more. They become

Esi (53:07)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (53:07)
advocates. Not only do they buy more, but they tell their friends to buy. They tell their family to buy. They recommend

they have to feel like they belong. So if you’re automatically excluding, you know, 25% of the population or more because we don’t have, you know, that doorway, that access point, that’s a huge percentage of the population

Esi (53:28)
Yeah.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (53:29)
that are no way probably in general, right, gonna gonna come and be able to possibly, you know, access your your business, your product, your services, whatever it might be, your community.

so if we can kind of change it so that it’s the all business owners and understand it’s about creating that belonging, that participation, that recognition, that opportunity for them to, you know, use your product or services, et cetera. and

Esi (53:57)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (53:58)
remove that shame and that most of us experience. Celebrate,

Esi (54:03)
Mm.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (54:04)
celebrate the people because when we invite them to come and celebrate rather than shame them, right?

That’s a much better invitation. Hey, Esi, come and hang with me, I’m gonna tell you all the stuff you’re doing is crap, right? I guess

Esi (54:17)
Yeah, he’s like, can’t wait. Yeah, yeah.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (54:19)
I can’t wait. Whereas we say, hey, come on, you know, Let’s go hang out and celebrate the little steps, the little movements we make, right, to being a little bit more accessible. how can we take those little movements on the journey to being more accessible? And every little movement matters. Every little, you know, every little thing

Esi (54:38)
Yeah.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (54:39)
we do has impact.

So if we can there’s kind of four core elements, if you will, to like the movement and the different things we want to do. So one of it’s about celebrating ourselves, because we don’t

Esi (54:49)
awesome.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (54:49)
do this either, right? So how can we celebrate our own access needs? Hey, everybody. Again, let’s remove the stigma, let’s remove the shame. how can we celebrate our own progress within our business and maybe being a bit more accessible? our own lived experience, our own self recognition, you know, let’s celebrate these things.

Let’s also celebrate other people. So if we can celebrate other people by celebrating their businesses, their organizations, and again it doesn’t have to be perfect. and I like to use experience that I had recently with the NHS, I had a really great one recently where I had to go to a pain program and they were brilliant, you know, they

talked

me through everything that was gonna happen beforehand. They even brought me in and showed me the room. They phoned me up the day before because they knew there was a high chance of me not showing up because it was a small group setting and I find those really uncomfortable if I don’t know what’s gonna go on and who’s gonna be there. And they talked me through everything. I mean, they were brilliant. So

Esi (55:45)
That’s amazing.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (55:47)
sharing that little nugget of like these little things helped so much that they did, you know, and it was like a five minute phone call that they phoned me the day before. It wasn’t hugely taxing, right?

Esi (55:57)
but it makes

too much difference.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (55:59)
It made such a difference. With celebrating any business, you know, it could be like, hey, this person always puts great captions on their videos, or this, you know, this organization or no does this really well. And then we can share little learning nuggets. So like we said, right? It’s

Esi (56:12)
That’s so cool.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (56:13)
really heavy, isn’t it? It’s so heavy trying to figure out all of the things. But it’s yes, little

Esi (56:17)
Yeah, yeah, but yeah, the little increments make it easy for everyone.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (56:21)
what’s a very short practical thing, you know, that we can do under different topic themes and categories, right? So that’s easier.

eventually and we aim for this at at some stage to like it because it’s gonna be on the web platforms and have its own like topic clusters under different categories. So people will be able to go and search different like tags and things specifically under the make accessibility accessible topic cluster and find nuggets relevant just to that, which will be really

Esi (56:48)
That’s brilliant.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (56:50)
yeah, which would be really helpful. and then just sell it branding in general, like I said, access wins across

anything across media, across the NHS, across technology, communication, whatever it might be. I and I think that hopefully this is my my my my hope, right? Is that if we can change that paradigm internally, it’ll help us to change it externally. And again, this is where the no more hiding, it’s been the same thing. Everything has to start with us, right? We

Esi (57:18)
Hmm.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (57:18)
have if it I believe anyway, that’s my opinion, that if we can flip that internal thinking again

with everything that we’re doing. How can we change the external narrative and the biases and the different things if we’re not prepared to have those conversations with ourselves and help ourselves, right? And changing maybe how we approach things and and and think of things. often to a self detrimental perspective, right? Sometimes we can be very not great to ourselves.

