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Susan Robinson’s TEDTalk just surpassed 1 million views and is still going strong. Susan’s humor and unique presentation about her experience with vision loss is educational to all, not just the Blind and Visually Impaired community, as her intent reaches out to the world wide community to broaden their thinking and to reshape their philosophy and to transform their philosophy on “What Is” possible.
Susan authors the Oh Fabled One blog on the web which continues her experiences she shared on her Ted Talk. Be sure to check out the blog and leave your comments as Susan wants to hear from you.
This podcast is based on her vision loss experiences; however, there is so much more as Susan talks her talk the way only Susan Robinson can. You will learn a lot as she talks about her experiences and her views from a perspective only she can tell. But remember, She failed at being disabled.
You can find her blog on the web at Oh Fabled One. Subscribe and don’t miss any of her posts!
Follow Susan on Twitter @OhFabledOne
And be sure to check out Susan Robinson on TedTalk!
See complete transcription below.
Thank you for listening!
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Transcription:
Susan Robinson: Consultant, Business Owner, TED Talk 1 Million Club – How I Fail at Being Disabled
[Music]
Susan:
As an organizational leader, a business leader and a boss, I’ve had to terminate people from their jobs, and I’ve not ever terminated someone because they were fully sighted.
Vision is a way of processing the world.
So just because I process the world differently, doesn’t mean that my skill set is diminished.
[Music]
Susan:
I’ve started looking at people very differently that way to say I don’t really care what you can’t do, I want to know what you can do, and let’s talk about that.
You might get this too, I see just like you when I take my glasses off, now I understand that that’s coming from a good place, and people are just trying to relate to someone else and build a human to human connection and I totally appreciate it.
However it is the equivalent of saying to someone who uses a wheelchair, I’m just like you when I sit down, it just doesn’t make any sense.
[Music]
Jeff:
That’s the voice of Susan Robinson, she’s a consultant entrepreneur, blog writer, and yes, this is a podcast with the blindness perspective, and there’s a lot more.
It’s about achieving goals, reaching your highest potential, and proving to yourself that you’re doing the best that you can.
Susan’s TED talk just went over million views.
Susan:
I’m uninterested in being pitied.
I’m interested in being the best person that I can be and to be successful in the endeavors that I go after and somebody pitying me is really an unfortunate obstacle that is unsolicited.
I think this was my way of trying to get folks to broaden their thinking and reshape their philosophy, transform their philosophy on what is possible.
Jeff:
Susan is probably more comfortable talking to corporate executives and business leaders, and here she is on Blind Abilities, where you can get podcast with a blindness perspective on the web at www.blindabilities.com, on Twitter at blindAbilities, and download our free Blind Abilities app from the app store.
That is two words, Blind Abilities.
[Music]
Susan:
Again people use that word disability, and it just puts you in a space of what can’t be possible, and failing at what can’t be possible is probably a really good thing.
[Music]
Jeff:
Welcome to Blind Abilities, I’m Jeff Thompson.
Today we’re talking to Susan Robinson, she’s out of New York, and she’s a consultant to executives and corporate leaders, she graduated from college, went to work, and then got into entrepreneurship, she’s here with us on Blind Abilities to share her journey through college with vision loss, and into the business world, and starting her own company.
Please welcome Susan Robinson, and Susan thanks for coming on.
How are you doing?
Susan:
I’m doing great Jeff, thanks so much for having me today.
Jeff:
Well thank you for taking the time to come onto Blind Abilities, and Susan, I really enjoyed your TED talk and congratulations as you just surpassed a million views.
Susan:
Well thanks.
Jeff:
Well deserved.
Susan:
It is so humbling to have offered something that’s resonated around the world and people tell me that they’ve been inspired by the talk, and they’ve been motivated by the talk, and it’s a real privilege to be in a position where you can do that for somebody else.
It’s a great honor and to be chosen by Ted to be part of the residency is a great honor and for Ted as a larger organization to have selected my talk to be on ted.com again, just a huge honor so I’m glad that the abundance is really everywhere because it, the talk was not really designed for me, it was designed to share my experience and it’s been wonderful that the experience has really been a shared one around the world.
It’s really been amazing.
Jeff:
Excellent talk and we’ll put the links to that in the show notes, we’ll get back to that talk a little bit of more about it, but let’s start out by talking a little bit about Susan.
Can you tell her listeners a little bit about yourself, and what you do?
Susan:
Sure, I live in New York City and I have for a long time, after wanting to be an orthopedic surgeon, and halfway through college being told that I was visually impaired with the diagnosis of Stargardt’s, and that a clinical and surgical career wasn’t possible, I sort of said to myself as any smartypants nineteen year old would say, well if I can’t operate in a hospital, I’ll just operate the entire hospital, and I changed my major from biology to health policy and administration.
I’ve worked in a number of different not-for-profit in the health care industry, as well as on the corporate side as well, and then I decided that it would be a great idea to launch off on my own, and I am now a consultant and to executives in both the not-for-profit and the corporate spaces within the healthcare industry and outside of it, so we work on enterprise wide problems that have significant and generally strategic impact on the business, and we have a lot of fun while we’re doing it.
Jeff:
Well, that’s gonna be tough to get that on one business card.
[Laughter]
Jeff:
You mentioned earlier that you were in college and at 19 is that when you started accepting the challenges of vision loss?
Susan:
By the age of 19 that was my diagnosis.
I guess technically nineteen and a half.
I’ve always worn glasses since the age of eight, as a kid my glasses were kind of thick and my classmates would always make note of that kind of thing, and it wasn’t unusual for me to have trouble seeing something because everyone knew that my glasses were were pretty heavy on the prescription, but by the time I was a senior in high school, I remember I was in you know in the front row of class because I was just one of those kids, and I remember having to get out of my front-row seat to get closer to the chalkboard in order to get the notes or things that the teacher was writing down on the board, and my classmates and friends you know we’ve known each other for a long time, they would laugh and it’s oh you need new glasses, and sort of turned into a thing, but it wasn’t much more than that because, you know it’s a different process everyone else could sit in their chair and see the board.
I would get out of my chair get the notes that I needed and aside from that there was nothing really significant.
