Episode 310: Shaun Pianta of atWork Australia
In this episode, Fiona chats with Shaun Pianta, an ambassador for atWork Australia, who shares his inspiring journey as a person living with a disability, discussing the challenges and opportunities it has brought. He also highlights the importance of inclusive workplaces and shares valuable insights on employment statistics for individuals with disabilities. Tune in!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
Shaun's unexpected journey and life changes
Shaun's holiday in Bali
The impact of Shaun's vision impairment on his daily life, including driving
Shaun's training for the Paralympics and his journey as a Paralympian
The challenges faced during recovery and rebuilding confidence
Shaun's relationship with his family and their support throughout his journey
Shaun's transition to work and his role as an ambassador for atWork Australia
Shaun's advocacy for disability employment and promoting the benefits of employing people with disabilities
atWork Australia helps people find employment and supports small business owners with diversity and inclusion
Time management is key in juggling work, study, and personal life
Other disability advocates and organizations
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
@ShaunPianta - Instagram
Instagram – Carly Findlay
Shaun Pianta – LinkedIn
“People might not be aware of the number of people in Australia who live with a disability or a health concern that could impact their ability to work. There's actually 1 in 5 Australians live with some form of disability, and 90% of disability is actually invisible. That's really important to highlight. I have an invisible disability. Sometimes, it can even be more challenging to have an invisible disability because people aren't aware of the barriers that you're trying to overcome.”
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Welcome to episode 310 of the My Daily Business Podcast. This is an interview episode and this is a little different because the person we're hearing from doesn't actually run a small business, but they have such important work to share. When they pitched, it was a no-brainer from us, “We'd love you to come onto the podcast.”
Before I get stuck into that, I want to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians on the land on which I meet these people and record this podcast, and that is the Woiwurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, and I pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.
The other thing I wanted to mention is that we do have a shop full of templates and courses and all sorts of things, and we regularly get asked a bunch of questions about this podcast and about just all sorts of things from the systems to what software we use, which microphone I use. All of that is included in our How to Start a Podcast course. If you're interested in how to start a podcast, then check that out and you can check that plus everything else over at MyDailyBusiness.com/Shop. Let's get into this interview episode.
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If you have read this podcast for some time, we regularly get pitched for all sorts of people from all over the world, which is really lovely and so nice. Yricka, my assistant, reads through all of those and where she thinks it is relevant, she will share that and I will read through it and we'll have a chat. This particular person contacted us. She had read it and then sent it to me, or maybe I had somehow been checking her inbox for something and I saw it. Either way, we both agreed. Yes, we definitely want this person on. Who is it?
Our guest is Shaun Pianta. He emailed us saying that he listens to podcasts and that he thinks he'd be a good fit, not because he's a small business owner, but because Shaun has lived experience and is somebody living with a disability. He also works for atWork Australia and is an advocate and an ambassador for atWork Australia to look at how can workplaces, and businesses be more inclusive to people living with a disability.
In this episode, we talk about Shaun’s own disability and how that came to be and how he has changed his life according to that, but also what incredible things have come as a result of becoming a person living with a disability. His particular disability is not something he was born with. It's something that came later in life.
I understand also that there'll be people reading who have had a disability since they were born. This is just one story amongst many, many about people living with a disability, but it's an important one. Also, some of the statistics that Shaun shares around things like what employment is like, what getting a job is like when you are a person living with a disability, and how prevalent this is in society.
We also talk about how Shaun manages everything because he is studying, and working, and he is also about to become a dad for the second time. By the time this airs, he will have become a dad to another child, and for anyone who is a parent who is also trying to study, work, or do everything else, it's a juggle. It is a juggle no matter who you are or what resources you have available to you.
We also talk about the power of mindset and attitude in all of life's challenges or all of life's unexpected turns. What an incredible life Shaun is building. Not perhaps in the direction that he had originally thought his life was going to go, but in a new and different one, which is ultimately looking amazing for him. Here it is, my interview with the wonderful Shaun Pianta, Ambassador for atWork Australia.
