Ruth Rathblott
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Inspirational Speaker Ruth Rathblott is a TEDx speaker and an award-winning former CEO committed to creating inclusion for all. She is a leader who has spent her entire career focused on providing opportunities for those who face obstacles.
Born with a limb difference, Ruth currently speaks on issues of inclusion and diversity, the gifts of being unique, the freedom of accepting your differences, and rising above life’s challenges.
Ruth has been a leader in nonprofit organizations for more than 25 years, 15 of which she spent at Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City, where she played a central role in its expansion. Here, she fostered a deep appreciation for inclusion within education and opportunity, which successfully propelled the students to greater achievement. For over eight years as CEO of the Harlem Educational Activities Fund (HEAF), an NYC-based college access and success program for underserved youth, she directed the HEAF vision of providing a continuum of educational, developmental, leadership, and personal resilience opportunities. She currently serves as a Board Member of The Lucky Fin Project.
Ruth holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Goucher College and a Master of Social Work degree from Boston University. She was honored as the youngest alum ever awarded the Goucher College Excellence in Public Service Award. In 2014, she was given the Smart CEO Brava Award and profiled as a CEO in the NY Times Corner Office, which featured her passion and motivation for “things I want to be a part of.” Ruth has also been identified and received the Trailblazer Award from the Community Resource Exchange in 2019 and the Unsung Hero Award from the Female Founders Alliance in 2020. In addition to Corporate Speaking Keynotes, Ruth received Certification from American Management Association in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (2020) and has been a guest on several Webinars and Podcasts — including Sree Sreevisan, Mayshad, Tevis Trower, et al. — in 2020-21. Author of the forthcoming book: Singlehandedly.
By connecting with her story of hiding and angst, finding acceptance, being human and authentic, your audience will be engaged, entertained, and inspired!
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Ruth Rathblott.m4a - powered by Happy Scribe
Hi everybody, it's Gustavo, the host of the Enabled Disabled podcast. I am a middleaged Latin American male. I have dark brown hair combed in the middle. I am wearing a navy blue polo shirt and am recording this podcast in my living Zoom. So you can see some white lines behind me and a little bit of some beige drapes. We are super excited to have Ruth Rasplott on the show today. She is a TEDx speaker and nonprofit leader. She does some wonderful work with GEI consulting for corporations and she is now an author. And we are going to have an amazing conversation. Ruth, thank you so much for being here.
No, thank you, Gustavo. And I can share that. I am a white female, I have blonde hair and I'm wearing a printed floral top and I am sitting in my apartment in New York City and the painting behind me is an abstract watercolour or print of Central Park. A bridge in Central Park.
Yes. It's a really nice painting.
Thank you. And I got used to it during Zoom so I almost don't even notice it anymore because it's part of how I see myself every day. But I appreciate when people see it and notice it or talk about it for sure.
Absolutely. So you have a really powerful and interesting story. Can you tell us? Let's start to go into a little bit of your disability origin story and what growing up look like for you and how your parents dealt with it and let's just get into what happened and we'll evolve from there.
Okay, so my story is starts with really my birth and I share that because I was born in the days before Sonograms and so I was a total surprise to my parents in terms of having a limb difference or a hand anomaly. And what that means is that when I was born at 200 in the morning I came out and I was missing my left hand and it was not only in the days before Sonograms, but often men weren't allowed into the room with the woman who was delivering. And luckily the doctor that my parents chose was unique and that he did let my father in the room. And as soon as I was born, the nurses and doctors rushed me out from my mother and the doctor took my father out of the room and said to him I need you to know what's going on. Your daughter was born with a missing limb and that time they called it a congenital birth defect and they shared that with my father. So he go in and comfort my mother and he did. And my mother and my father were really were surprised and were shocked and I would say definitely bewildered because they had never considered that possibility.
And honestly the doctors and nurses hadn't seen a lot of that, if any, limb different children being born and so didn't have a lot of advice except for Gustavo, one nurse who pulled my parents aside and said, you'll take this little girl home and you'll treat her as you would any other child. You'll love her and you'll treat her as normal. And that's absolutely what they did. They encouraged me to try everything. They encouraged me to succeed at things. They encouraged me to fail at things. And I will say what that also meant is that we didn't talk about my hand while I was growing up. It was just something it was almost like the elephant in the room, but we just didn't talk about it. And that kind of train ride lasted until I was about 13. And at 13, I started a new high school which was co ed. And I had been a girl school before that. And so it was the first time being back in classes with boys. And I remember getting on the school bus to go to school my first day of my first year of high school and starting to notice that I was different and that people were kind of looking at it and my immediate, almost impulsive reaction was just to hide it and to put tuck it into my left pocket.
And I kind of did that, Gustavo, just to think, oh, it'll just be until we get to school. I'll do this. And then that ended up being, well, I'll just do it till the end of the day. I'll keep it hidden. And then that lasted the week that lasted all four years of high school. It lasted into college and it actually lasted me hiding my hand lasted for 25 years of my life. I passed as someone who had two hands because I was so afraid of the rejection. I was afraid of the judgement and I was afraid that people wouldn't include me.
There's a lot to unpack there. In your first school that you were there until you were 13. What was your experience like? You didn't hide it there. You were just another kid. And if somebody asked about it or somebody mentioned something like, what would you do? What was that like?