When I went to college, I went to Penn State and my largest class as a biology major was 1100 students in a large auditorium, Schwab auditorium for anyone who knows it, and I would sit in the front row of Schwab auditorium and I wouldn’t be able to get all the notes before the teacher would switch over heads, which clearly dates me of when I was in college, but it were these transparent sheets that once it was finished the professor would take the previous one off and put the new one on.
And I kept saying to my mother I need new glasses because as a child I remember going to the ophthalmologist once a year, the lens prescription would change, I would get the new lenses and the world would be clear again.
So I was looking for that experience and saying mom I need my glasses changed I need my contacts changed again.
And so because I had been away at college and different physicians schedules, I had a little bit of a Keystone caper of a process and somebody got my prescription wrong somebody new prescribed contact lenses that I was allergic to because there was protein buildup on contact lenses, I became allergic to that, we fixed that problem, and then finally after addressing all of the little mishaps along the way, and seeing the same ophthalmologist twice, he said, okay you don’t need your contacts changed, it’s a different issue, I think that it might be this, but we’re going to send you to a retina specialist to do all the confirmatory tests.
And so at that point I went to a retina specialist during the spring semester of my sophomore year in college and that’s when I was diagnosed with Stargardt’s.
Jeff:
Mmm, confirmatory tests now that doesn’t sound good.
Susan:
You know that is a little bit of healthcare language to be told, any ophthalmologist listening to that podcast might have cringed a little bit when I said that.
It would be the test that would confirm that it’s Stargardt’s as opposed to suspicion based on some circumstantial evidence that he found during his examination.
Jeff:
How did you accept that?
I’m sure when you’re going in you were just looking for a prescription and one of that new world look again?
Susan:
Yeah.
Jeff:
And boom you’re facing is something that probably wasn’t curable.
Susan:
Yeah you know the really interesting thing about the moment that I learned of the diagnosis is that I had a reaction that most people from what I’m told don’t have, and from the reactions that I get from other people, a response that is surprising to them.
So as a you know typical overachiever, I like to do things well, I like to do them quickly, and I like to do as many things as possible as well as I possibly can, and so I had a particular level of frustration, when I was in college beginning my college years because there were things that weren’t happening that were normal to my experience.
So I was a terrific student in high school and I got to college and I wasn’t a terrific student anymore and I knew that my intellectual potential hadn’t changed but something else was awry, so initially one might think especially any parents who are listening, they might think oh you know Susan was partying at frat parties, and you know doing other things besides focusing on her schoolwork, and I was enjoying my college experience, but not as a primary activity over my studies, and so I was not doing as well on tests.
I couldn’t get the notes from the overheads as I mentioned before, even things like being in class on an exam day and everybody in the class would be finished with their exam and I would still have half of it to go, it just wasn’t a normal experience to me, and so I felt a level of frustration that I couldn’t explain why my college experience academically was so different than my high school experience academically.
Oh and then there were also sort of weird things like I would say hi to people and it wouldn’t be the person that I thought it was, people would be able to see things at a further distance than I would, and I remember being able to see things from a distance, so that’s why I kept saying to my Mom like, I need my glasses changed with the overheads being switched as the sort of primary evidence.
So when I got this diagnosis of okay you’re visually impaired, you have Stargardt’s disease, and this is what it means, the first thing that went through my head was, thank goodness now I understand why all of these weird things are happening.
Having a reason for why all these odd things were happening was a sense of relief that is odd for some people to understand.
I wasn’t relieved to have a visual impairment, but I was relieved to have an explanation that made all of these odd things make sense, why they were happening, why it just came across as odd, so I would walk into a classroom with a professor and say, hi I’m Susan and I just want to let you know that I have a visual impairment and I can’t get all the notes from your overheads before you switch them, would it be okay for you if you would bring me a hard copy of them so that I could follow along in class, and every professor said sure of course, and so it allowed me to give an explanation to somebody else that got them to help me, it allowed me to understand why everything wasn’t as it should have been based on my previous experience and expectation with life, and it allowed me to just move forward in a way that I thought was really positive.
Again, not relieved to be visually impaired, but relieved to understand what was going on so that I could present it to somebody else, so they could help me where it was necessary, and I could just keep going on the path that I was going.
Jeff:
Now all this is mostly outward stuff like accomplishments and everything, what was it like inside Susan’s head personally accepting the blindness?
Susan:
I didn’t notice it as much, I always say I’ve since come a long way which is really great, but when I was a kid if I was picked second to last in gym class teams it was a good day.
I was pretty good in the books but not so great athletically so I didn’t have that oh I can’t, I can’t see the basketball hoop anymore, or I can I misjudged the soccer ball timing and placement, like there was none of that.
I played piano for 12 years but at the time that I was diagnosed with my visual impairment I could still read music, at the point in time of my diagnosis there obviously was enough to make the diagnosis, but from a personal life perspective, I don’t think there was that significant of an impact, again aside from things like thinking someone was somebody else, because they had all the visual cues for being the person that I thought it was, but it wasn’t, you know fully sighted people say oh I do that too, it’s sort of like my experience doesn’t seem to be any less normal than somebody else’s at that time.
So I understand your question, but for me most significantly it was I noticed it academically.
Jeff:
Kind of being relieved?
Susan:
Yeah which is again, it’s, it’s an odd thing for people to hear, not relieved to be visually impaired, but relieved to have an explanation of why things weren’t the way I thought that they should be, and it a tool that allowed me to get other people to to help me in the way that I I needed in order to be as successful as I wanted to be.
Jeff:
That’s a good suggestion for people who are going through a transition, if they’re losing eyesight, if they don’t understand it and know something’s got the solution right there it’s like, got it, and then you can move forward.
Susan:
Yeah and for me I think I’m sort of a natural problem solver, so to me not being able to see the overheads and not being able to finish tests was a problem, and this was part of the solution and I had to do something with it, but it was a key piece of the solution that I couldn’t have gotten from anyone else except the right specialist.
Jeff:
Answers are great.
Susan your self-advocacy skills really carried you a long way through college, can you tell us a little bit about other alternative devices or techniques, and what other areas of accessibility you found challenging?
Susan:
That’s a great question.
So when I was diagnosed I would say the ink on the Americans with Disabilities Act was still drying, so if I really want to date myself let’s just call a spade a spade.