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Hello, Shaun, welcome to the podcast. How are you feeling about life?
Hey, Fiona, thanks so much for having me on. Life's good at the moment, feeling good, and excited. A busy time of my life, actually. Working, and studying, have a young family, and another baby on the way, so a lot's happening for me.
Congratulations. Thank you for taking the time. I understand how full on that is, even if you just had a job and a young family, but you're also studying. You are well-known as a Paralympian and a disability advocate, but this obviously wasn't where you expected necessarily for your life to take you. Can you tell everyone reading a little bit about yourself and your life to date and the journey that has brought you to coming onto this podcast to talk about what you're about to talk about?
Most definitely, I did not think that my life was going to take the journey it's had and that I was going to end up in the position I am now. I started my working career as an apprentice boiler maker in the small town of Collie where I grew up in Western Australia. I enjoyed working in my trade and it's what I envisioned myself doing for the rest of my working life, but as you know, sometimes life has different plans for you.
When I was 19, I went on a holiday to Bali with a group of my friends. While I was over there, having an amazing time, as you can imagine, a bunch of young guys wouldn't. Five days into the trip, I woke up one morning not quite feeling myself. I was a bit off. My friend said I was acting a bit weird, I wasn't myself. I organized for us all to go white water rafting this day and we had to meet down the lobby, jump on the bus, and head out to the river.
Halfway out to the river where we're going to do the rafting, I turned to my friends and said, “What are we doing? Where are we going?” They're like, “What do you mean? You've organized this rafting trip.” I'm like, “That's right.” Ten minutes later or so, I'd ask the same questions. Being a bunch of young guys, we all start laughing and not taking the situation too seriously.
By the time we got off the bus, one of my friends come over to me, he found me sitting on a stool and he said, “Are you okay? Is everything all right?” I said, “I'm fine. Can you pass me a bottle of water?” My friend got a bottle of water. He put it down between my feet. I sat there for a while and I said to him again, “Are you going to pass me that bottle?” He goes, “It's right there.” I leaned over and I started patting the ground between my feet.
He said to me, “Can you seriously not see that bottle of water?” I said, “Nope. Where is it?” That's when we started to realize that my vision was starting to deteriorate. Unfortunately, at this time in this story, we had no other option but to continue with the rafting trip. We couldn't turn back. The quickest way to get to the hospital was to continue on.
We continued on with a rafting trip and I was trying to walk down the hill and I kept tripping over. I couldn't hold myself up. I ended up getting in the raft and soon into the trip, I started getting bounced around and never had the strength to hold myself up. Eventually, I was laid down in the middle of the raft, and by the time we got to the end of the rafting trip, I was a hundred percent blind. I didn't have the strength to walk. It was a horrible, horrible time.
Did your friends understand at that point? Were they like, “Okay, something's seriously going on here now.”
They started to realize once I couldn't find that bottle of water that something serious was going on. Once I couldn't paddle, I was losing my strength. When I say I couldn't walk, I could not lift my body. They knew something was seriously wrong then, so they had to carry me up to the top of the hill when I was begging them to take me back to the hotel. I didn't want to go to the hospital, but luckily, they didn't listen and they took me off to the Australian MC Hospital in Bali.
What did they find?
The doctors there started doing the test, and originally, the doctors in Australia told me that they gave me a false diagnosis. The doctors there told my friends I had a bleed in the brain and a fractured vertebra, and that I need to be emergency evacuated back to Australia. My friends got on and made all the right arrangements, and the following day I was emergency evacuated back to Perth.