You know what? It's interesting. I had been at one school until about fifth grade and then I transferred schools and the school up until fifth grade, no one kind of noticed it. My father now tells me that there was a bully in first grade who said something about it and he made sure to go in and talk to that pull that child out of class and talk to that child. And that never happened again. Apparently when I switched schools from fifth grade through 8th grade, the first week I was in a new school. Some girls did notice it, but I didn't remember any of that until I actually went into regression therapy to kind of try to understand why I started hiding and what that meant, why. But I don't remember anyone asking me about it. When I went in regression therapy, I did remember this incident where there were older girls who looked at it and said, you know, what happened to your hand? And I immediately kind of started I said I denied it and I said nothing. And I started covering my hand with longer sleeves so that they wouldn't notice it.
But I didn't intentionally keep it hidden. It kind of just went away as I got to know people. But I would say going into a co ed school where it was just this mixed feeling and 13 is such a tough age for so many of us, right? It's we're starting high school. We want to fit in, we want to individuate from our parents, our families, we want to be different from them, but we want to be the same as our peers. It's healthy adolescence. So it's no wonder I hid, but because I wanted to fit in, I just didn't think that it would last as long as it did.
Yeah, and I totally understand the impetus. That quick thing like, let me hide it if I can. Let me just put this out of the way so I can just be right and I can interact and engage and have friends and do my thing just like everybody else. But it is interesting that that continued and continued and continued for so long. Like college, did you not have a.
Roommate?
Any people you had roommates in the dorm or anything like that, where it was okay to just let go of that.
So it's interesting and just to go back for 1 second to even high school when I started hiding my hand, I stopped doing the things that I enjoyed doing, right? Because that's part of what hiding is when you hide parts of yourself, you're so worried about being found out. So I stopped doing student government, I stopped doing athletics, I stopped doing theatre because I was so worried about somebody seeing it. And when I went to college, that continued that I didn't stopped participating in my life. And so what I did, to answer your question is when I got to college and I had a roommate, I immediately went to the resident assistant or the person that was in charge of housing. And I got my therapist to write a note that I needed to have my own room because I needed the space to be alone and to be able to just not hide in one space of my life to feel safe. And so I unhit in my room by myself. But when I was sitting in the halls with people, I always had longer sweaters to cover my hand. I always had it in my I always wore anything with pockets.
There were sometimes book bags in front of my hands and nobody would see it, but I was always conscious. And one friend actually said, ruth, you were always forecasting next steps, like you were always worried about what was going to happen. And she recalls a story where Gustavo, we were coming back from a road trip somewhere, a girl's weekend somewhere in college. And I said to her, we were stopping at a friend's house for dinner. And I said, Will you sit next to me at dinner? And she said, yeah. Why are you thinking about that now? It's like 200 in the afternoon. Why are you worried about it? I said, Because this is probably a family that's going to say grace and they're going to want to hold hands. And I don't want anyone to know about my hand at the table. I don't want anyone to have to touch it. I don't want anyone to have to even know. And my close girlfriends started to get to know that part about me, but I didn't want anyone else to. I even had a friend tell me, Gustavo, when we were in college, that while we were walking home from a party one night and it was dark, she reached out to grab my hand so that we could hold on to each other because we were scared.
And I said, oh, you don't have to touch it. I know it's disgusting. That's an 18 year old mentality of how I saw myself, how I viewed my hand, how I viewed my body. And so, yeah, through college that was continued to be that mindset of how I viewed my disability.
And having these close friends that you did let in, can you trace any positive effects from that where you said, you know what, they're not judging me, they're okay with it. They don't see it the same way I do. Do you think that started a process or did it come later on?
Yeah, I think it came later on. Because I will say that while I let them in, I continued not talking about what it meant to me. They knew about it, but as they would tell you, if they were here right now, they would tell you it was very much an off limits conversation. I did not want to talk about it even to the point of one of my friends. We were out and she saw a man playing pool with one hand and she's like, we should go talk to him. And I said, I would never want to talk to him. I don't want to acknowledge it. And I was actually upset that she compared me to him. Which seems really interesting and fascinating now because of my work. But at that time I had such blinders on and I was so scared of my disability. I was scared of the way people would react to it.
It's really interesting because I couldn't hide physically, like it was impossible. It's just so present there that there's no way to do that. But psychologically, I definitely did. I definitely had lots of moments where I did talk about it with friends, but it was kind of a thing that you talk about and then you're over it, and then you don't talk about it much anymore. And there's also that I just want to be a kid. I just want to do what I want to do and go from there. But what I find really interesting is that you had great relationship with your parents, you had close friends growing up, and the signs, the indications were there that you could share it, that you didn't have to hide, and yet something in you kept wanting to hide it and not feel comfortable with it.
Yeah, no, I think there were external messages that I probably got, you know, we see from media, we don't see a lot of people who look different or who have disabilities, whether it be through TV or commercials or print media. And I will say, and even the ones we do see are villainized. They're not always accepted as beautiful. And so I think probably the internal messages were also strong in terms of I don't want people to identify me as that and only see that part about me. So if I don't talk about it or ignore it or I hide it, they don't remember. Right. That's not part of how they think about me. And I think the other piece that I've started to explore, especially as I've been writing my book, is this idea of I don't think I wanted to make other people uncomfortable either, because I think when we show disability, some people get uncomfortable with difference in disability. I mean, even to the point I don't know if you followed it all, but there's a weather forecaster. Justin in a weatherman in Florida who is a weatherman, he's in front of the camera.