What an accommodation was, what people had to do, the language in the society that we have now is different than it was then, so I think self-advocacy was probably the most important piece because I mean, I’m an extrovert so I’ll kind of talk to anybody, and I’m a problem solver and if the problems mine that I just you know want to work it out, but I also was connected to the Pennsylvania Commission for the blind at the time, and so I was connected to a low vision specialist, and I received from that person a couple of magnifying glasses that I used in order to read my books and to finish my tests.
And it was amazing the things that I was missing on tests in calculus classes for example, there are some negative signs in equations that I just wouldn’t see them at all because it would be in the part of my macula that just wasn’t there anymore.
I would use the tools I had, you know sort of people checking in on me making sure that everything was okay, but you know I’ve always been a pretty motivated kid, like as a kid I was always pretty motivated and so I was almost keeping the adults at bay as they were saying you know how are you doing, and this is such a change, and how are you gonna manage this, and I was saying like, I got this, it’s, I’m good, I got this, and so I think I really rejected the negative context of their questions, because I was off to the races okay fine I couldn’t be an orthopedic surgeon anymore, I will say that I still kind of argue the point in a humorous way that I still could be an orthopedic surgeon, it’s just that nobody will give me malpractice insurance, or be my patient quite frankly.
But I still can accomplish a lot of things, so someone coming at me saying oh this is so terrible, unless you’ve experienced the same thing I’m not sure how you’ve come to that conclusion, because something being terrible is a conclusion that somebody’s made after analyzing a set of criteria, and fully sighted people oftentimes will say, oh how do you do that, and that’s coming from a place of wanting to understand which is good, but also, I can’t imagine living my life without vision, and my response to that is, you wouldn’t have your life if you didn’t have your vision it’s a sort of square peg round hole.
So some of those questions that sort of negative impact, oh, this is, how are you gonna do this, and have you really thought about, again I just I just kept the adults at bay, and was sort of like you know you guys don’t know what you’re talking about like, I can I’m still in college, I can still go to my classes, I’m talking to my professors, I’m getting the notes, I can finish my tests, I can write my papers, it’s all good.
So anything that seems to be countered to my experience, I just chalked up as a fully sighted person just really not getting it.
Jeff:
Experience is good.
Susan:
What I’ve deduced probably a lot through this kind of experience, is that it’s more helpful for me to ask somebody what their experience is like, and ask if I can help in some way and what that looks like for them, as opposed to deciding what I think it should or shouldn’t be, based on what I think their experience is.
Does that makes sense?
Jeff:
Oh yeah it makes perfectly good sense, sometimes I feel like I got this scarlet letter B on my shirt, and people see me and think “Wow he needs some unsolicited assistance, and they get to have their Boy Scout moment.”
Susan:
Yeah and sometimes it’s really helpful, you know and and I have a lot of friends, who you know they’re always very mindful there’s a curb, there’s a top of the step, and I know that it is coming from a very very very good place.
Over the course of my career people have, 20/20 sighted people have said, wow how do you accomplish all of that, you’re visually impaired, and I, for some of them happen to know that my accomplishments, outweigh theirs, again not to be braggadocious, and so the logic for them doesn’t work in both directions.
How do you do all of that and you’re visually impaired, and my response is how do you not do all of that and you’re not visually impaired.
Jeff:
Yeah it seems like we’re always being challenged by the limited expectations that people put upon us.
Because you know not only did you get on a bus, travel downtown, transfer to a train, take the train, and then walk three blocks to your destination, and they’re standing by the door wondering, how’s this blind person ever going to get in this door?
Susan:
Exactly, because Lord knows your blind you can’t do anything when you’re blind right?
[Laughter]
Susan:
There’s got to be a little bit of a reality check, and again it’s people trying to understand your experience through their life experience and it just doesn’t work that way.
Jeff:
It just seems that there’s so many misconceptions that arrive before we do.
Susan:
Right and I think there’s also something to be said for owning the message, and this is something that corporations do a lot, you know what their branding, and with their tag lines, and that sort of thing.
I always have felt that it’s important for me to be able to communicate what I can do first, and what I need somebody’s help with second.
I’m in college I’m doing great, I got this, I can get all the notes, I just can’t see your overheads, so if you can provide me a hard copy we’re good to go, and that’s something very specific and very easy for somebody else to understand, meaning I just need to bring a hard copy for Susan.
And it prevents them from making all kinds of assumptions of other things that I may or may not need.
Because I’ve already gotten ahead of it, I’ve communicated what I can do, I’ve communicated the specific actions that I need from somebody else, and it focuses them on what I need, as opposed to what they think I might need.
Jeff:
Well that’s great you own it and they can respond to it.
Susan:
Exactly and they can respond and people have responded in general very very positively since the minute I was diagnosed.
And there are some jerks in the world who have not responded very well and you know, I’ve learned how to deal with them too, but thankfully they don’t come around very often, and I was explaining recently to somebody that people deal with, people who know me well in particular, they deal with me and my visual impairment, like they deal with someone who’s on crutches.
It’s a side note, it’s not the leading factor, so okay we get into a restaurant, Susan’s gonna need the menu read to her, particularly if it’s dark, okay no big deal, but a lot of people like to have the menu read to them, which is why the waiter comes and tells you the specials.
So there are lots of experiences where it’s just really not a thing, it’s not the issue that defines me, and for some people it is and that’s okay, it’s just a particular circumstance that I have that necessitates that I work in a different way compared to someone with 20/20 vision.
Jeff:
Susan, with all that you learned in college about self-advocacy and asking for what you needed and getting it to succeed, how did you transfer that into the job application interview process and while you’re searching for a job?
Susan:
So I applied for jobs just like anybody else.
I had my college degree, I had done an internship because that was required as part of my particular degree from Penn State, and so I started to create some networks, and I was in graduate school, and I had a job while I was in graduate school.
It to me it was no different than anyone else doing the same thing with the exception of letting people know during an interview process what I might need from them.
So again it was the same sort of self-advocacy to use your wonderful term as I did in college.
So in an interview process the first interview is sort of getting to know each other, do I think I like working for this person, because an interview is not just the employer figuring out if they want to hire you, it’s you figuring out if you want to work for the employer as well.