The doctors in Perth said, “They've given you a false diagnosis. There's no bleeding in the brain or fractured vertebra. We think they've given you that diagnosis to speed up the evacuation process. You have complete kidney failure. You need to start dialysis immediately. We can't explain to you why you can't see or if your vision's ever going to return.” They said that at the time, the treatment that I needed, I couldn't get that in Bali. I needed to be back in Australia. The doctors in Australia said that they made a good call by giving me that diagnosis. To get me out of the country and get me back home quicker.
I remember laying in the hospital bed when I got back to Perth and one of the doctors, she stood at the end of my bed and said, “Shaun, can you tell me how many fingers I'm holding up?” At this point, I'm like, “Not a problem. Turn the lights on and I'll tell you.” She told me, “Sorry mate, the light's already on.” That's when it all snapped into reality for me. I realized how bad my situation was and it was like, “I'm really in a lot of trouble here.”
How did you feel at 19? I went to Bali the first time at 18 and it's like, “Yeah, Bali.” All the things, and then to come back like that. Did you think this is going to be sorted out in a couple of weeks?
I was always a very positive person. The doctors could never tell me if my vision would come back. It might or might not. I was a positive person. I'd be like, “A couple of weeks, maybe a month tops, I'll be back living my life as normal.” That was my mindset. As the months went past and my vision never fully returned, and after about twelve months, I'd only regained about 10% of my eyesight.
It was around that point that I said, “It's time to accept that this is how it's going to be for the rest of my life.” At that point, I'd learned how to live with my vision impairment over those twelve months. I said to myself, “I can do this. I'm going to try and not let my vision impairment dictate what I can and can't do for the rest of my life.”
I've got so many questions. Even driving, especially being a boiler maker, my father-in-law was a boiler maker his whole life. You've got to drive to work, you've got to be able to see to do your work and everything else. Can you drive now?
Nope, I do not drive anymore. I couldn't return to my trade, which is really disappointing. The biggest impact and the hardest thing is not being able to drive. When you're 19, and I've had my license probably not even two years yet, it takes away your independence. That's the only thing I really miss.
Obviously, you've got a very good baseline of positivity and like forward thinking. You were like, “Okay, I've figured out how to live with this. I'm not going to let this define me and I'm going to get on with my life,” which is incredible. A lot of people may not have had that, but I'm wondering, how did you go from that to then training for the Paralympics and becoming a motivational speaker and doing all the things you do?
It was quite funny. I never actually intended to get involved with Parasports. I was just over in Melbourne with my brother for a weekend to see a concert, and we were walking through the streets and we saw a store in the middle of the street run by an organization called Disabled Winter Sports Australia. I'd been snowboarding before and I loved it. It was a good hobby. My brother spotted this store and was like, “You got a disability, let's take you over and have a look.”
We went over and took a pamphlet, put my name down, and applied to go to a talent ID camp. The following year, I went to a talent ID camp, one thing led to another, I got invited to a training camp with the Australian Paralympic squad, and the next thing I know, I'm getting invited to go overseas and start competing. It all happened quickly and it was quite surreal.
I did some research before this and I was checking out some of your great YouTube videos and one of them was talking about another big health challenge that happened to you while you were training, I believe. Your legs?
Yeah, this is my first time away with the Paralympic team over in Austria. I'd gone over about four weeks before my first race to get some training in, and at this point, we were probably about five days out from my first-ever race. I was excited. I was on top of the world. I was on the other side of the world training and having a really good time.
We were out training this particular day for a speed event. I remember it so clearly. I was skiing down, following my guide, and the next thing I know, I'm somersaulting head over heels tumbling down the mountain. I remember feeling and thinking that my leg was starting to twist. I felt my left leg just snap. I thought to myself, “My leg has just broken.” As I kept on tumbling, I felt my right leg do exactly the same thing, and I just felt it snap as well. By the time I stopped tumbling, I looked at my legs and they were both pointing sideways. It was quite horrific.
I’m imagining they airlifted you out of whatever mountain that you were on.