Esi (57:48)
I think this is where that boundaries comes back into it as well, kind of being kind to ourselves and being kind to each other.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (57:51)
Yes, mm.

Esi (57:54)
mean, we’re actually a few years ago, a colleague of mine, he’s retired now, but Roland Chesters used to deliver training sessions for Celebrating Disability and he was delivering one on empowerment and advocacy and he was showing me the slide deck he was going to use. And he had embedded in the slide deck this video.

It’s still on YouTube and I’ll find it and I’ll put it in the show notes and I’ll send it to you as well, Jennifer. It’s called Be Kind to Yourself or something like that.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (58:24)
Mm.

Esi (58:24)
And it’s a video, or Be a Friend to Yourself, that’s it. Because it was kind of flipping on its head and saying, you would never talk to your friend in the way that you talk to yourself. So just pretend, you know, wouldn’t look and you wouldn’t, if your

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (58:34)
Yeah, yes, yes. That’s so true.

Esi (58:37)
friend asked you how you look, you wouldn’t say you look awful in that. So don’t say that to yourself.

And those kinds of things. It’s just

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (58:44)
Yeah.

Esi (58:44)
such a good video. So yeah,

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (58:47)
Mm.

Esi (58:47)
I love the kind of, celebrate the wins and pass it on. There’s something going on on something going around on YouTube at the moment. I saw it last night and it’s where the big YouTubers, celebrate the small YouTubers. And when I say small, I don’t mean like small, like Celebrating Disability YouTube channels. I mean, small, like still 3000 subscribers.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (59:11)
Yes.

Esi (59:12)
I mean, not very small, but small compared to like 8 million subscribers.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (59:16)
Mm.

Esi (59:17)
And they call out these YouTubers and then pass it on to somebody else. And so it’s the same kind of idea. And I do

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (59:24)
Mm. Yeah.

Esi (59:26)
it with my friends. So we kind of celebrate the win of the day. This is my win of the day. What was yours kind of thing. So yeah.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (59:33)
Hm.

Yes. Yeah. And it is. And like I said, it’s it is that environment of creating that self empowerment. as well as creating that condition that allows us to yeah, just be I think it’s just bringing more joy and happiness to it and fun to it as well, right? Rather than this like doom and gloom and heaviness that often like I’ve experienced so much of within that container. And yeah, and it’s

Esi (1:00:01)
And having a space

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (1:00:01)
It’s it’s not great.

Esi (1:00:02)
to say, know, because the wins to maybe somebody who doesn’t have the same lived experiences or has the same barriers doesn’t get that they’re wins. So

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (1:00:14)
Yes.

Esi (1:00:15)
sharing these wins with people that really celebrate them. But this might, know, I’m a physically disabled person with limited dexterity. And so for me, a win is picking my phone up from the floor the first time rather than the 10th time.

And so, you know, somebody who is a non-disabled person, they’d be like, yes, he’d get a life. But

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (1:00:34)
Yeah, yeah.

Esi (1:00:36)
for somebody who has that barrier as well, it’s amazing. Like

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (1:00:40)
Yeah.

Esi (1:00:41)
I didn’t have to spend two hours picking my phone up. Yeah.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (1:00:44)
Yes. And it’s

funny ’cause we’ve talked about and very practical, right? And we were talking about cups and because I have that with my perineoplastic syndrome, I’m actually losing feeling in my hands, my fingertips, but it’s also been affecting my dexterity. So again, I’m dropping like lots of stuff. But it’s hard for me to hold stuff like properly, and not without without staring at it because I don’t realize if I’m holding it upright or not, or what I’m doing with it. And I find because of i issues I have with

pain like nerve points in this part of my hand now. A small handle is very it’s like glass being

Esi (1:01:21)
Mm.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (1:01:21)
jabbed into my hand, right? So when we’re talking about yes, so I’ve realized that this is and it’s just a travel mug. Now this one doesn’t have my lid on it ’cause it’s cooling because otherwise it’s too hot to drink. So I’m letting that cool for later. But I can grip like the living daylights out of that, like white knuckle air, right? My

