Women with disabilities often want to find a way to make money that doesn’t require clocking in, that avoids the question of disclosure completely, and where the potential for income is limitless. They want to be entrepreneurs. And there’s a savvy website that can help them get there.
Disability Employment and Starting Your Own Business
Ladies Who Launch offers support and encouragement to women of all abilities for gaining success in their business and personal lives. Creativity and intuition are encouraged as a feminine approach to marketing that nurtures joy as well as success. Joy, at work?
Absolutely, say founders Victoria Colligan and Beth Schoenfeldt, who encourage a freewheeling and holistic approach to entrepreneurial planning. The bottom line is not forgotten, but passion and gut feeling play an important role in their business model.
The Ladies Who Launch site offers plenty of free information and tips, but the clever duo has built their own marketing machine with a companion book and four-week incubator workshops across the country.
For $350, you can attend four meetings led by a successful woman who will lead you in remodeling your career or a relationship. The emphasis is not on the How, but centers around the What. This is the place to go for help if you know you need a change, but have no idea what direction to head in next. Or try the Ladies Who Launch book for a more modest outlay.
Amputee and Successful Businesswoman Aimee Mullins
A bevy of successful women are connected with Ladies Who Launch. One is athlete, model and actress Aimee Mullins, a bilateral below-the-knee amputee who says, “Beauty is when people radiate that they like themselves.”
Aimee Mullins was the first woman with a disability to compete in the NCAA while at Georgetown University, setting world records in the 100 yard dash, the 200 yard dash and the long jump. After making a splash on the runway that led to exposure in an array of high-fashion magazines, she began a film career. Aimee isn’t shy about stating her beliefs regarding her disability.
She rejects the notion of the “overcoming tragedy” story for people with disabilities, because it fosters an “us” and “them” mentality. Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder are known as musicians first, not as people with disabilities, she notes. Everyone has their problems, even people who look like they’ve got it easy. Aimee says that by refusing the disability-as-tragedy status, she shifts the paradigm and is seen as powerful and strong, rather than inspiring pity.
Self accountability is paramount in Aimee’s business – and life – ethic. She talks about Abraham Lincoln, who lost 19 elections. “It’s all about stamina and not giving up,” Aimee says. “When people fail, it’s because they gave up.”
In Aimee's view, her prosthetics are “fantastical,” the objects that freed her instead of what makes her different. She credits her artificial legs for allowing her to walk down a runway and compete on the track.
Working Women Increasingly Own Businesses
Businesses owned by women represent about 28 percent of total businesses in the US, or about a quarter of a million start-ups each year – 55 percent of new start-ups – according to numbers from the US Small Business Administration. And the number of sole proprietorships operated by women has shown dramatic increases.
Bucking conventional wisdom that says to draw up a purely financial plan at the outset of launching a business, Ladies Who Launch suggests incorporating daydreams, freeing creative urges, and socializing to “design your life.” Women are asked to examine patterns in their lives, such as unhealthy relationships with money or workaholic tendencies, clearing up these issues in order to progress on a business front.
If you want to network with hundreds of kindred souls, if you’re weary of conventional business models, then take a look at Ladies Who Launch. It may be your ticket to a rewarding future.