Yeah. It was 45 minutes before the helicopter arrived and gave me some pain relief. When the helicopter arrived, they landed just next to me on the side of the mountain. They come over and tried to straighten up my legs a bit, but luckily, they gave me some pain relief first. They then took me off to the hospital. They flew me in there where I had to have surgery that night. I spent another ten nights in the hospital there before I have to come home again.
There's so much I want to ask. How did you get back into training? I'm imagining that it takes a long time for two broken legs to heal.
It was long. They weren't a clean break either. My left leg was a spiral fracture, so I had about five breaks in that one leg. The other leg had about three breaks. It was a lengthy process. It was 7.5 months before I started skiing again. I spent the first three months in a wheelchair, a very slow process of trying to rebuild my strength in the gym before I could return to snow and before I finally got that approval from the doctors that I could go back to skiing.
Essentially, it was like starting again with skiing. The biggest part about returning to skiing was to try and rebuild my confidence. Once you've still got all those memories in your head of the accident, the pain you felt, it’s really hard to overcome that. I had to do a lot of work with sports psychologists to try and remove some of my fear of getting hurt again, which helped. To be honest, I don't think I truly ever overcome that accident. It always had an impact on my skiing for the rest of my time with the team. It's hard to try and forget about that.
I can only imagine. In all of this time, are you close to your parents? Because I'm like, “You're poor parents.”
I'm close to all my family. When I used to travel away, I was bad about calling home to check in and see what was going on. I know after I broke my legs, I didn't call my mom till the next day after surgery. I remember calling her and she picked up the phone. The first thing she said was, “What have you done?” I didn't say anything for a while and had a casual conversation about what's been going on. What I've been up to over there. At the end of the phone call, I said, “By the way, I've broken both my legs and I'll be coming home in a few days.”
That's a long time between the stuff in Bali, twelve months of recovering, then getting into the Paralympic team, and then training, and then the legs, and then another recovery. Were you working? How did you then start working and doing other things in your life outside of sports as well?
The whole time while I was skiing, I wasn't working because I lived in WA. I spent a lot of my time in Victoria training. I spent a lot of time overseas, so it was hard to be able to hold down a job. I dedicated that time of my life to focus on skiing. I thought, I'm only going to do this once, let's give it everything I've got. After the 2018 Paralympics, I decided to step away from the sport. My body was sore and I wanted to spend more time at home. I was looking for that next stage of life.
I was always quite a confident and positive person, but this is where I started to doubt myself. How was I going to better find a job with my disability? That's when I reached out to atWork Australia, a disability employment service provider. I asked them for support to find employment. Eventually, they actually offered me a job to be their ambassador. I was very fortunate to be given a position with them.
In my role as their ambassador over the past few years, I've been fortunate enough to be able to go around the country speaking at different events, speaking with employers at the community organization, sharing my story, and promoting the organization and how we can support people with disabilities to be able to find employment. Also, talking to employers about some of the benefits of employing people with disabilities.
This is exactly why you're here to talk about this, but it's important to have that context. I have so many other questions as well.
Feel free to ask.
A few years back, I did some consulting with a great group here in Victoria called Arts Access Victoria. It's looking at everything from the theatre, having theatre shows where there is a Sensory room offsite, where there are lights on for certain children or people with all sorts of things. A lot of people have sensory overload, especially at a theatre with the carpet, the lights, and everything. I did some workshops with them. They ran through a workshop with me and the other people that were doing it.
It looked at a series of statistics about people living with a disability. I had no idea about these statistics such as the unemployment rate is twice for those people with a disability versus people who don't have one across OECD countries. Employment for living with a disability sits at only around 40%. You're working with atWork Australia, particularly people without a disability or people who have never had anyone in their family or their life that has a disability or don't come into contact with people that are living with a disability very often. Do you think there's stuff that they're just not aware of? Like I wasn't aware that the unemployment rate was so high.
