Four years ago this week, I lost my dad.

That sentence still carries weight. Not because time hasn’t passed—but because grief doesn’t move on a tidy schedule. It reshapes you. It settles into quiet corners of your life. And during the holidays, it often rises to the surface again.

As a son, I feel that deeply.
As a coach, speaker, and author serving families impacted by disability, educators, and nonprofit leaders, I also see that truth up close.

Most people believe they understand hard work.
But there’s a kind of work that rarely gets named or noticed—
a kind of work adults with disabilities carry every day just to move through a world not built with them in mind.

This unseen effort has a name:

Invisible Labor.

Halloween brings out the ghosts, goblins, and ghouls — but let’s be honest: the scariest monsters aren’t the ones knocking at our doors.
They’re the ones whispering inside our minds:

“What if I fail?”
“What if I’m not good enough?”
“What if people see who I really am?”

When I talk with neurodiverse individuals, families, and programs, the word “goals” often triggers tension.
Goals sound rigid. Goals feel like pressure. Goals get broken.

But what if goals became a compass—one that adapts to you, rather than forcing you to adapt to it?

That’s the heart of the approach I use in my coaching and trainings: combining the clarity of SMART goals with a neurodiversity‑affirming framework that respects each person’s unique path.

For much of my life, cerebral palsy felt like the elephant in the room. I tried to ignore it, hoping that if I didn’t acknowledge it, it couldn’t hold me back.

But ignoring CP made me less authentic. It left me afraid that maybe “they” were right—maybe there really were things I couldn’t or shouldn’t do.

Pull Quote: “CP doesn’t define me. It never has, and it never will.”

The truth is this: I own it. It doesn’t own me.

Batman didn’t have superpowers—he used what he had. The same principle can transform how we serve individuals with disabilities and lead our organizations.

“Grief doesn’t ask for permission. It shows up, uninvited, and turns everything upside down. But what you do next—that’s where your power begins.”

As someone who lives with cerebral palsy and who lost my father unexpectedly in 2021, I’ve learned something I wish I didn’t have to: grief is both a wrecking ball and a teacher. It breaks things wide open, but if you’re willing to sit with it—really sit with it—it also makes room for deeper questions, unexpected wisdom, and a more purposeful path forward.

It may sound like wishful thinking, but I’m here to tell you from lived experience: your greatest challenges do not have to keep you from where you want to go—or who you are meant to become.
In fact, those very challenges may be the key to the message you’re here to share.

What happens when the dream in front of you feels out of reach?

If you work in disability services, education, or nonprofit programming, you’ve likely witnessed the heartbreak of untapped potential—times when a person’s worth or capability is dismissed, not just by others, but by themselves.

But you’ve also seen the opposite: the spark that ignites when someone breaks through their fear, challenges what’s “expected,” and discovers what they’re truly capable of.

This blog is an invitation—to shift your lens. To see limitations not as stop signs, but as starting lines. Not as weaknesses, but as opportunities for creativity, compassion, and connection.

🚧 What If the Limitation Isn’t the Problem?

Here’s a truth that might surprise you:

Limitations are rarely the problem.
How we respond to them is.

I’ve lived with cerebral palsy all my life. I’ve heard the assumptions, felt the weight of expectations—or lack thereof. I’ve seen how quickly the world can focus on what we can’t do, instead of exploring what’s possible.

Eventually, those external messages can take root. We internalize them. We stop trying. We shrink our dreams to fit someone else’s imagination.

But here’s the thing: Belief changes the equation. And belief is something we can choose—and model.

What if one of the first lessons you ever learned was actually misleading?

From a young age, most of us are taught to say, “I’m sorry.” It’s an important phrase—necessary for empathy, growth, and healthy relationships. But sometimes, we learn it too well.

Lately, thanks to my daughter’s growing curiosity, I’ve been revisiting some of the Disney classics.

I’ll be honest—I didn’t expect Dumbo to stop me in my tracks. But there we were, at the end of a long Sunday, winding down with a movie when I heard it:

“The very things that held you down are going to lift you up, up, up.”

That line—spoken by Dumbo’s sidekick, Timothy Q. Mouse—hit me square in the chest.

It’s still echoing days later.

Over the past few months, four themes have emerged again and again in my work and in my personal life:

Resilience in the face of disability and disappointment

Reframing setbacks as new doors, not dead ends

Mutual support and interdependence within families and teams

Turning fear and grief into purposeful action

 
If you're working to support a family member, coach a team, or lead yourself through loss or limitation, this post is for you. Let's explore how resilience, reframing, and community can shape a path forward—even when the world seems to be saying you can’t.

Push, don’t punish.

It’s a simple phrase, but it could change the way we work, live, and lead.

Whether you’re a professional navigating burnout, a student juggling expectations, or someone living with a disability like I am, this truth applies: The only way to grow is to stretch yourself—but growth doesn’t require self-punishment.

Becoming a Father Changes Everything

When you’re single, life comes with one set of responsibilities. Add a relationship, and the layers grow. Add children? That’s a whole new level.

I first wrote about the emotions tied to these life phases in my book, I'MPOSSIBLE: Life Lessons on Thriving with a Disability, when I was three years into marriage and still child-free.

Now, I’m a father to a beautiful daughter. She has transformed my understanding of purpose, love, and vulnerability.

I love her so deeply, I feel like my heart could burst.

And like most parents, I want the absolute best for her—not just in terms of safety or success, but freedom. I want her to feel fully alive and inspired to pursue whatever lights her soul on fire.

But that desire brings up a familiar set of questions.

Like many kids, I dreamed of making the middle school basketball team. I lived and breathed the sport—SportsCenter in the mornings, sports biographies after school, and long-range three-pointers in my driveway. Cerebral palsy limited my use of the left side of my body, but I believed I could become the best right-sided player around.

Reality had other plans. My name wasn’t on the roster after tryouts. I was crushed.

But instead of giving up, I pivoted. A mentor’s advice stuck with me: "It’s okay to get down—you just can’t stay there."