Hugh Breland
It's such a heavy conversation. Sometimes I feel like I wish we had more fun or more laughter in part of the conversations. But it is, it's it is, it is the nature of the conversation that this is not, this is not an easy topic that kind of hits people in an uncomfortable space, you know, but that's, that's our hope is to kind of call it disrupt people's day in a good way, like, kind of gotta get disrupted a little bit, to hopefully make some tangible, palpable progress.

Jeff Ma
Hello, and welcome to Love as a Business Strategy, a podcast that brings humanity to the workplace. We're here to talk about business. And we want to tackle topics that most business leaders tend to shy away from. We believe that humanity and love should be at the center of every successful business. I'm your host, Jeff Ma. And as always, I'm here to have conversations with real people with real stories. And today, I have Hugh Breland. He's the CEO of U&I, an organization that focuses on purpose, inclusion, empowerment for people with disabilities. Their mission is to spread the light of inclusion for those with disabilities and eliminate barriers for them. And they do this through job placement, job training, life skills, training, advocacy, and many other things to ensure that people with disabilities maximize their purpose and are empowered and included. I love that mission. So welcome to the show. Hugh, how are you?

Hugh Breland
I'm good, Jeff, I'm excited to be here with you.

Jeff Ma
Yeah, and, you know, I have so many places I want to start, but I know for sure that the most important place for me to hear from you and for everyone to hear from you is definitely your kind of purpose. Before we get into all the things you do now, I kind of want to hear a little bit about where you, you come from kind of about your, wherever you choose to start. But where's the story that kind of led you to this path?

Hugh Breland
Yeah, so I would say, basketball is at the center of my story as a young person. And I, that plus then community work, and even religious work, okay. And so, I noticed as a young kid, good friend of mine named Chauncey that I played with, he could jump out of the gym, don't get it twisted, I couldn't. But But he, he was, he was one of my, my great friends, I would take him to certain parts of my world. And notice that he was not included that, that he was not even thought of as like, Oh, this guy might show up. And then once he was there, he was made to feel a certain way that is excluded. Like, it's harder for you to be here, because you're not a part of the clique, or a part of the crew or whatever. And so it deterred me from inviting him to certain things. And then fast forward, throughout my life, I began to notice that not just in that context, but in many others, whether that was a friend, again, that looked different, or, you know, again, had disabilities or whatever, it just became this major passion of mine to be about inclusion, and, and exclusion as best as I could, where I was at. So that's, that's really part of the major catalyst to my story. Another catalyst is just the reality that I think the reality of so many marginalized communities, which a lot of my friends were in those communities, seeing the opportunities that I was getting, and go in, okay, my starting line, if we're going to run 100 yards, but I get to start at the 50 yard line and you're back at the at the one yard line, I'm probably going to win, regardless of if I should or not, or if we are equally talented. I'm just at a different starting point. And so I've found that I got opportunities that some of my friends didn't get. And that even as I got older internships, all the whatever it was scholarships, all the things, I just had more access. So accessibility became, again, a catalyst for me to want to be a part of the community and real Do what I say run towards the mess, as opposed to live ignorant of the mess or run away from it?

Jeff Ma
What are some of the ways that you ran towards that mess?

Hugh Breland
So, for me, specifically, I started serving in marginalized communities, I would say it started for me, because a guy essentially mentored me every Friday morning, at like 630. For six straight years of my junior high in high school, I'm valued mentorship. And so I noticed that in marginalized communities, a lot of the kids are in single parent homes, and specifically single moms. So not a lot of men, and not a lot of them, again, educational opportunities, or not even a lot of encouragement towards that at times. And so I just started mentoring kids in marginalized communities, which then connected me to the adults, which really connected me to the entire kind of ecosystem, or you might call it that, that marginalized community was listened swimming. And I became more and more aware of the needs, and then started just, you know, seeing where I could, where I can be helpful. But, you know, you can be very hurtful if you're not careful. So, yeah, been doing that my whole life.