And over the past few weeks, two people have written into the station to say, A, first, he should be behind the camera because it's distracting to see his hand. This is current, this is 2022. So I definitely had messages, and the second person wrote in and said, why doesn't he wear prosthesis to cover it? To make them comfortable. Right. Because it's not about him being comfortable with himself. It's about making someone else comfortable with disability. So I don't want to see it. So put them behind the camera and I don't want to see it cover it up with Prosthesis. And I've definitely had people say that to me, if you were so uncomfortable, why didn't you just get a prosthesis to cover it up? So I do think there's a piece around disability where people, when we don't talk about it, it's because we also don't want to make other people uncomfortable.
Yeah. And it just points to the fact that it's so important for people to feel uncomfortable and for them to get over it and for them to see it differently. I have a client who we were meeting with recently, and it was the first time I was meeting her children and her sister's children, and she does some work in Canada, a foundation with helping people with disabilities, young adults become more independent. And I think one of her sisters kids who was younger, the other kids shook my hand. Everything was cool. And then there was one that was kind of staring like, this is new. I haven't seen this before. And I was going to go do my thing and jump in and give the lesson, and she beat me to the punch. And she was just like, he's just different, get over it. And it was just like, matter of fact, and it was just this is no big deal. He was just born a little different. Get over it. All good. And I was really amazed by how direct and natural and correct the message was. It was like, wow, that's exactly what we need to do with so many people.
It's like, look, we're different. Get over it. All good. Let's move on.
And the truth is we're all different, right? Like, not just people with limb differences, but everybody has something that's different about them. And I'm so curious, if she hadn't jumped in, what's the message that you give out? What do you say?
Something really similar. It's just like, Look, I'm just like you. I was just born a little bit different, and we can still be friends and all good, and just smile and say if there's anything you want to ask me or feel free. It's not off limits, it's not off topic. Feel comfortable. When I was young, answering people's questions when they came from a place of curiosity was okay. It was the kids who were mean about it or snarky or tried to just be jerks. Those were the ones that I had more angry reaction to and did some things that I wouldn't do today.
I hear you. I got you. I agree with you. When it comes from a place of curiosity and kindness, that's when I'm good with it. And I think that's the beauty of and I would add on curiosity, kindness and support, then I'm good, right? I will say that I often think kids do come from the curiosity place and kindness. What I have a hard time with myself is when parents shush kids for asking. Because then what we do, right, is we set up two things. We set up a we don't talk about disability, so don't talk about disability because it's not a good thing to talk about. We've set that as a mantra now and then the other thing is we limit kids curiosity so that we tell them not to be curious about certain things. And it's a natural thing for a kid to be curious. It's also a natural thing for people to have vision, to be able to there's something in the body about seeing something that's symmetrical, right? And so when we don't, we almost do a double take. That's the staring or the double take look that we get because we want to see symmetry when something doesn't feel as asymmetrical it's hard for us.
And so yeah, I often tell parents when they've shushed kids to Gustavo, I say, you know what? I appreciate the curiosity. Encourage the curiosity and encourage curiosity with kindness. Because they're just asking, because they're wondering. And at different ages, they wonder about themselves too, what's different about them. And that's how I turn it around off and I say, yeah, just like you, this is the way I was born. I was born with this difference. Each of us has something that's different about us. You have different eye colour than I do, you have a different nose. And kids seem to get that and then they kind of just go off. They play like it's nothing. It's when parents make it a big deal and stress about it that it makes it a bigger deal.
Yeah. And I also see it, it's so context specific because there's time and place and I'm not always necessarily in the mood to play that role. Right. So I think some parents approach it from just don't bother them, let's go along, I'll explain it to you later. But you're right, there's definitely the parents that they look at you with that hush, shame, like just let's just get out of here. And those are the parents that your messaging is right on point. And that's definitely something that I'm glad you do that.
Yeah. And I think it's about the parents getting comfortable with it too. Right. And again, our role isn't to be the world's educators, it's just to take those moments that we can say, like what I wish someone had said to me, how would I want to be treated?
Yeah, I think it's a response. I see it for me. And I know everybody has a different approach, but when I can, it's just another opportunity to change somebody's mind and have them see the world a little bit differently. So why not? If I can do it, why not take that responsibility and make things a little bit better for the next person that they encounter?
Absolutely. And I may have shared this story with you before, but I was on a date recently and we were exchanging worst date stories, which, you know, I like to do because I think it's fun. And he said as we were leaving, he said, I have one more for you. And I said, oh, I can't wait to hear that. And he said, yeah, she was crippled. I said, do we still use that word? Before he could even tell me what that meant, I said, do we still use that word in 2022? And he said, well, it was in 2021. And he said, yeah, well, I showed up on the date and she couldn't walk. And I said, okay, so would you have gone out and he's like, she lied in her profile. She didn't share that. And we went through some conversation with it and similar to what you're pointing out and we're pointing out about kids and parents, right, teaching them about that moment of what difference looks like. I said to them at the end when I did talk about my hand, I said, I now leave space for people to have questions about my hand.
