At Gedanken, we regularly support people facing business and personal challenges. Sometimes it's cash flow, sometimes it can be how to structure the organisation, sometimes leadership challenges and the best way forward. As often as not, however, it can be the "inner issues" that exist within all of us as we each face personal challenges.
Whether these are thinking styles, limiting beliefs, or just the world is not stacked as simply as those who the author Debbie Ford calls the “light chasers” would have us believe. Yes, for some life is a real challenge, and the definition of success is less about how well we scale organisations or however successful at a financial level they are, it is more about how those at the helm face personal challenge, adversity and come through this.
I remember as a young social worker, the sense of frustration when working with many people who face all forms of disability, mental and physical. For many, it seemed to me, their functionality was restricted, not by the limitations of their personal pathology, so much as a unreceptive society that was failing to see that people could make a contribution if the right attitude of mind existed amongst us all to include all. A wheelchair is neither a barrier to learning or earning. Missing ramps or lifts however, may be, in order to access the building wherein it takes place. Happily much of this has changed but there is still a good way to go. In taking a positive view of what people can achieve, I was frequently disheartened by the wholesale disregard for people facing physical and mental challenges in the world of work, often pigeonholed into specialist schemes which, although better than nothing, often became repositories of problems, rather than challenging the status quo to produce solutions in everyday work environments.
It is with this in mind, I’m pleased to be working with a great small accountancy company, Jason Jarvis and Co, based in Wrexham. Jason is a man of kindness, integrity and ability – oh and yes, adaptability! Jason has faced degenerative problems within his spine over the last decade, which have resulted in the significant loss of use of both his legs and some restriction in one hand. He requires the use of a wheelchair. As an accountant, Jason is highly diligent and knowledgeable. Not infrequently he would work weekends to make sure his clients got their needs served. This is something that many accountants often do, but with Jason’s challenges, he felt even more strongly the need to emulate his peers. “For some considerable time, I felt I had to compensate for the sense that I was less ablebodied than my peers”, Jason adds “It was only by doing some deep introspection work, I became aware that my reduced ability to easily go out, network, mix with clients, can be more than made up for with my online presence and work ethic”. Working now ‘virtually’ across the country, and with an absolute determination for his clients to experience a new level of quality and almost seamless delivery, his client base is growing on a weekly basis.
Gedanken has worked with Jason to encourage him to take on a new approach. Entrepreneurial pursuits are often lonely ones. The pressures of being a leader, wealth generator, employer, and other business roles can be a heavy burden and easily result in isolation. The challenges of having to manage disability, can make this feel even more so. “The opportunity to experience coaching has made me review who I am, and where I am, and what I offer” Jason asserts, “within a very short time, I recognised, I could advance my work and efficiency with appropriate support technology”.
Furthermore, whilst offering accountancy services to all, the recognition of entrepreneurial challenges in Jason’s own particular personal situation, has turned into something that is extraordinarily useful in that he now offers a specialist service to business people facing disability, illness, or mental health problems. “Some of my clients truly benefit from someone who ‘gets’ the challenges they face” Jason remarks. “They need informed, sensitive accountancy support to better manage, not only their business environment, but the vicissitudes of their personal conditions and that impacts the bottom line. Knowledge of benefits, grants, tax reliefs, and other factors are critical, if you are to better manage your business as a disabled person and also account for those times when one’s productivity suffers by virtue of being unwell or less productive than one otherwise would be”.
Jason has not regretted taking this new step into a bold new offering within the industry. When we examine words, the key statement in the term disability, is “ability”, getting hold of that, removing the barriers, so one’s skills and talents may be expressed as part of creating a fulfilling entrepreneurial journey for those who face just a bit more challenge than many others.
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