The Beginning Is No Place to Stop

By Javier Robles

Let me begin by thanking John, Gail, and the rest of the Employme! Staff for the privilege to speak to you today. As I have told John Sobecky numerous times in the past, this is a program that I truly believe can make a difference in the lives of people with disabilities. We are in a New Age and without the tools and preparation for the future we can become stagnant and fall deeper into an abyss of unemployment and poverty.

Did you know there about 1.5 million people with disabilities in New Jersey? Did you know that only a third or less of these individuals work? Nationally there is between a 65% and 70% unemployment rate among people with disabilities. This is a national tragedy! It is unacceptable! More to the point it is you’re reality.

Right about now the hecklers in the audience are thinking I thought this was supposed to be an uplifting speech? I thought for sure that Employme! would choose someone who would motivate us to get to the next level?

The truth is that nothing can prepare you for failure quicker than for me to sit up here and lie about the current state of people with disabilities in this country. The reality for many people with disabilities is bleak in fact most of us live in poverty, one day to the next. We do a disservice when we allow others to believe that everything is going to be OK. That the financial future of this nation is tied to them eventually overcoming poverty, finding a great job, and living the “American Dream”. Statistics overwhelmingly quash that elusive dream and replace it with the reality to hard to fathom for most people. I don't believe that your average American could give up their day job and become a person with a disability. Live a life of uncertainty and realize that there is a high possibility that they will never work, never leave the roles of poverty, and live one moment the next wondering if they will be able to afford their medications? These realities many of you already know. You've experienced them. You understand them. They do not go away. But you can learn to deal with them differently.

With that said let me begin.

Being here today reminds me that anyone with a dream and the ability to never take no for an answer can move ahead. 24 years ago on a brisk night in April, my body lied on the cool ground of branch Brook Park only 4 miles from here. After the branch snapped on a tree I was climbing I became a C5 quadriplegic. I thought for sure I would die there. I couldn't move my arms my legs, I tried getting out over and over again I couldn't. I thought about everything I had done to that point. I asked God for forgiveness and I promise that if only I could get up I would do better. I would be better at school. I would be a better son, brother, and friend.

I awakened a week later in University hospital from a coma. I cannot remember much after the fall. But my parents and sister who found me said I was talking to them. I don't remember. After several months of rehab at Kessler Institute I was ready to go home. In those seven months, I found people who believed that one day I would walk, some believed, that with physical therapy I could regain some movement an strength. I also found people, including medical professionals, who said, you will never have children. You may never marry and you may be collecting Social Security for longtime.

That is a lot to take in for a 16-year-old. However, there are still people who do not believe in the ability of individuals to overcome almost anything. I'm not saying that every individual the disability can work or should work! I'm not saying that we will get rid of negative stereotypes. What I am saying is that every individual should be afforded the opportunity to use their skills to their utmost potential. No one person has a right to place limitations on the abilities of others or the abilities of science. Some of the things I was told were true. I'm still in a wheelchair, however, 20 years ago no scientists in their right mind would have said that stem cells will one day cure disease. Maybe even allow individuals to walk. Most things that I was told are not true. I work or full-time job and drive myself to work every day 100 miles round-trip. I met a beautiful woman in college and have been with her ever since (and we never had a fight!). We have two beautiful children one who is here today. Maya my daughter is here today as well as my wife Amy.

Never make the mistake of allowing others to set your goals. You achieve your goals because you set them! Because you believe in them! It is something no one can take from you. No matter how poor you become a no matter your disability. You own them.

We are in a new world. We face the kind of obstacles that people with disabilities 30 years ago did not face. Were in a fight with technology and technology is winning. More and more jobs are being exported to other countries and we are missing out. People with disabilities must adapt to a new and different world. There are some advantages to technology. For example a lot of today's technology can be manipulated by people with disabilities, with or without accommodations. We can learn and master technology without the limitations that old jobs placed on us. I wrote this speech using voice dictation software. Very impressive? It would be if you've ever seen me using my hunt and peck with a pencil eraser. I am truly the slowest Quad on the planet. How do I know that? I did an experiment 2 years ago. There was a roach moving across my desk at work every My pencil eraser on the keys, I said to myself, I'd bet I could type the word cockroach before the cockroach made it all the way across my desk. The cockroach was on the wall before I was halfway done. A true scientific; experiment which one can only perform in downtown Trenton.

Remember who you are and you will never have a problem knowing where you’re headed. Remember where you come from and you will never have a problem knowing who you are.

Before my accident I had grown up in some tough parts of this very city. The Dayton Street projects were I grew up taught me that regardless of statistics one can achieve one's goals. Replaced by low-rise housing today Dayton Street projects were one of the cities worse places to live in. It is where my cousin died of AIDS from sharing needles with a drug addict's. It is where my brother, sisters and I feared walking to school-because we had been assaulted before. It is were a cop shot a guardian angel who was on a roof trying to help. It is also, where I joined Boy Scouts and went off to summer camp to meet people of other races and places. It is where I to kung fu classes from an instructor getting paid $10 a week to train 20 kids to be tough. Dayton Street was a hard place that prepared me for hard life. Living there are also taught me one thing I will never forget, if you think your victim, then your victim! Many individuals since then, people I knew, fell to the victim mentality.