I said, but what I can't do? And I really thought about Gustavo, do I talk to him about this? Especially around disability, do I share this with him? What I didn't want to happen is he worth it? And I call it hand worthy. Like, is he hand worthy? And I decided that I didn't want any other woman going on a date with him who had something that was different about her. I didn't want to have to have someone else do this conversation. And so I said, you know what? I can tell you right now, I do leave space for the conversation. I said, but what I can't do is I can't go out with someone who thinks so little about disability and uses such archaic words because that's not how we talk about it. And so it was that teaching moment. And again, to your point, sometimes it's tiring and you don't feel like it, right? And then there's sometimes where you don't want it to happen to someone else. And so what's the message that you can if you have the energy and the space and the grace, how can you share it forward?
I love the way you frame that too. That makes total sense. Is this person worth me doing this, taking this risk on and at the same time thinking of the next woman that he may go on a date with, where he's going to just keep doing the same thing? And it's unfortunate and I don't know.
But it's similar to kids. It's similar to kids, right? You don't want anyone to say, oh, my God, what happened to your hand? To a child saying that and having a negative reaction or having an oh, my God, don't talk about it, or whatever, let's embrace disability and show its strength and show that it's not so scary, that it's not something we don't talk about. Like it's approachable.
I want to get back into what the impetus for you coming out and liberating yourself and telling your story. But I'm just curious really quick, since you did mention dating, what is your input on whether or not people should present themselves as having a disability on their profile versus not? What's your personal take?
So I think it's definitely a personal thing. I know people who are on the side of wanting it to not be, not even to have people think about it. So they just put it all out there and it's a natural screener for those who will care about it. And then I know people who don't show it. I personally don't show it because similar to how we all come in with differences, I don't think people are totally forthcoming on dating profiles. They don't share all of their stuff in a dating profile. So I say, you know what? Let me get to know them just as a blank slate and similar to me. And I think I decide again, I go back to coined the term, are they handworthy? Do they get to know? Because it's something about me that I hold space for and I want someone who is going to be caring and kind and have questions and be curious and not make an assumption. And I think we too easily on dating apps swipe left if something just one little thing doesn't compute.
Yeah. I think the human race has a lot of work to do in terms of figuring out and decision making as to who is attractive and why we date and why we go into these long term relationships because it's far different than society makes it out to be. And we need some work there.
Yeah. We've had a lot of media images we've had that tell us dictate to us what beauty looks like we've had and I think we're starting to uncover some of that. Right. We're starting to make that more of a norm and showcasing models who look different, whether it be through weight, whether it be through disability, whether it be through age. Like, there's gender, ethnicity. We're starting to showcase what beauty can look like differently and how we define it differently. But we do still have a lot of work to do.
Yeah. How so many cultures, not just today, but throughout human history, defined it differently. It's always changing.
Yes. Absolutely. And so how can we take part in that and then cheque ourselves when we do hold a bias to swipe left? Like checking ourselves to be like, wait, why am I really swiping left and why am I swiping right? Just because someone looks, quote unquote, goodlooking or is the right height or is the right age or is the right yeah. Checking ourselves about our biases.
What was it as you were getting older and you went into the workplace and you were still trying to hide your hand, what was it that started you on this path to saying, I'm so tired of hiding. I don't want to do this anymore. Something has to change.
Yeah. If you allow me, it's two pronged. It's like almost two paths because there's the professional path and there's the personal path. And so in a professional setting, I had a summer internship when I was about 20 years old. And my job that summer was to showcase the evolution of laundry detergent box tops and why this specific one deserved a patent compared to the others. And so I had to cut out and put together various box top competitors and while that sounds probably really thrilling, it was for me. I had my own project at this law firm and it was to do that. And what was interesting is about three weeks into that internship, the senior partner on the case called me into his office and basically asked me one question to Gustavo. He asked me if I'd ever gone to kindergarten. And I'm 20 years old, I've gone to kindergarten. I can't remember my kindergarten teacher's name at that point. And he says, because if you had, you would have learned how to use scissors. And I had been cutting pieces of paper with one hand because I was very deep into hiding. And so I was trying to cut these box top shapes with one hand so that no one would see my other hand.
And he didn't say anything else. It was basically, let's get this together. And I left his office definitely embarrassed and ashamed. And I started to figure out if this internship was even worth it, how would I get it done? And I started to figure out that there were different places and almost pockets of where I could continue to hide or use my other hand, but nobody would see. So I found the downstairs file basement. I started to use conference rooms and get huge law books to hold the paper in place so I could use both hands or wouldn't move. And I finished that internship with high marks. And I actually even stayed late because people would leave at 05:00. I would stay late and get the job done. So I finished the internship with high marks. And after that internship, I vowed professionally that I would never hide my hand again because it wasn't worth it. And so I started to not hide it in work settings. And I worked specifically with kids. And I think, as I shared before, kids are great, right, because they have no philtres and they move on like it wasn't a big deal.
And it actually connected me to kids in really interesting ways, because if I could be vulnerable and share something about myself that looked different, they could do the same. And whether it was about their background or their body or anything, they could feel safe professionally, I had kind of stopped hiding, physically hiding it. But what was interesting is I was in a leadership role at an organisation and we were talking about diversity, which is a hot topic now, right? And we were talking about the diversity of leadership in this organisation. And at the end of the conversation, I said, I'm just curious, do you see me as diverse? And the answer back was, well, you're a woman. And I said, well, that's the lens of diversity, yes. Gender? I said, what about my limb difference? Is that part of diversity? And the immediate feedback was, oh, I don't see you like that. And it got me thinking. I didn't want to. Be seen like that, but I wanted it to be acknowledged. And what I realised, Costabo, is that I wasn't sharing my experience. So I was still hiding because I wasn't talking about my disability.