Jeff Ma
Yeah. And I know, You've done a lot of work with marginalized groups throughout. But more recently, your focus is really narrowed in with the recent kind of U&I initiatives around specifically people with disabilities. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Hugh Breland
Yeah, so you know, of the of the entire 100% of people that could work that have a disability, only 25% of them currently are employed. So you're talking about 75% of the workforce that could work. Now there are certain people that don't have the ability to do certain jobs, but the workforce that can work, there's a huge population there, that that is able to work but doesn't have the opportunity. Whereas flip that number, it's really 75 to 80% of people that don't have a disability that are hireable are in fact employed, right? So, you know, that's a gap that you got to begin to fill the gaps. The other reality is that we have like 11 million jobs right now, like 6 million workers to fill those jobs, the in traditional lanes. So if we're not willing to get outside of the traditional lanes and say, Hey, what about this group that can do work that that is has huge value? Why are we not tapping into that? And I would take it a step further, yes, I'm very focused on people with disabilities, a lot of the our veterans that have been just kind of left to their own devices when they get out. Or, and that's homelessness, and all the things that a lot of we see a lot with our veteran community, and then the, and then people with records in prison. You know, if you have a misdemeanor or a felony, it doesn't matter. The American Bar Association found recently in a study that there are 45,000 barriers to work 45,000 barriers to work for someone with a criminal record. So we have 17 million that have a felony charge in there. Right now, in the United States, we have another 10s of millions with misdemeanor. And you're talking about all these hurdles, to get education, jobs and housing. And then tack on transportation. And you've basically got what the marginalized communities deal with on a regular basis. And, and so yeah, we tackle that. I mean, that's, that's what we do. We, we go towards those zip codes. And we offer all types of programs, one program, for example, in house we can, we can employ people to be a part of the supply chain, so we do fulfillment. And we hire people with disabilities to be a part of our staff. And we can we can house about 200 in-house, which is that's a great workforce there. And then externally, we help another between, you know, with COVID It kind of shifts us some things and we didn't have access to certain certain things, but about 1000 to 2000 additional people outside of our facility, that we're helping to get either education and employment, or like I said, a lot of our veterans are homeless. So we help them take that first step towards transitional living. And then just, you know, keep keep going, give them quick education that can get them a job, and then continue to build on that education. So yeah, that's, that's a lot of our focus right there.

Jeff Ma
Wow, and help me, you know, I hear it. And I understand it, I believe it was, but I, I'm left wanting to hear more about this 25% of the, you know, what are what are those, you know, 1000s of hurdles, what is going on with the 75% that are not employed? What does that experience look like?

Unknown Speaker
So, I will tell you that it starts with the education system as a kid, you're already reinforcing the idea that this segment of the kids of the population are somehow not just different, but different in a negative way. That's that the perception is the reality. And the reality is, is that we're separating from the jump in saying, You're not going to be a part of what quote unquote, normal. And so if, if that's our mindset from the jump, then once a kid, again, it's like the foster care system, you age out, you aged out of special needs, you know, they call it different things in different cities, different states. But you know, it's 17-18, not only are you aging out of a system that's already dismissed you. But then when you age out, your parents many times, what people don't understand is that at many times, the one parent has to quit their job, because perhaps this, this individual can't do all the necessary things. And, or just simply needs rides everywhere, whatever. And so, when that happens, we actually reinforced the cycle of poverty. Because we take these families that many times have multiple kids, we reduce them to one, single income. And on top of all that, we put them in categories and label them and say, well, you're either A -you're not hireable, you're not really a part of what we can do or B - if we do hire you is going to be for very low paying, like, we're just going to put you in the category of minimum wage. And so we don't think livable wage, we think minimum. And and we don't think we don't, we're not in meetings. I mean, how many meetings have you or others that are listening been in where you're genuinely strict, strategically thinking about how to have a workforce a part of your workforce, be the be diverse in ability? And with how are you thinking about that strategically, as a company, and most companies, let's just be frank, are only doing the minimum required if something's required. So it's like, we got to meet a quota. So we're going to do the minimum. That's not it's, it's why we get into situations where we have 11 million jobs and 6 million employees because we say, well, there's there's nobody else out there. I call it the untapped talent pool. You have all this untapped talent. But you're not, you're not thinking strategically about your marketing initiatives and your things, you know, they're Trinket and how to make more money. Instead, from a human, we were talking about humanity today, the human perspective, if we want to be a more diverse culture, for example, diversity is usually thought of, quite frankly, as black or white, black and white. Like that's for diversity. That's, that's ridiculous. And it's also ridiculous that we have so many millions of people with disabilities in our in the United States. And we're not even thinking of them when we think diversity or inclusion. It's like diversity and inclusion ends with a black person or white. That doesn't make sense. Why would it end there? Yeah, that's part of it. But man, we have a huge segment. And you know, it's not not sexy to talk about or to think about but, let's just be honest, it's, you know, kids with cancer is is extremely prevalent, and we want to take care of kids with cancer, no doubt about it. The amount of kids that we have to have disabilities that we're just pushing into a certain segment of society is far greater when we don't pay attention, and hence the cycle. So yeah, that's,