If you've never been touched by a disability, then you may not be aware of some of the statistics and people might not be aware of the number of people in Australia do live with a disability or a health concern that could impact their ability to work. Some of the stats are like, there's actually 1 in 5 Australians living with some form of disability. 90% of disability is actually invisible. That's really important to highlight. I have an invisible disability and sometimes it can even be more challenging to have an invisible disability because people aren't aware of the barriers that you're trying to overcome.
While we're speaking about invisible disabilities, one of the latest national studies by the Australian Bureau of Statistics indicated that there are 8.6 million people in Australia living with a mental health condition. With the state of the Australian economy at the moment and the higher cost of living, you can only imagine these numbers are likely to increase over the coming months and years.
Completely. One in five, especially if you aren't around this, you don't know people personally, or you're not following people, you're not trying to educate yourself as well. You can just go about your business and not realize.
With this 1 in 5 people having a disability and 90% invisible, I'd nearly guarantee that everybody would be connected to someone that is overcoming a barrier but is probably not aware of what barriers that person's trying to overcome.
That's the thing, isn't it? We never know what's going on with other people. Invisible disability, you have no idea. You are an ambassador for atWork Australia, and we've talked about that a little bit, but what is atWork Australia? You mentioned helping people find employment, they helped you. How might this company actually help small business owners? We have a lot of small business owners that read this and want to do more to increase diversity and inclusion in their workplace.
As part of my role as the Ambassador with At Work Australia, we engage with a lot of employers promoting atWork Australia. We can support them with their diversity and inclusion needs. atWork Australia can offer a range of government-funded subsidies to support the onboarding of a person with a disability. If a small business is looking to recruit, we can also help provide pre-screen candidates to help with their recruitment process.
If a candidate of ours is placed in their workplace, we can then provide on-the-job support. We provide ongoing support to ensure that the employee is a good match for your business and ensure that our client is also thriving within the workplace. We can also provide advice on funding and other supports that are available. If workplace modifications are required, we can also help to facilitate that as well. There's a whole range of things that we can do to support small businesses with their diversity and inclusion needs.
People don't even realize that places like this exist. I know I talked to people a bit about when they're hiring people and they're like, “It'd be good to get a bit more of a mix in here and really live to our values and everything else.” Sometimes they find it difficult to know where to start. It's really good to know that this does exist.
I have grown up in a household with a lot of health professionals. My brother is a psychologist and he's a professor in psychology, but a huge part of his work, research, and academic stuff is about getting people back into the workplace as a way of helping them manage and improve their mental health, and in turn, helping the whole community and everything else.
There are so many statistics about the power of having a stable job. Getting up and getting out of the house and feeling like a productive member of the community and all of that. With that also come a lot of hurdles, like you said, 90% of the disability may be invisible. It could be the application, the interview, the transportation, just getting to and from, getting out of the house itself and socializing with other people in the workplace, and speaking up in meetings and all of that.
When I was running that work back at Arts Access Victoria, there was somebody in there and they were wearing sunglasses. I, honestly, was so naive that I thought they were just wearing sunglasses because it was a bright day and there was a lot of light coming in. Later, that person and I had a conversation and she said, “I have sensory overload and I find it very difficult to be on a tram or to do this or to do that. It’s very difficult to find a job because just getting to the job, I feel so much more than most people,” which is why she had sunglasses. She had other things to take away so much of that sensory overload.
If someone in a small business is wanting to employ a more diverse workforce, and they themselves don't have a disability. They don't necessarily understand all of the different hurdles that maybe people have to get through to just get to a job application, for example. What sort of things do they need to take into account or be aware of? Forgive whatever way I'm saying this, but is it okay to say in your job ad, “We welcome people living with a disability to apply,” or something like that? How can we encourage and attract people to apply?