Once we got to maybe a level 2 or level 3 conversation in the interview process, at that point when it seemed to be a little bit more concrete, that the position possibly could be mine, I would disclose and I would say I just want to let you know, I have a visual impairment, it may not be obvious to you but what that means is I’m gonna bring everything that we’ve already talked about, my, all of the skills and characteristics that that we’ve discussed, but I am going to need a large monitor for my computer so that I can see things, you know enlarged a little bit.
And generally people were very receptive to that because again, I’m letting them know which is what every potential employer wants to know, can you do the job, are you willing to do the job, and are you going to be a good fit?
And I was looking to demonstrate those three things just like any other job candidates with the addition of, if you think I’ve got those three things, excellent, just know that I need a really big monitor, and that’s from you know for my particular situation.
And for every employer that I’ve ever worked for, I really have never had an issue.
I mean with my clients now, again really, really not an issue.
For me it’s always been important to be transparent and so let folks know, mostly because I learn that people, I have been told, that I don’t quote-unquote look visually impaired or I don’t look like I quote have something wrong with me, that’s my favorite one.
[Laughter]
Jeff:
They don’t do that at the salons do they, give you the “I’m visually impaired look?’
Susan:
Right, exactly, I just always felt like if I was meeting the criteria of a qualified candidate, my visual impairment is a side note because if I can do the job and I want to do the job and I am a good fit, then that really should be the criteria by which it’s decided whether or not I’m offered the job.
And then once I have it, then it’s my job to be successful, so again might take me longer to read something, I might need the big monitor, but I was always trying to be successful in whatever job I had, including in the in the interview process.
Jeff:
You know I’ve noticed out of talking with you here and listening to you, you have a huge drive.
Like when you set your goals on something, you aim for it and you go for it.
Susan:
Yeah, that is true.
Jeff:
I’m just, I may be assuming here, but it sounds like it, and I’ve always said that you know people can go out and get some of the best training in the world but you can get there in a Buick, and what I mean by that is, if you have Drive you’re gonna make it, because you’re gonna find the Institute’s or the people to be around to get there and that’s all drive.
Susan:
Yes you’re absolutely right, and I will say you know because folks have said you know, especially in discussing about jobs and being visually impaired or having other sorts of circumstances that make getting a job difficult sometimes, I have been a boss, and I’ve been a department head, and I’ve been an organizational leader, and whenever I have hired somebody, it’s never because they’re 20/20 sighted, or they’re, they’ve never had an organ transplant, or they do not have depression.
I have hired all kinds of individuals on my teams because they were competent and skilled at what they did and when they got on board they were successful in the jobs that they had.
So conversely as an organizational leader, a business leader, and a boss I’ve had to terminate people from their jobs, and I’ve not ever terminated someone because they were fully sighted or because they had an organ transplant.
They were terminated because they did not fulfill the competencies and expectations of their job, and I know a lot of folks who I’ve interfaced with professionally feel the same way.
So when someone walks in the door and they are driven and competent and they will get things done and they will be successful regardless of any obstacle that comes in their way, you know that’s the kind of employee that you want to have on your team and you want to make sure that you support them in their success.
I mean that’s, that’s sort of my take on that, it’s a little bit different than others, and certainly different from the way that the job market has been approached by a lot of people over a long time, but really leading with your talent, and leading with your competencies and your confidence is a great way to think about excelling in school or in the workforce.
You want to start your own business or if you want to be, you know a volunteer, you know whatever, whatever you want to do to your points, the drive will will help you along the way and skills and know-how and experience just supports the drive.
Jeff:
So Susan your drive obviously helped you succeed.
How did that play a part in you taking it to the next step and taking the risk of entrepreneurship and starting your own company?
Susan:
Oh that’s a great question.
I would say entrepreneurship finds its people in all sorts of ways and I know a lot of entrepreneurs who sometimes were dissatisfied with the job, sometimes found that they had an idea that was so new that nobody else was doing it so they had to launch it on their own, and I would say for me it’s similar to those two things.
I loved being an employee at all of the organizations and companies that I worked for, and I also found that there were things about that particular system that didn’t make me the happiest kind of person that I thought that I could be.
So pursuing an entrepreneurial venture, it has its own variables and stressors, and things that are unique to it, so it’s not a land of unicorns and rainbows, but it’s definitely an interesting career choice for people who are okay with lack of structure, who have an extreme pioneering spirit, and who really are passionate about whatever they are trying to accomplish, and again they’re willing to eliminate any obstacle that gets in the way of that success.
So because those factors, the sort of characteristics applied to me, and I noticed that and there was a specific opportunity so, I launched my consulting business after an employment role ended because the company was shutting down a particular section of the business that my work was related to.
So at that point I’d said okay well I can go and get another job, that is one option, or I’ve kind of always wanted to do this entrepreneurial thing and maybe this is the right time to do it and I chose the latter, and here we are today.
Jeff:
Susan we briefly touched base on the TED talk reaching a million views, and that’s pretty big because, you know someone might think that it was about consulting and entrepreneurship and yet, it was more on a humorous look at blindness.
Can you tell us where the humor comes from?
Susan:
Oh thanks, well, I don’t know, I’ve been told for a very long time that I have a unique perspective on situations, and I would say that I’m, I’m, I’m a positive and optimistic person to begin with and I really do like to laugh.
There’s a picture of me as a give or take nine or ten month old, and I’m in a cute little yellow outfit and I’m just laughing, and I remember an adult, maybe it was my Mom or my Grandma, who said, “You know we don’t know what you were laughing about but you were always laughing as a baby” and I think it’s just part of my genetic makeup and so my unique take on situations, combined with just liking to laugh and being positive, all those things came together in the TED talk, and some things are just really ridiculous.
You know like who walks into a men’s bathroom, and when you’re told “Oh this is the men’s bathroom” who says “It’s okay everything is too small for me to see.”
[Laughter]
Susan:
I mean, who says that?
And so it’s, you just sort of poke fun at yourself because it’s so, some of its just so ridiculous that you can’t help but laugh.
Jeff:
I’m still laughing.