Jeff Ma
yeah, that, so to help me understand the problem better. This is my, this is my reasoning for my line of questioning, just like set the context. You know, you mentioned how, you know, some kids grow out of, you know, adolescence, and, you know, they have this disability, and they're kind of almost everything around them is funneling them towards this part of society, right, their own, their own families are kind of quitting that, that, that second income to take care of them and shelter them from. And then you have businesses themselves that are not considering their own inclusion. And in this environment, that's, you know, I'll be frank, even with the best intentions of trying to be as inclusive as possible. Ableism is not included in that conversation often at all. So, where is like, what are the it's probably multifaceted, but where are we tackling the problem from? Like, I'll just put it very bluntly, and kind of, maybe even forgive me, if it's, you know, off putting, but like, is it? Is it? Are we trying to help, the people with disabilities, get out there and apply for jobs? Are we looking for corporations to be seeking people with disability? Or where's the, you know, where's the, where's the solution sitting?

Hugh Breland
Right. So if you think that just what you said, you can approach it, by, from the corporate standpoint is a, we've got to change the corporate mindset, so to speak, or perspective of business leaders to think differently about this group. Or, you could, like you kind of said, approach it from, let's go towards the group that is being affected, and train them up, and just kind of make them almost like, so desirable that we're going to make it happen. Right? Honestly, we approach it both ways. So, so where we're advocating, we're talking to employ years, kind of consistent basis, we do job fairs, with employers, so we're constantly trying to get more and more employers to be open to the access, and you just take it one step at a time with employers and just start it, just eat an elephant one bite at a time. On the on the other side is a little bit more? Well, I mean, you would understand this, if you don't have a job or you, you don't feel like you have purpose or whatever. You're you're hungry. So we do run towards the employees, the potential employees? And we do we do you know, we train them, we upskill them, we, you know, we're always thinking about how to be most effective in that segment, too. So we're running both lanes, as as fast and as hard as we can. But that's the part of the issue with nonprofit space is finance, right? So if, if you raise this much money, then you can have that much staff and that much, you know, tools, that many tools, and you're kind of limited to what you can produce and, you know, X amount of people so, so that's why our reach, I think we can scale and be exponential. But we're currently, you know, 1200 to 1500 people per year.

Jeff Ma
But it makes a difference. It's still great. I mean, still.

Hugh Breland
Yeah, so pretty nice. I guess. I think that the way that we approach or the way that we talk about it is to bring it maybe full circle to love as a business strategy. Love is for us, one of the biggest definitions of love is willingness to go at someone else's pace. Willingness to go to someone else's pace. So a company or business leader willing to go at the pace that's different than what they're used to. They're, you know, that's instead of, you know, one of my friends for example has a daughter with severe autism. She speaks in a certain language that he understands like at home, he totally understands it. They go out into the world. And she speaks that same language, and he understands it. But the people around him don't. So it's like, we've had this conversation where he's like, so why? Why would we look at other cultures or other other groups, and say we need to learn their language, but not look at an autistic child or an autistic adult, and say, We need to learn that language, because being patient enough to learn that language, to understand that, if they're being loud, that's, that may be their language, we need to not treat them, like oh, we got to quiet them down. And that's kind of the definition of press is to quiet you down. So I have autism, I'm a little louder, I make a few noises here and there. Why can't even be willing to learn my language. And so but that's, that's that mentality. And we just love is at the foundation of what we do. And ultimately, over and over again, love is what we believe changes the game, you got to keep coming back. And that's why a lot of times, when you run towards the margins, or run towards the excluded run towards the mess, that's why we don't see as much change is because it's hard at work. And if it The grind is real. And you you do come up against a lot of hurdles. And so if you're if you're not understanding how to keep, you know, sustainable health plan, in the midst of serving a lot of unhealthy or unwanted or whatever it grinds, and people kind of give up on it, or they just think I'm just going to throw money at it to make me feel better.