Yeah, most definitely you can in the job applications. You can encourage people from all backgrounds to apply. You can include diversity statements within the job application. You can include diversity statements on your websites, and on your social media. If you want to be a diverse and inclusive employer, promote it. Promote it on your social, website, and let people know. When it comes to the interview process, if you want to know how you can best support someone, try not to over-complicate it. Just be human, and have a conversation with the person. If you can ask genuine questions with the intent of being able to provide support, that's a good starting point.
I love that. Be human. It's so important in all parts of the business, with your marketing, with everything else just be human.
People sometimes get afraid about working with people who live with a disability, but at the end of the day, they're still people. If you can have a genuine conversation with their best interest at heart, then that's a great starting point.
Outside of the work that you do with atWork Australia, you have also mentioned in the context already, the number of times that you've had to start again and change course. Your life has taken you in a different direction, whether it was on the mountain with the leg breaks or whether it was in Bali. How have you managed all of this?
How do you go from, “I'll just sign up to this thing on a stand because I'm walking down the streets of Melbourne with my brother,” to, “Now I'm on the mountain and I'm literally going to be a competitor in the Paralympics.” A lot of people can have an idea of a goal but not actually work to make it happen. You had other challenges that you didn't foresee in front of you, even after breaking both legs, you still not just recovered, but then recovered and then went back to training and started again.
Some people might say I'm a bit silly. I've always been quite a motivated person. In the early days, I never wanted my disability to impact the things that I could and couldn't do in my life. I was always just determined to make the most of the situation and to go after my dreams. I always thought, and this happened to me in Bali, “If there's something I want to do in my life, I'm not going to hesitate. I'm going to give it 110% and try the best of my abilities to try and achieve that.”
That's why I went back to skiing after breaking my legs because I wanted to compete at the Paralympics. If I didn't go back after that, I never would've forgiven myself. If I looked back now and said, I started down that journey and then I gave up because this happened. I definitely would not have been happy with myself.
What advice would you give to someone who's reading this? It's an incredible life. There's an incredible amount of inner work you would've had to do to be where you have got to now. What would you say to someone who's reading, who's feeling a massive lack of motivation, or feeling like everything's hard? All we are hearing about in the media is the recession, interest rate rises, rental costs going up, and retail shutting down. It's just this barrage, let alone all the other stuff that's happening in the world. A lot of people in a small business are just feeling like, “What's the point?” What advice would you give to them given you've had to be there a bit?
I've learned over my experience in life, whether you're looking to start a new job, start studying, try to get fitter, or want to expand your business, the first step is always the hardest. It's always going to be the hardest and the scariest, but you just got to take that leap. Once you take that first step, it does get easier. That's my advice. Just jump, jump in, and have a go.
I only started studying a few years ago. I'm studying start time and I was so nervous about whether I was going to be able to do it, whether I was going to be able to fit it in around work. Honestly, the biggest and the hardest decision I made was filling in my name and registering for that first unit. Once I did that, it got easier. Just have a crack.
I totally agree that first small step like what can you do now? You mentioned that you have a child, and you have another child on the way. You also work, you also study. Are you a time management guru? How do you do it all?
I try and get at least an hour of study done at night after work, and then on the weekends, I try and get a few hours done each day. I never get an opportunity to sit down and study for hours. It's always just a little bit at a time. Whenever you've got a spare bit of time, just do a bit of reading or do some more work on your assignment. There's not a lot of time for downtime at the moment, but that's just life.
Can I ask you a question? I hope this isn't too personal or it comes out the wrong way. With your vision, because you've lost so much of it, my father, later in life, had macular degeneration and he lost a considerable amount of his. He was technically blind in one eye and he couldn't drive. We had to take his license off him and everything, and he couldn't read at the end of it, and he loved reading. That was one of his greatest passions in life. When you said before studying, reading, and everything, and you've got 10% vision, have you had to learn new ways to do that or do you listen to audiobooks or do you listen to everything on audio? How does that work?