I wasn't sharing how I hid for all those years. I wasn't talking about how people still stare. I wasn't talking about the uncomfortable moments of things that I've had to figure out that nobody would even think about. Like how do I put on backs of earrings with one hand? How do I put on a necklace with one hand? Like things that might be challenging, like I wasn't sharing out those challenging moments, so people didn't know my story. So in some ways I was still hiding because I wasn't sharing it out. So professionally, that kind of led me to start to share out my story and really advocate to expand diversity conversations, to be fully inclusive, that's that path of professional. And I'd love to dig in there. But also the personal was I was not showing my hand in dating relationships. I wasn't showing it really with friends. I was taking myself out of a lot of activities. And they definitely say that people come into your life for a reason. And I met someone who taught me how to love my hand. I trusted him with it. He taught me how to cherish my hand.
He taught me actually, Gustavo, even how to hold my hand. My hand had been so deeply buried in my pocket that I'd never looked at it, I'd never held it, I'd never let anyone hold it. And so it was allowing someone in to love that part of myself that I found so unlovable because I couldn't love myself, I had to get help. And so from there, I started to realise that I could take it out, I could start to talk about it. And what's amazing is that I found a group of people who also had limb differences and I found a group called the Lucky Finn Project, where there are people with limb differences from around the world who share their difference. And I thought, seriously, Gustavo thought, I don't know if you've ever felt like this. I felt I was alone my whole life. And when I found this group, I found my community. It was like the ugly duckling finding its swans. Like I found my people. And I wasn't the only one that hid. I thought for years, oh, I must have made up all this hiding myself. No, other people have hid.
Other people have had to figure things out, like how to balance a glass and a plate and say hello to somebody and take a selfie. We had to figure it out. And so I felt less alone. And that literally coincided with that professional path because as I started getting comfortable with my difference, I started sharing it out. And people started then sharing their differences with me. And that was a gift because I could then form really authentic relationships. I could take risks like I had never done before. I got back to living my life.
That's interesting. My experience is a bit different. When I went to college, I had some really good friends who I did feel comfortable sharing and opening up. And for me, that was the moment where I felt like I had to start dealing with this deeply, who I was and who I wanted to be. And the disability side started to manifest and so I was comfortable becoming very vulnerable with them, sharing the insecurities, sharing the difficulties. And so we bonded. We're still friends. I'm still friends with them today. And I don't know if I'm not sure why I felt so comfortable, but I just did. Maybe it was the right environment, maybe it was the right people, and I got lucky. And if I had gone to 100 other schools, that wouldn't have happened. But there in that place, in time, I did. So I felt accepted and I felt seen and I felt empowered. But definitely doing this podcast and meeting all these people with such incredible stories, such a wide range of different abilities, I do feel even more at home and more comfortable and more open in exploring all of these different life experiences than I have before.
So it's a little bit different, but I can recognise that seeing somebody who is more like you or who's been through a lot of the same things, it's like coming home. I definitely agree with that.
That shared experience is super powerful because you realise you're not on an island by yourself, you have community around you. And to your point of the word you just used, I felt seen for the first time. Right. I felt like this wasn't just things in my head that I told myself there was almost like a reinforced ability to say, yeah, other people have felt like this, too. You're not only alone thinking about it, but that it's okay that you had this experience and now you have a place where you feel like you can belong also. And that gives you confidence and it builds, I think, the greatest human we need, we have. Right. And I think many of us recognise this over covet is this idea of connection to one another and not feeling so isolated and that we have a place that we can belong. So, yeah, I think you were lucky to find it a few steps ahead of me. Right. I hope we all find that because we deserve it. That space where you can talk about your feelings and you can talk about what's hard and what's easy and things that are hard are great in terms of being able to talk about, but what are the opportunities for where you succeed and where you overcome?
Yeah. And I know that the context isn't the best, but at the same time, your internship at the law firm and all of the things that you did to quote, to hide yes. They were psychologically unhealthy. On the flip side of it, your problem solving abilities were exercise to the max. Right. And I would imagine that that has served you really well in your career, in the challenges that you face, in everything you do as a nonprofit leader, as a writer, as a speaker, as a consultant. Like, your problem solving capabilities are through the roof.
Yes. No. And the people I want on my team are those who have a face challenge right. That have to think outside the box and be creative because that's how you move things forward. That's what the idea of innovation is about, right? If we just keep doing the same thing over and over, that's not that interesting. Yeah. How do you actually problem solve? So, yeah, absolutely. I'm always thinking and it can be frustrating for people, I am always thinking two or three steps ahead of it, of the game. And that's definitely wasn't the right fit for being a CEO of a non profit, because you have to for lack of resources, for underpaid staff, et cetera. You always have to be thinking about how do you move something forward? What two to three steps ahead of the time? But I will say the people I appreciated most of my teams were the ones that had that same ability.
It's powerful when you bring people like that together and collaborate.
Yeah. And it's frustrating for others who are like, Why are you so far ahead? And I think that's the piece that in even writing my book, Too, I realised where was I not inclusive? Right? Because there are times where I really appreciated and enjoyed working with the people who were the two to three steps ahead or who could execute the two to three steps ahead plan. The challenge was, how did I not listen to some others? Right? How could I have been more inclusive of the other thoughts? And there is a blind spot in inclusion in terms of if you are the type of person who has had to think two to three steps ahead, you haven't given yourself the grace or you don't have the option to not think two to three steps ahead. You know, too right. When you have to open a door and hold something and do something else, you're constantly figuring it out and nobody else. I mean, I had to figure out I'll never forget my father shares the story with me, too, when I was five years old and most people are learning to tie their shoe. He tried to teach me and I had to literally move him out of the way and say, Let me figure this out.