Jeff Ma
Sure. So, between the two, kind of two pronged approach, and I know there's many facets to it, but preteen, you know, working with upskilling people with disabilities and working with them and giving them opportunities. And also the other aspect of helping, you know, businesses or creating mindsets and awarenesses around understanding the world of of having empathy for people with disabilities, I really want to talk to you a little bit more about the ladder, specifically, because I think when I think of anyone listening to this episode, we we work in, you know, most most of the audience here is going to be working in some sort of business environment that, you know, has an opportunity to shift something, if not a mindset, if not make an opportunity. So I want to talk about what we can do. I want to talk about what it's like to shift, we're all I mean, I'm always about shifting mindsets, I'm hoping that these episodes are always giving somebody an aha moment, a chance to take something they thought they understood and unlearn it, and rethink it. And I think this is one of those things is one of those things where we can uncover something that we assumed something that we never considered, and maybe shift that so who what, what, where do we start? Where can we go if we want to make a difference or an impact?

Hugh Breland
So I would, I would tell you this simplest way to start is to find organizations, specifically nonprofit organizations in your community, and go and just start asking questions about their actual needs, you know, organizations that work with, with kids with disabilities, or, or adults or, you know, all kinds of prison reentry type programs, there's also veteran focused organizations. And here's the thing. If, if you make time for it, it will ultimately become a part of your DNA. I think you got to, you got to be willing to go in and as the learner and not as the savior. So if I go into an organization and I volunteer, I don't want to think of myself as I'm the savior here. I'm like the cool guy. I'm the one that has all the abilities right? I have the money or I have this it's like no go in with humility and say, I'm actually intentionally here to learn more to be to expand and evolve as a human in a better way. Right. So you know, you got you heard my story. I ran towards mentoring in the marginalized communities. That's, that's a huge one, that's awesome. And as huge needs in every community, there's also the idea of just there's two more one, kind of the slow roll approach of just getting once a month, get, get into an organization be around and be in the suit, whatever that looks like, if you're, if just to make sure you're interacting, so interacting with people with disabilities, whether it's kid or adult. The other thing that I challenge people, I mean, I have a daughter. And I think one of the greatest lessons we can teach our kids is lessons of inclusivity and diversity. So and we tend to learn, unfortunately, it takes this but like, our kids teach us a lot. And the way a kid views a person with a disability is as beautiful, it's, it's untainted, it's, it's raw, it's pure. So I would always tell people, if you got kids, or if you got nieces or nephews, or cousins, take one of them with you, and do it together. Because you're modeling. So our society is built on your mirror, what you what's modeled for you, and we can argue that, but I think I'm gonna win. So if you're intentionally going to actually change the game, take somebody with you, specifically a younger person, because you're expanding their mind and their perspective, you're going to learn from that person, and the person you're hanging out with are the people. And, you know, it's not going to be easy, but if you're really committed to it, like once a month or something, it's just people want the reward, but they don't want the routine that gets you to that reward. And so like, you really have to say, I'm not just gonna, like, throw up a bunch of hyperbole around being inclusive. I'm gonna, like, go do it and let my actions say, Yes, he is an or she is and then I've got a kid or somebody in my neighborhood around me, that's watching it too. And that's how we slowly but surely change the game.

Jeff Ma
I love that. I love the concept of being a learner and not a savior, I think I'm guilty of, of seeing charity, or things as charity or things as, you know, these efforts that if I go out of my way, I'm somehow better or above what I'm helping. And that's, that's a powerful reminder, I really appreciate that. One, I guess last arena, I want to touch on and pick your brain is for people who are listening in who are I'll just find them as business minded first. Not to say they're bad, bad people, but we're here to talk about business. What are some results or outcomes or success stories you have of, of successfully, you know, incorporating people disabilities and like breaking through that barrier? Like what have you seen, that'll help us really have a big picture, a big picture for that mindset?