I'll use a screen reader. I've about 10% vision and the way my vision is I can still zoom in and read. It's just a slow process. I generally just listen to most things and then if there's something that I really want to take in a bit deeper, I go back and then try and read it. It's a slow process. It can be frustrating at times when you're studying and you have to do a lot of research. Quite frustrating for me just trying to find content and articles that I can use for my assessments is quite difficult. Sometimes I'll have to walk away from the screen and take a few minutes because I'm getting frustrated and come back another time.
I'm sorry, I'm putting you on the spot again and not expecting you to fully have all the answers to this, but one of the other things I remember working on, and I've worked on it with various different companies, is the accessibility of websites. In Australia, a lot of our websites are not that accessible for things like screen readers and other stuff. Do you find that a problem? Even the government's website about accessible websites gives itself a low rating because there's a lot of extra work and things that people need to put in, but it's so important.
Some are better than others. For me, sometimes you go onto a website and the colour contrasts aren't very good for me where words get hidden in the background and things like that. One of the biggest frustrations for me at the moment is when I'm trying to read a journal or a pdf, my screen reader, every time I stop it, it always starts at the beginning again. I have to start back from the top and wait till I got up to where I was listening to continue. I couldn't just pick a little piece that I want to listen to. That's a bit frustrating for me at the moment, but we can get past it.
You can work through everything. What are you studying?
Bachelor of Business Management.
Amazing. I love this. There are some incredible people living with disability who are champions for equality and so generous in sharing their lived experience with people who have not had that. I'm thinking of Carly Findlay is incredible. She's done so much in that space. She's got a great Instagram. She's also edited a great book. There's a great book, Growing Up Disabled in Australia. Aaron Phillip, Dylan Alcott, who’s very well known. Jessica Kellgren-Fozard and Senator Jordon Steele-John, and there are so many others. Aside from yourself, which people can connect with, @ShaunPianta, who are some people in the disability space that you think anyone reading this episode should follow if they don't already for advice and education?
You mentioned a whole list of great people who are doing some amazing things for advocating for people with disabilities. Where I've been fortunate enough with my experience with atWork Australia to realize there are also lots of great services out there that provide support for people with disabilities. A lot of what we do at atWork Australia is providing that education to other employers, and other community organizations about what disability is. To try and be able to create a more equitable society and create more opportunities for people with disabilities in the workplace, but also in the community as well.
It's so important. People don't realize that these places even exist. When I did Arts Access Victoria, they've been going for 40 years. I had no idea. I grew up going to the theatre and going to musicals and ballets and things. I've been so naive and in my own little cocoon, I'd never thought about all the things that they need to consider when looking at a mass market coming in and being inclusive. Thank you for that.
You sound like you've got a lot of self-determination just as a person, but who else has maybe helped you with getting out there and doing the motivational speaking or even with the Paralympics? Obviously, your brother was like, “You should go for it.” Have you had any mentors or mantras, or have there been any books that have helped you build all of this?
My family and friends have always been a great support from day one, from when I came home from Bali until now. When you go through such a significant thing like that in your life it’s important to have friends and family close by. My friends were always there to make sure I was included. They never let me feel left out, they've always been incredible as well.
I do actually love reading a lot of motivational books or listening to motivational videos, but I more so just like the good story. I don't really listen to it for the motivation. I've got my own motivation and reasons to be motivated, and then atWork Australia has also provided me with a great platform to be able to share my story and advocate for people with disabilities. Engage with employees and other community organizations to promote the benefits of employing people with disabilities. Before I'd come to atWork Australia, I'd never stood on a stage and spoken about my story. I've built so much confidence in myself as a public speaker over the last few years. It's been great.
You wouldn't think that having watched some of your videos. Well done. It's all working. What are you most proud of from this journey that you're on so far?