That started at five and it started when I learned to crawl, too. But, I mean, I had to figure it out. I've always had to figure things out. And I think people who have disabilities have to figure things out to your .2 to three steps ahead?
Yeah, absolutely. Can you tell us a little bit about I know you've spoken at TEDx. It was a great talk. I'd love to dive into that experience and also your up and coming book and what you're working on there. So you wrote a great blog post about the three things that you learned at TEDx. One of the things that you mentioned that struck reverberated with me was the people that you met there. And can you tell me a little bit about what was the behind the scenes experience like and why did you have such a good connection with all the other TEDx speakers and the people surrounding the event?
Yeah, it's an unusual and unique group of people who want to do a TEDx, who want to get on stage, want to bear their soul, because the most interesting TEDx's are the most vulnerable. Right. And they mix right brain and left brain. They mix the statistics, and they mix the personal story. And so that group of people whom I met at TEDx were my people also. Right. It's so interesting when you start to meet your people, whether it's through Lucky Finn project or TEDx, you start to meet people who want to do things too. TEDx people, again, they take a concept and they bring it to its next level in terms of, I've thought about it this way. I want to share it with you so that you can then start to bring your own thinking forward. There were people who talked about the idea. And what was interesting, Gustavo, is if you watch the series of TEDx's that we did as a group, there was a theme that went through all of it, which was this idea of belonging and connection and happiness and joy, because I think we're all striving for that is this space of, how do I feel more connected to people?
How do I feel? Like I belong. And so you get a group of really interesting people together, and I will say you see their process when they're getting on stage and practising ahead of time. One of the tips that I hired a coach, a TEDx coach, to help me build my TEDx, because I'd never done a TEDx before, so I wanted to have what were the tools I needed to be able to do a really good TEDx. And one of the things she taught me was, don't get on that red circle before that day. She's like, because you don't want to lose your momentum and the thrill of actually being on the red circle when you're giving your TEDx the people who do it. And I would say the after party was the best because we could actually relax and enjoy each other. But, I mean, they are people who are some of the most creative, some of the most interesting and deep people that I have met today because they all have a selfless passion for spreading forward ideas to kind of bring the rest of the world along. And it's thinking about things.
Just like we said, you have to think about things two to three steps ahead of time. I really believe that's what TEDx is doing, too. It's thinking about things in not only two to three steps ahead, but in different ways so that your brain can do some exercise. It's a memory muscle. It's a muscle.
I would also imagine that it was engaging and you felt like they were your people. Because in order to do those things and in order to spread those ideas and think them through, you have to be naturally curious. Right. So you're meeting with people who are approaching you from a place of curiosity, from a place of interest, of wanting to get to know you and understand you and to be understood and to understand, so that we're just right there. It's just an opportunity to make those connections.
And I would even add on to that because I think a huge piece of the work, especially around diversity, but also I would add, I think Ted lends itself to this, is understanding yourself first, too, right? Like, understanding where your challenges have been, understanding where your growth has been, understanding like yourself. Because before you can really connect with others, you need to understand those parts about yourself because you can't really connect with anyone if you haven't connected with yourself.
Absolutely, yeah. Self awareness is a big piece.
Big piece. And so that space of them being able to really dive in and wrestle with something, I think that's your piece about curiosity, like wrestling with it. So that does this make sense? How is someone going to hear this? And you only have less than 17 minutes to do it. Right. So there's this time pressure piece, too. And they say the best head exes are under 13 minutes or under twelve. There's definitely under 15. So there's a time pressure with the two to be concise so that people can hear. You cannot zone out, but they can connect with the message. It's a powerful experience. And I think the people I encourage people who want to do it, to do it because just like everybody has a book in them, I think everybody has a TEDx in them. It's just about taking the time to be mindful and curious.
I want to transition and talk about your work as a consultant, especially in the disability equity inclusion space or diversity. But I'm going to say disability, because disability isn't usually talked about. Can you tell us some of what your experience has been there in terms of how are you doing it differently? How is your messaging and your approach being more effective at breaking down some of those boundaries? But also the idea that a lot of corporations seem to be doing the dei training to cheque a box. And it's a moment of posturing and good PR. And how do you know that you're really making an impact on that organisation when you go in there?
Yeah, no, it's a great question, I think, and it's interesting. It started I mean, I had seen myself as a nonprofit leader for the rest of my life. And after that conversation about the leadership in the organisation and not being seen as diverse with a disability, I started to reach out to the corporate partners that I built across the city, just merely because I've been doing fundraising for over 25 years. And in New York City, corporations are where you do the majority of your fundraising. And I started to ask them how they were thinking about diversity, equity and inclusion and who are they including. And I'd been on a number of panels, Gustavo. I'd been on not only on the panels, I'd gone to a number of panels, dei panels, and I didn't see myself represented. And so one of my first calls was to a company that was having their inaugural inclusion week, and my connection said, it's really interesting, Ruth. There's nobody with a physical disability on the panel on the speaking docket. Would you want to come and tell your story? I didn't know I had a story, but I said, sure.
