Handicapped Acceptable and Human Accessible

Choose Your Path, Create your Life by Design

Humanness is Back in Business:

It’s National Disability Pride Month and the 35^th Anniversary of the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act).

What I’ve discovered may be surprising…It’s about ALL of us! Yep, you and me. Oh, we have very different stories and backgrounds, and you may go through the day without even noticing. But it if you are human…You know who you are, read on.

Over a decade ago, I received a recalled drug during a routine surgery which caused severe neurological damage to my body and my life.

Overnight I became 2 things:  Handicapped and Unacceptable. 

I lost friends, clients and regular interactions with others because people didn’t know how to connect with this change in me. 

At the same time, I learned that I had to rely on people if I was going to get through this and thrive. 

Without others I was only ‘existing.’

During this process I started noticing ‘other’ people’s ‘handicaps.’

What THEY couldn’t do. 

What was limiting THEM without someone else’s assistance.

Not physical handicaps, Internal limitations.

We all have a handicap or limitation of some sort in business and in our personal lives. 

I found that we have lost our accessibility to each other. 

And there are 2 reasons for this loss: 

First, is our use of technology. Cell phones, AI and computers have really connected us on a technological level but have cut us off from our human connection. 

We’ve never been more connected and simultaneously more isolated and lonelier in human history. In fact, the Surgeon General recently laid out a framework to begin to address loneliness because it’s an epidemic in our country.

Second, we are designed to need each other, but the art of connection is a SKILLSET that,

before mass technology, we practiced every day through required interaction with other humans.  But the advancement of technology and systems have entirely changed the way we interact, IF we interact with each other at all. 

Have you noticed that we often grab coffee or dinner without ever talking with a person. 

Mobile orders, work from home, you can even renew a library book from your couch.

So, while I was working to make being Handicapped Acceptable, the real goal or necessity was to make humans ‘accessible’ to each other again.

Handicapped Acceptable - Human Accessible

If we want to feel better, work better and live better we need to feel more human.  

So, we have to put the HUMAN back in!

Being Human requires a soul connection. And our brains have what is called a Sociometer. It’s a part of our processes that are always scanning for signs that we are safe and making connections. Our Sociometer scans our external environment looking for other human characteristics: a smile, a nod, a wink.

It tells us we are part of this tribe, that we are in this together.

This brings us to the Positive Operating System. View more about that in Joy Is Your GPS.

When we smile, laugh or interact positively with others, we release dopamine into our systems and our bodies are happier, move more freely. The more technology and AI that is used, the more we systemize out the signs the Sociometer looks for, tiny bits of human feedback. We remove the human.

The Accessibility to each other.

It’s the reason video games and robot makers are always trying to improve the facial expressions and the eye connection with their products. They simply can’t connect to the Sociometer of their clientele because they are not real. We are human and they can’t hit our internal receptors.

Make your metrics match your mission.

What do your metrics say about your product, organization and overall customer satisfaction? When the metrics don’t match your mission it’s largely because we’ve decided to take the human out of the equation.

For example:

-The system doesn’t let me change it,

-Our temperature is controlled in the corporate office,

-The automated system doesn’t have the solution in the system

-We don’t take orders, you have to use the machine yourself…Over there.

Humans don’t like it and they take it out on other humans.

I hear everywhere I go now: at the checkout, on with customer service, even in an Uber, “Thank you for being kind, It’s been a long day”.

Do you feel this way?

Have you experienced this? I recently renewed my passport and the rep at the courthouse said, “I’m glad I can finally feel like I helped someone. Everyone else just yells”

Suicide, feeling disconnected and dehumanized are at an all-time high.

As we add tech, we add pressure to belong.

Who here could use a little more kindness, gratitude and laughter in their day?

YES!

We can have this. Start with yourself.

Be kind to yourself, give you a break by separating work and Life.

Share a smile, Open a door, Help someone succeed.

Look others in the eye and say thank you without even having to say a word.

Buy someone coffee.

Ask about them.

What they desire. And Why?

Do random acts of kindness.

Do charitable work, it feels like it will take more of your time but it replenishes you into having more energy and balance.

Put the customer into the customer experience.

While writing this speech I tested the theories I’m talking about by going to a Starbucks that was out of my area and I didn’t know anyone.

I went there 5 days, I sat and wrote but I bought coffee, maybe a sandwich. By day 3, everyone knew my name and said hello and goodbye on their shift changes.

In 5 days, they offered me a free sandwich, a free coffee and a free pastry.

Why?

I treated them with kindness, looked them in the eye, smiled and asked about them.

I went to a local coffee/sandwich hangout in Chicago and did the same test.

Five days of humanness and in return I got free products, people asked what I was doing, several signed up for my Island Minutes videos and one person referred me to a new client.

We are not as separated as we think we are, it’s the method of communication we use.

Be The Person You Wish Was There For You!

Leader Lift Others...Then Celebrate Together!