Hugh Breland
Right. So this, this finds, you know, obviously go to the bottom line first. And I would say that, A, you get tax breaks and benefits. And I'm not excited to say that necessarily. But when your business minded you do, and then you many times get, like external support. We send even job coaches to be on site for a certain amount of months, or weeks, to make sure that you're getting the outcomes that you want from employees that you're hiring, that have disabilities or whatever. And, and then I would just say, you know, it is it is a conversation that needs to be had in the C suite. So that it's a real all in, you know, we're all in on this. And we all understand that we're not going to go from like, where we're at to perfect, you know, getting 100% grades on inclusion and all that I just think we have to be willing to even be patient with ourselves. But the but, you know, the financial piece is it's interesting, you you'll find that I don't again, it's hard for me to prove this even though I can I can prove it by statistics about being at the in the workplace on time and working the whole time you're there. People with disabilities. I enlarge, are way more on time. And they work. And it's you don't worry about them. And it's very interesting dynamic, but it is one that we can prove statistically. And that if a business leader is listening, you're going to get a loyal, hard working employees, which we all know that's an, and you can, if you're willing, you can upskill them, you can help train them, and they'll get better. But they will show up, and almost almost just pester you like, let's go to this, get this, and it's awesome. And then the rest of your staff team actually grows as well, their mindset.

Jeff Ma
That's, that's beautiful. The last bit is, is exactly what I was looking for. I mean, it makes perfect sense, you know, if you, as you know, they shouldn't be marginalized, but they are. And so when they're, when they're seen and accepted, they're going to they're going to, they're going to stand up for you, they're going to look out for you and work for you harder, because you've you've shown them, you've given them a home, right. And I think the exposure of a of a team to be around and and be and be supportive together and adopt this culture can speak volumes to the morale and kind of the culture that forms around it. So yeah, 100%, that makes a lot of sense.

Hugh Breland
we're working really hard to we're starting some virtual reality, gamification training for jobs in the meta. And so we're, we're because what people don't realize is about 40 million, maybe it's maybe it's even grown to 60 million at this point of the gaming community in the United States are people with disabilities. So it's, it's amazing how, how many of them are on those types of platforms. And there's a lot of equality in gaming, because you're an avatar, nobody knows. And so it's that whole industry in the meta, and tech in and of itself. It's a great space, again, to be thinking about hiring people, disabilities, maybe that needs to be in home.

Jeff Ma
Yeah. Very interesting. Hugh. Before we close out here, just give a quick kind of, I understand you, weren't you you operate in the Dallas Fort Worth area in Texas, correct? Yes. Give a little give a little, a little pitch for U&I just so people know how to reach you know how to contact you if they want to help out?

Hugh Breland
Yeah, so U&Ispreadthelight.com. You can go there. We are at @ittakesU&I on the gram on Facebook. It takes you an hour to spread the light of inclusion for people with disabilities, we will grow further and faster. If you believe that if you believe that it does take you and and if fundamentally in your heart, there's some kind of palpable like, I feel this, I feel that the end the ampersand is at the center of our brand, that that these people should be included and your voice matters. And your talent matters and your gift matters. If that's what you feel, then partner with us. We're looking to go and grow and scale not just in the United States, but even internationally. And so that's how you check us out. And then you connect with us and then we we rock from there.

Jeff Ma
Awesome. You thank you so much. It's been really, really inspirational motivational for me to have this talk today. I've got a lot of things in my head. That's a good thing. So I hope the listeners also have the same thank you so much.

Hugh Breland
I appreciate the opportunity, Jeff and always want to support you guys however we can.

Jeff Ma
Awesome. And as always to our audience. Thank you. And we hope you enjoyed this talk. We do post new episodes every week. If you have not. Please do check out our book Love as a Business Strategy available in all sorts of places. So subscribe, rate, the podcast, tell a friend and thank you one more time and we will see everybody next week.