My story is the idea that I hid for 25 years and what does that look like? And from a lens of disability. And what I started to realise is a couple of things. One is you're absolutely right. There are some companies who are just checking a box to say that they've done dei. There's another set of companies who really do want to dig in, but because of some of the recent events, like the death of George Floyd and some of the other gender issues, they've had to focus on those first. And they're important work streams. Race and gender are important and sexual orientation is important. And disability is the largest minority group. And so how do we include those with visible and invisible disabilities in the conversation? And that has been my strategy, is to expand diversity, to be fully inclusive. And so when I talk to companies, I talk about that piece of how even though 90% of companies prioritise, whether it's checking the box or whether it's digging in deep to diversity, only 4% of them include disability. As part of that conversation, only 20% of C suite leaders actually even admit to having a disability.
I think it's only 3% of articles even talk about disability when they talk about diversity. So the way we define diversity contributes to hiding. And so I share with companies, if you're not going to include those with visible and invisible differences in the conversation on diversity, you will never have a full workforce who feels like they belong because they are not part of the conversation. You are leaving them out and so I talk about I share my journey through the lens of someone with a disability who hit it. Because the other piece, Gustavo, is that I feel so many of us are hiding parts of ourselves, right? Whether it's a disability like mine, or whether it's their ethnicity, whether it's their gender, whether it's sexual orientation, whether it's their education, family background. Even now, politics. People are in hiding because they're afraid of how people will judge them. They're afraid of how people will reject them and not include them in things and how they'll feel about them. So what I do is I utilise my hand as the tool to start those conversations. And two things always happen afterwards. I missed the days of in person, but we're getting back there to talking in person and now it happens on LinkedIn.
But two things always happen. One is people come up after and they say, thank you for allowing me to feel included in the diversity conversation. Because I've often felt not only not included, but I'm not doing something right. Your message is not about punishment. Your message is about inclusion and connection. So thank you for that. And the second thing I always hear is thank you for telling your story and being authentic and vulnerable because it allows me to think about where I am. So whether it's the guy who came up to me after a presentation and said, I have a stutter and I'm so afraid somebody at work is going to find out because that's why I don't talk at work, I don't use my voice. Or the woman who came up after and said, thank you for being authentic and saying that you still struggle with thinking about hiding. Because I am on a mental health journey. And she started crying and she said, because I still struggle and there are days that are really hard. I said, there are days that are really hard for so many of us. And yet we all think we're alone on this journey of hiding.
And so that message really is where I start, which is, understand your own differences. Where are you hiding and where is the capacity to unhide? Who are the spaces? Where are the spaces that you can unhide? And I share that story about that manager at that law firm often because I think it's a really good one to illustrate how he didn't know about my hand. It would have been magical thinking if he knew about my I was hiding, he didn't know about my hand. But what he could have asked instead was, hey Ruth, I'm noticing your performance and I'm really concerned. How can I support you? Because that would have been a very different message then. Did you go to kindergarten? Clean it up. And I share it because also as managers, we often focus on performance and we focus on productivity and we forget about people that people come into this space with all sorts of things that we have no idea about. We're not mind readers. So it wasn't only his job to support me, it was my job if he had created that safe space as the employee, to go back and share with him.
Because it's two lanes on the street.
There are so many different ways he could have approached it. The best ways would have invited you to share. Like, hey, I noticed you're clearly an intelligent human being and your work so far has been outstanding. Like what happened here? What am I missing? What invite you to share comfortably to see what's going on and how you can help. Right.
Open the space for it.
Open the space for it.
I may not have in that moment set it because I was so mired. Like when I talk about deep in hiding, I was mired in it. Nobody was going to get through that wall. But if he'd opened the space for it, I might have gone back and said, hey, here's what's going on. I knew it would be a safe place. So I encourage companies, especially around their dei because diversity and equity and inclusion and belonging are not easy things to reveal and talk about. Right. Because A, we're either on the side of where it's being talked about and wow, I don't know if I totally go into I'm totally part of all of that in terms of being one of those people saying, oh, I don't know if I want to belong to this group, I don't know if I want to affiliate with this. That's why we hide, because we don't want the affiliation or I'm on the other side and I'm afraid of asking the wrong thing. Right, so we have how do we build those conversations? Well, it starts with having bringing people in to speak about their differences and showcase and spotlight and then building on those one time things to become workshops and to become ongoing training.
Because 1 hour isn't going to change, really. It plants to seed.
Yeah, there's so much there that's worth talking about. But I wonder if some of these companies could start and the leadership groups could start to think of it in terms of just potential of a human being. You want the people who are working with you to feel like they are fulfilling, exceeding actualizing as much of their potential as they possibly can if they're hiding something like that because they feel uncomfortable. I go back to you in college and high school. You wanted to do drama, you wanted to play sports, you wanted to do all these things that you didn't do because you were hiding. How many opportunities are being missed just from a business standpoint because people are too scared to come out and show themselves for who they are?
Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, not to go back in time, but I was 8th grade, middle school president. I should have been in high school, being the high school president, et cetera. That was my trajectory. It's also why I love going to theatre. It's also I love speaking because now I'm back on stage, that's why I'm there. But I will say too, I think what companies do really well is I think that they're starting to measure different aspects of diversity and starting to include it. I also think they give voice to employee resource and affinity groups that can also start to bring that shared experience together, but also advocate and amplify those messages of difference around every area of diversity. And so I think those places are really important. I also think that they're starting some companies who I think are doing it well are starting to tie it into end of the year performance, right? So that it becomes not just something that HR has to deal with, but that every layer of the organisation is thinking about diversity on different lenses and that they're building an incentives toward it, right? So that if it's part of your performance review, you know you're going to be measured on it.