Susan:
I know, I know and truth be told, I actually, it’s the gift that keeps on giving because I actually walked into a men’s room in a police station about three weeks ago, and I was staring at the sign because men and women, the women I don’t see the letters W M E N at a particular distance, but the word women is longer than the word men, so I’m looking, I’m staring at the sign and I’m like, I think that’s like why, long enough to be women as opposed to short enough to just be three letters in men, I think that’s the woman’s room.
And so I walked in and the door closed behind me and there, you know there’s a particular piece of equipment that’s in a men’s room that’s not in a women’s room and I saw it, I was like ‘Oh I did it again” and I left the room and there’s a gentleman standing right outside who had been there the whole time, and I looked at him and I said “Does that sign say men?” and he said “Yeah” and you think he would tell a person, you saw that I was about to walk into the next room.
[Laughter]
Susan:
And he just sort of you know shook it off and walked off.
But I’m like really, like you just let me walk into men’s room, but he may have thought like, she just wants to go to the men’s room, so who knows?
Jeff:
So what was the TED talk experience like for you?
Susan:
Oh the TED talk experience was amazing.
So first I need to say that I was part of the Ted residency program, so the Ted residency is an incubator for breakthrough ideas, and it happens twice a year, where it’s a competitive process, you have to apply and you have to share your idea, and submit a video and letters of recommendations.
A very competitive global process and the Ted residency program selected me to be a part of this incubator in its second, second class.
So it was last fall, the fall of 2016.
The idea was, sort of came out of frustration, so when I started my consulting business, you know whenever you’re an entrepreneur you have to network a lot, you have to let people know what, that you’re available and what you’re available to do, and so someone I met said “Oh wow you’re visually impaired too, I know somebody in in one of those organizations and you should meet that person.”
So we got connected and you know I let this person know what I was available and to do, and and that I was available to do it, and and the response was “Wow, how do you do that, you’re visually impaired?”
And I was like wait a second, 20/20 sighted people have been saying that to me for a long time.
How do you do that, you’re visually impaired?
But my response has always been, oh you silly fully sighted people, you just don’t understand, you would do the same thing if you were in my shoes.
Well now I have someone who works for an organization that is a, an advocate for people who are partially sighted, or visually impaired, or blind, and you’re saying the same thing “How do you do all of that, you’re visually impaired?”
And my response was, you should know how this is possible, you should be advocating that this is more broadly possible than it is.
So I found myself at a really interesting intersection and the more I got involved with some of these organizations because they were pretty excited that I kind of materialized, and I was pretty excited to know them, but the more that happens and the more I interfaced with folks in this space, the more they called me disabled.
And I just sort of sat back and I said, you know I’ve never been called disabled in my entire life, and I’m not sure where you all come off labeling me as this, and I was getting very frustrated that somehow all of the sudden people who were advocates for potential and possibility, and all the things that people can accomplish, are the ones who were calling me disabled, and it sort of all ended up with, it just, there was just one incident, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back and I had just had enough.
And so someone called me disabled and I just, I couldn’t let it roll off my back anymore, and over dinner with a friend I was just on a terror, it was a rant, and I said I just can’t take it, and if you want to call me disabled, I’ll tell you what, I failed at being disabled, and then I stepped back and I was like, wow that that could be a good idea for a talk.
And then I got the Ted residency application the next day from a friend of mine, and he said you should put your consulting business in, that would be really great if, you know your ideas are kind of TED like, and it’s pretty interesting, and I said absolutely not, I’ve got a better idea and I took my rants, that ended with how failed at being disabled, and I turned it into the Ted residency application.
And the Ted residency program said, this is pretty great, why don’t you come join us.
And I said, are you sure, because this is the least thought-out idea I’ve ever had in my life, and they said no no no, we, this is an idea worth spreading, which is the Ted tagline, it’s “ideas worth spreading” we really want you to come join us.
So last fall I spent time thinking about, how is it possible that highly competent people are labeled disabled?
How is it possible that because of that label, people who may be equally competent, more confident, or less confident can judge those people as not worthy of talent and potential and skill, because of this label of being disabled?
And how does that specific word detonate a mindset of baseless assumption, that aren’t actually true because there are a lot of talented people out there with all sorts of circumstances, but because my circumstance has a clinical diagnosis, and is slotted in a particular way because of policy, all of a sudden, now you can’t think, you think I can’t do anything, or you have limited expectations of what I can do.
And so I took the time to sort of explore that and I thought about all the different stories over the course of my being visually impaired life, and that’s how the TED talk came about because it’,s you know sort of rooted in some frustration that other people think that they can impose, and me saying no, I, I’m highly confident, I just do it differently, so the experience of writing the TED talk stemmed from all of that.
Technically speaking, it’s a highly iterative process, so for any of your listeners who are whip-smart students and they can push out a paper in, in just the first version handed in and get an A, that’s not a TED talk.
The version of my TED talk that made it on stage was many many many iterations and edits, and changes, and influences, and talking to my fellow Ted residents, who were just as smart, and innovative, and courageous, and creative as they come, and we all helped each other in the process, and then it’s a matter of memorizing it, and rehearsing it, and then getting on stage and delivering it.
So the experience for me was wonderful, but I used all the words and explanations so that anyone hearing the word wonderful, doesn’t sort of interpret it in their own way, it really was a lot of effort, a lot of focus, a lot of dedication, and I enjoyed the process very very much.
Jeff”
I really like the super power of ricocheting off glass windows.
[Laughter]
Susan:
Yeah I’ll actually give one, I’ll let your audience know, there’s a missing word, because I’ve used that phrase many many times and it’s gracefully ricocheting off of glass walls.
Which actually makes it even funnier because when you imagine somebody gracefully ricocheting, like how does that happen modern?
Modern day design is not always best suited for people with visual impairments and I have gotten goose eggs on my forehead, and just walked into doors that weren’t open, or I try to find a door that’s not there, or I actually, oh this is so embarrassing, but this what I do right.
I went to an office that it was my first time there, I was not familiar with it, and I got to the office and the whole thing, the whole front of the office was a glass wall, it’s in a New York City office building.
So I stood on the opposite side of the glass wall and I called into the office, and I said I’m here, if you look outside you’ll see me standing here, I’m not sure where the door is, and they started looking, they knew I was visually impaired and we had a nice relationship so they started laughing and they said, if you look to your right, you’ll see that the door is already open.