Esi (1:01:37)
Yeah.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (1:01:38)
knuckles are like glowing and hold it really, really tight.

easier than I can like a small handle. So that’s like one thing. And then I have my big glorious my husband last at this point. Yes. Yeah. And the handle’s

Esi (1:01:50)
I’ve got one of them as well, mine’s… yeah, nice.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (1:01:54)
nice and chunky so it’s easier. And

Esi (1:01:56)
Yeah.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (1:01:56)
then, you know, it’s not completely leak proof, but it’s far less far less.

Esi (1:02:02)
It’s fun. But actually with those,

I’ll send you a link to, we’re going off topic listeners, but I’ll send you a link to another one as well, because I do have LeapProofs one just like that as well. So

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (1:02:11)
Mm. okay.

Esi (1:02:14)
yeah, these are the little things that just come up in general conversation or

those kind of, I call them Crip Tips that, you know, they’re really, really good as well. And they’re so

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (1:02:23)
Yeah.

Esi (1:02:25)
empowering, you know, the smallest thing, but it’s so empowering at the same time.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (1:02:30)
Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely.

Esi (1:02:33)
So we’re coming to the end of our episode and this has been so interesting. I’ve really, really enjoyed this conversation. A lot of our listeners are in the EDI space, so Equality, Diversity, Inclusion, and they’re working in business. And I can see how this immediately kind of fits in with what they’re doing and helps them think about strategies going forward. If you were going to give, let’s say, one tip or, you know, you could say three, if you like.

tips to people in business to think about how they can take what we’ve talked about to move it forward. What do think you’d tell them?

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (1:03:14)
I think as they as the business owner themselves, I would say start with what really w really get clear on what matters to you and what success looks like to you because you may be surprised what that is.

Esi (1:03:27)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (1:03:28)
and I think that that’s crucial to building a business that really makes us happy, you know, that makes us happy with with everything that we need to put into it. Because it’s not easy, as you know. So I think that that’s that’s definitely number one.

As

far as like kind of more practical things, I would say again, find test, be curious, ask questions. Everything in our world, we start with a question. we don’t just build for the sake of building things, like, I have an idea, this is great, let’s do it. No. We ask questions. How who is this going to help? How is it going to help? Why is it better than anything out there? Why does something else that’s out there, like again with the media, why is this not, you know, working for for people?

for general people, right? But people like us especially who are often put in these boxes or are given these specific labels and how could it be better? What is it that we really need out of it? have communications with people, you know, get insights, don’t assume. That’s kind of a you know, confirm the need, if you will, like still basic business principles, right, in some aspect. but be curious and ask questions. and about that about reflect that onto yourself as well. So as you try to build the business in a way that is

that matters to you and you know meets your intentions and your goals with the success that you’ve defined. Look at how you can work best within that business. Test, be curious, go, hmm, you know, do I work again, visit me as an example, do I work best with like if I know this and it’s funny ’cause Cassandra, who’s the editor of the magazine, because we have different things that we do with it, right? And so she knows part of the bit that I do.

is never gonna be done four weeks ahead of time because I I just don’t operate that way. That’s just not how I function, right? I’m gonna but it always will be done by the deadline, but it’s gonna be done within like the last three days.

Esi (1:05:23)
I’m the same. I’m

exactly the same.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (1:05:25)
Well, but then the good thing is and it and we laugh about it, right? But what does it mean then if I do if I put that in my calendar or my to do list or my plan of I’m gonna do it at this time, it’s taking up space where I could be doing other things. It makes me feel guilty and shameful because I’m not getting it done when I need to get it done. whereas if I just leave it and I say, Here’s the deadline, I need to get it through done, you know, I usually give myself a day or two padding, but I need to get it done within this time frame and I know

my goodness, that’s the end time. Okay, now I need to get my skate zone. I’m motivated to get it done and I get it done. I but that’s just how I am. So knowing these things about ourselves can help us just build better businesses. as far as like an inclusive and accessible point of perspective, I think it all again comes down to curiosity, ask questions, wonder how can people how can people, how can all different kinds of people, you know, access

the same. how how can I help people feel like they better belong in my community, within my, you know, the journey to buying my product or my services when I’m delivering those services or whatever they might be. and when if we know belonging is the end game and we want them to feel like they belong so they are advocates and buy more, they have to be able to access it first, right? So again, kind of working backwards. So those would be kind of

you know, tips. And there’s lots of great tools,

and curiosity, I I mean just be curious and ask questions, I think is the biggest thing.