I've had a lot of challenging times throughout my sporting career. I'm proud that there have been opportunities where I could have just given up and said, “It's too hard and I'm not going to push myself,” but I'm really proud that I never gave up and I kept fighting for what I want. Now, what I'm really proud of is when I come home from work, and at the end of the day, the last thing I want to do is to come into my office and start studying or working on my next assessment. I know that it's going to lead to better things in the future. That's why I persist. I'm really proud that I'm sticking to that at the moment.
Good on you. What you're studying, it's not easy. I've just had a friend finish that and it's full on. It's like a whole other job. What is next for you and where can people connect with you or connect with atWork Australia?
Next for me. I've got another daughter being born, I'm going to be quite busy there, but I'll continue with atWork Australia. Keep promoting our services and the benefits of employing people with disabilities. People can reach out to me at my LinkedIn at Shaun Pianta or you can reach out to me on atWork Australia's website at atWorkAustralia.com au.
Thank you so much, Shaun, for coming on and even for reaching out in the first place. This is such an important conversation. One we need to be having a lot more. It's been so great learning all about this and keep going with everything you're doing.
Thanks so much for having me on. I've enjoyed having a chat with you.
You too. Bye.
Bye.
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What a conversation I am happy that we're having it. We need to have more of those. I do feel like this is a topic that a lot of small business owners if they are not a person with a disability or living with a disability, can not necessarily take the time out to consider how am I creating a business that is as inclusive as possible and also is attracting people who come from all sorts of backgrounds and different experiences in life.
I want to thank Shaun again for coming on and talking about his own lived experience with disability and also how he is changing things up in terms of getting out there and speaking to people. Making more and more businesses aware of how they can actually create a better way of working for all. I would love to know what you took away from this if you are already using services like atWork Australia. Perhaps you are a small business owner living with a disability and you're running your business and you would like to talk more about this, please don't hesitate to get in touch with us or even pitch yourself to come onto the podcast. You can just email hello@MyDailyBusiness.com.
I'm going to highlight two things that stood out for me, although there was quite a lot. The first thing is when we were talking about language and talking to people, and particularly if you are somebody who is not living with a disability and you're talking to somebody who is, or you are trying to look at the way that you are being more inclusive in your language, in your marketing, all of that.
I love that he said, “Just be human.” Don't overcomplicate things, don't feel like you have to be absolutely perfect before you start. I remember also hearing that from a great person, I did training with called Dixie Crawford and she said something similar. Don't let the idea of I'm going to make a mistake stop you from doing anything. I loved that idea as well.
The other thing, which is important, that stood out for me is that it's 1 in 5, but also that 90% of disabilities are coined under the term “invisible.” It's a massive reminder that we don't know what's going on in other people's lives. We just don't. We all live in our own little bubbles, and sometimes it can be a big reminder that there are 1 in 5 people living with a disability in this country and that 90% of those are invisible.
They are disabilities that we are not actually able always to see. Thinking about your own workforce, in your supply chain, in your manufacturers, in whoever you are working with, that you probably already do know people or perhaps that is you, you are a person living with a disability. It's really thinking about how can we build this society that is actually inclusive and looking out for these things.
I read about somebody whose son is living with a disability and they were talking about how the housing market is so inaccessible for things like wheelchairs and different access. It's awful that this exists in 2023. This episode and as many conversations as we can have about this stuff open up the dialogue and remind everyone that it is all of our responsibility to look at issues and solutions so that everyone can live their best life, so to speak.
I'd love to know what you took away from this. If you are a business owner and you are a person living with a disability, I'd love to hear from you. Perhaps you are not someone living with a disability, but you have investigated different approaches in different places that have helped you become a more attractive workplace for people living with a disability, then please, don't hesitate to get in touch.
You can email us at hello@MyDailyBusiness.com, or you can reach out on Instagram, @MyDailyBusiness_. If you don't have time to check out the show notes, you can find atWorkAustralia.com.au and for Shaun, you can check out Shaun on Instagram, it's @ShaunPianta, and you can also find him over on LinkedIn. Thank you so much for reading, and I'll see you next time.