And so they had opened the door to help me figure out where the door was and all I saw was a complete glass panel.
So yeah glass, clear glass and I are not always very good friends.
Ricocheting off of it happens more often that I’d like to admit, but yeah, one you know once you do it so many times you really do become good at it.
Jeff:
Well we’ll put the link to your TED talk in the show notes so everybody…
Susan:
Thanks!
Jeff:
They should get a chance to see that because I was, I was laughing, it caught my attention.
I don’t know where, how I came across it and of a sudden there it was and it was one of those ones that you just start, and you know you’re gonna finish this one, you know what I mean?
Susan:
Right.
[Laughter]
Jeff:
It just, it kept on rolling.
Susan:
Thank you thank you, I mean that’s again, thank you so much for the kind words.
I really appreciate it and I do hope your listeners watch the talk, or listen to the talk.
What’s been very meaningful for me is that folks around the world have sent me messages to say, thank you so much for giving me some words that I can use, so that I can do what I always know is possible for me but other people don’t let me.
And I’m glad to have offered something that’s been so helpful to others, because I, that’s really what it was intended to do.
It was really to help orient fully sighted people about the capacities of others and not to impose limitations where they don’t belong, and an extra benefit is to give voice to some folks who are looking for the words and hadn’t quite found them yet themselves.
Jeff:
Well it was a really good talk and what I really like about it is, it wasn’t geared towards the blind, let me say that, just say blind, it was geared towards everybody.
Everybody.
Susan:
Yeah.
Jeff:
As a blind person, someone with visual impairment, I was laughing because I can see the humor in it, but I think it was very educational for co-workers, or people who may know someone who is blind, they’ll get a lot out of it because they’re seeing you do the talk.
It was really educational.
Susan:
Well thanks, you know I was really trying to go for that because again it was this experience where people I didn’t know kept calling me disabled.
They didn’t ask me if that was okay, they just assumed that that was okay for them to do and I don’t think it’s okay because I know, I could tell by the tone of voice when people, you know, “Oh you know your your disability” and there’s a tone of pity there, and I’m uninterested in being pitied.
I’m interested in being the best person that I can be and to be successful in the endeavors that I go after and somebody pitying me is really an unfortunate obstacle that is unsolicited.
I think this was my way of trying to get folks to broaden their thinking, and reshape their philosophy, transform their philosophy, on what is possible.
And you know quite frankly, I’ve led really amazing teams in my career, but the team that I mentioned three specific folks in the talk, the pillar of masterly acumen, the biscuit butter and the voice of reason, that came, was a spectacular team, and it was one that was national, people were around the country, and for that particular role I was on a plane on average three days a week flying everywhere.
And one of the members of my team, I was the only not fully sighted person on the team, one of them said to me one day “You know, if you can do everything you can do, what’s my excuse?”
And as a boss, I’m not touching that with a ten-foot pole, but as a human being I will never forget that moment, because it allowed someone who instantly allowed a transformative thinking in what people thought I was capable of, because they were using my visual impairment as the only criteria for making that judgment.
I think that moment definitely is a foundational element of the TED talk, because when I have that and I’m like, yeah you know, what is your excuse, and why do I do the things that I do, and why do other people think that I can’t do things, and even further, why do other people think that they can’t do things themselves, why do people put limitations on their own selves, and if everyone actually were able to be the best possible version of themselves, what actually could this world look like?
So this land of possibility that people prevent because they put obstacles in their own way, and put obstacles in other people’s way, and they use some sort of empirical evidence that they feel is rationale enough for making that judgment, I just don’t buy into it, and I think the TED talk is sort of comes from that philosophy.
Jeff:
It was well done and I got a lot out of it and…
Susan:
Well thank you so much!
Jeff:
When you’re talking there I was, I couldn’t help but you know, doing a little self evaluation on myself a little bit.
[Laughter]
Susan:
Sorry, I do that to people.
Jeff:
When you’re talking in conversation with people or something out there in the world, real world, the real world, like we live in a bubble but, in the real world.
[Laughter]
Susan:
Yeah, i know what you mean.
Jeff:
I can sense when someone has a feeling inside them or not a feeling, but I sense that they’re gonna have a boyscout moment come out where they gonna help me.
Susan:
Right, yes.
Jeff:
I can just sense that, and that, to me that just takes the wind out of my sail with a little bit, because I want to keep moving in the direction I’m going you know, keep this productivity, or whatever going, and then you sense this person is just waiting for me to make a mistake, or take a left, not a right, I don’t know, it just, it’s an odd feeling.
Susan:
Yeah you know, I know exactly what you’re talking about and it’s this weird sixth sense that, that I know many people have, and you know, I have gotten to the point where, because you raised a really good point, that other people are waiting for you to make a mistake,.
Well, but they also make mistakes.
Jeff:
MmHmm.
Susan:
So and that was sort of like kind of why I threw in, numbers tip, number three, you know everybody is disabled in some way.
Nobody’s perfect, nobody has all the tools in the toolbox, nobody is an exceptional human being with every skill at gold medal winning performance of every second of every minute, of every hour, of every day, every week of their life, it just doesn’t happen.
So when someone thinks that you’re different, again they use that as some justifiable excuse from their rationale of why they can think less of you, and because I don’t buy into that, I’m happy to cut them off at the pass.
But because of Stargardt’s for those of you who don’t know, it’s the deterioration of the macular, the center of the of the retina.
So I have no center vision, but I have peripheral, and how I explained it to fully sighted people is that because I see my entire world out of my peripheral, where they have peripheral and macula, my peripheral sort of gets double duty, which means that I will see something rolling on the floor faster than they will, because the peripheral is designed to see movement, and the macula is designed to see static, and then for a fully sighted person those two things work together so they could see you know all sorts of things.
So I don’t have the macula, I have the peripheral I’ll see something moving faster, or, but they’ll know what it is.
I don’t know if it’s a roach, or a bottle cap, or something else.
[Laughter]
Jeff:
A roach.
Susan:
Right, so I, if I see it moving real quick, I’m just gonna jump no matter what, and you know, because this happened, they were like “No it’s just a bottle cap” and I was like they said “Oh you thought it was a mouse?”