Esi (1:06:58)
I think, I think also just along with what you’re saying, it’s about kind of going back to that what and why and how is it going to help? So once you understand what the goal is, it helps you to kind of prioritize what tools you need to reach that

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (1:07:11)
Yes.

Esi (1:07:11)
goal as well.

And, know, just on the Wix thing, that’s a good case example of how a company has developed a role along the way. when, I set Celebrating Disability first website up 10 years ago, they didn’t have any of these features. So that’s a really good example of accessibility building with their capacity and their resources. So yeah.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (1:07:39)
Yeah. And another thing I would say to people that a lot of people aren’t aware of, and this is just if you have any kind of like ebooks or course material or anything that maybe you have put in like a magazine, like a digital flipbook or something like that. unless it’s something that’s really bespoke, like an app that’s been built for you, or a l enterprise packages and things like this, right? most that we’ve come across,

the accessibility, even if they have like some accessibility built into them in a l very limited capacity, it actually breaks when you embed it on your website.

Esi (1:08:16)
thank you so much for those kind of tips. I think they’re so relevant and they’re also I think they’re relevant for business leaders that are working within business as well. So I know that that kind of you you were talking about as business owners and yeah, they’re really helpful tools. But I think you can kind of take those tools and embed them.

within a business as well. So as business leaders, we can always be thinking about kind of what the barriers are for our employees that we’re working with and

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (1:08:44)
Mm-hmm.

Esi (1:08:45)
what can we do to better understand the kind of the experiences they have to help people feel as though they belong in our workplace. So if we’re claiming that we provide an environment where employees belong.

I’m asking, well, how are we doing this? How are we testing that we’re doing this? What evidence do we have that employees actually do feel that within the organization

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (1:09:13)
Yeah.

Esi (1:09:14)
and what can we do and how can we find out what to do next? And, know,

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (1:09:19)
Yeah. All questions.

Esi (1:09:22)
sorry.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (1:09:23)
All questions, right?

Esi (1:09:25)
Absolutely always keep asking never stop asking questions. So

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (1:09:27)
Yeah. Yeah.

Esi (1:09:29)
we’ve said it before so we’re coming to the end of our episode. Is there anything else you would like people to know before we end today?

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (1:09:37)
No, I think we’ve had a great discussion. I just want to thank you for, you know, inviting me and just thank anybody who’s, you know, engages and and yeah, connect with us. You know, we’re always looking to connect with more people and build more collaborations and that can be for an interview and maybe as a contributor and maybe on the tech side, maybe for the make you know, accessibly accessible campaign and movement, whatever it might be, connect with myself, connect with Leslie and yeah, let’s do some cool stuff together.

Esi (1:10:04)
That would be really cool. And we’re going to put all of those links to how people can connect with you and read the magazine. And I really recommend reading the magazine, not just my article, but start with my article and then go back.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (1:10:14)
Yeah.

Esi (1:10:19)
reading the magazine, it’s so interesting. And I’ve shared it with so many of my work colleagues, but also my friends as well who now read it, read every edition as well.

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (1:10:28)
lovely.

Esi (1:10:29)
And we’ll put all that in the show notes for people.

So Jennifer, thank you so much for joining me today. I’ve

Jennifer Cairns (she/her) (1:10:34)
Thank you.

Esi (1:10:34)
had a really great time talking to you. Thank you everybody for listening in, whether you’re watching on YouTube or listening on one of the many platforms. Really appreciate you listening in. As I said before, if you have an idea of something that you want to hear about, please get in touch or indeed something that you would like to talk about in the EDI business space, we’d love to hear from you as well.

so please do get in touch. So until next time, have a great time. Bye.