If we don't measure it, it's kind of not that important. So I think there are some companies who are really starting to get around, get on board, and I also think they're starting to showcase their practises so that others are learning from them, like what's working and what's not. I've definitely felt privileged that I get to work with some amazing companies who do get it and I shout them out whenever I can in terms of when I get to speak there and the work that I'm doing, even building their employee resource groups, especially around disability, because it's kind of the stepchild that doesn't get a lot of attention. And yet disability cuts across all lanes of diversity, right? It doesn't matter how old you are, it doesn't matter what race you are or gender or sexual orientation. It truly is the greatest intersectionality that there is.
And it sounds like you've had the same experience. But for me, I've been open for so long to I want to see people and understand people for who they are. It doesn't matter. The gender is an important part of the story, the disability is, but all of these things are just an important part of the story. I want to get to know the person. And so I think we see that, at least from my experience with the disability community, that we are more open, more collaborative and more willing to get to know people as they are because we feel the need for that so deeply ourselves because of our experiences.
Yeah, I agree with you. I think in most cases that's true. I think, Gustavo, I don't know if you've experienced it, but sometimes there's also a hierarchy in disability community. And I think that's been somewhat striking to me, is not only there's a hierarchy and disability, there's a hierarchy and diversity. And I don't put those words out there lightly, but I have been told I'm not really disabled and I'm like, wow, it's like there's a hierarchy. And so how do we break down? Because I believe it comes from a scarcity mindset of this group, needs deserves more because this is what they're challenged, they're challenged more. There's enough room at the table for all of us. And I absolutely believe if we switch that scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset where we recognise that there are enough resources and there's enough attention, we actually can move mountains together.
Yeah, I agree with you. And the way I try to approach that is maybe you're right, whoever you're saying that to, and maybe you're not, but how is that helpful? How does that help you? How does that help me? How does that help us together to have that comparison list? Like what is it doing, what is it accomplishing? And usually the answer is not very many good things.
No. Right. It continues to silo us. Right. And so that we're not then working together. So, no, we still have a lot of work to do as a society, not just around the image and beauty of disability, but also how we're moving the conversations forward around diversity and connection. I believe in what I try to share my messages. The key to connection and connecting with others is to unhide and to share those parts of yourself that are different because the differences actually bring us together, they don't separate us.
I love that. Can you tell us? I know you've been super generous with your time and I'm so looking forward to having you back. We could probably do this for 3 hours, Tim Ferris, if we wanted to, but can you tell us about your book? When is it coming out? Why did you decide to do it? What is it about?
Yeah. The book is called Single Handedly Learning to Unhide and Embrace Connection. But I'll be able to refer to it often as just single handedly because the truth is it takes my TEDx Talk and it expands it and it's really thinking about the idea, the journey of hiding, the journey of unhiding. And then also that space that we talked about, about feeling excluded in the conversation around diversity. And I decided to do it because I think that right now we are in a place where diversity is such a hot topic and yet disability isn't talked about. It's almost like when you see something, you can't unsee it now. Right? So when I look at articles about diversity and I don't see disability, it's more often than not. And so I decided that this was the right time to share my story out with more people than just the companies where I talk to and the podcast that I do, just so that people who want to read something and see themselves hopefully in part of. My story can. And for those who also want to be allies to people with disabilities, can figure out a path in, so I can make it easy for them.
So the book is coming out at the end of the summer, beginning of the fall, and again, it's this journey from hiding to unhiding. And that, again, so many of us are hiding parts of ourselves. So how do we unhide so that people can see us and that we can really belong?
I can't wait to read it and have you back on the show and talk about it in more detail, and maybe we'll talk offline about it. But I have some ideas. Is there anything, Ruth, that you feel we've missed in this conversation that's important to share?
No. I think you give a platform, which I really appreciate, Gustavo, you give a platform to amplifying the conversation around ability, right. Disability and ability, and that space of how are we seen and how do we show up? Not just how are we seen, but how are we showing up? And so I think that it requires us to be vulnerable. It requires us to get in touch with ourselves so that we can connect with others. I'm grateful for the platform you provided me, and I hope that whoever is listening, wherever they are on their continuum of hiding and unhiding, that they find out that they're not alone. There's a lot of us out there.
That's beautifully said. How can people connect with you, Ruth? Work with you, get to know more about you?
Yeah. The best place is to go to my website, and that's ruthrathblock.com or to find me on LinkedIn, because that's probably where I spend the most time. I'm on Instagram, too. I think I probably do LinkedIn, the better Instagram, but definitely my website if you want to work with me. Because I do not just speaking. I do consulting with companies and I do private coaching with individuals who are on that journey of unhiding, especially as executives who want to build teams and want to foster that inclusive work environment.
Fantastic. I think you are an amazing human being. I'm so happy we connected, and thank you so much for the time.
No, I'm so grateful for you, Gustavo, and I'm so glad that we're connected. And I look forward to many more conversations someday. We'll and I have my own podcast. I'll have you as a guest.
That would be fantastic. I would love that.
One step at a time, right? The tiny steps to the big actions.
Absolutely.
Thank you.
Thank you. Bye.