And I said of course I thought it was a mouse, and said it, you know, I am visually impaired.
So there have been situations where people have said accusatorial, “You said you couldn’t see?”
Because I saw something that they did.
And I looked back at them and I said, you said you could?
And all of a sudden people are like, “Wait a second, not only is she a sassypants, but she actually made a really good point!”
And so what I’ve explained to fully sighted people is that the way I process the world, because fully sighted people are really in tuned to vision, and quite frankly it’s amazing.
I mean when somebody can read it, something over my shoulder from like 50 feet back because I have it so large my computer screen, to me that’s amazing you know, what what a fully sighted person can see, is really amazing, but vision is a way of processing the world.
Just because I process the world differently, doesn’t mean that my skill set is diminished.
So there are fully sighted friends of mine who, when we go someplace, we’re traveling together, they’ll say just “Susan just pay attention for excellency.”
They’re like do, do what you do, do that thing you do just to make sure that X Y & Z doesn’t happen.
So I have my job, and my job is a result of the skills that I’ve developed because I’m visually impaired.
And I look at them and I’m like, wow you’re fully sighted, how come, like how come you can’t do it?
And it’s because of their 20/20 sighted vision that it hasn’t been necessary for them to develop other skills of process in the world in different ways.
It’s just different.
I know folks who have Usher’s syndromes, they have vision loss and hearing loss, and some of them identify people by scent, by the way human being smells.
Well I can’t do that, but because somebody can identify somebody by scent, or by facial recognition, who’s to say one is better than the other?
Jeff:
I haven’t met too many people that have it, I lost my central and I have the perfect peripheral.
That type of vision is like, myself with the peripheral, you kind of use it like a paintbrush and you paint the scene in front of you, because what you’re looking at I can make things disappear.
Susan:
That’s right.
Jeff:
If I like, if I look right where the voice is, there’s nothing there.
Susan:
Exactly.
Jeff:
Right where my computer screen is, it goes away.
Susan:
Right.
Jeff:
So, but if I scan, I can put it all together because I have seen before, and I recognize how the pictures should look, the puzzles a little skewed but, I can paint the picture in my mind and I get along that way.
Susan:
That’s a great way of describing it and I would say that I kind of do the same thing, and, it’s again, it’s just a different way of processing the world.
Jeff:
Mm-hmm.
Susan:
Mm-hmm.
Jeff:
It works.
Susan:
It does.
I get clearly, for both of us.
Jeff:
We don’t have much choice, we’d have to do what we got, and use what we got, and everyone else is just wondering sometimes.
Susan:
Exactly, yeah and it’s okay for them to wonder because you know I wonder what it’s like to see 20/20, especially you know when certain things happen if people can read things from very far distance, or I cycle so it’s on a tandem bike, and I’m on the back obviously, cuz it’s too dangerous for me to be on the front, and I will see captain’s, I had noticed the captain which his name of the person on the front of the bike, they would, they would nod, and I was like who’s he nodding at, and they said “Oh they is a cyclist like on the other side of the highway.”
And so, it’s just what what they do, cyclists they acknowledge each other by making eye contact and just not in the thing keep going in their respective directions.
Jeff:
International cyclists nod.
Susan:
Exactly yes, that, and so I can see the nod of my captain from the back of the bike because I’m like, three feet from his head, or her head, and but I had no idea what was happening and so I, I said to a couple of them, you can actually make eye contact with somebody from all the way over here?
And they were like yeah, that’s amazing, what you guys do is absolutely amazing.
It’s what they have, it’s you know, we all have you know, as I said joked around with some of my friends recently, I said, I don’t look at a guy like “Wow you use a urinal when you go to the bathroom, how do you do that?
That’s really incredible!
You don’t say things like that, so how is it okay to say things to somebody who has a visual impairment or a hearing loss, or you know, what I get, you might get this too, I see just like you when I take my glasses off.
Now I understand that that’s coming from a good place, and people are just trying to relate to someone else and build a human to human connection, and I totally appreciate it.
However, it is the equivalent of saying to someone who uses a wheelchair, I’m just like you when I sit down, it just doesn’t make any sense.
So some of the things that people say, and sort of processing what they think is somebody else’s experience is a little bit of wackadoodle, but you know, it is what it is and I would say generally most people mean very well and hey, we’ve all had our experience with jerks, and all have our ways of dealing with that but, you know, it, we just we have our way and our way is just different than somebody else’s way.
Jeff:
Mm-hmm, I think with vision loss myself, it’s really opened up my eyes if I may say, or my mind….
[Laughter]
Jeff:
To understanding that everyone’s different, whether it be a certain degree or another degree and someone, someone once said, something about a disability, that word, they said something, and I don’t know how they said it, but to me it was like, everyone’s potentially disabled.
Susan:
Oh sure, oh yeah, absolutely.
Jeff:
For someone to have an opinion on you know, it was just one of those moments that just made me cock my head like, who’s better than anybody else?
Susan:
Yes and you use the perfect word which is opinion.
It’s someone else’s opinion that they feel justified in making to compliment your, the experience you just shared, you know, having you know built teams, built high-performance teams and being responsible as a team leader.
I know, you don’t get any two people that are exactly alike.
So the team that I mentioned during my TED talk, you know one person, she had an uncanny way of sniffing out who the biggest decision maker was in a company and she had a great way of being able to network with those kinds of people.
Somebody else had a tremendous capacity for finding errors in printed materials and did a better job than people who were hired to do it professionally.
Somebody else had a tremendous capacity for preparing things and making sure that everybody else had exactly what they needed when they needed it.
So all of these skills were, and I could go on and on for the rest of the team, but everybody brought something very unique to the table and without each of those superpowers, our team would not have been successful, and so I’ve started looking at people very different that way to to say, I don’t really care what you can’t do, I want to know what you can do, and let’s talk about that.
Jeff:
Exactly.
Susan:
Yeah.
Jeff:
Susan we touched on drive, who influenced or what influenced your drive?
Susan:
My grandparents, my Mother’s parents in particular.
I got to spend a lot of time with that growing up.