Viewing yourself as a victim, as someone who cannot control their future their goals and their objectives makes you a victim. If you think that way, make it your business from this day forward not to. It is the biggest obstacle to success I know of!

Everything you have learned in life prepares you for your career. I don't think I would've been able to handle my first job out of college as well as I did without having lived my life. My first job consisted of ex inmates in drug users who had become counselors and directors to a program for young offenders. My first staff meeting and every meeting thereafter consisted of people basically cursing and using expletives for a good two hours. And every meeting and thereafter is pretty much the same. When they left the meeting they shook hands and they didn't bring the issues up again, there were closed, done. I often think back about that job in the fact that was comfortable there. I appreciated the candor of these men who knew how to communicate differently in some cases better than many Fortune 500 companies meetings. I am of course not suggesting that your next Roundtable consists of words that would make Howard Stern blush. But only telling you that your experience is who you are. Sometimes in order to do your job you have to adapt. And sometimes you make the job adapt to you. It still gets done.

There is another way to look at statistics. The fact that you were here graduating today tells me that you already know the other way to look at statistics. They are numbers. You have learned to overcome numbers. You see your future and you evolve into the person that's going to get you there. If, we start one person at a time at we can make a difference in the numbers that seem invincible. Today we start with you. One person at a time. One person who gets a job. One person who contributes to society. One person who becomes a role model to other people with disabilities. One person who believes that one person can make a difference! Statistics, challenge us to be tougher, stronger, and wiser than many people without disabilities.

Businesses look at the bottom line not on a daily basis but an hour to our basis, just look at the stock market. Businesses would do well to employ people with disabilities. People with disabilities are challenged every day to come up with new ways to make their lives better. How do they do this? Many, have figured out how to survive month-to-month on a Social Security check that barely covers two weeks worth of groceries. On top of that many have to pay for clothing, electricity, gas, and transportation just to name a few things. On top of this many of these individuals go to school, volunteer, or study for trade. How in the world do they do it? These are the kind of employees businesses should be looking for. Imagine the bottom line at your business when you put a survivor to work as opposed to someone would just need to job. People with disabilities as employees make sense for many reasons.

Living in poverty and adapting to that life makes people stronger. The kind of people businesses should be looking for. I have never believed there was something I could not do. You must never believe there is something you cannot do. You were here today because you are strong. Your here today because to you statistics don't matter! Your here today because in this vast universe is where you should be.

So what about the future?

Two of my favorite quotes are about moving forward and preparation.

I'm a slow walker, but I never walk back.
Abraham Lincoln

If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six hours sharpening my ax.
Abraham Lincoln

I have been fortunate enough to higher people with disabilities in numerous jobs upheld including the present one. I say fortunate enough because not many employers get the chance to see what I have seen.

I have seen people like myself become part of the working world. Many times it was their first time in employment situation. During the interview when both candidates were equally qualified the decision was difficult. Sometimes, the individual with the disability would get the job and sometimes they wouldn't. What made the difference lots of times was individuals’ ability to show that they not only had experience but, had goals.

To me showing that you can think to the next level in the next step and the following year, tells me you have goals. Experience is important but it is not everything. Managers such as myself and employers sometimes view of résumé as something that should fit neatly into a job description. It is your job for the future to make the people that are interviewing think differently about your ability to get the job done.

You are here graduating because you can get the job done! You are here because the staff of this program, the advisory board, and the Kessler Foundation; believe that you can make a difference.

HERE IS MY TOP 10 LIST OF HOW TO GET ON TOP AND STAY ON TOP

1. Prepare - Preparation is what's going to get to into the winner's circle. Prepare for the interview. Prepare for the job. Prepare for the future.
2. Always Be 0n Time - Respect other people's time and the fact that many of them have taken their own time to see you. Time to many professionals is truly money. If your conscience of their time it could cost you money.
3. Be Professional - Aren't you just born in professional? No. You become a professional my adapting to your business environment, whatever that environment is.
4. Love what You Do - As long as the love what you do even if you don't get paid great deal of money you will always be happy. Many individuals do not like what they do are frustrated in their current jobs, they are frustrated with employers, and they feel like they're in a prison without walls.
5. Network - Every time you meet someone that is an opportunity. Networking is the way business does business.
6. Find a Mentor - No this is not just things people do in the movies. Mentors can really assist in supporting you especially those first few years.
7. It is not a Job It Is a Career! - Whether you're they're for a week or 10 years always think of it is a career.
8. You are Responsible for Your Consequences - Good bad or indifferent many times it is a person in the mirror responsible.
9. Have High Expectations of Yourself But Expect Others to Do Their Job - Many individuals with disabilities are motivated. However, the system has soured them on seeking help. They are afraid to have high expectations of others. Expect quality work from individuals whose job it is to assist you be as independent as possible.
10. Never stop learning - Learning is that one thing in the toolbox of life that you never put away. Part of learning is never been afraid to ask questions. It also means, never being afraid to question when something is wrong, unfair, or discriminatory.