“Any idiot can walk. But not just any idiot can start a business. It takes a very special kind.” — Me, Just Now
Several years back (or maybe 3 months ago — I can’t do time), I was struck by a story I read about Tim’s Place, a restaurant in Albuquerque, New Mexico that served breakfast, lunch, dinner… and hugs. It was the only restaurant in the US owned by a person with Down syndrome.
What struck me about the story wasn’t just the coolness of a person with Down syndrome owning a restaurant — though that is, in itself, cool — it was the brilliant, incredibly self-aware, ego free delegation. Tim Harris was the owner of Tim’s Place. And the job that he gave himself at his restaurant was to hug each and every customer. That was it. That was his job. The administration, the hiring, the firing, the cooking, the accounting… he had people better at those things do them for him — which is EXACTLY what a business owner should do. It was genius.
And that truth, that the job of a business owner is to figure out her most useful function and to delegate the rest, is the exact reason why entrepreneurship, by FAR, is the best career choice for people with disabilities.
Like it’s not even close.
People think of entrepreneurship as the crowning achievement of a career, the final level in a difficult game, that after succeeding at a job for a decade, with nowhere else to ascend, you have no choice but to branch out on your own. And yeah, I am sure that happens.
But the reality is that starting a business, aka entrepreneurship, is for people who CAN’T do a regular 9-5 job, whether that’s because you can’t stand a boss, you need a flexible schedule, you have this passion for something that you have to express/work on, you feel trapped doing one thing, OR because you need help going pee, you need to go home to poop, you can’t cut up your own lunch, you have a lot of medical appointments, and you need a custom tailored environment and specific assistance in order to be successful. All of those are valid, but the last one, which describes my exact situation, is super tough to get at a regular job. You could just as easily swap out my specific details with those of a quadriplegic, someone with autism, a person with Down syndrome, a deaf person, a blind person, or someone suffering from depression, and the result is the same.
Because getting that custom tailored environment that can provide the scaffolding for a disabled person to find success at a regular job is virtually impossible, the reasonable assumption then becomes that it is also impossible for that person to work, to earn an income, and they will forever be dependent on financial assistance from others and the government to survive.
And, in some cases, that might be totally true. But I really and truly believe that there are so, so many people out there right now, sitting at home, thinking that they cannot work, who could be successfully owning their own businesses.
Every business owner must custom tailor their work, their environment, and their staff so they can be successful, and this recipe, coincidentally, is exactly what every person with a disability also needs. It honestly feels like entrepreneurship what is designed with disabled people in mind. It is hard to articulate just how well it fits.
And disabled people are already accustomed to having staff, giving instructions, training people, and delegating. Every disabled person getting help with tasks is already a disabled CEO. You’ve been training for this for years, in some cases for your whole life. You just need to take it a step further and also hire employees who are going to make you money.
Just like at Tim’s Place, if the disabled business owner (or any business owner) decides her best role is to just hug every customer, and EVERYTHING else is going to be delegated and outsourced, she can do that (especially now with outsourcing services like Fiverr or low cost virtual assistants through sites like Fiverr again or brickwork.com or (Your Man in India) ymii.com available).
If she decides that she needs a break from 11 AM to 3 PM in order to comfortably get through the day, she can do that.
If she needs the employee who packs up orders to also empty her catheter once a day, and they are willing, she can do that.
This works. Tim in Albuquerque is living proof it works. I’M living proof it works. There is almost no way I would be able to hold a regular job, but I think most would say I’m pretty successful doing the one I built for myself.
If “regular jobs” aren’t working for you, for whatever reason, disability or otherwise, the problem isn’t with you. The problem is that you are trying to succeed at something not meant for you. Fish aren’t good at climbing trees. Create something made specifically for you, set up specifically for you to thrive, stop trying to climb that tree, and get busy swimming.
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