My parents and my grandparents instilled this, always do your best, and it wasn’t a command, it wasn’t said in a way that was stressful, it wasn’t like you better do, it wasn’t that kind of thing, it was if you’re gonna try, it’s not your best.
If you’re gonna you know be a student, do the best that you can do, and so I think the drive just comes from that it, I sort of took it, and took it up a notch on an intensity scale, but it was wanting to do my best, and then wondering if my best was finite.
And where do we find the new boundary and how do you find the new boundary, and what is best?
So if I academically if I get an A in five subjects, is there some way that I could get a sixth subject on the schedule?
Because you can’t get better than an A in school so I, I was always sort of creative and playing around with, what is best?
I think that’s probably where it comes from, but it stems from just, you know being very encouraged as a child to always do my best.
And you know when I got to this TED residency last fall, someone in the residency, when we all you know, introduced ourselves and we got to know each other a little bit, maybe a week or two in because the the residency is 14 weeks long.
Somebody said you know, “This is an environment where steel sharpens steel.”
And that, that probably is good language for it too because it’s like, how do you actually get better, what’s new, what’s pushing the boundary, what’s that, take that pioneering spirit and what’s the next step that nobody has even thought of yet?
Because if you think about you know, what’s a telephone in the Middle Ages, what’s an iPhone in 1965?
Something is always getting better and how do you make that happen?
It’s just very exciting and interesting to me.
Jeff:
Yeah, when you mentioned you had that perfect team, you know, someone had all these skills, making sure, and everyone had this and all that stuff.
Susan:
Oh yeah.
Jeff:
It’s like, it’s not competition, it’s the ability to realize someone has that skill set, you have your skill set, and together you can build a team with that.
Susan:
Oh yeah, oh I love, I love building high performance teams.
It really is one of my most favorite things to do.
You know I think it stems from going to Penn State where you know, Penn State has, it has this football program, a storied football program.
Certainly you know, in recent years they’re, you know been lots of things that are incredibly unfortunate, and those things are being pursued with the appropriate authorities.
As a program Penn State football, it’s a thing, and when you’re at Penn State, going to Beaver Stadium, and going to the football games on Saturdays is part of the student experience.
And when you start to really think about what is football?
It’s all about team, it’s offense and defense, and special teams, and all three components need to work together in order to win a game.
But then when you break down those pieces, you’ve got quarterbacks, and centers, and left tackles, and wide receivers, and fullbacks, and nickelbacks, and linebackers, and kickers, and long snappers, and all of a sudden everybody has a specialized role, that when it’s all put together creates a winning opportunity for everybody.
And when I deconstructed that for myself in my own brain and had the opportunity to actually build teams, I was in a leadership role where I was able to select really great people to be on teams, I brought that philosophy to it and I found people who kind of were, of my mindset.
Which was, what is the best that we can do and how can we make it better?
It was not unusual for other people to look at our teams and say, “How do you guys do that, like how do you do so much, how do you always, how do you make it happen?”
And you know people were really scratching their heads about how impossible it seemed from their point of view and how easily achievable it was for us.
Jeff:
Just something just came to my mind is, I don’t know if this is right, but that’s how you get more hours in the day.
Susan:
It is how you can get more hours in the day, you’re absolutely right, you’re absolutely right.
Another way to get more hours in the day is to fly West.
[Laughter]
[Jeff makes comedic snare drum sound]
Susan:
Ok, there you go.
[Laughter]
Jeff:
Susan, it’s been great talking to you on here, is there anything else you would like to tell our listeners?
Susan:
Well I would like to tell all of your listeners to follow their dreams.
I think that’s very important because their dreams are their own, and they know how to pursue them, and what help they need, and to go for it?
I would also love if I could be so bold, I would love for folks to read my blog.
It stemmed out of the TED talk, so the blog is called “O Fabled One”, where fabled is a mash-up of failing at being disabled.
So you take the F from fail and the abled from disabled and that’s how you get fabled, and I would love for people to participate in the conversation, and let me know what they think about the topics or any other topics that they’d like to hear about, and they can certainly be in touch on Twitter or they can email me too, at ohfabledone@gmail.com.
Jeff:
I gotta admit I loved when I heard that coming over my screen reader.
Oh Fabled One, it was just like, how unique, Oh Fabled One it was like, someone has spoken, and I was like “wow!”
Susan:
Right.
[Laughter]
Susan:
Yeah it was, it was intended to try to get people to really listen, and a friend of mine came up with a title, and so, so he gets all the credit for that, and it really just makes a lot of sense because again, people use that word disability, and it just, it, it puts you in a space of what can’t be possible, and failing at what can’t be possible is probably a really good thing.
Jeff:
Well great, so check out Susan Robinson’s TED talk in the show notes, we’ll put the links there, and it’s been great talking to you, great meeting you, and such an inspiration, your motivation, your drive and everything, it just makes me want to do more.
You know, I like, you know like how they say surround yourself with people.
Susan:
Right yes.
Jeff:
And just by talking to you, so I could imagine if I had like ten friends like you, I would get stuff done.
[Laughter]
Jeff:
Be doing stuff.
Susan:
Yeah, you’re getting a lot of stuff done Jeff and I, I am happy to be an accountability partner, so we can, you know we can check in by email or whatever like once a month or whatever you like just to see how things are going along, but I will say this has been a real pleasure and I’m so appreciative that you had me on the Blinds Abilities podcast.
It’s very special for me and I’m hopeful that your listeners got something really meaningful out of it.
Jeff:
I’m sure they will, thank you very much and it’s been a pleasure.
[Music]
Jeff:
Such a great time talking to Susan Robinson, and you can follow her blog Oh Fables One.
We have links in the show notes, we hope you enjoyed this conversation with Susan Robinson, and a big shout out the Chee Chau for his wonderful music.
You can follow him on Twitter at lcheechau, thanks a lot Chee Chau.
And thank you Susan, and thank all of you for listening and until next time bye-bye.
[Music]
[Multiple voices at the same time]
When we share what we see through each other’s eyes, We can then bridge the Gap between the limited expectations and the realities of Blind Abilities.
For more podcast with the blindness perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com, on twitter at BlindAbilities, download our app from the app store, Blind Abilities, that’s two words, or send us an email at info@blindabilities.com, thanks for listening.